Pax Imperatrix (Revised)
Literally “The Emperor’s Peace.” Drawing on imagery from films “Apocalypse Now” and “Restrepo.” Title is loosely derived from a poem “Ave Imperatrix,” by Oscar Wilde written in response to the British Empire’s wars in Afghanistan, India, and Pakistan in the late Nineteenth and early Twentieth Centuries. The Wilde poem has been variously interpreted as either anti-imperialist or as crudely jingoist. Despite his avowed socialist leanings, Wilde clearly says in the final stanza that a new and more just English republic will arise from the bloody plunder of the world by Victorian imperialism. This argument would become the justification for colonial policy put forward by the pro-imperialist wing of the Socialist International in the early years of the Twentieth Century as they became apologists for “the White Man’s Burden” and Euro-American world domination opening the road to justify two empire-building world wars and endless conflict.