Page 38 - The Disasters Darwinism Brought To Humanity

38 T T H E D I S A S T E R S D A R W I N I S M B R O U G H T T O H U M A N I T Y Y
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bring the most benefit to themselves. As a result of all of this, the poverty
in the country, the weakness of the government, and the slow loss of Chi-
nese territory led to many rebellions.
The experiences in China were only one of the results of British pol-
icy. Throughout the 19 century the oppression and painful dimensions of
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British imperialism were experienced in such regions as South Africa,
India, and Australia.
The job of justifying this oppressive system of Britain's and attempt-
ing to show it was in the right, fell to various British sociologists and sci-
entists. And Charles Darwin was the most important and effective of
these. It was Darwin who claimed that throughout evolution there had
been "superior races," that these were the "white race," and showed that
the whites' oppression of the others was a "natural law."
Because of the justification which Darwin provided for colonialist
racism, the famous scientist, Kenneth J. Hsü, the head of the Geography
department of the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology and himself of
Chinese descent, describes Darwin as "a gentleman scientist of the Victo-
rian Era, and an establishment member of a society that sent gunboats to
forcibly import opium into China, all in the name of competition (in free
trade) and survival of the fittest." 22
Darwin's Enmity Towards the Turks
The most important target British colonialism set itself towards the
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end of the 19 century was the Ottoman Empire.
At that period the Ottoman state ruled a huge area from Yemen to
Bosnia-Herzegovina. But by now it was finding it hard to control this area
which it had managed in peace, calm, and stability. Christian minorities
were beginning to rise up in the name of independence, and such great
military powers as Russia were beginning to threaten the Ottomans.
In the last quarter of the century Britain and France joined the pow-
ers which were threatening the Ottomans. Britain particularly set its eyes
on the Ottomans' southern provinces. The Berlin Agreement, signed in
1878, is an expression of the European colonialists' decision to divide up