Imperialism Justified

Imperialism can be justified based on certain intentions. When Leopold surreptitiously deceived African leaders into signing treaties giving them complete power over Africa, it demonstrated the first step of his desire for a colony. The main agent which triggered Leopold into dominating the Congo was because every other European power had their own colony, conveying a feeling of discontent in Belgium. This discontent was the cause of the imperialization of Africa. Based on evidence from documents, Leopold demanded large amounts of rubber to be brought to him in order to satisfy his wishes for Belgium. The fact that Leopold states “I have no other ambition than to serve [Africa] well” is contradicting to his actions later on, where he chops off the hands of thousands of those living in the Congo. Leopold’s bias towards Belgium’s profit is extreme to the point where he has halved the population of the Congo. Although Leopold’s intentions from the beginning were to ultimately modernize Africa and seek neutrality among the valley, he turned imperialism into an evil idea by violating human rights which guarantee each human life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. He exceeded the boundaries severing imperialization from abuse. However, imperialism is a case which can also definitely be justified if a country’s motives are purely to assist that country whether it is through modernizing, civilizing, or organizing the society in a region. Imperialism is not necessarily detrimental in all cases, but can be argued. For example, the Monroe Doctrine was introduced to the U.S. in 1823 to keep European world powers out of the developing Latin American countries, but “chronic wrongdoing” (President Roosevelt) in Latin America ultimately did require intervention. Therefore, it was fine if the U.S. got involved, not the European powers because of the Monroe Doctrine. This proves my point of how imperialism is fundamentally tolerable and fair to some extent.