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Updated: May 20, 2025
The habits of centuries are not easily transformed. In fact, it must not be forgotten that the upper classes were able to enjoy most fully the capricious personal liberty of the unmodified East, and that, therefore, though they may be better able to understand the value of Westernization, they have in one sense the most to lose.
These patent evils of Westernization are a prime cause of that implacable hatred of everything Western which animates so many Orientals, including some well acquainted with the West. Such persons are precious auxiliaries to the ignorant reactionaries and to the rebels against Western political domination.
The outcome will never be complete Westernization in the sense of a mere wholesale copying and absolute transformation; the East will always remain fundamentally itself. But it will be a new self, the result of a true assimilation of Western ideas. The reactionaries can only delay this process, and thereby prolong the Orient's inferiority and weakness.
Despite certain economic disadvantages that Westernization has imposed, the masses have unquestionably gained most by European rule. Formerly exploited ruthlessly by both princes and upper classes, the peasants and town workers are to-day assured peace, order, justice, and security for their landholdings and the fruits of their toil.
Were it racial only, to my way of thinking we should be beaten hopelessly. And as I write this in a Chinese inn, in the heart of Yün-nan the "backward province" surrounded by the common people in their common, dirty, daily doings, a far stretch of vivid imagining is needed to see these people in any way approaching the Westernization already current in eastern provinces of this dark Empire.
But the factors just considered will indicate the possibilities of reaction and will roughly assign the limits to which Westernization may ultimately extend. One thing is certain: Western political control in the Orient, however prolonged and however imposing in appearance, must ever rest on essentially fragile foundations.
Nevertheless, the reactionary attitude, though unintelligent, is intelligible. Westernization hurts too many cherished prejudices and vested interests not to arouse chronic resistance. This resistance would occur even if Western influences were all good and Westerners all angels of light.
The happy influence of more enlightened European Jews is, however, making itself felt in the chief towns, through excellent schools supported from London and Paris, which are turning out a class of highly respectable citizens. While the Moors fear the tide of advancing westernization, the town Jews court it, and in them centres one of the chief prospects of the country's welfare.
But of course Westernization has its dark side, while our Western culture-bearers are animated not merely by altruism, but also by far less worthy motives. This strengthens the hand of the Oriental reactionaries and lends them the cover of moral sanctions.
They realize that Western rule furthers more than anything else the Westernization of their social system, their traditional manner of life, and they therefore tend to react fanatically against it. Every innovation imposed by the colonial authorities is apt to rouse the most purblind resistance. For example, compulsory vaccination was bitterly opposed for years by the natives of Algeria.
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