Essay On Imperialism In The Middle East

Weaker nations often used to suffer from powerful countries taking over their land and forcefully spreading their influence through the people. This ultimately led to diminishment of their own cultures and traditions. This struggle is called imperialism. Though in the long run, imperialism did help with certain aspects, it was the cause of great despair and took away the individuality of people by forcing a way of life on them. Today, imperialism in the Middle East has lead to war of all sorts, so in all, imperialism should be avoided.
After imperialism went into play long ago, it caused economic oppression of the people with high taxes that went to the imperial power. This was unfair to the people because the powerful nations took over land that did not belong to them. When the imperial power forced different ways of life on the weaker nations, the people lost their ethnic individuality. Over time, empires were destroyed, and cultures ended up completely dying out because of ethnocentrism, superiority of an ethnic group, and genocide, the mass killing of a large group of people.

A specific act of imperialism included when western countries, such as France, Germany, Britain, etc., took over and colonized Africa, dating back to the late 1800’s and early 1900’s.

European countries were desperate for more land and to avoid war, they set up The Berlin Conference (1884-5) to draw lines on the map of Africa and create colonies for each of them. By 1914, basically all of Africa was colonized. They interfered with Africa’s culture, which caused much frustration among the African people. Another great example is seen in Disney’s Pocahontas. This movie recreates a true story and does a great job in showing how the white men invaded the land of the Native Americans, taking what did not belong to them. It shows the struggle the natives faced during this invasion and how unfair it was for these people to just show up and take their homes and lives from

them.
Though imperialism has its cons, there were many people who were all for it. These people believed that the pros of imperialism outweighed the cons and that it was all for the greater good. One of these people was Frederick Jackson Turner, an American historian of the 20th century. He believed that we needed to “expand or explode.” In his Frontier Thesis, he mentioned that “American energy will continually demand a wider field for its exercise.” Another imperialist was the famous Theodore Roosevelt, the 26th president of the United States. He believed that the white man should protect and lead the world, and shape the ‘less civilized’ countries. He wanted the U.S. to be the leading power and he planned to secure as many ports and colonies as possible. Imperialists believed in imperialism because of how it advanced countries, spread technology, set strong foundations for governments, etc. To them, these things made it alright to take over the weaker nations and destroy the cultures and lives they made for themselves and believed in.
Many smaller or weaker countries would go through the struggle of imperialism. Despite some of the advances it caused in the long run, innocent people had to go through things they did not deserve, and people still are going through this. We should be able to keep our individuality and go about our lives the way we want to. There is no right way to live your life, so we all should be been able to practice our own cultures and traditions. Imperialism could be good or bad depending on how you look at it, but really, it caused too much pain to be put on innocent people. Spread peanut butter, not power.