Introduction
Reynold’s 2008 book Drawing the Global Colour Line: White Men’s Countries and the International Challenge of Racial Equality details how whiteness impacted the world by inadvertently, creating borders, immigrants, and the global color line. This historical piece stands out because as opposed to giving a blow-by-blow account of proceedings, Reynolds pieces together the most significant events of the nineteenth and early twentieth century that influenced the formation of nations. Early thinkers such as Charles Pearson postulated that for white supremacy to prevail indefinitely, there was a need for urgent action to be taken at the national level. However, most of the actions taken by ardent followers of this idea such as Alfred Deakin served to tear the nation away from this ideal. This essay discusses how the tenets of nation-states espoused by the British colonies and British offshoots all over the world, pronounced the death of the transnational bonds and dominion of the White man.
Discussion
One tenet of the emergent nation-states that was detrimental to white supremacy all over the world was democracy. Reynolds points out that as a political experiment in nations such as Australia, democracy was responsible for the loss of creativity, adventure, and initiative in the white man. Notably, democracy was primarily driven by a desire to depart from the imperial British system of aristocracy which Americans and Australians, the emerging nations, despised. As the birthplace of the contemporary form of democracy, America was the first to witness the erosion of White supremacy ideals that placed the White at the top of the pyramid relative to other races. During the Radical Reconstruction, America led the way as far as allowing African Americans to have a voice. The long-suffering demographic of the blacks in America were accorded certain rights pushed for by the republicans including the right to be elected into the American congress. Thus, democracy was providing a forum for the equalization of the different peoples within a given state.
At the global level, the emergent nation-states sought to fend off immigration by the “lower races” by adopting increasingly nationalistic tendencies. A case in point was the Immigration Restriction Act of 1855 passed by the Victorian government to curb Chinese immigration into Australia. Its goal was to curtail the rapidly growing Chinese population in gold-rich Australia. While it spurred a similar response in California in the similarly anti-immigration USA, it effectively cut off Australia further and further away from the international brotherhood of white states. This is illustrated by the fact the act, per se, was at loggerheads with the international doctrines of freedom of movement that the British had utilized so effectively to venture into other parts of the world. Reynolds notes that Anderson’s description of the nation-state as a community came into being with great force through the shoring up of national borders. Following this, White men were cocooned into their state land borders and effectively restricted from lofty ambitions of transnational fellowship.
The Boer war in South Africa tested the strength of white transnational bonds by pitting them against the strength of national ideology. A white union that aimed to bring together the young and emerging nations of Australia, the USA and Afrikanders in South Africa and New Zealand was founded on the need to prevent the rise of native races. However, even such a seemingly common goal could not prevent the clash of national ideals championed by the British on one hand, and the Boers on the other. In particular, the British were alarmed at the policies taken up by the Boers in their treatment of the Indians and other minorities. The British parliament felt compelled to implant its form of a color-blind franchise in the Cape Colony in the lands controlled by the Boers. On the other hand, the Boers were unwilling to let the British have a free run in their states where they enforced strict policies against the “lower races”. These ideological differences led to a war between two white states pushing the much-vaulted brotherhood of white states to the side.
However, it must be noted that even the British in South Africa were opposed to the notion of racial equality that would diminish their hegemony over the natives and Indians. Reynolds notes that they would have readily taken up arms alongside the Boers and against the British armies had racial equality been forcefully imposed on them. Quoting WEB Dubois, Reynolds points out that Whiteness is most accurately described as an innate and insatiable desire to control and possess the earth and its resources. This definition of Whiteness is therefore part of the undoing of the transnational ambitions of the Whites. It points out that Whites everywhere placed a marked and paramount emphasis on the unrestrained latitude to impose their will on the lands they subjugate. This ambition was adequately propped up by nation-states and colonies which they had carte blanche to establish throughout the conquered lands. The newly created states and their associated policy effectively became the communal framework they most readily identified. Any notions of transnational brotherhood had to take a backseat henceforth.
One thing that Reynolds fails to mention is the economic connotation of the Boer War. Specifically, the war was also motivated by the desire to control Witwatersrand and its newly found gold deposits. Britain as a nation-state had a vested interest in the gold as its currency was gold-backed and thus sought to secure for itself Witwatersrand which was until then in the custody of the Boer-led South African Republic. On the other hand, the Boers themselves were reliant on gold as a means of securing their advancement in financial, and other, regards. The British colonialists in the Cape and Natal provinces were tacitly aware that they would benefit more from the gold if Britain took hold of the mines. This set the stage for a war between white nations deep in foreign territory at the expense of the natives and immigrants of color. Economic state interests had to be secured at all costs including any ideas of a transnational alliance of white colonialists.
Another aspect of the emergent nation-state that severely undermined the formation of a formidable transnational brotherhood of White States is the need for cheap labor from the “lower races”. In particular, the emergent nation-states prided themselves in the fact they were made up of “civilized people” with an attendant comfortable lifestyle.
However, for the emergent states to enjoy these high standards of living, they had to utilize the readily available and cheap labor whose exertions drove the economy in industries such as mining and industry. A case in point was Japanese and Chinese labor in Australia which formed an effective but relatively underpaid working class for the state. The Australians were willfully ignorant of the dependence of the white citizen on the cheap labor provided by the “lower race”. Over time, they would find that the immigrants would as slowly become civilized as they were and demand a stake in state matters. Thus, they were ignorant of the fact that the proliferation of “lower races” in their state lands ultimately undermined their future claim to membership in an alliance of the purely white states.
In a bid to create a transnational alliance of white people, the emergent nations pushed the “lower races” into creating a national identity for themselves. White people’s claim to superiority over other peoples was the fabric of the white transnational brotherhood. The refusal of the whites to recognize the Japanese as a civilized people gave rise to increased Japanese pride thus strengthening states. This is well illustrated in Theodore Roosevelt’s visit to the Japanese islands where he was accorded a particularly Japanese welcome.
Similarly, when Chinese people were described as “rice-eating” people undesirous of a proper lifestyle akin to that of their white counterparts, they readily pointed to their rich history. Thus, the response of the “lower races” to the overbearing message of white superiority was to resort to a form of communal defense of their culture. The slights of white people on the “lower races” culminated in the exploits of the triumphant Japanese navy against the Russians – an absurdity that shocked white people and spurred discriminated peoples everywhere. Thus, white transnationalism served to strengthen nation-states everywhere which in turn challenged the notions of white superiority.
The emphasis on military defense was another contributor to the predominance of the nation-state over the transnational brotherhood of the white states. In the first decade of the twentieth century, there was a marked emphasis on state military dominance with each nation responding to its perceived threats in its peculiar way. Reynolds notes that Australia was in particular dread of the Japanese threat in the South Pacific.
While Australia was content to rely on Britain for naval support, its position was made untenable by collaborative agreements between Britain and an increasingly influential Japan. As a nation-state, Australia had to react accordingly by shoring up its defense systems and reducing its reliance on its fellow white state for a critical aspect of its sovereignty and survival. This is a prime example of state functions creating an atmosphere hostile to transnational white cooperation as espoused by some of the pioneers of white supremacy. Thus, by the time the twentieth century had gotten underway, state interests had almost entirely superseded any notions of a transnational alliance of white states.
Conclusion
In conclusion, the transnational white alliance suffered greatly at the hands of the budding nation-states. While there was a desire to close ranks as the members of the white superior race and secure eternal hegemony over the “lower races” the priorities of the nations were not conducive to this idea. From the need to secure economic interests, military defense systems, and cheap labor the nation-state had many needs that eclipsed the need to establish a fellowship of states. It is perhaps due to this failure of the transnational alliance to take flight that the current global composition exists as it does today.
Bibliography
Gomes, Carla Larouco. “Barbarism in the Age of Progress: Emily Hobhouse’s Report on the South African Concentration Camps and the Liberal Divide over the Boer War.” Moving Spaces and Places (2022): 43–58.
Reynolds, Henry. Drawing the Global Colour Line: White Men’s Countries and the Question of Racial Equality. Carlton, Vic: Melbourne University Press, 2008.