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This isn't a stretch to believe. I'm British too. We did something similar with India. We also allowed the Irish famine to happen too. History does say we wer

This isn't a stretch to believe. I'm British too. We did something similar with India. We also allowed the Irish famine to happen too. History does say we were not a very kind empire - causing famine was not beyond us.

satya71 9y ago
I was under the impression that British schools still teach that colonies actually benefited from British occupation. Looks like you went out of the way to learn the reality. Kudos!
- andy_ppp 9y ago
  It’s just not mentioned anymore... at least in state schools. We will look back at the American empire just as fondly I’m sure.
- asveikau 9y ago
  At some point, maybe ten years ago, I realized that with the internet today it's sometimes incredibly easy to see and expose national biases... One of the tricks I came up with back then: Look up any Wikipedia article on US involvement in Latin America. Change the language from English to Spanish. Same topic. Sometimes vastly different reality.
  - mkempe 9y ago
    That is indeed one major, unsung positive of Wikipedia's multi-lingual system. I do it regularly (across a couple of languages other than English) when reading about current events, cultural artifacts, political entities, and most of all history.
  - twostoned 9y ago
    This makes multilingualism seems incredibly important (which I think it is)
- tigershark 9y ago
  It depends from case to case, you can't generalise. Ask people in Hong Kong if they prefer to be part of China instead of a British colony for example.
  - kelukelugames 9y ago
    A fairer comparison would be between autonomy vs British colony.
    - NotSammyHagar 9y ago
      The fariest comparison is all 3: ruled by China, British colony, autonomy. Clearly they'd prefer to not be in China.
  - timthelion 9y ago
    Well, that's not really a comparison at all. "Would you like to be a colony of evil empire A or evil empire B?"
  - coldtea 9y ago
    Depends on when you asked them. And who you ask -- eg. the homeless living in unimaginable slums might give a different answer. That said, most of the colonies fought hard for getting rid of the British.
- rapsey 9y ago
  The world is not black and white. The british built infrastructure that is still being used today. Like their railway system. They also educated the populace.
  - rohit2412 9y ago
    Railways to take away raw materials. Educated? India's literacy rate in 1947 was 12% Look at british literacy rate when they became a big empire. https://www1.umassd.edu/ir/resources/laboreducation/literacy.pdf https://www1.umassd.edu/ir/resources/laboreducation/literacy... Even though it might be because of industrialization and not colonization, India could have industrialized faster without being a colonial subject.
    - celticninja 9y ago
      Swings and roundabouts really, not everything they did was bad and not everything was good.
  - saiya-jin 9y ago
    exactly the justification I heard from my english friend some time ago. like some stupid infrastructure improvements for few justifies enslaving whole nation for generations, shooting a protesting thousand civilians on a whim and generally robbing the nation. what's wrong with you?
  - 0ld 9y ago
    That's a poor excuse all the colonizators and invaders always use - "We buit something there! We brought good and civilization to the wild bloodthirsty pagans! White man's burden anyone?" Not really. Locals would build it as well, just maybe later. Technology spreads disregarding the governments or countries.
    - rapsey 9y ago
      I said the world is not black and white. I did not say colonization was good or better than if it did not happen. The end situation was not universally bad. Some benefits remained. Anyone saying the countries would be in a better state now without colonization is speaking entirely out of their ass. Just like anyone saying the countries are better off as a result of it.
- ionised 9y ago
  A lot of British people (over 60% when polled I believe) are convinced that our Empire was a positive thing overall for the world. They tend to gloss over the uncomfortable parts. I find it the most disgusting aspect of my country and its people. Nationalism at its worst.
  - weavie 9y ago
    It is amazing how uneducated a supposedly educated population can actually be. I know a lot of people here who would only have a vague idea that we even used to have an empire, most likely based on some period drama they watched on television.
  - unabridged 9y ago
    As horrible as they were, the British Empire probably was a positive influence on the world. Without them I doubt we would be able to have a conversation 1000s of miles away right now. The same argument can be made for the Roman Empire. Empires of the past are looked down on because they are a unified machine of violence, a center of evil we can point to and hate. Creating civilization is brutal, but the alternative is much scarier. A world of tribes and decentralized violence & oppression toward no end. Just as much pain, but not recorded, all in vain.
    - timthelion 9y ago
      Is civilization even good? Civilization seems to be on track to destroy everything and everyone: http://www.businessinsider.com/germany-insect-population-flying-bugs-climate-change-pesticides-population-decline-2017-10 http://www.businessinsider.com/germany-insect-population-fly...
      - dang 9y ago
        Please don't post unsubstantive comments or (especially) take threads in generic directions. Signal/noise gets steadily worse when you do that because people have fewer substantive things to say and get louder about them. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- stuaxo 9y ago
  They certainly didn't where I went to school, in the 80s. It really wouldn't surprise me if this was the case in some schools now though. We've basically semi-privatised a lot of our schools under the academy system - they are run like businesses and have a lot more freedom over the curriculum leading to all sorts of horror stories.
  - triplesec 9y ago
    Horror story linky?
- willyt 9y ago
  When I studied history, quite a few British schools didn’t teach history as a timeline it was more like a series of case studies, which were designed to help you understand primacy of sources and how to analyse information. I studied History of Medicine, the Blitz in my local area, Bloody Sunday in Northern Ireland, the Plains Indians in the US. So, for me, colonialism would have only come up as part of the discussion of the context for Bloody Sunday.
- jwdunne 9y ago
  That wasn't my experience, though we didn't cover the empire specifically. In fact, each term or so was based on a theme that covered a period e.g Tudors, Victorians, ancient Egypt, ancient Rome. I also went to a Catholic faith school so I think there was already good reason to be honest with history. England was not very kind to Catholics either - apparently a BBC show demonstrates this quite well. My learnings about the empire have been through personal curiosity. At first, the whole "largest empire in history" was a curiosity. The more I learned, however, the more disgusted I became.
irrational 9y ago
It wasn't just you. The other European colonization efforts likewise destroyed the lives of millions of people. I always get a chuckle when I see Europeans deriding the American Empire. Pot calling the kettle black much?
- kbart 9y ago
  " I always get a chuckle when I see Europeans deriding the American Empire. Pot calling the kettle black much?" You can't put all European countries in a single pot here, only a small part of them were leading empires. Most of other countries/nations were incorporated in empires against their will and suffered greatly too.
  - hutzlibu 9y ago
    Hm ... Britain, France, Germany, Spain, Portugal, Belgium, Dutch, Austria, Russia ... just come to my mind, when I think of european empires. So what "most other nations" are left, except for some easterns states?
    - kbart 9y ago
      There are 50 sovereign countries in Europe[0], you named 9, so that just illustrates my point. And that doesn't even include nations that have no independence, often taken away during reigning of neighboring empire. 0. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Europe https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Europe
      - hutzlibu 9y ago
        Those I named, had by far the majority of the european people in them. And what is your point linking to current european states, when were speaking of historic europe? And that not all the people them were happy patriots, sure - thats common in empires. (and I don't like empires btw.) But the ordinary person was pretty much pro empire at that time. And that meant also conquering and ruling other nations and people.
    - 9y ago
tadhgf 9y ago
I would say the British did more than just allow the famine to happen. Exporting grain from Ireland during the famine caused the deaths of thousands. http://ighm.org/exports-in-famine-times/ http://ighm.org/exports-in-famine-times/
- jwdunne 9y ago
  I couldn't remember the specifics but I was going to say something a bit more charged i.e directly made it worse. I wasn't sure if it was a similar deal to the Indian famine but clearly was.
mmjaa 9y ago
The point is, you (your nation state) are still doing it.

satya71 9y ago

I was under the impression that British schools still teach that colonies actually benefited from British occupation. Looks like you went out of the way to learn the reality. Kudos!

andy_ppp 9y ago
It’s just not mentioned anymore... at least in state schools. We will look back at the American empire just as fondly I’m sure.
asveikau 9y ago
At some point, maybe ten years ago, I realized that with the internet today it's sometimes incredibly easy to see and expose national biases... One of the tricks I came up with back then: Look up any Wikipedia article on US involvement in Latin America. Change the language from English to Spanish. Same topic. Sometimes vastly different reality.
- mkempe 9y ago
  That is indeed one major, unsung positive of Wikipedia's multi-lingual system. I do it regularly (across a couple of languages other than English) when reading about current events, cultural artifacts, political entities, and most of all history.
- twostoned 9y ago
  This makes multilingualism seems incredibly important (which I think it is)
tigershark 9y ago
It depends from case to case, you can't generalise. Ask people in Hong Kong if they prefer to be part of China instead of a British colony for example.
- kelukelugames 9y ago
  A fairer comparison would be between autonomy vs British colony.
  - NotSammyHagar 9y ago
    The fariest comparison is all 3: ruled by China, British colony, autonomy. Clearly they'd prefer to not be in China.
- timthelion 9y ago
  Well, that's not really a comparison at all. "Would you like to be a colony of evil empire A or evil empire B?"
- coldtea 9y ago
  Depends on when you asked them. And who you ask -- eg. the homeless living in unimaginable slums might give a different answer. That said, most of the colonies fought hard for getting rid of the British.
rapsey 9y ago
The world is not black and white. The british built infrastructure that is still being used today. Like their railway system. They also educated the populace.
- rohit2412 9y ago
  Railways to take away raw materials. Educated? India's literacy rate in 1947 was 12% Look at british literacy rate when they became a big empire. https://www1.umassd.edu/ir/resources/laboreducation/literacy.pdf https://www1.umassd.edu/ir/resources/laboreducation/literacy... Even though it might be because of industrialization and not colonization, India could have industrialized faster without being a colonial subject.
  - celticninja 9y ago
    Swings and roundabouts really, not everything they did was bad and not everything was good.
- saiya-jin 9y ago
  exactly the justification I heard from my english friend some time ago. like some stupid infrastructure improvements for few justifies enslaving whole nation for generations, shooting a protesting thousand civilians on a whim and generally robbing the nation. what's wrong with you?
- 0ld 9y ago
  That's a poor excuse all the colonizators and invaders always use - "We buit something there! We brought good and civilization to the wild bloodthirsty pagans! White man's burden anyone?" Not really. Locals would build it as well, just maybe later. Technology spreads disregarding the governments or countries.
  - rapsey 9y ago
    I said the world is not black and white. I did not say colonization was good or better than if it did not happen. The end situation was not universally bad. Some benefits remained. Anyone saying the countries would be in a better state now without colonization is speaking entirely out of their ass. Just like anyone saying the countries are better off as a result of it.
ionised 9y ago
A lot of British people (over 60% when polled I believe) are convinced that our Empire was a positive thing overall for the world. They tend to gloss over the uncomfortable parts. I find it the most disgusting aspect of my country and its people. Nationalism at its worst.
- weavie 9y ago
  It is amazing how uneducated a supposedly educated population can actually be. I know a lot of people here who would only have a vague idea that we even used to have an empire, most likely based on some period drama they watched on television.
- unabridged 9y ago
  As horrible as they were, the British Empire probably was a positive influence on the world. Without them I doubt we would be able to have a conversation 1000s of miles away right now. The same argument can be made for the Roman Empire. Empires of the past are looked down on because they are a unified machine of violence, a center of evil we can point to and hate. Creating civilization is brutal, but the alternative is much scarier. A world of tribes and decentralized violence & oppression toward no end. Just as much pain, but not recorded, all in vain.
  - timthelion 9y ago
    Is civilization even good? Civilization seems to be on track to destroy everything and everyone: http://www.businessinsider.com/germany-insect-population-flying-bugs-climate-change-pesticides-population-decline-2017-10 http://www.businessinsider.com/germany-insect-population-fly...
    - dang 9y ago
      Please don't post unsubstantive comments or (especially) take threads in generic directions. Signal/noise gets steadily worse when you do that because people have fewer substantive things to say and get louder about them. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
stuaxo 9y ago
They certainly didn't where I went to school, in the 80s. It really wouldn't surprise me if this was the case in some schools now though. We've basically semi-privatised a lot of our schools under the academy system - they are run like businesses and have a lot more freedom over the curriculum leading to all sorts of horror stories.
- triplesec 9y ago
  Horror story linky?
willyt 9y ago
When I studied history, quite a few British schools didn’t teach history as a timeline it was more like a series of case studies, which were designed to help you understand primacy of sources and how to analyse information. I studied History of Medicine, the Blitz in my local area, Bloody Sunday in Northern Ireland, the Plains Indians in the US. So, for me, colonialism would have only come up as part of the discussion of the context for Bloody Sunday.
jwdunne 9y ago
That wasn't my experience, though we didn't cover the empire specifically. In fact, each term or so was based on a theme that covered a period e.g Tudors, Victorians, ancient Egypt, ancient Rome. I also went to a Catholic faith school so I think there was already good reason to be honest with history. England was not very kind to Catholics either - apparently a BBC show demonstrates this quite well. My learnings about the empire have been through personal curiosity. At first, the whole "largest empire in history" was a curiosity. The more I learned, however, the more disgusted I became.

irrational 9y ago

It wasn't just you. The other European colonization efforts likewise destroyed the lives of millions of people. I always get a chuckle when I see Europeans deriding the American Empire. Pot calling the kettle black much?

kbart 9y ago
" I always get a chuckle when I see Europeans deriding the American Empire. Pot calling the kettle black much?" You can't put all European countries in a single pot here, only a small part of them were leading empires. Most of other countries/nations were incorporated in empires against their will and suffered greatly too.
- hutzlibu 9y ago
  Hm ... Britain, France, Germany, Spain, Portugal, Belgium, Dutch, Austria, Russia ... just come to my mind, when I think of european empires. So what "most other nations" are left, except for some easterns states?
  - kbart 9y ago
    There are 50 sovereign countries in Europe[0], you named 9, so that just illustrates my point. And that doesn't even include nations that have no independence, often taken away during reigning of neighboring empire. 0. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Europe https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Europe
    - hutzlibu 9y ago
      Those I named, had by far the majority of the european people in them. And what is your point linking to current european states, when were speaking of historic europe? And that not all the people them were happy patriots, sure - thats common in empires. (and I don't like empires btw.) But the ordinary person was pretty much pro empire at that time. And that meant also conquering and ruling other nations and people.
  - 9y ago

tadhgf 9y ago

I would say the British did more than just allow the famine to happen. Exporting grain from Ireland during the famine caused the deaths of thousands. http://ighm.org/exports-in-famine-times/ http://ighm.org/exports-in-famine-times/

jwdunne 9y ago
I couldn't remember the specifics but I was going to say something a bit more charged i.e directly made it worse. I wasn't sure if it was a similar deal to the Indian famine but clearly was.

mmjaa 9y ago

The point is, you (your nation state) are still doing it.