Screening Difference by Jaap Van Ginneken

Author:Jaap Van Ginneken
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781461643296
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers
Published: 2013-06-26T16:00:00+00:00

Imperial Heroes in Nineteenth-Century Asia

The “brightest jewel” in Victoria’s crown of course became the Indian subcontinent, with three-quarters of the empire’s population, already absorbing one-fifth of British exports. Heroic reports concerning India itself centered on the putting down of rebellions and the dismantling of mysterious indigenous sects, with an emphasis on the riches of the maharajas and the poverty of others. But great adventures were also reported from the west and Afghanistan, where Britain tried to counter Russia; from the north and the Himalayas, where it tried to counter China; and from the East, where it tried to counter competing colonial powers such as France and the Netherlands.

One particularly fascinating episode was that involving British adventurer James Brooke. He quelled local rebellions in Sarawak and Sabah for the sultan of the mini-state of Brunei (located in between, on the northern half of the huge island of Borneo) and was proclaimed raja as a reward in 1842. The dynasty was continued by his nephew, and Britain proclaimed the states “protectorates” in 1888. During World War I, the nephew was in turn succeeded by his son, who felt forced to hand it over to Britain as a full “crown colony” only much later, after World War II. One recent tourist guide observes that the “colorful history might have come straight out of a romantic Victorian novel” (Oon 2004, p. 97)—and indeed the theme was widely picked up by them, in fictional fantasies variously relocated in Africa (Haggard’s Allan Quatermain novels) or Afghanistan (Kipling’s story “The Man Who Would Be King”), to which we will return later in this chapter.

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