The British Empire

Flying Pig · Feb 9, 2011

Moderator Action: Split off from this thread.

Karalysia said:
Hitler, wow because Nasser totally opened concentration camps and started a new Holocaust.

Read it again. I said in foreign policy - Hitler from 1933-1938 and Nasser until 1956 look very similar to me. Both stayed just on the right side of international hatred to 'rebel' against the great powers and advance their own countrys' agendas, and both managed to hugely increase the influence that their nations had on the world, if in Hitler's case only briefly.

It's like my professor always says, "When in doubt, blame the British. They're almost always the one's responsible."

Do you write scripts for Hollywood? The British did a lot of things wrong, but we've generally been no worse than any other colonial power and have the distinction that the colonies we formerly owned are now far more successful than those of anyone else - South Africa, India, Canada, Australia, Singapore... and so on. Yes, we've acted in our own interests throughout history, but that's true of every country, and we've acted on the side of the 'little man' far more often than most other countries can claim. The British Empire left the world a far better place than it found it.

Nasser was a great man who stood against Western imperialism and for that he is admired by arab nationalists across the world today.

Not saying that I know about the matter, but how admired is he compared with, say, Ho Chi Minh or Saddam Hussein? At the risk of sounding petty, it's not so much fun when it's your own country on the wrong end of the 'freedom fighter'

privatehudson · Feb 9, 2011

Interesting, you claim to see bias in other people's writings and yet refer to the British as "you people" and agree with making Britain the default cause of regional or national trouble (whether you meant today, in the past or both isn't clear)...

Generally I find the notion that the British can still be blamed for problems decades after most of the Empire achieved independence to be an interesting one. Unless modern day Britain is still exercising a powerful influence on that country or region it sounds like little more than the kind of cop-out excuse that the likes of Mugabe trot out to explain their failure to govern the country effectively.

I don't doubt the British/French/Israeli action in 1956 was debatable at best, but nothing is served by countering a perceived nationalist bias with posts that will also be perceived as biased.

Communisto · Feb 9, 2011

Flying Pig said:
The British Empire left the world a far better place than it found it.

Er, for British people maybe.

Quackers · Feb 10, 2011

I think India would be better off under the British then the Mughals.

I think the Northen Americas are better off because of British leaving behind vauable mechanisms of the state, common law etc then the miserable colonies of South America.

Communisto · Feb 10, 2011

Quackers said:
I think India would be better off under the British then the Mughals.

Why?

Quackers said:
I think the Northen Americas are better off because of British leaving behind vauable mechanisms of the state, common law etc then the miserable colonies of South America.

Well, in relation to South America anything looks good. However, there's something to be said about the fact that there are more Chinese living in Toronto than there are First Nations people in the entire province of Ontario.

When it comes to the British Empire, then ends just don't justify the means. Roads and telegraph lines dont mean squat if they exist purely to propel the the interests of a single state in an endless and petty struggle for world hegemony. I understand that Britain just happened to be the strongest tribe in a world of competing tribes and I don't think people can be blamed for what happened in the past but that doesnt nullify the incredible harm the Empire did for a huge multitude of once independent and distinct cultures, from Connaught to Tasmania to the Red River. Britons, I think, have a hard time looking objectively at their own history and how British Imperialism really scarred the world. It's a similar sense of ingrained exceptionalism that many Americans hold.

vogtmurr · Feb 10, 2011

Communisto said:
However, there's something to be said about the fact that there are more Chinese living in Toronto than there are First Nations people in the entire province of Ontario.

When it comes to the British Empire, then ends just don't justify the means.

and how do you attribute that to the British ? How many were there to begin with ?

Communisto · Feb 10, 2011

vogtmurr said:
and how do you attribute that to the British ? How many were there to begin with ?

Really? You don't see a connection between the current state of First Nations in Canada and the British Empire? The Crown Reservation system alone has enough of an impact on the issue.

ParkCungHee · Feb 10, 2011

Quackers said:
I think the Northen Americas are better off because of British leaving behind vauable mechanisms of the state, common law etc then the miserable colonies of South America.

I know, those of us who were free of British rule were just lost, unable to govern at all until British raiders showed up.

Flying Pig · Feb 10, 2011

ParkCungHee said:
I know, those of us who were free of British rule were just lost, unable to govern at all until British raiders showed up.

Well, in some places it cannot be denied that we did a far better job than those who had gone before: in South Afric, for example, where we outlawed slavery, or ending some of the the frankly barbaric customs of Hindustan. By comparison with other colonial powers, we were pretty good at our business.

Communisto · Feb 10, 2011

Flying Pig said:
Well, in some places it cannot be denied that we did a far better job than those who had gone before: in South Afric, for example, where we outlawed slavery, or ending some of the the frankly barbaric customs of Hindustan. By comparison with other colonial powers, we were pretty good at our business.

I disagree. In South Africa it can be said that they (don't feel quite right referring to the empire as you, FP

) easily replaced old problems with new and equally brutal ones. The same can be said for India. And really, two examples out of 1/3rd of the world isn't exactly the best track record.

The last part of your post I think sums up the common perception of most English types. That you were some how separate or above the other Imperialist nations and that's just not true.

Karalysia · Feb 10, 2011

Communisto said:
I disagree. In South Africa it can be said that they (don't feel quite right referring to the empire as you, FP ) easily replaced old problems with new and equally brutal ones. The same can be said for India. And really, two examples out of 1/3rd of the world isn't exactly the best track record.

The last part of your post I think sums up the common perception of most English types. That you were some how separate or above the other Imperialist nations and that's just not true.

http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1916/imp-hsc/

Dachs · Feb 10, 2011

Flying Pig said:
in South Afric, for example, where we outlawed slavery,

Would that have been before or after the concentration camps?

Flying Pig · Feb 10, 2011

Dachs said:
Would that have been before or after the concentration camps?

Before; the Boer War was for a great deal a protest from the Afrikaaners against the outlawing of slavery. Concentration camps in South Africa were very different to the ones in Poland; anybody know anything about the Malayan Emergency? We (well, I think the ghurka rifles actually implemented the plan) did something similar there, setting up villages in secure locations so that we could keep security there and keep the guerrillas out, meaning that they were cut off from their supply and so our operations to physically flush them out of the jungle were effective. The camps in SA weren't very nice places, but that was administrative failure rather than malice and we corrected that fairly well in time for Malaya.

And really, two examples out of 1/3rd of the world isn't exactly the best track record.

Can I rephrase that to "the Empire can't have done anything else otherwise you would have listed it'?

Communisto · Feb 10, 2011

Flying Pig said:
Before; the Boer War was for a great deal a protest from the Afrikaaners against the outlawing of slavery.

Kind of protracted don't you think? All those years later?

I always thought it was more about the British violation of their own treaty.

Flying Pig said:
Can I rephrase that to "the Empire can't have done anything else otherwise you would have listed it'?

The gist of what I was getting at is that it's very difficult to rationalize and justify such an inherently harmful institution ie an expansionist imperium.

As for your Malayan example, it kind of becomes moot once you remember that the British had no right to actually be there in the first place.

Dachs · Feb 10, 2011

Flying Pig said:
Before; the Boer War was for a great deal a protest from the Afrikaaners against the outlawing of slavery

no
no
no
no
wrong
no
aaaaaargh

Flying Pig · Feb 10, 2011

Communisto said:
As for your Malayan example, it kind of becomes moot once you remember that the British had no right to actually be there in the first place.

Actually we did; Brunei was and still is our protectorate, in other words 'our business'.

no
no
no
no
wrong
no
aaaaaargh

Really? Wasn't it about re-establishing the Orange Free State, which had itself been established by Boers unhappy about being told they could no longer own slaves?

Dachs · Feb 10, 2011

The Orange Free State still existed; it declared war along with the Transvaal Republic. No, the war started basically because the British wanted to goad the Boers in general and Kruger in particular into war. This is well documented, especially on the part of Chamberlain and Rhodes. Kruger felt that war was inevitable by 1897, and the British were rapidly building up their troop strength in the Cape Colony and other border territories of the Boer republics, so he fired off an ultimatum to stop the buildup; when it was ignored, the Transvaal Republic declared war.

Flying Pig · Feb 10, 2011

Dachs said:
The Orange Free State still existed; it declared war along with the Transvaal Republic. No, the war started basically because the British wanted to goad the Boers in general and Kruger in particular into war. This is well documented, especially on the part of Chamberlain and Rhodes. Kruger felt that war was inevitable by 1897, and the British were rapidly building up their troop strength in the Cape Colony and other border territories of the Boer republics, so he fired off an ultimatum to stop the buildup; when it was ignored, the Transvaal Republic declared war.

Why were we goading them into war in the first place? Was this the one about chasing Boer diamonds?

privatehudson · Feb 10, 2011

As one of those "English types" who doesn't seem to fit the mould being passed around here I think this is somewhat veering from the original topic, especially since it was not Britain alone who acted against Egypt in 1956.

However if we're on the subject I would say that whilst there are a lot of people in the UK who have trouble appreciating the bad side of British history there are more than enough attempts in television, schools and newspapers (providing you read the right ones) to portray that side of it. It gets to the point that papers like the Daily Mail bemoan the way that the "left wing loonies" are ostracising heroes and accuse them of revisionism in terms normally reserved for the likes of David Irving or Holywood producers.

I know, those of us who were free of British rule were just lost, unable to govern at all until British raiders showed up.

That's hardly much different from the argument that blames Britain for modern day political problems decades after we left the region since it basically argues that the independent nation(s) involved in the problem are unable to govern themselves sufficiently to overcome the problems.

Dachs · Feb 10, 2011

Flying Pig said:
Why were we goading them into war in the first place? Was this the one about chasing Boer diamonds?

Diamonds, gold, security dilemma, perceived slights to British nationals like that Jameson idiot, prestige...the usual.

The British Empire

Utrinque Paratus

The Ultimate Badass

Condottiere

The Frog

Condottiere

Emperor

Condottiere

Deity

Utrinque Paratus

Condottiere

Deity

Hero of the Soviet Union

Utrinque Paratus

Condottiere

Hero of the Soviet Union

Utrinque Paratus

Hero of the Soviet Union

Utrinque Paratus

The Ultimate Badass

Hero of the Soviet Union

Similar threads