Changes of the Europe’s relationship

  Changes of the Europe’s relationship with the world from 1750 to 1914

  Along with the Age of Discovery come the stretched Europeans’ horizons beyond their wildest dreams. They amazedly found that the world is much bigger than their previous thought. What’s more, the rest of the world that newly found is full of gold, raw materials and uncivilized people who can serve as their “free machines”! The European settlers’ greediest desire and innermost brutality had vigorously arisen at that time! Nearly all countries in the Europe gradually established their colonies in every corners of the world, including North America, South America, African and Far East. They have gained huge profits from their colonies; colonies are offering their “lords” tremendous amount of gold, industrial materials and cheap, even free labor force, for those benign aboriginals are no more than the most compliant sheep, willing to do the most tiring and filthiest labors without slightest complaints in case they would be killed without any excuse, when they faced the full-armed settlers with guns and cannons. This relationship between colonists and colonized lasted for rather a long time and is the major relationship between the Europe and the rest of the world. Those kind aboriginals tried to break down such relationship by fighting against the European settlers, but their swords and spears are too weak when facing Europeans’ fire arms; their technology was so outmoded comparing to the ships and compass came from another continent; the maritime civilization from the Europe apparently overshadowed the agricultural civilization in Asia and Africa and the nomadic civilization in Latin America. Therefore, the capital accumulations the Europe have grabbed gradually strengthened the power of bourgeois, or “the third estate”. A brand new era is looming inside of the ships full of cargos from the North America, from Latin American, from Africa and from Asia to the Europe.

  As the “bourgeois and the third estate” gradually gain their power, together with the huge developments in the natural science which made people better understand the world around them, they found that those principles and doctrines they have obeyed for hundreds of years have so many problems and contradictions with the latest knowledge and theories. “Are those doctrines totally correct and deserve us to obey anymore?” Such questions hovered in those social reformation pioneers, including philosophers like Kant, Voltaire, Montesquieu, Rousseau etc.

  “But that the public should enlighten itself is more possible……Thus the public can only slowly attain enlightenment. Perhaps a fall of personal despotism or of avaricious or tyrannical oppression may be accomplished by revolution, but never a true reform in ways of thinking.”[1]

  Meanwhile, they also realized with astonishment that the development of the productive forces and progress of society have been tightly reined by the old feudal system and social relationship. The majority of people can be categorized as “the third estate” and the majority of the social fortunes are created by “the third estate”. Despite such fact, however, more than ninety percent of the fortunes in the society are still in the control of the minorities, those aristocrats, privileged and officers. In the past, when facing this situation, people have nothing to do but gulp down their sobs, either because they didn’t realized such is a kind of inequality or even if they realized, they are too weak to speak their feelings out. But now, as the power of the third estate grew, they managed to resort to more radical solutions: philosophers advocated the idea that “all men are created equal”, natural scientists casted doubts on the divine force, revolutionist summoned people from every corners of the society to fight against the old feudal system.

  “Who then shall dare to say that the Third Estate has not within itself all that is necessary for the formation of a complete nation? It is the strong and robust man who has one arm still shackled. If the privileged order should be abolished, the nation would be nothing less, but something more. Therefore, what is the Third Estate? Everything; but an everything shackled and oppressed. What would it be without the privileged order? Everything, but an everything free and flourishing. Nothing can succeed without it, everything would be infinitely better without the others.”

  “The Third Estate embraces then all that which belongs to the nation; and all that which is not the Third Estate, cannot be regarded as being of the nation.”[2]

  In this intense and vigorous Enlightenment Movement, French scholars are the most outstanding representatives of the Enlightenment thinkers; they used consciously rationale as weapons, criticized and evaluated everything. They were convinced that rationality is paramount, whether political or the God must be interpreted and judged by it. They believed that rationality is to guide people to discover and establish the originality of intellectual power of truth, enabling people to penetrate the fog of all the darkness, understanding all those unknowns. They also believed that, so far, people have been living in darkness for thousands of years. The light of rationality should drive off the dark, driving people toward the light. They wrote books, vigorously criticized despotism, religious ignorance and feudal privilege doctrine, advocated freedom, equality and democracy, launched lashes to the spirit fortress of feudal autocracy - the Catholic Church, and blueprinted for future social outlook and capitalism. This ideological liberation movement lasting for nearly a century’s opened people’s wisdom and spread people’s horizon, theoretically prepared for the bourgeois revolutions. Eventually, revolutionary movements had erupted in many European countries to fight against the feudal system, of which the most important one is the French Revolution.

  The French Revolution is the world's largest bourgeois revolution in modern histories, which destroyed the feudal autocratic regime in France, as well as the feudal order in the entire European continent, established the political rule of the bourgeoisie, promoted the development of the capitalist economy, and popularized the capital liberal democratic progressive ideas. “The Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen” was promulgated during the French Revolution. It is always regarded as one of the most documents in human’s history. Human’s rights of equality and freedom were explicitly written down in form of laws.

  “Men are born and remain free and equal in rights. Social distinctions may be founded only upon the general good.”

  “The aim of all political association is the preservation of the natural and imprescriptible rights of man. These rights are liberty, property, security, and resistance to oppression.”

  “The principle of all sovereignty resides essentially in the nation. No body nor individual may exercise any authority which does not proceed directly from the nation.”[3]

  Enlightenment thoughts finally flourished, and were fixed down in the legal format. It had such a far-reaching impact that not only precipitated Europe’s bourgeois revolution and reformation, but also contributed to the process of democratization and the spread of democratic ideas in many other colonies overseas and developing countries. In fact, the impacts of The Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen were far beyond its coiners dreams; they hardly have any ideas that what this declaration will bring out to themselves and to the rest of the world. No one could foresee that in later 20 years, people in the world would witness another big change brought by the Declaration, in terms of the relationship between the Europe and the world!

  Also, women's liberation movement gained it momentum. In Europe, the source of the women's movement is generally considered to come from the influence of the French Revolution trend, which emphasize the freedom and equality of human’s rights. Women began to require the rights to be educated and employed.

  “Woman, wake up; the tocsin of reason is being heard throughout the whole universe; discover your rights. The powerful empire of nature is no longer surrounded by prejudice, fanaticism superstition, and lies.”[4]

  If we look at the De Gouges’s "Declaration of the Rights of Woman", it is not hard for us to find out that it is nearly identical to the “Declaration of the Rights of man and Citizens” except all the “men” were changed to “women”. This special declaration advocated the equal rights of freedom and equality cannot be limited only in men. The pathetic status of women in 19th centuries is caused by the special social and cultural factors and therefore, the task of the women's movement is to challenge the existing order, change the existing order, and the enhancing the social status of women.

  At this time, it is necessary for us to realize that such upheaval on the European Continent gradually and subtly influenced every corner of the rest of the world, heralding another great change of the relationship between the Europe and the World. In my opinion, we can analyze such influence on the colonies in two aspects in terms of the sources. On the one hand, there is no doubt that the long lasting and continental revolutions on the Europe call for huge amount of financial supports and the material supports. In order to guarantee their own process of emancipation, quite ironically, the European colonists have slaved aboriginals on the colonies even more tightly and precipitated their paces of pillaging, further sharpened the social conflicts that had already been aggravated. On the other hand, the nationalism and racialism began to emerge during the endless conflicts and wars between the nations in Europe. This is reasonable because in the battle field, it is a common way for the generals to excite soldiers’ courage and willing to fight by provocative speeches, which more or less include the feverish patriotism. These racialists advocated that there are the superior races; they are the chosen ones from the god; they are the best races in the world! They thought that it is their responsibility to educated, slave and even deracinate those so called “inferior races”. This kind of ideas can be clearly seen in Jules Ferry’s On French Colonial Expansion:

  “Gentlemen, we must speak more loudly and more honestly! We must say openly that indeed the higher races have a right over the lower races ....”

  “I repeat, that the superior races have a right because they have a duty. They have the duty to civilize the inferior races .... In the history of earlier centuries these duties, gentlemen, have often been misunderstood; and certainly when the Spanish soldiers and explorers introduced slavery into Central America, they did not fulfill their duty as men of a higher race ....”[5]

  Driven by such ideas, all countries in Europe exploited people in their colonies even more vigorously without any fear and horrors; massacres happened at anywhere and anytime. Angers and furor inside of those aboriginals reached the end of their endurance, the storm clouds of national liberation revolutions in the worldwide scale started gathering! Another point we should never ignore is that people in the colonies began to acquaint with the “New Thoughts” originated from the Europe. They thought “Since all of your Europeans are advocating that all human beings are born and remain to be free and equal in rights, so why you Europeans treated us as if utilizing animals, why you Europeans still slave us, why you exploit us? There should never be any excuses for you Europeans to slave and exploit us!” Under this circumstance, national liberation revolutions against European settler began to erupt one by one. The burst of the Haitian revolution which lasted about 36 years is the curtain-raiser to the revolutions which swept through the Latin American continent. Brave people in colonies struggled and fought against settlers with their outmoded weapons, together with their fearless willing and steely determination. Every pieces of soil in their continent were saturated with tears and bloods. Eventually, their struggles and efforts paid off; colonial yokes were broken, European settlers were repelled out of their own continents and newly independent countries were established! At this point, the relationship and balance between the Europe and other countries in the rest of the world dramatically changed again until the outbreak of the World War One! As we all know, from the 17th to 18th century, two countries with ultimate supremacy are Spain and Portugal, because the majority of those precursors that discovered the new world comes from the this two countries. Therefore, Spain and Portugal grab the colonies with the largest area; almost the whole South America belonged to them! They had huge influences upon the world at the 18th century. However, with the final success of national revolution in colonies, the rests of the world are no longer the back gardens, rubber plantations, pastures for cattle, gold mines and free factories. These series of revolutions exerted heavy blew the European settlers seriously, especially to those from Spain and Portugal. Their titles for the supremacies of the world vanished with their lost colonies, and at this very time the Great Britain and the newly independent United States gradually gained their power and made their voice heard. The Great Britain and United States have replace Spain and Portugal as the true leads of the world at the beginning of the 19th century!

  References:

[1] Emanuel Kant, What is Enlightenment?
[2] Abbe Sieyes, What is the Third Estate?
[3] The French National Assembly, The Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen
[4] De Gouges, Declaration of the Rights of Woman
[5] Jules Ferry, On French Colonial Expansion


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