by EDUARDO GALEANO
Chinese victims of Britain’s opium trade IMAGE/Hutton Archive via Getty Images/Huffington Post
Looting of the Old Summer Palace in Beijing China by Anglo-French forces in 1860 IMAGE/Wikipedia
[The following passages are excerpted from Eduardo Galeano’s history of humanity, Mirrors (Nation Books).]
Origin of Freedom of Oppression
Opium was outlawed in China.
British merchants smuggled it in from India. Their diligent efforts led to a surge in the number of Chinese dependent on the mother of heroin and morphine, who charmed them with false happiness and ruined their lives.
The smugglers were fed up with the hindrances they faced at the hands of Chinese authorities. Developing the market required free trade, and free trade demanded war.
William Jardine, a generous sort, was the most powerful of the drug traffickers and vice president of the Medical Missionary Society, which offered treatment to the victims of the opium he sold.
In London, Jardine hired a few influential writers and journalists, including best-selling author Samuel Warren, to create a favorable environment for war. These communications professionals ran the cause of freedom high up the flagpole. Freedom of expression at the service of free trade: pamphlets and articles rained down upon British public opinion, exalting the sacrifice of the honest citizens who challenged Chinese despotism, risking jail, torture, and death in that kingdom of cruelty.
The proper climate established, the storm was unleashed. The Opium War lasted, with a few interruptions, from 1839 to 1860.
Our Lady of the Seas, Narco Queen
The sale of people had been the juiciest enterprise in the British Empire. But happiness, as everyone knows, does not last. After three prosperous centuries, the Crown had to pull out of the slave trade, and selling drugs came to be the most lucrative source of imperial glory.
Queen Victoria was obliged to break down China’s closed doors. On board the ships of the Royal Navy, Christ’s missionaries joined the warriors of free trade. Behind them came the merchant fleet, boats that once carried black Africans, now filled with poison.
In the first stage of the Opium War, the British Empire took over the island of Hong Kong. The colorful governor, Sir John Bowring, declared:
“Free trade is Jesus Christ, and Jesus Christ is free trade.”
Toward Freedom for more