Propaganda
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komey9 — 17 years ago(January 03, 2009 12:35 AM)
The British Empire is probably the worst empire to ever exist. Look at what they did to the Benin nation in 1897. Look at how the pillaged most of Africa, then Balkinized it, only to reform it in incongruent parts, all but assuring ethnic strife. Let's not forget the Opium wars in China. Let's not forget how they exploited the Indians and the Arabs. And let's not forget Neo-Colonialism which is a creature of the British Empire.
And why do people keep bringing up other cruel empires? Are we to take it that because the Nazis were bad then it is okay to be less bad? If a lion bit off your legs, would it then be okay that wolf only took your hand? All empires are inherently wrong, because they are a based on the exploitation of others. However, based on duration and systematic control the British empire did it the best. To them it was a game and the world was their "grand chessboard." The only other empire i see coming close is the USA.
Let the truth be known though the Heavens may fall -
truthlord — 17 years ago(January 25, 2009 02:40 PM)
I am afraid Komey9, that everything in life is relative, whether its whether my present wife is worse than my first wife or whether it was worse living under the Nazis or the Spanish for example. Yes there was a difference.
You ask -if a lion bit off your legs would it be OK that a wolf bit off your hand?
Yes it would! I would greatly prefer -if asked -to lose a hand than both my legs
At the moment in this terrible world there are millions of people (I exclude the Iraqis -Britain should not have got involved in that war) all over the world who live in terror of murder rape starvation and every kind of atrocity.
I wonder how many older people look back as if in a dream to those days when life was peaceful and quietly happy ,when there was always some tall thin Englishman working from a tiny hut with a big union jack over it who kept life safe and secure.
Yes the British may have been snobs and racists but they lived in a class ridden world amongst themselves so they suffered equally in the same way.
Those days are over.Yet are things really better -or worse?
(And dont play the game of blaming the British for the present problems.
In Africa ,the main occupation until the colonialists came was tribal fighting and taking slaves -to be sold later.Colonialism stopped the fighting-butit has now broken out everywhere in Africa- with the encouragement of western companies of course-but couldnt Africans try to resist western corruption? Its all very sad -
komey9 — 17 years ago(January 25, 2009 04:19 PM)
You obviously missed my point. I was simply pointing out that cruelty is cruelty. And trying to justify one's cruelty by noting that it is less cruel than a previous master is nonsense. Instead of saying the British were not that bad because the Nazis were worse, we should be thinking in terms of empires are bad because they are fundamentally based on the exploitations of others. Slavery is slavery, exploitation is exploitation. And my point with the Lion and Wolf is that in either situation you have lost a piece of yourself, that you can never get back.
In Africa, the political situation is as a direct result of the way the British left the nations. Basically, the British created artificial nations by putting opposing tribes in the same nation, tribes who, pre-colonialism, belong to separate nations.
Let the truth be known though the Heavens may fall -
komey9 — 13 years ago(September 18, 2012 01:02 PM)
You're taking things out of context. First post was a comment to contradicting the above poster's assertion that somehow the British empire was humane. I pointed out evidence showing that they were one of the worst empires ever. This, however, doesn't detract from my subsequent belief that imperialism is bad. Just because I think one empire is worst than others doesn't mean I think that some empires are good.
Let the truth be known though the Heavens may fall -
truthlord — 17 years ago(January 25, 2009 02:04 PM)
The person opening this site has written well about the British Empire.
Several comments have come from -as expected -Ireland.
All that has ever been written or said about the Irish situation can be summed up in just two sentences.
1)There is no way that in its entire history, Ireland could ever have been an independent nation
2) If it hadnt been taken under the wing of the English /British it would have been taken over by the Spanish-or possibly the French whose Empires were a hundred times more cruel, vicious and exloitive than the British and whose nations were vicious dictatorships until 1790 (France) and 1970 -(Spain)
Incidentally Ireland is not really independent now.The boom in the Celtic Tiger years was entirely the result of one person-Mrs Thatcher-who single handedly fought the European Union-like a real tiger- to let EU nations set their own level of company taxes,thus allowing Ireland to set its own taxes at virtually nil-its economy being subsidused by EU grants from French German and British taxpayers!
Blair and Brown have kept to Mrs Thatchers policy.But things may change in the future. -
bear022013-588-696101 — 14 years ago(March 24, 2012 02:40 PM)
Thatcher my Irish arse.The Bilderberg Group runs the World and most of them are american bankers,wait until 40 million Mexicans finish ruining the states..then after a bloody race war w will see you Brits get back to your boyfriends nowas the Saudis say.
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ocoileain1890 — 17 years ago(May 30, 2008 10:23 AM)
" anti-British bigotry of some"
I sincerely hope I'm not being lumped in with the "some". I took objection to one posters lamentably myopic and bloody ludicrous comment that Britain simply "gave back" sovereignty of Colonised nations simply "when asked". The recent history of a neighbouring Island called Ireland blatantly illustrates the fallacy of such a statement. My great-grandfathers medals earned for battling the proto-SS "Black and Tans" attest to it also. Read my previous posts.
The banning of Sutti in India was a positive achievement, I'm not "Anti-English". Maybe I'd fare better articulating myself in Irish as there seems to be a distinct lack of comprehension? -
nikjunk — 17 years ago(May 31, 2008 02:14 AM)
There seems to be a lot of misunderstanding here. I'm the original poster, and I've posted twice more to clarify my statements. I have to stand by my "bloody ludicrous" comment, if it is read as I originally posted it.
I said that they gave back most of their empire "when asked." I didn't say that they gave every piece up when asked and I didn't say that they gave it up when asked the first time. I'm saying that if the Brits had been like every other empire, they would have fought bloody wars to supress independence movements.
I wasn't thinking of Ireland. In fact, I would argue that Ireland was a special case, and not a true exemplar of Victorian colonialism since Ireland was the piece of empire that England had before it began to build one elsewhere. Their patterns of behavior in Ireland had been set centuries before and you had an entrenched interest group absentee landlords to hold on to old ways and fight change. It's a blot in English history.
I'm glad that Ireland has come up, though. It is important to remember and also leads back into Gladstone, who was elected PM at least 4 times as an anti-colonialist who supported Irish home rule. The enduring popularity of his message with the British peoples, in particular his sympathy for oppressed peoples, should be remembered to the credit of the Victorians.
Ps. Why does everyone think that my original post said that the British empire was sweetness and light? -
Hector Marroquin — 17 years ago(November 29, 2008 07:03 PM)
I suggest you read about what the British did to the Native Americans, the Irish, the Africans, the Indians and other Asians. The British Empire was one of the most ruthless and cruel empires in history.To show this is not propaganda.