LIVINGSTON
World history is in many ways a study of imperialism it is about the rise and the fall of empires in our time we have seen a particularly ruthless form of imperialism specific sip specifically angle American imperialism the death toll unleashed by this form of imperialism is probably an all-time record very specifically America launched the largest campaign of genocide in history against the Native Americans indeed America's campaign of genocide was the model that inspired Hitler for his campaign of genocide it's not an accident that he even called his wartime train America because he was trying to fulfill the American dream as he sought now in Anglo-American. Imperialism one of the tickly disgusting aspects of it is the level of hypocrisy they were bringing civilization or freedom or whatever to the people that they conquered as a part of this one of the truly despicable people is a fellow called David Livingstone in England Livingston was a psychopath and a total charlatan he started out as a supposed missionary in Africa and he converted no one the one guy he converted repudiated Christianity and in his diary Livingston admitted that in many ways the traditional African life was far superior to England but that these cutter reservations didn't bother him in his campaign for money and power he went back to England and sort of like the TV evangelists in our time cooked up a completely fraudulent collection of stories about his huge success as a missionary and became a national hero of England and then got money for a egg exploration campaign of Africa much more ominous was Livingston marketing to the British the idea of some kind of moral obligation to conquer Africa to save Africa for Christ war fight the slave trade in Africa and also what a coincidence to help British big business make money in Africa for the people of Africa this was an incredibly deadly combination now Livingston went back to Africa and made pretty much a mess out of things and got lost and nearly died was by way of rescue by some slave traders and kept alive and it was supposedly a great thing when one of the more utterly ruthless explorers Stanley a guy who later work for King Leopold of a person who killed 6 million Africans soap supposedly found Livingston and that was all wonderful and so on and so forth that was what was focused on the destruction of African lies was considered very very insignificant point of the missionaries is all over Africa were not saying there were some good people but they played a very important role in the structure of imperialism frequently they would provoke natives with their ignorance and their big bigotry and then they would have to be rescued by European armies which totally coincidentally then seize control the countries that invaded so all this is a very unhappy story and is directly related to the disastrous state of Africa today because they imposed on Africa they they destroyed ruthlessly destroyed as Christianity usually does certainly one of the most intolerant religions in the history of the world they ruthlessly destroyed traditional African systems of life and replaced it with a kind of cutthroat capitalism with a smiley face Jesus of this is going on into today and Africa has massive internal environmental problems that are going to lead to an even bigger death toll than the title wave of death that was unleashed by European imperialism as a side factor King Leopold's Congo free state was considered the wonderful evangelical private sector approach to save the Africans in darkest Africa and bring them the light of Jesus wealth ended up killing at least 6 million of an the horrors in the Congo free state were probably duplicated elsewhere the big difference between the Congo free state and the other of horrors is that there was a big incentive by competing colonial powers to expose them written wanted the Congo free state the only reason they probably didn't seize it is because of the approach of World War I and the reluctance to get into a fight with Belgium over that so this is all a very ugly and unhappy story but is highly relevant to today with today's liberal imperialism which is every bit as ruthless as its president in the 19th century
MISSIONARIES AND IMPERIALISM
The subject we are going to talk about is religion and imperialism. In 1492, a ruthless 500 year war was launched by white Christians against a good part of the rest of the world. It was the bloodiest campaign of imperialism and genocide in history. It created the largest and most brutal slave trade in history. It also set in motion today's global environmental crisis, which might very well end the good part of life on earth. So this was not a very positive development.
By 1914, Western Christian forces had seized control of almost all of the planet, except for two countries: Japan and Ethiopia. Our study of this reveals a very interesting fact. These are the two countries that expelled Christian missionaries in the 17th century and didn't let them back in until late in the 19th century. The missionary movement has served as a tool of imperialism. That is a fact. And we thought it relevant to point this fact out in analyzing history. People point out that Ethiopia, unlike Japan, is a Christian country. But the fact remains they didn't want Western European Christianity. They wanted their own version of Christianity. So this is a highly relevant point to know why they were able to protect their freedom.
In the case of China, the Western powers, including the Evangelical Christian Mr. Palmerston (who was Prime Minister of England), forced the Chinese to accept drugs peddled by Western drug dealers. The opium war and missionaries were bad news, but the missionaries were worse because the missionaries introduced religious instability in China, culminating in one of the most bizarre and bloody events in world history. This was the so-called Taiping rebellion, where a lunatic who claimed he was related to Jesus set up a huge political cult and started a war which ended up killing 30 million people. This severely weakened China's ability to stand up to the West and protect itself. So these are historical facts that should be investigated further, but we just wanted to put them out in the historical record.
US AND JESUS
Many Americans like to believe that the United States of America was founded by Jesus they look to the so-called religious revival organized by Mr Whitfield before the revolution what is largely ignored is Mr whitfield's enthusiastic support of the slave trade Mr Whitfield was a close colleague of John Wesley the founder of modern evangelism John Wesley was apparently unaware that Jesus had supposedly decided to found the United States of America because he strongly opposed the American Revolution now if you look into a concordance that's known as an index of the Bible and look up the United States of America there is no mention of the United States of America in the Bible and even more curious fact is the New Testament was written in Greek the people who wrote the New Testament were obviously aware of athenian democracy but the word democracy does not appear in the Bible on the other hand the Bible very specifically endorses slavery and it also very specifically endorses genocide so this is a very curious situation as to the connection between Jesus and America and it makes you shall we say be a bit skeptical that the Declaration of Independence and the constitution were written by Jesus it just gives you some reasons to be skeptical
WILBERFORCE
The record of Christianity and slavery is crystal clear. The Bible very specifically endorses slavery. There is absolutely no doubt whatsoever about this. In the case of America it is also a matter of very clear historical fact that the overwhelming majority of the US evangelical Christian community supported slavery. Indeed they strongly supported slavery. There is absolutely no doubt about that.
In terms of race relations the majority of white Christian evangelicals opposed the basic tenets of the civil rights movement up until the late 50s and 1960s when it became apparent that this was not politically viable although there was still huge opposition among white evangelicals to the civil rights movement. The so-called religious right that emerged in the 1970s was also directly related to the issue of racism. It was directly related to a campaign to preserve the power of the white academies in the South. These are historical facts.
Now these are very troubling facts for the white evangelical Christian leadership of America. As a result in the 1980s an imaginary version of history was created. One of the people at the center of this was a guy called Wilberforce who was active in the abolition of the slave trade in England. Wilberforce is a very unsavory person, a classic sort of hypocrite because while Wilberforce opposed the institution of slavery he was absolutely ruthless in crushing efforts at social justice in England. Furthermore the so-called liberation of the slaves in the British Empire was in many ways a farce. After being quote "liberated" the slaves went back to work for the same people they were working for. That didn't change. Meanwhile the owners of the slaves got money from the government and the slaves got no money from the government. This is what happened.
So this is why we introduce the following discussion of Mr. Wilberforce. The whole story has an even more ugly side because the opposition to the slave trade particularly under the nefarious influence of David Livingston was re-organized to be used as a justification for a ruthless British campaign of imperialism in Africa where local African governments were conquered and crushed by British imperialism. It Is very similar so to speak to the human rights campaign of western liberals today, where they justify invading, murdering, torturing killing Third World people on the grounds that they're bringing them human rights, very similar to that.
The military invasions of Africa by Europeans particularly in the 19th century have led to the death of millions upon millions of Africans and imposed on Africa a colonial system of economics that has destroyed a good part of the biological foundations of life in Africa. The big consequences of people like Wilberforce and Livingston are ahead of us not behind us, the most serious consequences because of the ecological crisis that Africa faces today a crisis which is likely to get worse not better that was created by the destruction of traditional African life and its replacement by European and Christian imperialism.