British Imperialism: Persia And Central Asia

Throughout its history, the British Empire was obsessed with its own culture; yet, paradoxically, the nation wanted to understand how the “other” perceived the glory and dominance of the lion. However, this notion of culture seems straightforward until one begins to examine its connection to imperialism. The famed literary critic, Edward Said, defines culture in two different facets that include “the arts of description, communication, and representation, have relative autonomy from the economic, social, and political realms and that often exist in aesthetic forms” that aim to pleasure an audience. Forms of culture include the famous popular texts that depicted the Central Asian Question and issue of Persia during the late nineteenth and early …show more content…
At first, these encounters were quite mild because England lacked an in depth knowledge of Persia and Central Asia; this changed when in 1842 when Arthur Conolly started to explore the area. The British public saw this opportunity as an adventure and a chance to refill their desire for the exotic. This Persian frontier provided new open markets to spread British culture and their very concepts of civilization and modernity. The Persian elite grasped on to these concepts, but the lower classes did their very best to resist their foreign …show more content…
The Russian bear and British lion constantly clashed the political arena over Persia for more than century. The shah’s greediness pitted both nations against each other over Persia’s desire for modernity and progress, which eventually hurt the nation in the end. Britain essentially created its own monster or its own Russophobia in the 1800s because imperialist feared a massive invasion of India. Members of the Conservative Party felt India needed to be protected at any price because the colony represented the pride and power of the empire. Therefore, Persia and Afghanistan were quite important in securing the Indian frontier because both nations provided a natural buffer zone. From 1885 to 1892, Lord Salisbury’s Persian policy had two main points that rested in the protection of India. Accordingly, he felt that “‘independence and [the] integrity of Persia’” were no more than empty phrases because India mattered more than anything else. Instead, he and other imperialists looked to Persia’s ancient past and wanted to regenerate the state to its former glory by sponsoring reform programs and other measures. He also sought to improve communications between the Persian Gulf and Tehran, but the shah resisted such an advance; this eventually limited the state’s drive towards modernization. However, his main goal rested