The colonial British did introduce law and order into many lands. It was a formalised, institutional form of regulation of society, super-imposed upon pre-existing practices, much of which would have been of long duration. However, justice is, in my view, of secondary significance in the British system; the primary issue is legality, even if it is only technical. In the event, those who care about justice are likely to hope for some form of cosmic justice. This, we hope, would be automatic in operation, cutting in at any time, or even after a long time – but yet unavoidable by the guilty. So we hope.
A form of cosmic justice may be described as the Law of Cause and Effect. This is easier to understand. Every event has a cause; the event is the effect. Without developing this concept into something more complicated (for life, with its intricacies, is already complex), one can hope that this hoped-for law reflects justice at a cosmic level.
In what ways might this Law of Cause and Effect be seen to operate? When a marauding Western nation first opened up a self-sufficient and insular Japan for trade purposes and, much later, when Japan had copied the West and developed itself industrially to cope with the all-powerful colonial nations of the West, did not these nations then set out to constrain Japan’s ambitions to be now accepted as equal to them? Was it then the Law of Cause and Effect which led Japan to cleanse Asia of its colonial masters?
As a colonial subject caught up in Japan’s war against the Western nations, I initially disliked the Japanese for the difficult life imposed upon my family by this war; for my half-starved teenage existence for nearly 4 years (affecting the maturation of my spine, with lifetime adverse consequences); and for enabling a gang of anti-Japanese communists to terrorise us near the end of the Japanese military occupation. Looking back more objectively, I am grateful that Japan had helped to release us from bondage; for no self-respecting people would accept subjugation by a foreign intruder smugly sneering at their religio-cultural values and practices; and seeking to gather souls for Christ for no good purpose.
Read my short article ‘Japan white-ants European colonialism in Asia’ in http://www.ezinearticles.com
RAJA ARASA RATNAM 