The idea that Indians could not have alternatively found justice and rule of law is unproven at best, especially considering Britain's accentuation of religion and "race" to divide and conquer - one of its legacies to independent India being the idea of a "martial race", after all.
I agree with Max, I know we're horrible racists because, checks notes, our antecedents are from that part of the world.
Noone called you racists but the case is unproven. Japan Westernised in about a decade of occupation. It didn't take centuries of extraction.
Japan modernised over much of century. The removal of the militaristic fuckwits from the top of the pile was the last big piece of the puzzle.
Well there's that and there's also his suggestion that India would find its own way to the current rule of law it enjoys but then he uses Japan, a country that was under a major military occupation for years as an example of how it could be achieved. I'm enjoying the lack of awareness.
The idea that Indians could not have alternatively found justice and rule of law is unproven at best, especially considering Britain's accentuation of religion and "race" to divide and conquer - one of its legacies to independent India being the idea of a "martial race", after all.
I agree with Max, I know we're horrible racists because, checks notes, our antecedents are from that part of the world.
Noone called you racists but the case is unproven. Japan Westernised in about a decade of occupation. It didn't take centuries of extraction.
Eh? THey westernised in about a century - albeit somewhat unevenly in places. They sure got the modern armed forces and imperialist bits down pat, but also a constitutional monarchy.
Apart this bit of self-serving twaddle anything happened today on the Boris front? The trickle seems to have dried up so far as I can tell.
I think Cummings apparently being silenced with legal issues has slowed things down quite a bit. Before the police investigation there was the anticipation of something new from him every couple of days, to change or accelerate the direction.
They don't need Cummings. The BBC are on the case and with their ruthless professionalism they're showing how it's done. Extended interviews with Rifkind Major and today Patten don't happen by accident. Guess what they thought of Boris?
Sending Nadine Dorries to breeze around the studios telling them what they could expect was always a mistake. They are an ultra professional well oiled machine. You don't patronise them and you don't send a clown's gofer to threaten them
The Daily Mail, at least in its online edition, is also still vey much on the case too, quite astonishingly so, with day after day of the most critical angles almost conceivable. I've never seen such utter, sustained opprobrium for a Tory leader in the rightwing press.
Those who attack, or even more bizarrely, are 'ashamed' of, the British empire never seem to get round to telling us what counterfactual they are comparing it with. Presumably not a French, Dutch, or German empire, so I guess they must be dreaming about some fantasy world where the alternative in all the places the British ended up ruling was a cross between a Rousseauesque noble-savage purity and a Swedish social democracy, magically combining democratic self-rule with the advances of the industrial revolution and the values of the European Enlightenment.
Reader, that wasn't the alternative.
The alternative to the British might have been Belgium. King Leopold, and Belgium
And if you want to know how that turned out, read this:
Pretty close between them, I'd say, for worst possible European imperialists
The Belgian Congo was indescribably evil, but the Germans had much greater ambition and reach. It is arguable that German southwest Africa - Namibia - was a kind of dress rehearsal for the Holocaust. The Germans tried to utterly exterminate at least two tribes, possibly three
"The German general staff was aware of the atrocities that were taking place; its official publication, named Der Kampf, noted that:
"This bold enterprise shows up in the most brilliant light the ruthless energy of the German command in pursuing their beaten enemy. No pains, no sacrifices were spared in eliminating the last remnants of enemy resistance. Like a wounded beast the enemy was tracked down from one water-hole to the next, until finally he became the victim of his own environment. The arid Omaheke [desert] was to complete what the German army had begun: the extermination of the Herero nation.[77][78]
"Alfred von Schlieffen (Chief of the Imperial German General Staff) approved of Trotha's intentions in terms of a "racial struggle" and the need to "wipe out the entire nation or to drive them out of the country", but had doubts about his strategy, preferring their surrender.[79]"
Jimmy Carr's joke is wrong anyway. I am actually able to disprove that because not only did I do an assembly on the Holocaust recently where I talked rather a lot about the other victims of the Holocaust, including the Romany, the disabled, homosexuals and 'asocials', but I even used their word (Porajmos) to describe it.
The idea that Indians could not have alternatively found justice and rule of law is unproven at best, especially considering Britain's accentuation of religion and "race" to divide and conquer - one of its legacies to independent India being the idea of a "martial race", after all.
I agree with Max, I know we're horrible racists because, checks notes, our antecedents are from that part of the world.
It's fine, I enjoy being told about my own culture by white liberals, what's the term for it? Whitesplaining?
I thought your culture was British in its all encompassing variety?
Jimmy Carr's joke is wrong anyway. I am actually able to disprove that because not only did I do an assembly on the Holocaust recently where I talked rather a lot about the other victims of the Holocaust, including the Romany, the disabled, homosexuals and 'asocials', but I even used their word (Porajmos) to describe it.
My daughters were taught about the various groups on the Nazis hate list at school.
I thought it was strange that the issue of the Soviet POWs in that wasn't given more prominence, though.
The idea that Indians could not have alternatively found justice and rule of law is unproven at best, especially considering Britain's accentuation of religion and "race" to divide and conquer - one of its legacies to independent India being the idea of a "martial race", after all.
I agree with Max, I know we're horrible racists because, checks notes, our antecedents are from that part of the world.
Noone called you racists but the case is unproven. Japan Westernised in about a decade of occupation. It didn't take centuries of extraction.
Japan modernised over much of century. The removal of the militaristic fuckwits from the top of the pile was the last big piece of the puzzle.
Well there's that and there's also his suggestion that India would find its own way to the current rule of law it enjoys but then he uses Japan, a country that was under a major military occupation for years as an example of how it could be achieved. I'm enjoying the lack of awareness.
Japan was a major military and economic power decades BEFORE the Allied Occupation of 1945 to 1952.
‘When people talk about the Holocaust, they talk about the tragedy and horror of six million Jewish lives being lost to the Nazi war machine. But they never mention the thousands of Gypsies that were killed by the Nazis. No one ever wants to talk about that, because no one ever wants to talk about the positives.’
I'm not in favour of cancellation, but it's pretty repulsive. Substitute 'gays' for 'Gypsies' and a lot more would be offended.
It's just plain nasty.
A dark joke could be made about the kind of people who, being racist about Gypsies, would agree with such a statement.
But that "joke" isn't about that. It's just plain racism.
Yeah, if thats the full "joke" then he has not crossed the line but obliterated it.
Edit - seen suggestions downthread there is more context, which would make more sense.
I'm not sure context helps much. If he added "actually, some of my best friends are Gypsies...."?
It probably wouldn't help but enough for me to reserve judgment. On its own it doesn't really make any sense for an experienced TV comedian to think it worth saying.
You never heard of the Aristocrats joke? There was a good docco about it back in the day. Comedians competing to tell their version of the worlds most offensive joke. Gilbert Gottfried won it for me. Though Cartman’s was also top notch. What is it with everyone getting triggered now? So tedious.
No not heard of any of that, unless Cartman is the one from Southpark? Who suddenly reminds me a little of a less successful Boris Johnson.....
Yeah the South Park guys had Cartman do his version. It’s always the same format, about a family walking into a talent agent to do their act.
I think that is just a sign of Leaver paranoia. If the Tories had voted for a Norway option along with Labour in the meaningful vote then I have absolutely no doubt that that is what we would have got. It would have had an unassailable parliamentary majority. The problem was the Tories' insistence that freedom of movement had to end, which meant they couldn't endorse anything that retained the single market. The big picture is simple. At every point since the referendum the process has been controlled by the Tory party and Leavers (or those who wholeheartedly embraced Leave after the referendum). To blame where we are on anyone else is a laughable attempt to rewrite history. And the fact that - having achieved their desired objective - they feel the need to blame anyone, just tells you what a pack of lies the whole Leave campaign was from the start.
Come off it, in the crucial period between the 2017 and 2019 GEs the Conservatives didn't have a majority. The reason we had gridlock and now have the catastrophe of a Brexit which is not only the hardest possible but incompetently implemented is because Labour, the LibDems and the SNP joined forces with the ERG to wreck every attempt at compromise. That wasn't the only cause, of course - there were others, such as the bewildering choice of voters in 2017 to deny Theresa May a majority and the even more bewildering choice of the Labour Party to choose Corbyn as leader, thus making the party unelectable - but you are the one rewriting history in your denial of the role of the opposition parties in the 2017-2019 period.
Nice try Richard! I’ve seen the SNP blamed for all kinds of unlikely things, but blaming us for the Brexit bùrach must deserve some kind of prize.
Oh, I don't blame them particularly. What they did was entirely logical, from their point of view, unlike the Labour and LibDem positions. The SNP want as much chaos, dysfunction, and misgovernment in Westminster as possible, and they especially want Brexit to be such an unmitigated disaster that Scots are conned into repeating a similar mistake at the Scottish-English border. They even use the same type of lie as the Brexiteers, such as the latest hilarious one, worthy of Nigel Farage, that the rest of the UK would be liable for paying Scottish state pensions. (Rather oddly, they don't follow their own logic by arguing that Scottish taxpayers would also have to contribute to English pensions, I can't imagine why...).
Dissolution vs secession.
Advantages and disadvantages to both, for both parties.
Those who attack, or even more bizarrely, are 'ashamed' of, the British empire never seem to get round to telling us what counterfactual they are comparing it with. Presumably not a French, Dutch, or German empire, so I guess they must be dreaming about some fantasy world where the alternative in all the places the British ended up ruling was a cross between a Rousseauesque noble-savage purity and a Swedish social democracy, magically combining democratic self-rule with the advances of the industrial revolution and the values of the European Enlightenment.
Reader, that wasn't the alternative.
In principle, it sounds like you think Britain should rule all other countries today? After all, that's not the alternative today either.
No, most of those countries now benefit from precisely the advances of the industrial revolution, British-inspired legal and justice systems, reasonably good or in some cases excellent democratic self-government, and the worldwide acceptance (in principle, if not always in practice) of the values of the European Enlightenment. Nothing like the situation in, say, 1850.
Of course there are some basket cases in the world where colonial rule, or almost any alternative, would be massively better than the current situation, but it's not exactly practical for us to take over, say, Myanmar again, is it? Even if we wanted to, and the rest of the world was cool with the idea.
Aaron’s letter first item mentioned on BBC 6 o'clock news
When was the last member/former member of this forum first to lead the BBC 6 o'clock news
I believe JackW when he won gold at the first Winter Olympics at the ripe old age of 78.
An amazing story. He had no intention of taking part, and had simply been enjoying a hot bath in a nearby ski lodge after a heavy evening on the mulled wine. Turns out the bath tub had been poorly secured by shoddy workmen, came free from its moorings, and headed downhill fast. Hey presto, the bobsleigh was invented, and JackW was its first Olympic champion.
Those who attack, or even more bizarrely, are 'ashamed' of, the British empire never seem to get round to telling us what counterfactual they are comparing it with. Presumably not a French, Dutch, or German empire, so I guess they must be dreaming about some fantasy world where the alternative in all the places the British ended up ruling was a cross between a Rousseauesque noble-savage purity and a Swedish social democracy, magically combining democratic self-rule with the advances of the industrial revolution and the values of the European Enlightenment.
Reader, that wasn't the alternative.
The alternative to the British might have been Belgium. King Leopold, and Belgium
And if you want to know how that turned out, read this:
Pretty close between them, I'd say, for worst possible European imperialists
The Belgian Congo was indescribably evil, but the Germans had much greater ambition and reach. It is arguable that German southwest Africa - Namibia - was a kind of dress rehearsal for the Holocaust. The Germans tried to utterly exterminate at least two tribes, possibly three
"The German general staff was aware of the atrocities that were taking place; its official publication, named Der Kampf, noted that:
"This bold enterprise shows up in the most brilliant light the ruthless energy of the German command in pursuing their beaten enemy. No pains, no sacrifices were spared in eliminating the last remnants of enemy resistance. Like a wounded beast the enemy was tracked down from one water-hole to the next, until finally he became the victim of his own environment. The arid Omaheke [desert] was to complete what the German army had begun: the extermination of the Herero nation.[77][78]
"Alfred von Schlieffen (Chief of the Imperial German General Staff) approved of Trotha's intentions in terms of a "racial struggle" and the need to "wipe out the entire nation or to drive them out of the country", but had doubts about his strategy, preferring their surrender.[79]"
Namibia was the dry run for Nazism
Also the Eastern Front in World War 1 - compare and contrast just how far east the Germans got to in 1918, compared to 1941/1942.
Poor from the BBC. If you’re going to report the Jimmy Carr story, play the joke and let people decide.
It is increasingly what the BBC do. They report these type of "outrage" stories but don't report what the exact thing that was said which has caused the outrage or point you to where you can find it e.g. Marcus Rashford "racist" graffiti, wasn't racist. It certainly wasn't very nice and not called for, act of a total moron, but it wasn't racist.
If they are worried about people being offended etc, they can easily put it on the website where the offensive bit is by default hidden, with a clear warning and you have to click a button to reveal the exact wording.
Those who attack, or even more bizarrely, are 'ashamed' of, the British empire never seem to get round to telling us what counterfactual they are comparing it with. Presumably not a French, Dutch, or German empire, so I guess they must be dreaming about some fantasy world where the alternative in all the places the British ended up ruling was a cross between a Rousseauesque noble-savage purity and a Swedish social democracy, magically combining democratic self-rule with the advances of the industrial revolution and the values of the European Enlightenment.
Reader, that wasn't the alternative.
In principle, it sounds like you think Britain should rule all other countries today? After all, that's not the alternative today either.
No, most of those countries now benefit from precisely the advances of the industrial revolution, British-inspired legal and justice systems, reasonably good or in some cases excellent democratic self-government, and the worldwide acceptance (in principle, if not always in practice) of the values of the European Enlightenment. Nothing like the situation in, say, 1850.
Of course there are some basket cases in the world where colonial rule, or almost any alternative, would be massively better than the current situation, but it's not exactly practical for us to take over, say, Myanmar again, is it? Even if we wanted to, and the rest of the world was cool with the idea.
So I'm not quite sure what your point is.
How come Burma is a dictatorship? Upper Burma was under the British jackboot from 1886 to 1948, and Lower Burma from 1852 to 1948.
Aaron’s letter first item mentioned on BBC 6 o'clock news
When was the last member/former member of this forum first to lead the BBC 6 o'clock news
I believe JackW when he won gold at the first Winter Olympics at the ripe old age of 78.
An amazing story. He had no intention of taking part, and had simply been enjoying a hot bath in a nearby ski lodge after a heavy evening on the mulled wine. Turns out the bath tub had been poorly secured by shoddy workmen, came free from its moorings, and headed downhill fast. Hey presto, the bobsleigh was invented, and JackW was its first Olympic champion.
The thing is he had just poured a Martini in the bath at that moment and as he crossed the finish line he took a sip and declared “martini - shaken not stirred” in front of a young Ian Fleming and the rest is history.
Those who attack, or even more bizarrely, are 'ashamed' of, the British empire never seem to get round to telling us what counterfactual they are comparing it with. Presumably not a French, Dutch, or German empire, so I guess they must be dreaming about some fantasy world where the alternative in all the places the British ended up ruling was a cross between a Rousseauesque noble-savage purity and a Swedish social democracy, magically combining democratic self-rule with the advances of the industrial revolution and the values of the European Enlightenment.
Reader, that wasn't the alternative.
The alternative to the British might have been Belgium. King Leopold, and Belgium
And if you want to know how that turned out, read this:
Pretty close between them, I'd say, for worst possible European imperialists
The Belgian Congo was indescribably evil, but the Germans had much greater ambition and reach. It is arguable that German southwest Africa - Namibia - was a kind of dress rehearsal for the Holocaust. The Germans tried to utterly exterminate at least two tribes, possibly three
"The German general staff was aware of the atrocities that were taking place; its official publication, named Der Kampf, noted that:
"This bold enterprise shows up in the most brilliant light the ruthless energy of the German command in pursuing their beaten enemy. No pains, no sacrifices were spared in eliminating the last remnants of enemy resistance. Like a wounded beast the enemy was tracked down from one water-hole to the next, until finally he became the victim of his own environment. The arid Omaheke [desert] was to complete what the German army had begun: the extermination of the Herero nation.[77][78]
"Alfred von Schlieffen (Chief of the Imperial German General Staff) approved of Trotha's intentions in terms of a "racial struggle" and the need to "wipe out the entire nation or to drive them out of the country", but had doubts about his strategy, preferring their surrender.[79]"
Namibia was the dry run for Nazism
Interesting. The medical experimenter in Namibia, Eugen Fischer, even seems to have been Verschauer's teacher, who in turn taught the irredeemably evil Mengele. Seems to have got off scot-free after the war.
Jimmy Carr's whole act is predicated on saying offensive things that shouldn't be said as the punchline of what starts off as some innocent sounding statement. But that joke is a massive miss (if that is the right word).
I don’t know why anyone would object to UK colonial architecture.
Fancy going to Venice and demanding it all be ripped up because some Doge did bad things in Corfu.
Some of the colonial buildings in India are incredible, it's also quite important to remember the brutal regime and those who died building them. Tearing them down and attempting to erase that history is as bad as burning books because they are disagreeable.
All the best buildings here in Colombo are British. Apart from - maybe - a couple of skyscrapers, which are just beginning to show some glam and style
The locals show them off proudly. There is zero resentment of the British here, there has been no attempt at all to rename the endless streets citing Victoria, Albert, Edward, Windsor, and so on.
Having just read a marvellous history of Sri Lanka....
.... I can see why. Before the Brits arrived the island was ravaged with violence, the Dutch and Portuguese used it for slaving, but failed to quell the eternal unrest, after the Brits left, there was an insurrection, then a Marxist blood letting, then a civil war. The period of British rule was an unparalleled century and a half of peace, by Sri Lankan standards, and saw much improvement of roads, rails, education, etc
I am not whitewashing the British Empire, but this is one place where it does seem to have been a genuinely positive influence
It is arguable whether the Sri Lankans even wanted independence. Historians dispute this
Compare and contrast with attitudes to China, now. The Chinese are really NOT popular. Sri Lankans feel they have been hoodwinked into a kind of debt bondage
The British empire was a weird one, it's one of history's shades of grey, not like French colonialism which was terrible and still causes significant problems today. Lots of people like to boldly say that the empire was evil and it should never have happened, yet I think the world would be a worse place if it hadn't existed. There's no doubt that it was a brutal and sometimes commited atrocities, yet establishing English as the lingua franca, establishing British values across North America, India and other parts of APAC was and still is a huge net benefit to the world.
British justice and rule of law still underpins Indian law and justice, which is a huge, huge positive for Indian people who would otherwise be subject to some kind of odd religious mix of rules and natural laws as we can see in Islamic countries. The equal status of women in India is a result of the empire, in most Hindu sects women are second class citizens and without the empire they would absolutely be considered as such today, to a much more noticeable degree.
People like Heathener want to take a one dimensional look at complicated issues, the rest of us should be able to look beyond that.
A fundamentally malign undertaking whose consequences were not all malign - is how I'd put it. This is different to saying "mixed bag" or "it's complicated", both of which I hate to hear (although not as much as I hate to hear that it was our gift to the less civilized parts and peoples of the world, for which they should be grateful, and an integral positive part of our great history and specialness as a nation).
Do you honestly believe that the women of India would be better off without the empire? Living under Hindu religious law and being treated like second class citizens mirroring Islamic countries living under similar religious law?
I don't know, Max. But as I said - I agree the consequences were not all malign. One can debate various counterfactuals, what would have happened if we hadn't colonized the places we did. Many different takes on this, I'm sure, some more valid and informed than others. But let's get above all that and not kid ourselves this was a benign or 'mixed bag' undertaking. It wasn't. The main goal was to enrich & empower ourselves at the expense of others. And it was achieved. The legacy persists and it's not a positive one. Complicated, yes, not all bad, yes, better than certain other colonial oppressions, yes, but not some sort of 'on the one hand but on the other hand' affair to be weighed up with false precision before opining in neutral to faint positive (or even negative) terms. On the fundamental big picture scale of 'Good Thing, Bad Thing or Thing?' the British Empire was the middle one. This is not to oversimplify, it's to see the wood from the trees.
Those who attack, or even more bizarrely, are 'ashamed' of, the British empire never seem to get round to telling us what counterfactual they are comparing it with. Presumably not a French, Dutch, or German empire, so I guess they must be dreaming about some fantasy world where the alternative in all the places the British ended up ruling was a cross between a Rousseauesque noble-savage purity and a Swedish social democracy, magically combining democratic self-rule with the advances of the industrial revolution and the values of the European Enlightenment.
Reader, that wasn't the alternative.
Isn't that a bit like saying Fred West wasn't all that bad because Shipman killed more?
I mean "we were bad but it could have been worse" is hardly a great defence line.
Those who attack, or even more bizarrely, are 'ashamed' of, the British empire never seem to get round to telling us what counterfactual they are comparing it with. Presumably not a French, Dutch, or German empire, so I guess they must be dreaming about some fantasy world where the alternative in all the places the British ended up ruling was a cross between a Rousseauesque noble-savage purity and a Swedish social democracy, magically combining democratic self-rule with the advances of the industrial revolution and the values of the European Enlightenment.
Reader, that wasn't the alternative.
The alternative to the British might have been Belgium. King Leopold, and Belgium
And if you want to know how that turned out, read this:
Pretty close between them, I'd say, for worst possible European imperialists
The Belgian Congo was indescribably evil, but the Germans had much greater ambition and reach. It is arguable that German southwest Africa - Namibia - was a kind of dress rehearsal for the Holocaust. The Germans tried to utterly exterminate at least two tribes, possibly three
"The German general staff was aware of the atrocities that were taking place; its official publication, named Der Kampf, noted that:
"This bold enterprise shows up in the most brilliant light the ruthless energy of the German command in pursuing their beaten enemy. No pains, no sacrifices were spared in eliminating the last remnants of enemy resistance. Like a wounded beast the enemy was tracked down from one water-hole to the next, until finally he became the victim of his own environment. The arid Omaheke [desert] was to complete what the German army had begun: the extermination of the Herero nation.[77][78]
"Alfred von Schlieffen (Chief of the Imperial German General Staff) approved of Trotha's intentions in terms of a "racial struggle" and the need to "wipe out the entire nation or to drive them out of the country", but had doubts about his strategy, preferring their surrender.[79]"
Namibia was the dry run for Nazism
Interesting. The medical experimenter in Namibia, Eugen Fischer, even seems to have been Mengele's teacher. Seems to have got off scot-free after the war.
Yes, there are many disturbing links
Genocide was already in the chemistry set of the German military and scientific elite, with or without Hitler to catalyse it all
I don’t know why anyone would object to UK colonial architecture.
Fancy going to Venice and demanding it all be ripped up because some Doge did bad things in Corfu.
Some of the colonial buildings in India are incredible, it's also quite important to remember the brutal regime and those who died building them. Tearing them down and attempting to erase that history is as bad as burning books because they are disagreeable.
All the best buildings here in Colombo are British. Apart from - maybe - a couple of skyscrapers, which are just beginning to show some glam and style
The locals show them off proudly. There is zero resentment of the British here, there has been no attempt at all to rename the endless streets citing Victoria, Albert, Edward, Windsor, and so on.
Having just read a marvellous history of Sri Lanka....
.... I can see why. Before the Brits arrived the island was ravaged with violence, the Dutch and Portuguese used it for slaving, but failed to quell the eternal unrest, after the Brits left, there was an insurrection, then a Marxist blood letting, then a civil war. The period of British rule was an unparalleled century and a half of peace, by Sri Lankan standards, and saw much improvement of roads, rails, education, etc
I am not whitewashing the British Empire, but this is one place where it does seem to have been a genuinely positive influence
It is arguable whether the Sri Lankans even wanted independence. Historians dispute this
Compare and contrast with attitudes to China, now. The Chinese are really NOT popular. Sri Lankans feel they have been hoodwinked into a kind of debt bondage
The British empire was a weird one, it's one of history's shades of grey, not like French colonialism which was terrible and still causes significant problems today. Lots of people like to boldly say that the empire was evil and it should never have happened, yet I think the world would be a worse place if it hadn't existed. There's no doubt that it was a brutal and sometimes commited atrocities, yet establishing English as the lingua franca, establishing British values across North America, India and other parts of APAC was and still is a huge net benefit to the world.
British justice and rule of law still underpins Indian law and justice, which is a huge, huge positive for Indian people who would otherwise be subject to some kind of odd religious mix of rules and natural laws as we can see in Islamic countries. The equal status of women in India is a result of the empire, in most Hindu sects women are second class citizens and without the empire they would absolutely be considered as such today, to a much more noticeable degree.
People like Heathener want to take a one dimensional look at complicated issues, the rest of us should be able to look beyond that.
A fundamentally malign undertaking whose consequences were not all malign - is how I'd put it. This is different to saying "mixed bag" or "it's complicated", both of which I hate to hear (although not as much as I hate to hear that it was our gift to the less civilized parts and peoples of the world, for which they should be grateful, and an integral positive part of our great history and specialness as a nation).
Do you honestly believe that the women of India would be better off without the empire? Living under Hindu religious law and being treated like second class citizens mirroring Islamic countries living under similar religious law?
better than certain other colonial oppressions
Which Colonial oppressor would you have preferred to the British? “None” isn’t an answer.
Poor from the BBC. If you’re going to report the Jimmy Carr story, play the joke and let people decide.
It is increasingly what the BBC do. They report these type of "outrage" stories but don't report what the exact thing that was said which has caused the outrage or point you to where you can find it e.g. Marcus Rashford "racist" graffiti, wasn't racist. It certainly wasn't very nice and not called for, act of a total moron, but it wasn't racist.
If they are worried about people being offended etc, they can easily put it on the website where the offensive bit is by default hidden, with a clear warning and you have to click a button to reveal the exact wording.
It's not just the BBC. Most news outlets do it. Lead the headline with how you should react to the story. MSN are particular buggers for it. "Outrage as..." "Fury at...". There was a student newspaper when I was at uni used to frame headlines that way: it was inane for students and is even more so for professionals.
I don’t know why anyone would object to UK colonial architecture.
Fancy going to Venice and demanding it all be ripped up because some Doge did bad things in Corfu.
Some of the colonial buildings in India are incredible, it's also quite important to remember the brutal regime and those who died building them. Tearing them down and attempting to erase that history is as bad as burning books because they are disagreeable.
All the best buildings here in Colombo are British. Apart from - maybe - a couple of skyscrapers, which are just beginning to show some glam and style
The locals show them off proudly. There is zero resentment of the British here, there has been no attempt at all to rename the endless streets citing Victoria, Albert, Edward, Windsor, and so on.
Having just read a marvellous history of Sri Lanka....
.... I can see why. Before the Brits arrived the island was ravaged with violence, the Dutch and Portuguese used it for slaving, but failed to quell the eternal unrest, after the Brits left, there was an insurrection, then a Marxist blood letting, then a civil war. The period of British rule was an unparalleled century and a half of peace, by Sri Lankan standards, and saw much improvement of roads, rails, education, etc
I am not whitewashing the British Empire, but this is one place where it does seem to have been a genuinely positive influence
It is arguable whether the Sri Lankans even wanted independence. Historians dispute this
Compare and contrast with attitudes to China, now. The Chinese are really NOT popular. Sri Lankans feel they have been hoodwinked into a kind of debt bondage
The British empire was a weird one, it's one of history's shades of grey, not like French colonialism which was terrible and still causes significant problems today. Lots of people like to boldly say that the empire was evil and it should never have happened, yet I think the world would be a worse place if it hadn't existed. There's no doubt that it was a brutal and sometimes commited atrocities, yet establishing English as the lingua franca, establishing British values across North America, India and other parts of APAC was and still is a huge net benefit to the world.
British justice and rule of law still underpins Indian law and justice, which is a huge, huge positive for Indian people who would otherwise be subject to some kind of odd religious mix of rules and natural laws as we can see in Islamic countries. The equal status of women in India is a result of the empire, in most Hindu sects women are second class citizens and without the empire they would absolutely be considered as such today, to a much more noticeable degree.
People like Heathener want to take a one dimensional look at complicated issues, the rest of us should be able to look beyond that.
A fundamentally malign undertaking whose consequences were not all malign - is how I'd put it. This is different to saying "mixed bag" or "it's complicated", both of which I hate to hear (although not as much as I hate to hear that it was our gift to the less civilized parts and peoples of the world, for which they should be grateful, and an integral positive part of our great history and specialness as a nation).
Do you honestly believe that the women of India would be better off without the empire? Living under Hindu religious law and being treated like second class citizens mirroring Islamic countries living under similar religious law?
I don't know, Max. But as I said - I agree the consequences were not all malign. One can debate various counterfactuals, what would have happened if we hadn't colonized the places we did. Many different takes on this, I'm sure, some more valid and informed than others. But let's get above all that and not kid ourselves this was a benign or 'mixed bag' undertaking. It wasn't. The main goal was to enrich & empower ourselves at the expense of others. And it was achieved. The legacy persists and it's not a positive one. Complicated, yes, not all bad, yes, better than certain other colonial oppressions, yes, but not some sort of 'on the one hand but on the other hand' affair to be weighed up with false precision before opining in neutral to faint positive (or even negative) terms. On the fundamental big picture scale of 'Good Thing, Bad Thing or Thing?' the British Empire was the middle one. This is not to oversimplify, it's to see the wood from the trees.
Is your view that attempting to unwind its legacy would be unequivocally a Good Thing?
Aaron’s letter first item mentioned on BBC 6 o'clock news
When was the last member/former member of this forum first to lead the BBC 6 o'clock news
I believe JackW when he won gold at the first Winter Olympics at the ripe old age of 78.
An amazing story. He had no intention of taking part, and had simply been enjoying a hot bath in a nearby ski lodge after a heavy evening on the mulled wine. Turns out the bath tub had been poorly secured by shoddy workmen, came free from its moorings, and headed downhill fast. Hey presto, the bobsleigh was invented, and JackW was its first Olympic champion.
The thing is he had just poured a Martini in the bath at that moment and as he crossed the finish line he took a sip and declared “martini - shaken not stirred” in front of a young Ian Fleming and the rest is history.
I don’t know why anyone would object to UK colonial architecture.
Fancy going to Venice and demanding it all be ripped up because some Doge did bad things in Corfu.
Some of the colonial buildings in India are incredible, it's also quite important to remember the brutal regime and those who died building them. Tearing them down and attempting to erase that history is as bad as burning books because they are disagreeable.
All the best buildings here in Colombo are British. Apart from - maybe - a couple of skyscrapers, which are just beginning to show some glam and style
The locals show them off proudly. There is zero resentment of the British here, there has been no attempt at all to rename the endless streets citing Victoria, Albert, Edward, Windsor, and so on.
Having just read a marvellous history of Sri Lanka....
.... I can see why. Before the Brits arrived the island was ravaged with violence, the Dutch and Portuguese used it for slaving, but failed to quell the eternal unrest, after the Brits left, there was an insurrection, then a Marxist blood letting, then a civil war. The period of British rule was an unparalleled century and a half of peace, by Sri Lankan standards, and saw much improvement of roads, rails, education, etc
I am not whitewashing the British Empire, but this is one place where it does seem to have been a genuinely positive influence
It is arguable whether the Sri Lankans even wanted independence. Historians dispute this
Compare and contrast with attitudes to China, now. The Chinese are really NOT popular. Sri Lankans feel they have been hoodwinked into a kind of debt bondage
The British empire was a weird one, it's one of history's shades of grey, not like French colonialism which was terrible and still causes significant problems today. Lots of people like to boldly say that the empire was evil and it should never have happened, yet I think the world would be a worse place if it hadn't existed. There's no doubt that it was a brutal and sometimes commited atrocities, yet establishing English as the lingua franca, establishing British values across North America, India and other parts of APAC was and still is a huge net benefit to the world.
British justice and rule of law still underpins Indian law and justice, which is a huge, huge positive for Indian people who would otherwise be subject to some kind of odd religious mix of rules and natural laws as we can see in Islamic countries. The equal status of women in India is a result of the empire, in most Hindu sects women are second class citizens and without the empire they would absolutely be considered as such today, to a much more noticeable degree.
People like Heathener want to take a one dimensional look at complicated issues, the rest of us should be able to look beyond that.
A fundamentally malign undertaking whose consequences were not all malign - is how I'd put it. This is different to saying "mixed bag" or "it's complicated", both of which I hate to hear (although not as much as I hate to hear that it was our gift to the less civilized parts and peoples of the world, for which they should be grateful, and an integral positive part of our great history and specialness as a nation).
Do you honestly believe that the women of India would be better off without the empire? Living under Hindu religious law and being treated like second class citizens mirroring Islamic countries living under similar religious law?
I don't know, Max. But as I said - I agree the consequences were not all malign. One can debate various counterfactuals, what would have happened if we hadn't colonized the places we did. Many different takes on this, I'm sure, some more valid and informed than others. But let's get above all that and not kid ourselves this was a benign or 'mixed bag' undertaking. It wasn't. The main goal was to enrich & empower ourselves at the expense of others. And it was achieved. The legacy persists and it's not a positive one. Complicated, yes, not all bad, yes, better than certain other colonial oppressions, yes, but not some sort of 'on the one hand but on the other hand' affair to be weighed up with false precision before opining in neutral to faint positive (or even negative) terms. On the fundamental big picture scale of 'Good Thing, Bad Thing or Thing?' the British Empire was the middle one. This is not to oversimplify, it's to see the wood from the trees.
So the Roman Empire? Good Thing. Bad Thing, or Thing?
The Mongol Empire, ditto?
The Mughals?
You can't go round picking on just one Empire, even if it was the biggest ever, the most glorious, and ours
Those who attack, or even more bizarrely, are 'ashamed' of, the British empire never seem to get round to telling us what counterfactual they are comparing it with. Presumably not a French, Dutch, or German empire, so I guess they must be dreaming about some fantasy world where the alternative in all the places the British ended up ruling was a cross between a Rousseauesque noble-savage purity and a Swedish social democracy, magically combining democratic self-rule with the advances of the industrial revolution and the values of the European Enlightenment.
Reader, that wasn't the alternative.
Isn't that a bit like saying Fred West wasn't all that bad because Shipman killed more?
I mean "we were bad but it could have been worse" is hardly a great defence line.
No, but it's still context, particularly when people are getting performatively outraged at the apparent uniqueness of it all. It's why a more cold, historical take on things works better I think, than ignoring unpalatable elements or indulging in some kind of nationalist self flagellation exercise.
Those who attack, or even more bizarrely, are 'ashamed' of, the British empire never seem to get round to telling us what counterfactual they are comparing it with. Presumably not a French, Dutch, or German empire, so I guess they must be dreaming about some fantasy world where the alternative in all the places the British ended up ruling was a cross between a Rousseauesque noble-savage purity and a Swedish social democracy, magically combining democratic self-rule with the advances of the industrial revolution and the values of the European Enlightenment.
Reader, that wasn't the alternative.
Isn't that a bit like saying Fred West wasn't all that bad because Shipman killed more?
I mean "we were bad but it could have been worse" is hardly a great defence line.
No, it's to consider realistic counterfactuals. In many cases British rule was simply replacing existing, often more oppressive rule. I don't think the Mughals were cuddly democrats, for example.
If you actually look at the criticisms of the British Empire, from the point of view of the concepts of human rights invented in Europe in the Enlightenment, most of those criticisms are at best simply a criticism of the period we are talking about, not really about the British Empire at all.
BTW I heartily recommend a visit to Luderitz, Namibia, one of the great destination on this earth
It is haunted by the German atrocities but it is also miraculously atmospheric. The shimmering deserts meet the skeleton coast, and the strandwolves prowl the beach, between the ghost towns and the Forbidden Zone, the Sperrgebiet of the Diamond Mines
Are we still on track for reaching 54 letters in a few days time, like we were last week? Just asking
AS with nuclear fusion (20 years) and automated driving (5 years) we are always less than a week away from the 54/55 letters required to trigger a VONC in Bozo's leadership.
Those who attack, or even more bizarrely, are 'ashamed' of, the British empire never seem to get round to telling us what counterfactual they are comparing it with. Presumably not a French, Dutch, or German empire, so I guess they must be dreaming about some fantasy world where the alternative in all the places the British ended up ruling was a cross between a Rousseauesque noble-savage purity and a Swedish social democracy, magically combining democratic self-rule with the advances of the industrial revolution and the values of the European Enlightenment.
Reader, that wasn't the alternative.
In principle, it sounds like you think Britain should rule all other countries today? After all, that's not the alternative today either.
No, most of those countries now benefit from precisely the advances of the industrial revolution, British-inspired legal and justice systems, reasonably good or in some cases excellent democratic self-government, and the worldwide acceptance (in principle, if not always in practice) of the values of the European Enlightenment. Nothing like the situation in, say, 1850.
Of course there are some basket cases in the world where colonial rule, or almost any alternative, would be massively better than the current situation, but it's not exactly practical for us to take over, say, Myanmar again, is it? Even if we wanted to, and the rest of the world was cool with the idea.
So I'm not quite sure what your point is.
Maybe it's time for the UK to receive reparartions for having the nouse to come up with the industrial revolution, something from which many other countries around the world have benefited,
The whole point is the dozy fucker has never had any sort of control. Self control, personal control, political control, they are all equally alien to him.
It would be like somebody saying Jimmy Carr has become an unfunny jackass.
Those who attack, or even more bizarrely, are 'ashamed' of, the British empire never seem to get round to telling us what counterfactual they are comparing it with. Presumably not a French, Dutch, or German empire, so I guess they must be dreaming about some fantasy world where the alternative in all the places the British ended up ruling was a cross between a Rousseauesque noble-savage purity and a Swedish social democracy, magically combining democratic self-rule with the advances of the industrial revolution and the values of the European Enlightenment.
Reader, that wasn't the alternative.
In principle, it sounds like you think Britain should rule all other countries today? After all, that's not the alternative today either.
No, most of those countries now benefit from precisely the advances of the industrial revolution, British-inspired legal and justice systems, reasonably good or in some cases excellent democratic self-government, and the worldwide acceptance (in principle, if not always in practice) of the values of the European Enlightenment. Nothing like the situation in, say, 1850.
Of course there are some basket cases in the world where colonial rule, or almost any alternative, would be massively better than the current situation, but it's not exactly practical for us to take over, say, Myanmar again, is it? Even if we wanted to, and the rest of the world was cool with the idea.
So I'm not quite sure what your point is.
Maybe it's time for the UK to receive reparartions for having the nouse to come up with the industrial revolution, something from which many other countries around the world have benefited,
And the English language. I am bored of so many others culturally appropriating it. They can at least pay us for the privilege
Those who attack, or even more bizarrely, are 'ashamed' of, the British empire never seem to get round to telling us what counterfactual they are comparing it with. Presumably not a French, Dutch, or German empire, so I guess they must be dreaming about some fantasy world where the alternative in all the places the British ended up ruling was a cross between a Rousseauesque noble-savage purity and a Swedish social democracy, magically combining democratic self-rule with the advances of the industrial revolution and the values of the European Enlightenment.
Reader, that wasn't the alternative.
In principle, it sounds like you think Britain should rule all other countries today? After all, that's not the alternative today either.
No, most of those countries now benefit from precisely the advances of the industrial revolution, British-inspired legal and justice systems, reasonably good or in some cases excellent democratic self-government, and the worldwide acceptance (in principle, if not always in practice) of the values of the European Enlightenment. Nothing like the situation in, say, 1850.
Of course there are some basket cases in the world where colonial rule, or almost any alternative, would be massively better than the current situation, but it's not exactly practical for us to take over, say, Myanmar again, is it? Even if we wanted to, and the rest of the world was cool with the idea.
So I'm not quite sure what your point is.
Maybe it's time for the UK to receive reparartions for having the nouse to come up with the industrial revolution, something from which many other countries around the world have benefited,
Good idea. But we’d have to pay it all back and more to whoever invented agriculture.
Jesus Christ. It is practically anathema to me to condemn outright even political movements I disagree with, or judge those 'mainstream' people who still give succour to extreme actions of those movements, but the GOP really have crossed the line in so many ways.
I struggle when I cannot understand how people can self justify a course of action in a way that still means they are reasonable. I can stretch that a long way, but not to that.
Those who attack, or even more bizarrely, are 'ashamed' of, the British empire never seem to get round to telling us what counterfactual they are comparing it with. Presumably not a French, Dutch, or German empire, so I guess they must be dreaming about some fantasy world where the alternative in all the places the British ended up ruling was a cross between a Rousseauesque noble-savage purity and a Swedish social democracy, magically combining democratic self-rule with the advances of the industrial revolution and the values of the European Enlightenment.
Reader, that wasn't the alternative.
In principle, it sounds like you think Britain should rule all other countries today? After all, that's not the alternative today either.
No, most of those countries now benefit from precisely the advances of the industrial revolution, British-inspired legal and justice systems, reasonably good or in some cases excellent democratic self-government, and the worldwide acceptance (in principle, if not always in practice) of the values of the European Enlightenment. Nothing like the situation in, say, 1850.
Of course there are some basket cases in the world where colonial rule, or almost any alternative, would be massively better than the current situation, but it's not exactly practical for us to take over, say, Myanmar again, is it? Even if we wanted to, and the rest of the world was cool with the idea.
So I'm not quite sure what your point is.
Maybe it's time for the UK to receive reparartions for having the nouse to come up with the industrial revolution, something from which many other countries around the world have benefited,
Good idea. But we’d have to pay it all back and more to whoever invented agriculture.
What about whoever came up with the idea of climbing down from the trees?
Mind you, some say the big mistake was walking out of the sea....
Are we still on track for reaching 54 letters in a few days time, like we were last week? Just asking
AS with nuclear fusion (20 years) and automated driving (5 years) we are always less than a week away from the 54/55 letters required to trigger a VONC in Bozo's leadership.
Rather higher order of intellectual challenge, the first two, mind.
Jesus Christ. It is practically anathema to me to condemn outright even political movements I disagree with, or judge those 'mainstream' people who still give succour to extreme actions of those movements, but the GOP really have crossed the line in so many ways.
I struggle when I cannot understand how people can self justify a course of action in a way that still means they are reasonable. I can stretch that a long way, but not to that.
They've got a nerve to keep calling themselves Republicans. Why not just declare Trump rightful Emperor of North America and have done with it?
Those who attack, or even more bizarrely, are 'ashamed' of, the British empire never seem to get round to telling us what counterfactual they are comparing it with. Presumably not a French, Dutch, or German empire, so I guess they must be dreaming about some fantasy world where the alternative in all the places the British ended up ruling was a cross between a Rousseauesque noble-savage purity and a Swedish social democracy, magically combining democratic self-rule with the advances of the industrial revolution and the values of the European Enlightenment.
Reader, that wasn't the alternative.
Isn't that a bit like saying Fred West wasn't all that bad because Shipman killed more?
I mean "we were bad but it could have been worse" is hardly a great defence line.
No, it's to consider realistic counterfactuals. In many cases British rule was simply replacing existing, often more oppressive rule. I don't think the Mughals were cuddly democrats, for example.
If you actually look at the criticisms of the British Empire, from the point of view of the concepts of human rights invented in Europe in the Enlightenment, most of those criticisms are at best simply a criticism of the period we are talking about, not really about the British Empire at all.
I'm ambivalent about the British Empire. It happened. It was undoubtedly the inevitable consequence of everything that went before. Nothing we say now is going to make it not have happened. I wasn't involved either so it cannot be my fault.
But am I proud of it? No. Do I wish it still existed? Definitely not. Should I be ashamed? By the same token, no.
Jesus Christ. It is practically anathema to me to condemn outright even political movements I disagree with, or judge those 'mainstream' people who still give succour to extreme actions of those movements, but the GOP really have crossed the line in so many ways.
I struggle when I cannot understand how people can self justify a course of action in a way that still means they are reasonable. I can stretch that a long way, but not to that.
I'm quite comfortable in calling the GOP in its current form a fascist party.
Are we still on track for reaching 54 letters in a few days time, like we were last week? Just asking
AS with nuclear fusion (20 years) and automated driving (5 years) we are always less than a week away from the 54/55 letters required to trigger a VONC in Bozo's leadership.
Rather higher order of intellectual challenge, the first two, mind.
I don’t know why anyone would object to UK colonial architecture.
Fancy going to Venice and demanding it all be ripped up because some Doge did bad things in Corfu.
Some of the colonial buildings in India are incredible, it's also quite important to remember the brutal regime and those who died building them. Tearing them down and attempting to erase that history is as bad as burning books because they are disagreeable.
All the best buildings here in Colombo are British. Apart from - maybe - a couple of skyscrapers, which are just beginning to show some glam and style
The locals show them off proudly. There is zero resentment of the British here, there has been no attempt at all to rename the endless streets citing Victoria, Albert, Edward, Windsor, and so on.
Having just read a marvellous history of Sri Lanka....
.... I can see why. Before the Brits arrived the island was ravaged with violence, the Dutch and Portuguese used it for slaving, but failed to quell the eternal unrest, after the Brits left, there was an insurrection, then a Marxist blood letting, then a civil war. The period of British rule was an unparalleled century and a half of peace, by Sri Lankan standards, and saw much improvement of roads, rails, education, etc
I am not whitewashing the British Empire, but this is one place where it does seem to have been a genuinely positive influence
It is arguable whether the Sri Lankans even wanted independence. Historians dispute this
Compare and contrast with attitudes to China, now. The Chinese are really NOT popular. Sri Lankans feel they have been hoodwinked into a kind of debt bondage
The British empire was a weird one, it's one of history's shades of grey, not like French colonialism which was terrible and still causes significant problems today. Lots of people like to boldly say that the empire was evil and it should never have happened, yet I think the world would be a worse place if it hadn't existed. There's no doubt that it was a brutal and sometimes commited atrocities, yet establishing English as the lingua franca, establishing British values across North America, India and other parts of APAC was and still is a huge net benefit to the world.
British justice and rule of law still underpins Indian law and justice, which is a huge, huge positive for Indian people who would otherwise be subject to some kind of odd religious mix of rules and natural laws as we can see in Islamic countries. The equal status of women in India is a result of the empire, in most Hindu sects women are second class citizens and without the empire they would absolutely be considered as such today, to a much more noticeable degree.
People like Heathener want to take a one dimensional look at complicated issues, the rest of us should be able to look beyond that.
A fundamentally malign undertaking whose consequences were not all malign - is how I'd put it. This is different to saying "mixed bag" or "it's complicated", both of which I hate to hear (although not as much as I hate to hear that it was our gift to the less civilized parts and peoples of the world, for which they should be grateful, and an integral positive part of our great history and specialness as a nation).
Do you honestly believe that the women of India would be better off without the empire? Living under Hindu religious law and being treated like second class citizens mirroring Islamic countries living under similar religious law?
I don't know, Max. But as I said - I agree the consequences were not all malign. One can debate various counterfactuals, what would have happened if we hadn't colonized the places we did. Many different takes on this, I'm sure, some more valid and informed than others. But let's get above all that and not kid ourselves this was a benign or 'mixed bag' undertaking. It wasn't. The main goal was to enrich & empower ourselves at the expense of others. And it was achieved. The legacy persists and it's not a positive one. Complicated, yes, not all bad, yes, better than certain other colonial oppressions, yes, but not some sort of 'on the one hand but on the other hand' affair to be weighed up with false precision before opining in neutral to faint positive (or even negative) terms. On the fundamental big picture scale of 'Good Thing, Bad Thing or Thing?' the British Empire was the middle one. This is not to oversimplify, it's to see the wood from the trees.
So the Roman Empire? Good Thing. Bad Thing, or Thing?
The Mongol Empire, ditto?
The Mughals?
You can't go round picking on just one Empire, even if it was the biggest ever, the most glorious, and ours
Seriously. The Romans. Good Bad or Thing?
What did the Romans ever do for us?
Genghis Khan, however, has been painted as the villain by generations of monks yet is a far more complex and interesting character than you’d expect. And there’s a case to be made that his net impact on world history was positive.
Those who attack, or even more bizarrely, are 'ashamed' of, the British empire never seem to get round to telling us what counterfactual they are comparing it with. Presumably not a French, Dutch, or German empire, so I guess they must be dreaming about some fantasy world where the alternative in all the places the British ended up ruling was a cross between a Rousseauesque noble-savage purity and a Swedish social democracy, magically combining democratic self-rule with the advances of the industrial revolution and the values of the European Enlightenment.
Reader, that wasn't the alternative.
Isn't that a bit like saying Fred West wasn't all that bad because Shipman killed more?
I mean "we were bad but it could have been worse" is hardly a great defence line.
No, it's to consider realistic counterfactuals. In many cases British rule was simply replacing existing, often more oppressive rule. I don't think the Mughals were cuddly democrats, for example.
If you actually look at the criticisms of the British Empire, from the point of view of the concepts of human rights invented in Europe in the Enlightenment, most of those criticisms are at best simply a criticism of the period we are talking about, not really about the British Empire at all.
Types of rule weren't just about levels of democracy or political oppression, though. In many parts of the world the most impoverished completely lost control of the management of their own land and even subsistence, for instance. And many tribes who were relocated, diluted or destroyed by European empires also turned out to have demonstrated far greater accrued knowledge of their physical environment than the often over-confident Europeans, too.
At the same time these empires did, after the often brutal expropriations, certainly bring new forms of political order, representation, and technology.
It's certainly extremely complex, but a lot was certainly extremely awful for the subjects, particularly in the earliest years of Empires, and for some, throughout.
BTW I heartily recommend a visit to Luderitz, Namibia, one of the great destination on this earth
It is haunted by the German atrocities but it is also miraculously atmospheric. The shimmering deserts meet the skeleton coast, and the strandwolves prowl the beach, between the ghost towns and the Forbidden Zone, the Sperrgebiet of the Diamond Mines
Yes, it's amazing. So is the Skeleton Coast, although very bleak.
And driving through the desert into Swakopmund is extraordinary. You suddenly go from extreme desert heat into what looks like a small provincial German provincial town in fog, where the streets seem to be air-conditioned, so drastic is the cooling effect of the Benguela Current.
Jesus Christ. It is practically anathema to me to condemn outright even political movements I disagree with, or judge those 'mainstream' people who still give succour to extreme actions of those movements, but the GOP really have crossed the line in so many ways.
I struggle when I cannot understand how people can self justify a course of action in a way that still means they are reasonable. I can stretch that a long way, but not to that.
I'm quite comfortable in calling the GOP in its current form a fascist party.
That seems rather harsh. There were and are some quite competent fascist parties out there.
Jesus Christ. It is practically anathema to me to condemn outright even political movements I disagree with, or judge those 'mainstream' people who still give succour to extreme actions of those movements, but the GOP really have crossed the line in so many ways.
I struggle when I cannot understand how people can self justify a course of action in a way that still means they are reasonable. I can stretch that a long way, but not to that.
It’s disgraceful, but it doesn’t *quite* say on black and white what the tweet suggests it does.
I don’t know why anyone would object to UK colonial architecture.
Fancy going to Venice and demanding it all be ripped up because some Doge did bad things in Corfu.
Some of the colonial buildings in India are incredible, it's also quite important to remember the brutal regime and those who died building them. Tearing them down and attempting to erase that history is as bad as burning books because they are disagreeable.
All the best buildings here in Colombo are British. Apart from - maybe - a couple of skyscrapers, which are just beginning to show some glam and style
The locals show them off proudly. There is zero resentment of the British here, there has been no attempt at all to rename the endless streets citing Victoria, Albert, Edward, Windsor, and so on.
Having just read a marvellous history of Sri Lanka....
.... I can see why. Before the Brits arrived the island was ravaged with violence, the Dutch and Portuguese used it for slaving, but failed to quell the eternal unrest, after the Brits left, there was an insurrection, then a Marxist blood letting, then a civil war. The period of British rule was an unparalleled century and a half of peace, by Sri Lankan standards, and saw much improvement of roads, rails, education, etc
I am not whitewashing the British Empire, but this is one place where it does seem to have been a genuinely positive influence
It is arguable whether the Sri Lankans even wanted independence. Historians dispute this
Compare and contrast with attitudes to China, now. The Chinese are really NOT popular. Sri Lankans feel they have been hoodwinked into a kind of debt bondage
The British empire was a weird one, it's one of history's shades of grey, not like French colonialism which was terrible and still causes significant problems today. Lots of people like to boldly say that the empire was evil and it should never have happened, yet I think the world would be a worse place if it hadn't existed. There's no doubt that it was a brutal and sometimes commited atrocities, yet establishing English as the lingua franca, establishing British values across North America, India and other parts of APAC was and still is a huge net benefit to the world.
British justice and rule of law still underpins Indian law and justice, which is a huge, huge positive for Indian people who would otherwise be subject to some kind of odd religious mix of rules and natural laws as we can see in Islamic countries. The equal status of women in India is a result of the empire, in most Hindu sects women are second class citizens and without the empire they would absolutely be considered as such today, to a much more noticeable degree.
People like Heathener want to take a one dimensional look at complicated issues, the rest of us should be able to look beyond that.
A fundamentally malign undertaking whose consequences were not all malign - is how I'd put it. This is different to saying "mixed bag" or "it's complicated", both of which I hate to hear (although not as much as I hate to hear that it was our gift to the less civilized parts and peoples of the world, for which they should be grateful, and an integral positive part of our great history and specialness as a nation).
Do you honestly believe that the women of India would be better off without the empire? Living under Hindu religious law and being treated like second class citizens mirroring Islamic countries living under similar religious law?
better than certain other colonial oppressions
Which Colonial oppressor would you have preferred to the British? “None” isn’t an answer.
When you consider what has happened to the colonised peoples of the world throughout history, you do wonder why we scour outer space trying to contact extra-terrestrials.
Shouldn't we really be as quiet as possible and hope that if there is intelligent life out there, it doesn't notice it?
Jesus Christ. It is practically anathema to me to condemn outright even political movements I disagree with, or judge those 'mainstream' people who still give succour to extreme actions of those movements, but the GOP really have crossed the line in so many ways.
I struggle when I cannot understand how people can self justify a course of action in a way that still means they are reasonable. I can stretch that a long way, but not to that.
I'm quite comfortable in calling the GOP in its current form a fascist party.
Wait until I introduce to this party called the BJP.
Those who attack, or even more bizarrely, are 'ashamed' of, the British empire never seem to get round to telling us what counterfactual they are comparing it with. Presumably not a French, Dutch, or German empire, so I guess they must be dreaming about some fantasy world where the alternative in all the places the British ended up ruling was a cross between a Rousseauesque noble-savage purity and a Swedish social democracy, magically combining democratic self-rule with the advances of the industrial revolution and the values of the European Enlightenment.
Reader, that wasn't the alternative.
In principle, it sounds like you think Britain should rule all other countries today? After all, that's not the alternative today either.
No, most of those countries now benefit from precisely the advances of the industrial revolution, British-inspired legal and justice systems, reasonably good or in some cases excellent democratic self-government, and the worldwide acceptance (in principle, if not always in practice) of the values of the European Enlightenment. Nothing like the situation in, say, 1850.
Of course there are some basket cases in the world where colonial rule, or almost any alternative, would be massively better than the current situation, but it's not exactly practical for us to take over, say, Myanmar again, is it? Even if we wanted to, and the rest of the world was cool with the idea.
So I'm not quite sure what your point is.
Maybe it's time for the UK to receive reparartions for having the nouse to come up with the industrial revolution, something from which many other countries around the world have benefited,
And the English language. I am bored of so many others culturally appropriating it. They can at least pay us for the privilege
Try saying that without using French-Norman words! ;-)
"And the English .... I am bored of so many others .... ..... it. They can at least ..... us for the ....."
Edit: Norman-French? I am someway through a white Rioja, so might have got muddled there.
Those who attack, or even more bizarrely, are 'ashamed' of, the British empire never seem to get round to telling us what counterfactual they are comparing it with. Presumably not a French, Dutch, or German empire, so I guess they must be dreaming about some fantasy world where the alternative in all the places the British ended up ruling was a cross between a Rousseauesque noble-savage purity and a Swedish social democracy, magically combining democratic self-rule with the advances of the industrial revolution and the values of the European Enlightenment.
Reader, that wasn't the alternative.
Aren't these two separate questions? Whether something was a good or bad thing in principle, and whether something was better or worse than the thing that would have happened in its place? Personally I think the British empire was a criminal enterprise, built on and sustained by grotesque ideas of racial superiority and driven by greed. I don't feel ashamed of it because it had nothing to do with me in a moral sense. I do think we should learn about it because it shapes the world we live in today - my children wouldn't exist if it hadn't happened. And I am quite willing to believe that other empires were worse, although I think some people are a little too ready to assume that was the case. The sheer reach and longevity of the British Empire means we had ample opportunity to do bad stuff all over the world for a long time.
Jesus Christ. It is practically anathema to me to condemn outright even political movements I disagree with, or judge those 'mainstream' people who still give succour to extreme actions of those movements, but the GOP really have crossed the line in so many ways.
I struggle when I cannot understand how people can self justify a course of action in a way that still means they are reasonable. I can stretch that a long way, but not to that.
They've got a nerve to keep calling themselves Republicans. Why not just declare Trump rightful Emperor of North America and have done with it?
Jesus Christ. It is practically anathema to me to condemn outright even political movements I disagree with, or judge those 'mainstream' people who still give succour to extreme actions of those movements, but the GOP really have crossed the line in so many ways.
I struggle when I cannot understand how people can self justify a course of action in a way that still means they are reasonable. I can stretch that a long way, but not to that.
It’s disgraceful, but it doesn’t *quite* say on black and white what the tweet suggests it does.
Having now read the images, it looks even worse with the delusional self aggrandizement spilling out from every paragraph.
Those who attack, or even more bizarrely, are 'ashamed' of, the British empire never seem to get round to telling us what counterfactual they are comparing it with. Presumably not a French, Dutch, or German empire, so I guess they must be dreaming about some fantasy world where the alternative in all the places the British ended up ruling was a cross between a Rousseauesque noble-savage purity and a Swedish social democracy, magically combining democratic self-rule with the advances of the industrial revolution and the values of the European Enlightenment.
Reader, that wasn't the alternative.
Isn't that a bit like saying Fred West wasn't all that bad because Shipman killed more?
I mean "we were bad but it could have been worse" is hardly a great defence line.
You could say that but is there much point viewing historical figures as a bunch of Fred Wests and Harold Shipmans by today's standards?
I don’t know why anyone would object to UK colonial architecture.
Fancy going to Venice and demanding it all be ripped up because some Doge did bad things in Corfu.
Some of the colonial buildings in India are incredible, it's also quite important to remember the brutal regime and those who died building them. Tearing them down and attempting to erase that history is as bad as burning books because they are disagreeable.
All the best buildings here in Colombo are British. Apart from - maybe - a couple of skyscrapers, which are just beginning to show some glam and style
The locals show them off proudly. There is zero resentment of the British here, there has been no attempt at all to rename the endless streets citing Victoria, Albert, Edward, Windsor, and so on.
Having just read a marvellous history of Sri Lanka....
.... I can see why. Before the Brits arrived the island was ravaged with violence, the Dutch and Portuguese used it for slaving, but failed to quell the eternal unrest, after the Brits left, there was an insurrection, then a Marxist blood letting, then a civil war. The period of British rule was an unparalleled century and a half of peace, by Sri Lankan standards, and saw much improvement of roads, rails, education, etc
I am not whitewashing the British Empire, but this is one place where it does seem to have been a genuinely positive influence
It is arguable whether the Sri Lankans even wanted independence. Historians dispute this
Compare and contrast with attitudes to China, now. The Chinese are really NOT popular. Sri Lankans feel they have been hoodwinked into a kind of debt bondage
The British empire was a weird one, it's one of history's shades of grey, not like French colonialism which was terrible and still causes significant problems today. Lots of people like to boldly say that the empire was evil and it should never have happened, yet I think the world would be a worse place if it hadn't existed. There's no doubt that it was a brutal and sometimes commited atrocities, yet establishing English as the lingua franca, establishing British values across North America, India and other parts of APAC was and still is a huge net benefit to the world.
British justice and rule of law still underpins Indian law and justice, which is a huge, huge positive for Indian people who would otherwise be subject to some kind of odd religious mix of rules and natural laws as we can see in Islamic countries. The equal status of women in India is a result of the empire, in most Hindu sects women are second class citizens and without the empire they would absolutely be considered as such today, to a much more noticeable degree.
People like Heathener want to take a one dimensional look at complicated issues, the rest of us should be able to look beyond that.
A fundamentally malign undertaking whose consequences were not all malign - is how I'd put it. This is different to saying "mixed bag" or "it's complicated", both of which I hate to hear (although not as much as I hate to hear that it was our gift to the less civilized parts and peoples of the world, for which they should be grateful, and an integral positive part of our great history and specialness as a nation).
Do you honestly believe that the women of India would be better off without the empire? Living under Hindu religious law and being treated like second class citizens mirroring Islamic countries living under similar religious law?
better than certain other colonial oppressions
Which Colonial oppressor would you have preferred to the British? “None” isn’t an answer.
When you consider what has happened to the colonised peoples of the world throughout history, you do wonder why we scour outer space trying to contact extra-terrestrials.
Shouldn't we really be as quiet as possible and hope that if there is intelligent life out there, it doesn't notice it?
Oh, yes. And what did NASA put on the first interstellar spacecraft? A bloody message saying almost as good as Return to Sender, complete with the address. Just have to hope the aliens didn't evolve from bow and arrow hunter gatherers so don't understand what this arrow thing on the galactic map means.
Jesus Christ. It is practically anathema to me to condemn outright even political movements I disagree with, or judge those 'mainstream' people who still give succour to extreme actions of those movements, but the GOP really have crossed the line in so many ways.
I struggle when I cannot understand how people can self justify a course of action in a way that still means they are reasonable. I can stretch that a long way, but not to that.
They've got a nerve to keep calling themselves Republicans. Why not just declare Trump rightful Emperor of North America and have done with it?
Trump’s latest speech is truly scary.
It is instructive to remember that I thought Hilary Clinton was not a much better candidate than Trump.
I'm wrong fairly often, but I've never been wronger in my life than I was about that.
I don’t know why anyone would object to UK colonial architecture.
Fancy going to Venice and demanding it all be ripped up because some Doge did bad things in Corfu.
Some of the colonial buildings in India are incredible, it's also quite important to remember the brutal regime and those who died building them. Tearing them down and attempting to erase that history is as bad as burning books because they are disagreeable.
All the best buildings here in Colombo are British. Apart from - maybe - a couple of skyscrapers, which are just beginning to show some glam and style
The locals show them off proudly. There is zero resentment of the British here, there has been no attempt at all to rename the endless streets citing Victoria, Albert, Edward, Windsor, and so on.
Having just read a marvellous history of Sri Lanka....
.... I can see why. Before the Brits arrived the island was ravaged with violence, the Dutch and Portuguese used it for slaving, but failed to quell the eternal unrest, after the Brits left, there was an insurrection, then a Marxist blood letting, then a civil war. The period of British rule was an unparalleled century and a half of peace, by Sri Lankan standards, and saw much improvement of roads, rails, education, etc
I am not whitewashing the British Empire, but this is one place where it does seem to have been a genuinely positive influence
It is arguable whether the Sri Lankans even wanted independence. Historians dispute this
Compare and contrast with attitudes to China, now. The Chinese are really NOT popular. Sri Lankans feel they have been hoodwinked into a kind of debt bondage
The British empire was a weird one, it's one of history's shades of grey, not like French colonialism which was terrible and still causes significant problems today. Lots of people like to boldly say that the empire was evil and it should never have happened, yet I think the world would be a worse place if it hadn't existed. There's no doubt that it was a brutal and sometimes commited atrocities, yet establishing English as the lingua franca, establishing British values across North America, India and other parts of APAC was and still is a huge net benefit to the world.
British justice and rule of law still underpins Indian law and justice, which is a huge, huge positive for Indian people who would otherwise be subject to some kind of odd religious mix of rules and natural laws as we can see in Islamic countries. The equal status of women in India is a result of the empire, in most Hindu sects women are second class citizens and without the empire they would absolutely be considered as such today, to a much more noticeable degree.
People like Heathener want to take a one dimensional look at complicated issues, the rest of us should be able to look beyond that.
A fundamentally malign undertaking whose consequences were not all malign - is how I'd put it. This is different to saying "mixed bag" or "it's complicated", both of which I hate to hear (although not as much as I hate to hear that it was our gift to the less civilized parts and peoples of the world, for which they should be grateful, and an integral positive part of our great history and specialness as a nation).
Do you honestly believe that the women of India would be better off without the empire? Living under Hindu religious law and being treated like second class citizens mirroring Islamic countries living under similar religious law?
better than certain other colonial oppressions
Which Colonial oppressor would you have preferred to the British? “None” isn’t an answer.
When you consider what has happened to the colonised peoples of the world throughout history, you do wonder why we scour outer space trying to contact extra-terrestrials.
Shouldn't we really be as quiet as possible and hope that if there is intelligent life out there, it doesn't notice it?
Some people think any space faring civilization would have developed to the point of not being so aggressive. Given our own dreams of space travel, not close but at least within the reach of our dreams, I don't know why they would think that.
Jesus Christ. It is practically anathema to me to condemn outright even political movements I disagree with, or judge those 'mainstream' people who still give succour to extreme actions of those movements, but the GOP really have crossed the line in so many ways.
I struggle when I cannot understand how people can self justify a course of action in a way that still means they are reasonable. I can stretch that a long way, but not to that.
I'm quite comfortable in calling the GOP in its current form a fascist party.
Those who attack, or even more bizarrely, are 'ashamed' of, the British empire never seem to get round to telling us what counterfactual they are comparing it with. Presumably not a French, Dutch, or German empire, so I guess they must be dreaming about some fantasy world where the alternative in all the places the British ended up ruling was a cross between a Rousseauesque noble-savage purity and a Swedish social democracy, magically combining democratic self-rule with the advances of the industrial revolution and the values of the European Enlightenment.
Reader, that wasn't the alternative.
Aren't these two separate questions? Whether something was a good or bad thing in principle, and whether something was better or worse than the thing that would have happened in its place? Personally I think the British empire was a criminal enterprise, built on and sustained by grotesque ideas of racial superiority and driven by greed. I don't feel ashamed of it because it had nothing to do with me in a moral sense. I do think we should learn about it because it shapes the world we live in today - my children wouldn't exist if it hadn't happened. And I am quite willing to believe that other empires were worse, although I think some people are a little too ready to assume that was the case. The sheer reach and longevity of the British Empire means we had ample opportunity to do bad stuff all over the world for a long time.
But it's not just other empires you should be comparing it with (although that is also relevant). And, as I said, you are judging by Enlightenment values, invented in Europe. The point is that there was no alternative nirvana destroyed by the British Empire.
Those who attack, or even more bizarrely, are 'ashamed' of, the British empire never seem to get round to telling us what counterfactual they are comparing it with. Presumably not a French, Dutch, or German empire, so I guess they must be dreaming about some fantasy world where the alternative in all the places the British ended up ruling was a cross between a Rousseauesque noble-savage purity and a Swedish social democracy, magically combining democratic self-rule with the advances of the industrial revolution and the values of the European Enlightenment.
Reader, that wasn't the alternative.
Isn't that a bit like saying Fred West wasn't all that bad because Shipman killed more?
I mean "we were bad but it could have been worse" is hardly a great defence line.
You could say that but is there much point viewing historical figures as a bunch of Fred Wests and Harold Shipmans by today's standards?
It might well be, if a modern political affiliation were to make a fetish of keeping statues of them untouched, as exemplars to whom one should aspire.
Jesus Christ. It is practically anathema to me to condemn outright even political movements I disagree with, or judge those 'mainstream' people who still give succour to extreme actions of those movements, but the GOP really have crossed the line in so many ways.
I struggle when I cannot understand how people can self justify a course of action in a way that still means they are reasonable. I can stretch that a long way, but not to that.
I'm quite comfortable in calling the GOP in its current form a fascist party.
BTW I heartily recommend a visit to Luderitz, Namibia, one of the great destination on this earth
It is haunted by the German atrocities but it is also miraculously atmospheric. The shimmering deserts meet the skeleton coast, and the strandwolves prowl the beach, between the ghost towns and the Forbidden Zone, the Sperrgebiet of the Diamond Mines
Yes, it's amazing. So is the Skeleton Coast, although very bleak.
And driving through the desert into Swakopmund is extraordinary. You suddenly go from extreme desert heat into what looks like a small provincial German provincial town in fog, where the streets seem to be air-conditioned, so drastic is the cooling effect of the Benguela Current.
My best ever holiday. Charged by an elephant, then stalked by a Leopard in Etosha while checking a puncture.
The dunes. The weird fog at the coast. A mad attempt to climb at Spitzkoppe.
Met some pretty questionable Germans in Windhoek though.
Those who attack, or even more bizarrely, are 'ashamed' of, the British empire never seem to get round to telling us what counterfactual they are comparing it with. Presumably not a French, Dutch, or German empire, so I guess they must be dreaming about some fantasy world where the alternative in all the places the British ended up ruling was a cross between a Rousseauesque noble-savage purity and a Swedish social democracy, magically combining democratic self-rule with the advances of the industrial revolution and the values of the European Enlightenment.
Reader, that wasn't the alternative.
Isn't that a bit like saying Fred West wasn't all that bad because Shipman killed more?
I mean "we were bad but it could have been worse" is hardly a great defence line.
You could say that but is there much point viewing historical figures as a bunch of Fred Wests and Harold Shipmans by today's standards?
It might well be, if a modern political affiliation were to make a fetish of keeping statues of them untouched, as exemplars to whom one should aspire.
Fetish lol.
The only fetish is amongst those determined to take them down!
Those who attack, or even more bizarrely, are 'ashamed' of, the British empire never seem to get round to telling us what counterfactual they are comparing it with. Presumably not a French, Dutch, or German empire, so I guess they must be dreaming about some fantasy world where the alternative in all the places the British ended up ruling was a cross between a Rousseauesque noble-savage purity and a Swedish social democracy, magically combining democratic self-rule with the advances of the industrial revolution and the values of the European Enlightenment.
Reader, that wasn't the alternative.
Aren't these two separate questions? Whether something was a good or bad thing in principle, and whether something was better or worse than the thing that would have happened in its place? Personally I think the British empire was a criminal enterprise, built on and sustained by grotesque ideas of racial superiority and driven by greed. I don't feel ashamed of it because it had nothing to do with me in a moral sense. I do think we should learn about it because it shapes the world we live in today - my children wouldn't exist if it hadn't happened. And I am quite willing to believe that other empires were worse, although I think some people are a little too ready to assume that was the case. The sheer reach and longevity of the British Empire means we had ample opportunity to do bad stuff all over the world for a long time.
Indeed. The fact that some other empires wore worse is classic whattaboutery. We weren't responsible for those.
Worth noting too that the excesses of German, Italian and Japanese empires in the Twentieth centuries weren't different in principle to what we, the French, Russian, Spanish, Aztec or Islamic empires had got up to a century or two earlier. They were different more in time than intent.
Those who attack, or even more bizarrely, are 'ashamed' of, the British empire never seem to get round to telling us what counterfactual they are comparing it with. Presumably not a French, Dutch, or German empire, so I guess they must be dreaming about some fantasy world where the alternative in all the places the British ended up ruling was a cross between a Rousseauesque noble-savage purity and a Swedish social democracy, magically combining democratic self-rule with the advances of the industrial revolution and the values of the European Enlightenment.
Reader, that wasn't the alternative.
Isn't that a bit like saying Fred West wasn't all that bad because Shipman killed more?
I mean "we were bad but it could have been worse" is hardly a great defence line.
No, it's to consider realistic counterfactuals. In many cases British rule was simply replacing existing, often more oppressive rule. I don't think the Mughals were cuddly democrats, for example.
If you actually look at the criticisms of the British Empire, from the point of view of the concepts of human rights invented in Europe in the Enlightenment, most of those criticisms are at best simply a criticism of the period we are talking about, not really about the British Empire at all.
I'm ambivalent about the British Empire. It happened. It was undoubtedly the inevitable consequence of everything that went before. Nothing we say now is going to make it not have happened. I wasn't involved either so it cannot be my fault.
But am I proud of it? No. Do I wish it still existed? Definitely not. Should I be ashamed? By the same token, no.
"Inevitable" removes agency from the people who made the conscious choices and as such, false.
A good way of thinking about imperialism is to ask the question: how grateful would you feel if someone turned up tomorrow to "civilise" us, promising things would be really much better here in 200 years' time?
Those who attack, or even more bizarrely, are 'ashamed' of, the British empire never seem to get round to telling us what counterfactual they are comparing it with. Presumably not a French, Dutch, or German empire, so I guess they must be dreaming about some fantasy world where the alternative in all the places the British ended up ruling was a cross between a Rousseauesque noble-savage purity and a Swedish social democracy, magically combining democratic self-rule with the advances of the industrial revolution and the values of the European Enlightenment.
Reader, that wasn't the alternative.
Aren't these two separate questions? Whether something was a good or bad thing in principle, and whether something was better or worse than the thing that would have happened in its place? Personally I think the British empire was a criminal enterprise, built on and sustained by grotesque ideas of racial superiority and driven by greed. I don't feel ashamed of it because it had nothing to do with me in a moral sense. I do think we should learn about it because it shapes the world we live in today - my children wouldn't exist if it hadn't happened. And I am quite willing to believe that other empires were worse, although I think some people are a little too ready to assume that was the case. The sheer reach and longevity of the British Empire means we had ample opportunity to do bad stuff all over the world for a long time.
Indeed. The fact that some other empires wore worse is classic whattaboutery. We weren't responsible for those.
Worth noting too that the excesses of German, Italian and Japanese empires in the Twentieth centuries weren't different in principle to what we, the French, Russian, Spanish, Aztec or Islamic empires had got up to a century or two earlier. They were different more in time than intent.
Many a past leader or culture would have done what they did, or worse, if they had the means. I actually have a pretty optimistic view of individual human nature, and its goodness, but I think the idea of the uniqueness of 20th century evil from those quarters is not pushed in the same way it once was. It's not 'how did x happen', it's 'we;re lucky it hasn't happened more often'.
Jesus Christ. It is practically anathema to me to condemn outright even political movements I disagree with, or judge those 'mainstream' people who still give succour to extreme actions of those movements, but the GOP really have crossed the line in so many ways.
I struggle when I cannot understand how people can self justify a course of action in a way that still means they are reasonable. I can stretch that a long way, but not to that.
I'm quite comfortable in calling the GOP in its current form a fascist party.
Those who attack, or even more bizarrely, are 'ashamed' of, the British empire never seem to get round to telling us what counterfactual they are comparing it with. Presumably not a French, Dutch, or German empire, so I guess they must be dreaming about some fantasy world where the alternative in all the places the British ended up ruling was a cross between a Rousseauesque noble-savage purity and a Swedish social democracy, magically combining democratic self-rule with the advances of the industrial revolution and the values of the European Enlightenment.
Reader, that wasn't the alternative.
Isn't that a bit like saying Fred West wasn't all that bad because Shipman killed more?
I mean "we were bad but it could have been worse" is hardly a great defence line.
As I said recently Fred West is a better person than Boris Johnson.
To normal apolitical people Boris Johnson is seen as worse than Fred West, to give Fred West his dues, he finally admitted to having people in his garden.
Those who attack, or even more bizarrely, are 'ashamed' of, the British empire never seem to get round to telling us what counterfactual they are comparing it with. Presumably not a French, Dutch, or German empire, so I guess they must be dreaming about some fantasy world where the alternative in all the places the British ended up ruling was a cross between a Rousseauesque noble-savage purity and a Swedish social democracy, magically combining democratic self-rule with the advances of the industrial revolution and the values of the European Enlightenment.
Reader, that wasn't the alternative.
Isn't that a bit like saying Fred West wasn't all that bad because Shipman killed more?
I mean "we were bad but it could have been worse" is hardly a great defence line.
No, it's to consider realistic counterfactuals. In many cases British rule was simply replacing existing, often more oppressive rule. I don't think the Mughals were cuddly democrats, for example.
If you actually look at the criticisms of the British Empire, from the point of view of the concepts of human rights invented in Europe in the Enlightenment, most of those criticisms are at best simply a criticism of the period we are talking about, not really about the British Empire at all.
I'm ambivalent about the British Empire. It happened. It was undoubtedly the inevitable consequence of everything that went before. Nothing we say now is going to make it not have happened. I wasn't involved either so it cannot be my fault.
But am I proud of it? No. Do I wish it still existed? Definitely not. Should I be ashamed? By the same token, no.
"Inevitable" removes agency from the people who made the conscious choices and as such, false.
A good way of thinking about imperialism is to ask the question: how grateful would you feel if someone turned up tomorrow to "civilise" us, promising things would be really much better here in 200 years' time?
We had that argument in 2016, and 52% decided they would indeed be grateful.
BTW I heartily recommend a visit to Luderitz, Namibia, one of the great destination on this earth
It is haunted by the German atrocities but it is also miraculously atmospheric. The shimmering deserts meet the skeleton coast, and the strandwolves prowl the beach, between the ghost towns and the Forbidden Zone, the Sperrgebiet of the Diamond Mines
Yes, it's amazing. So is the Skeleton Coast, although very bleak.
And driving through the desert into Swakopmund is extraordinary. You suddenly go from extreme desert heat into what looks like a small provincial German provincial town in fog, where the streets seem to be air-conditioned, so drastic is the cooling effect of the Benguela Current.
My best ever holiday. Charged by an elephant, then stalked by a Leopard in Etosha while checking a puncture.
The dunes. The weird fog at the coast. A mad attempt to climb at Spitzkoppe.
Met some pretty questionable Germans in Windhoek though.
I did some mad fucking shit in Namibia
Drove off road for 60 miles for the hell of it. On my own. Got a puncture. Limped into the nearest town without dying. No one knew where I was
Drove the Fish River Canyon in 40C heat, again on my own: the sublime emptiness. Me, the vultures and the baboons
Watched the ghost Kaiser cavalry cantering through the golden dust of the Namib-Naukluft
Everyone did it, until it was decided - largely because of Enlightenment values - that it was morally (and often economically) unsustainable.
I’m not even sure I’d call it fundamentally evil, unless one believes humans to be fundamentally evil.
I view the British Empire as a bit like having sex with your girlfriend's sister, you wish it didn't happen, but it did, there's a few regrets but you accept it for what it is, and move on.
I don’t know why anyone would object to UK colonial architecture.
Fancy going to Venice and demanding it all be ripped up because some Doge did bad things in Corfu.
Some of the colonial buildings in India are incredible, it's also quite important to remember the brutal regime and those who died building them. Tearing them down and attempting to erase that history is as bad as burning books because they are disagreeable.
All the best buildings here in Colombo are British. Apart from - maybe - a couple of skyscrapers, which are just beginning to show some glam and style
The locals show them off proudly. There is zero resentment of the British here, there has been no attempt at all to rename the endless streets citing Victoria, Albert, Edward, Windsor, and so on.
Having just read a marvellous history of Sri Lanka....
.... I can see why. Before the Brits arrived the island was ravaged with violence, the Dutch and Portuguese used it for slaving, but failed to quell the eternal unrest, after the Brits left, there was an insurrection, then a Marxist blood letting, then a civil war. The period of British rule was an unparalleled century and a half of peace, by Sri Lankan standards, and saw much improvement of roads, rails, education, etc
I am not whitewashing the British Empire, but this is one place where it does seem to have been a genuinely positive influence
It is arguable whether the Sri Lankans even wanted independence. Historians dispute this
Compare and contrast with attitudes to China, now. The Chinese are really NOT popular. Sri Lankans feel they have been hoodwinked into a kind of debt bondage
The British empire was a weird one, it's one of history's shades of grey, not like French colonialism which was terrible and still causes significant problems today. Lots of people like to boldly say that the empire was evil and it should never have happened, yet I think the world would be a worse place if it hadn't existed. There's no doubt that it was a brutal and sometimes commited atrocities, yet establishing English as the lingua franca, establishing British values across North America, India and other parts of APAC was and still is a huge net benefit to the world.
British justice and rule of law still underpins Indian law and justice, which is a huge, huge positive for Indian people who would otherwise be subject to some kind of odd religious mix of rules and natural laws as we can see in Islamic countries. The equal status of women in India is a result of the empire, in most Hindu sects women are second class citizens and without the empire they would absolutely be considered as such today, to a much more noticeable degree.
People like Heathener want to take a one dimensional look at complicated issues, the rest of us should be able to look beyond that.
A fundamentally malign undertaking whose consequences were not all malign - is how I'd put it. This is different to saying "mixed bag" or "it's complicated", both of which I hate to hear (although not as much as I hate to hear that it was our gift to the less civilized parts and peoples of the world, for which they should be grateful, and an integral positive part of our great history and specialness as a nation).
Do you honestly believe that the women of India would be better off without the empire? Living under Hindu religious law and being treated like second class citizens mirroring Islamic countries living under similar religious law?
I don't know, Max. But as I said - I agree the consequences were not all malign. One can debate various counterfactuals, what would have happened if we hadn't colonized the places we did. Many different takes on this, I'm sure, some more valid and informed than others. But let's get above all that and not kid ourselves this was a benign or 'mixed bag' undertaking. It wasn't. The main goal was to enrich & empower ourselves at the expense of others. And it was achieved. The legacy persists and it's not a positive one. Complicated, yes, not all bad, yes, better than certain other colonial oppressions, yes, but not some sort of 'on the one hand but on the other hand' affair to be weighed up with false precision before opining in neutral to faint positive (or even negative) terms. On the fundamental big picture scale of 'Good Thing, Bad Thing or Thing?' the British Empire was the middle one. This is not to oversimplify, it's to see the wood from the trees.
So the Roman Empire? Good Thing. Bad Thing, or Thing?
The Mongol Empire, ditto?
The Mughals?
You can't go round picking on just one Empire, even if it was the biggest ever, the most glorious, and ours
Seriously. The Romans. Good Bad or Thing?
What did the Romans ever do for us?
Genghis Khan, however, has been painted as the villain by generations of monks yet is a far more complex and interesting character than you’d expect. And there’s a case to be made that his net impact on world history was positive.
And without Genghis’ benign example we wouldn’t have had the masterpiece that is MC Hammer’s “Khan’t touch this”.
Those who attack, or even more bizarrely, are 'ashamed' of, the British empire never seem to get round to telling us what counterfactual they are comparing it with. Presumably not a French, Dutch, or German empire, so I guess they must be dreaming about some fantasy world where the alternative in all the places the British ended up ruling was a cross between a Rousseauesque noble-savage purity and a Swedish social democracy, magically combining democratic self-rule with the advances of the industrial revolution and the values of the European Enlightenment.
Reader, that wasn't the alternative.
Aren't these two separate questions? Whether something was a good or bad thing in principle, and whether something was better or worse than the thing that would have happened in its place? Personally I think the British empire was a criminal enterprise, built on and sustained by grotesque ideas of racial superiority and driven by greed. I don't feel ashamed of it because it had nothing to do with me in a moral sense. I do think we should learn about it because it shapes the world we live in today - my children wouldn't exist if it hadn't happened. And I am quite willing to believe that other empires were worse, although I think some people are a little too ready to assume that was the case. The sheer reach and longevity of the British Empire means we had ample opportunity to do bad stuff all over the world for a long time.
Indeed. The fact that some other empires wore worse is classic whattaboutery. We weren't responsible for those.
Worth noting too that the excesses of German, Italian and Japanese empires in the Twentieth centuries weren't different in principle to what we, the French, Russian, Spanish, Aztec or Islamic empires had got up to a century or two earlier. They were different more in time than intent.
It's revealing that you write out the atrocities committed in the name of communism from your roll call of 20th century 'excesses'. Is that because the intent was different?
Those who attack, or even more bizarrely, are 'ashamed' of, the British empire never seem to get round to telling us what counterfactual they are comparing it with. Presumably not a French, Dutch, or German empire, so I guess they must be dreaming about some fantasy world where the alternative in all the places the British ended up ruling was a cross between a Rousseauesque noble-savage purity and a Swedish social democracy, magically combining democratic self-rule with the advances of the industrial revolution and the values of the European Enlightenment.
Reader, that wasn't the alternative.
Isn't that a bit like saying Fred West wasn't all that bad because Shipman killed more?
I mean "we were bad but it could have been worse" is hardly a great defence line.
As I said recently Fred West is a better person than Boris Johnson.
To normal apolitical people Boris Johnson is seen as worse than Fred West, to give Fred West his dues, he finally admitted to having people in his garden.
Everyone did it, until it was decided - largely because of Enlightenment values - that it was morally (and often economically) unsustainable.
I’m not even sure I’d call it fundamentally evil, unless one believes humans to be fundamentally evil.
I increasingly think that humans, unless constrained by laws, conventions, and economic interest, are often fundamentally evil. Certainly for most of history there were abominable things being done, and it's hard to name any people, anywhere in the world, which hasn't carried out horrendous acts, including genocide if they were sufficiently powerful.
Those who attack, or even more bizarrely, are 'ashamed' of, the British empire never seem to get round to telling us what counterfactual they are comparing it with. Presumably not a French, Dutch, or German empire, so I guess they must be dreaming about some fantasy world where the alternative in all the places the British ended up ruling was a cross between a Rousseauesque noble-savage purity and a Swedish social democracy, magically combining democratic self-rule with the advances of the industrial revolution and the values of the European Enlightenment.
Reader, that wasn't the alternative.
In principle, it sounds like you think Britain should rule all other countries today? After all, that's not the alternative today either.
No, most of those countries now benefit from precisely the advances of the industrial revolution, British-inspired legal and justice systems, reasonably good or in some cases excellent democratic self-government, and the worldwide acceptance (in principle, if not always in practice) of the values of the European Enlightenment. Nothing like the situation in, say, 1850.
Of course there are some basket cases in the world where colonial rule, or almost any alternative, would be massively better than the current situation, but it's not exactly practical for us to take over, say, Myanmar again, is it? Even if we wanted to, and the rest of the world was cool with the idea.
So I'm not quite sure what your point is.
Maybe it's time for the UK to receive reparartions for having the nouse to come up with the industrial revolution, something from which many other countries around the world have benefited,
Good idea. But we’d have to pay it all back and more to whoever invented agriculture.
What about whoever came up with the idea of climbing down from the trees?
Mind you, some say the big mistake was walking out of the sea....
Doesn't it depend which way round you read history (an increasingly vexed question, I believe)?
Comments
The Belgian Congo was indescribably evil, but the Germans had much greater ambition and reach. It is arguable that German southwest Africa - Namibia - was a kind of dress rehearsal for the Holocaust. The Germans tried to utterly exterminate at least two tribes, possibly three
And the man in charge was Goering's father.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heinrich_Ernst_Göring
They did this:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herero_and_Namaqua_genocide
Excerpt:
"The German general staff was aware of the atrocities that were taking place; its official publication, named Der Kampf, noted that:
"This bold enterprise shows up in the most brilliant light the ruthless energy of the German command in pursuing their beaten enemy. No pains, no sacrifices were spared in eliminating the last remnants of enemy resistance. Like a wounded beast the enemy was tracked down from one water-hole to the next, until finally he became the victim of his own environment. The arid Omaheke [desert] was to complete what the German army had begun: the extermination of the Herero nation.[77][78]
"Alfred von Schlieffen (Chief of the Imperial German General Staff) approved of Trotha's intentions in terms of a "racial struggle" and the need to "wipe out the entire nation or to drive them out of the country", but had doubts about his strategy, preferring their surrender.[79]"
Namibia was the dry run for Nazism
I thought it was strange that the issue of the Soviet POWs in that wasn't given more prominence, though.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=yiBAfmxwdKc
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=DILUN8t-VEk
Advantages and disadvantages to both, for both parties.
Of course there are some basket cases in the world where colonial rule, or almost any alternative, would be massively better than the current situation, but it's not exactly practical for us to take over, say, Myanmar again, is it? Even if we wanted to, and the rest of the world was cool with the idea.
So I'm not quite sure what your point is.
He helped save the lives of so many people.
If they are worried about people being offended etc, they can easily put it on the website where the offensive bit is by default hidden, with a clear warning and you have to click a button to reveal the exact wording.
I mean "we were bad but it could have been worse" is hardly a great defence line.
Genocide was already in the chemistry set of the German military and scientific elite, with or without Hitler to catalyse it all
And the name - Eugen! Sheer coincidence, but WTF
The Mongol Empire, ditto?
The Mughals?
You can't go round picking on just one Empire, even if it was the biggest ever, the most glorious, and ours
Seriously. The Romans. Good Bad or Thing?
Hungary vetoed Ukraine's accession to the NATO Cooperative Cyber Defence Centre of Excellence
https://twitter.com/dszeligowski/status/1489571203056644102?s=20&t=KOtIrfM8wMEX7sFe4xw2jg
Two out of three ain't bad.
If you actually look at the criticisms of the British Empire, from the point of view of the concepts of human rights invented in Europe in the Enlightenment, most of those criticisms are at best simply a criticism of the period we are talking about, not really about the British Empire at all.
It is haunted by the German atrocities but it is also miraculously atmospheric. The shimmering deserts meet the skeleton coast, and the strandwolves prowl the beach, between the ghost towns and the Forbidden Zone, the Sperrgebiet of the Diamond Mines
And the oysters are amazing
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tsau_ǁKhaeb_National_Park
https://twitter.com/frankthorp/status/1489671274070790151
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-60261455
Well do course he hasn't.
The whole point is the dozy fucker has never had any sort of control. Self control, personal control, political control, they are all equally alien to him.
It would be like somebody saying Jimmy Carr has become an unfunny jackass.
But we’d have to pay it all back and more to whoever invented agriculture.
I struggle when I cannot understand how people can self justify a course of action in a way that still means they are reasonable. I can stretch that a long way, but not to that.
Mind you, some say the big mistake was walking out of the sea....
But am I proud of it? No. Do I wish it still existed? Definitely not. Should I be ashamed? By the same token, no.
Genghis Khan, however, has been painted as the villain by generations of monks yet is a far more complex and interesting character than you’d expect. And there’s a case to be made that his net impact on world history was positive.
At the same time these empires did, after the often brutal expropriations, certainly bring new forms of political order, representation, and technology.
It's certainly extremely complex, but a lot was certainly extremely awful for the subjects, particularly in the earliest years of Empires, and for some, throughout.
And driving through the desert into Swakopmund is extraordinary. You suddenly go from extreme desert heat into what looks like a small provincial German provincial town in fog, where the streets seem to be air-conditioned, so drastic is the cooling effect of the Benguela Current.
Shouldn't we really be as quiet as possible and hope that if there is intelligent life out there, it doesn't notice it?
"And the English .... I am bored of so many others .... ..... it. They can at least ..... us for the ....."
Edit: Norman-French? I am someway through a white Rioja, so might have got muddled there.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pioneer_plaque#Criticism
I'm wrong fairly often, but I've never been wronger in my life than I was about that.
"54 letters threshold still not quite reached"
The dunes. The weird fog at the coast. A mad attempt to climb at Spitzkoppe.
Met some pretty questionable Germans in Windhoek though.
The only fetish is amongst those determined to take them down!
Worth noting too that the excesses of German, Italian and Japanese empires in the Twentieth centuries weren't different in principle to what we, the French, Russian, Spanish, Aztec or Islamic empires had got up to a century or two earlier. They were different more in time than intent.
A good way of thinking about imperialism is to ask the question: how grateful would you feel if someone turned up tomorrow to "civilise" us, promising things would be really much better here in 200 years' time?
Everyone did it, until it was decided - largely because of Enlightenment values - that it was morally (and often economically) unsustainable.
I’m not even sure I’d call it fundamentally evil, unless one believes humans to be fundamentally evil.
To normal apolitical people Boris Johnson is seen as worse than Fred West, to give Fred West his dues, he finally admitted to having people in his garden.
https://www2.politicalbetting.com/index.php/archives/2022/01/16/were-you-up-for-boris-johnson/
Drove off road for 60 miles for the hell of it. On my own. Got a puncture. Limped into the nearest town without dying. No one knew where I was
Drove the Fish River Canyon in 40C heat, again on my own: the sublime emptiness. Me, the vultures and the baboons
Watched the ghost Kaiser cavalry cantering through the golden dust of the Namib-Naukluft
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Namib_Desert_Horse
Nearly died of heatstroke and gin in Sossuvlei
I LOVE Namibia