Intervention philosophy

Intervention philosophy is an ideological justification for or intruders to guide native peoples in specific directions. Intervention philosophy can also be applied to economic development plans. [http://libarts.wsu.edu/anthro/Faculty/bodley.htm John Bodley] (1988) says that the basic belief behind interventions has been the same for over 100 years. Whether by colonists, missionaries, governments, countries, or development planners, intervention schemes follow the same basic outline. The belief is that industrialization, Westernization, individualism, and modernization are universally desirable evolutionary advances and that the institution of these schemes will produce long-term benefits to a local people. In an extreme form, intervention philosophy is a battle between the superior wisdom of the enlightened colonial or First World power against the conservative, ignorant, and obsolete local people.

Intervention philosophy is also manifested when governments deal with resources that are found on tribal lands. Driven by deficits, debt, and greed, the government seeks to acquire as much wealth as possible while intruding on tribal territories. The result has been the global intrusion on indigenous people and their local ecosystems and resources by construction of highways, mining, hydroelectric plants, ranching, lumbering, agriculture, and planned colonization.

Phillip, Conrad. (2005). Window on Humanity. New York: McGraw-Hill

The intervention philosophy used by the British during the peak of imperialism was "The White Man's Burden," which was also a poem written by Rudyard Kipling. Kipling wrote the poem in an effort to get the United States to develop the newly acquired Philippines. The U.S. had won the Philippines from Spain after the Spanish-American War. Here is the poem.

"The White Man's Burden" 1899

Take up the White Man's burden-

Send forth the best ye breed--Go bind your sons to exile

To serve your captives' need;

To wait in heavy harness,

On fluttered folk and wild--

Your new-caught, sullen peoples,

Half-devil and half-child.

Take up the White Man's burden--

In patience to abide,

To veil the threat of terror

And check the show of pride;

By open speech and simple,

A hundred times made plain

To seek another's profit,

And work another's gain.

Take up the White Man's burden--

The savage wars of peace--

Fill full the mouth of Famine

And bid the sickness cease;

And when your goal is nearest

The end for others sought,

Watch sloth and heathen Folly

Bring all your hopes to nought.

Take up the White Man's burden--

No tawdry rule of kings,

But toil of serf and sweeper--

The tale of common things.

The ports ye shall not enter,

The roads ye shall not tread,

Go mark them with your living,

And mark them with your dead.

Take up the White Man's burden--

And reap his old reward:

The blame of those ye better,

The hate of those ye guard--

The cry of hosts ye humour

(Ah, slowly!) toward the light:--

"Why brought he us from bondage,

Our loved Egyptian night?"

Take up the White Man's burden--

Ye dare not stoop to less--

Nor call too loud on Freedom

To cloke your weariness;

By all ye cry or whisper,

By all ye leave or do,

The silent, sullen peoples

Shall weigh your gods and you.

Take up the White Man's burden--

Have done with childish days--

The lightly proferred laurel,

The easy, ungrudged praise.

Comes now, to search your manhood

Through all the thankless years

Cold, edged with dear-bought wisdom,

The judgment of your peers!

http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/Kipling.html

see also [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_man%27s_burden]