The White Man’s Burden: An Overview

During the colonial era, Western liberal states established vast empires encompassing much of the Muslim world. These powers developed systematic methods of governance specifically tailored for Muslim populations—methods that, in many ways, persist today in the postcolonial context.

Contrary to the conventional perception that liberalism opposes imperialism, ethnocentrism, and racism, the historical policies of liberal states suggest otherwise. Rather than resisting these forces, liberalism appears to have actively supported—and perhaps even been designed to promote—a worldview grounded in imperialist, racist, and ethnocentric assumptions.

Western liberal states continue to exert influence over Muslim societies through a new tool, i.e., human rights, which now functions as a means of managing and liberalizing these societies in what amounts to a modern iteration of colonialism.

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The Loss of Tradition and Meaning

Liberalism emerged in the 18th century with the introduction of the modern notion of “human rights” or the “Rights of Man.” According to this framework, all individuals possess inherent rights grounded in liberal ideals such as liberty, equality, and humanism.

Since its inception, human rights have been viewed as dynamic and ever-evolving. Progress and “development” are equated with moral advancements and shifts in perceptions of right and wrong. As a result, legislation is constantly being revised and updated. For example, homosexuality was once not considered a human right, whereas today it is. It’s a never-ending process of expanding individual “freedoms” and “rights.”

Liberalism takes a critical stance toward pre-modern social norms and traditional societal structures, often treating them as incompatible with human rights. This applies to traditional Christian, Jewish, and Muslim communities alike, which tend to emphasize collective values such as marriage, family, religious observance, and communal identity. Liberalism, by contrast, prioritizes individual autonomy, frequently placing it above these social bonds and thereby creating tension with traditional norms and values.

By the 19th century, many European thinkers acknowledged that liberalism—understood as the progressive expansion of individual liberty and equality—was contributing to a disintegration of social cohesion. The abandonment of traditional frameworks, long considered the glue of social order, led to a profound loss of meaning and purpose.

Liberalism regards tradition and religion as impediments to its emancipatory mission. This view has driven efforts to “reform” religion by reinterpreting sacred texts in line with evolving notions of human rights. In the 18th century, liberal forces successfully reshaped Protestantism and Catholicism to accommodate principles such as religious freedom—the right to convert, abandon faith, or hold no religious belief at all. This represented a significant departure from prior doctrines that condemned non-Christians. Some liberal philosophers, such as Immanuel Kant, went as far as to demand continuous religious reform to ensure alignment with moral progress, as defined by shifting human rights standards.

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The “White Man’s Burden” and Civilizational Progress

Liberalism’s conception of human rights is closely linked to its broader vision of civilizational progress and imperialism. From the 18th century onward, liberal thought has embraced a particular historical narrative: that human societies inevitably progress—materially, through advances in science, technology, and economics; and morally, through the development of human rights.

In the 18th and 19th centuries, this trajectory was framed as “civilizational progress.” Today, it is more commonly referred to as “development.” The notion of “developing countries” presupposes that Western liberal democracies represent the pinnacle of human advancement.

Western thinkers, political leaders, and policymakers since the late 18th century have advocated for the global spread of liberalism, viewing it as a universal truth embedded in the natural order. This “civilizing mission,” often referred to as “the white man’s burden,” positioned the enlightened European as the agent responsible for uplifting supposedly backward societies, i.e., those rooted in pre-modern social norms and structures.

Resistance to this mission was anticipated, particularly from non-Western societies seeking to preserve their ways of life, religious traditions, and communal values. As a result, it was the “white man’s burden” that he would have to use coercion, violence, and authoritarian measures to advance civilization towards ever greater enlightenment. The belief that non-Western peoples were intellectually and morally underdeveloped justified the imposition of external control to facilitate the transfer of technology, political institutions, and economic systems—tools intended to forcibly advance “progress,” “enlightenment,” and “development.”

Between the late 18th and mid-20th centuries, Western liberal empires exerted extensive control over colonized populations, exploiting both human and natural resources. The colonization of Muslim territories alone resulted in the deaths of millions and the dismantling of indigenous societies.

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The Legacy Lives On

During the colonial period, European imperial powers introduced laws in their colonies aimed at reshaping society according to Western ideas about liberty, equality, and human rights. Today, that same mission has been taken over by international institutions like the United Nations, which plays a key role in spreading Western liberal values across the globe and upholding a liberal world order.

Despite its image as a neutral institution that treats all nations equally, the UN often reflects the interests of the powers that emerged victorious after World War II. Rather than serving as an unbiased platform, it helps guide global affairs in a direction that favors secularism, liberalism, consumerism, and the erosion of traditional ways of organizing life.

One of the main tools for this transformation is the modern nation-state. As a secular institution, the nation-state encourages people to shift their loyalty away from religion, tribe, and family, and instead identify with the abstract legal entity known as “the state.” In doing so, individuals are reshaped into citizens whose role is to support the secular and liberal goals of the state—often at the cost of older, more rooted forms of belonging.

In this way, what began as overt colonial domination has evolved into a more subtle, institutionalized effort to remake societies in the image of the West—an effort that is very much still guided by the same ideological conviction that liberalism is the final destination of human progress.

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