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Self-interest, in some shape or form, has always been the motivation behind empire-building.
Its occasion has been the development of military and naval power and in recent times air
power, as in the case of Germany under Adolf Hitler, who sought to create an Aryan empire
by the invasion of surrounding sovereign states. Its effects are interpreted variously, for
obvious reasons. The course of history itself has always had something to say about aggression. Hitler's failure, for example, brought the democratic institutions of Western Europe
into focus and laid the foundations of the European Community. The war also broke down
social barriers, heightened the social consciences of the Western states, and accelerated the
decolonization process of the European empires, especially that of Great Britain. Yet it also
began the polarization of East and West, headed by the USSR and the USA respectively,
and with the build-up of nuclear arsenals this poses in 1984 an even greater threat than that
of Adolf Hitler in 1939.
Self-interest needs definition. To consider the great empires of the world we need to
look back 4000 years. The earliest empires were necessarily limited geographically. The Phoenecian Empire provides a good example. The seaboard of Libya, centered in the Lebanon,
produced a hardy race of seafarers, the Canaanites, who established colonies in Cyprus,
Carthage in North Africa, Malta, Sicily and Spain. They visited the Scillies and Cornwall and
circumnavigated Africa. Yet their real interest was in trade, and they exported cedar to
Egypt, furniture, purple cloth and jewelry all over the Middle East, thus enriching much of
the known world. Moreover they invented an alphabet which gave rise to both the Greek
and Roman alphabets, and through those later empires to the alphabets of most of the
European states. Their inscriptions, such as the Moabite Stone and the Siloan Tunnel
inscriptions, provided invaluable points of reference in Jewish Biblical history.
The aggressive instinct, the desire for enrichment by trade, and of course the need for
territorial expansion; all are natural, if self-interested motives. An agricultural community
with a growing population needs more land; hence, colonization. Following the Phoenicians,
The Greeks acquired most of the Mediterranean world, and, following them, the Romans, at
the height of Empire, had acquired the whole of the known world including territories as far
apart as Britain and the West African coast line. We are used to thinking of the Romans as
cruel, oppressive and rapacious, interested mainly in exacting taxes, 'asset stripping' wherever
they went.
All this is true, yet our modern dislike of the empire-concept must not blind us to the
immense enrichment conferred, if only as a by-product, on their vassal states.
The city states of Greece, in the period 750 to 600 B.C., were governed by tyrants,
a name meaning 'kings', but whose powers were limited by the essentially Greek concept of
democracy, which was the original forerunner of the modern democratic process of the
free world today. The Greeks were adventurers, traders and law-givers, and their political
contribution to the Mediterranean sea-board and even to France and Egypt, is incalculable.
Their trade in wine, oil and scent, wood, metal work and pottery enriched other countries.
Their sculpture, and architecture has never since been equaled. Their poetry and drama
have remained supreme.
The extent and duration of the Roman Empire were of course much greater. Their positive contribution to the lives of vassal states covered the whole political, legal and
cultural spectrum. Roman law provided the foundation of much modern law. They also
enriched the known world in the spheres of art, architecture, law, town-planning, wall
painting, and civic building.
No empire lasts forever. The dissolution of even the British Empire is now virtually
complete. In a world where, because of modern travel, instant communication, and the
heightened concept of sovereignty of states both large and small, it is right that this should
be so.
Many people see the only hope for the future in a one-world concept, in which
aggression is outlawed and mutual respect and co-operation fostered for the common good.
The West is concerned to trade rather than to exploit, to lend money rather than exact it.
The French and Portuguese concepts of empire were, of course, doomed to failure in
the modern world, basically because those countries tried to keep the concept of colonization
as an extension of the home country, ultimately ruled by the central government.
The post-war wind of change brought about an irony in the case of the British
Empire. Government had long since devolved to the great dominions, and even the very least of the overseas
possessions were encouraged to develop their own governments. Yet the worldwide process
overtook the gradual process of emancipation and, as post war history has shown, with
disastrous results in many cases.
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