7 ms·

Once again, behind a bad geopolitical situation is a Brit. History is unduly kind to the U.K., ignoring all of the atrocities of their colonialism for the sole

by as300 6y ago

Once again, behind a bad geopolitical situation is a Brit. History is unduly kind to the U.K., ignoring all of the atrocities of their colonialism for the sole reason that they suffered and overcame in WW2. Israel Palestine, India Pakistan, and Iran are all direct results of their racism and chicanery.

0x262d 6y ago
The British have a horrible history of imperialism, but just to be clear, this was mostly carried out the by US, who also have a horrible history of imperialism.
- as300 6y ago
  Agreed, but I'd argue that the US's imperialism is fairly well-known. The British managed to avoid that via shrewd and destructive campaigns of divide-and-conquer that stacked the odds against future democracies.
  - Ar-Curunir 6y ago
    ? I don’t know if you’ve lived in any British colony, but tons of people despise the British Empire to this day
- DanBC 6y ago
  People may be interested to read a history of Iran-UK relations: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran%E2%80%93United_Kingdom_relations#History_of_Anglo%E2%80%93Iranian_relations https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran%E2%80%93United_Kingdom_re... tl;dr Britain has a long history of causing harm to other countries.
- nmstoker 6y ago
  It would be good to get some specifics applied here rather than vague generalisations like "X were horrible". Scope, proportion of British / US involved, level of "horrible" activities seem like they would help avoid this becoming a stereotype. After all it wouldn't be acceptable to make stereotypes about Persians or others in a similar position.
  - chishaku 6y ago
    I'm not sure "stereotype" is the right word here. Parent is not making stereotypes about people from the UK or US. They are describing the reputation of those two political entities. As for specifics, I'd refer the unfamiliar to Wikipedia which itself refers to a very limited subset of about hundred or so books on the topic. Perhaps you'll find some particular aspect or angle of British or US imperialism particularly enlightening and will want to research further. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Empire https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Empire https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_imperialism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_imperialism
    - nmstoker 6y ago
      Thanks. I agree on further consideration that stereotype isn't quite the right word. It seemed that vague terms like "horrible" were not likely to mean the same thing to different readers, in contrast to the way that more tangible accusations might stand up and be more universally understood.
heavenlyblue 6y ago
> they suffered and overcame in WW2 Were they the only ones who suffered?
- as300 6y ago
  Absolutely not. Tens of thousands of Indians fought and died (not counting the Bengal famine which killed millions, but may or may not have been a result of malfeasance. Resource extraction from the colonies helped them fight as well.
totalZero 6y ago
I am unsure if you are suggesting otherwise, but to be clear: Iran was never a British colony.
- techer 6y ago
  It basically was... >The Anglo-Persian Oil Company (APOC) was a British company founded in 1908 following the discovery of a large oil field in Masjed Soleiman, Iran. The British government purchased 51% of the company in 1914,[1] gaining a controlling number of shares, effectively nationalizing the company. It was the first company to extract petroleum from Iran. In 1935 APOC was renamed the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company (AIOC) when Reza Shah Pahlavi formally asked foreign countries to refer to Persia by its endonym Iran.
  - ginko 6y ago
    I don't see how having a large British-owned company in your country makes it a colony.
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
    - 082349872349872 6y ago
      How about client state? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24070495 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24070495 "Would His Highness kindly abdicate in favour of his son, the heir to the throne? We have a high opinion of him and will ensure his position. But His Highness should not think there is any other solution."
booboolayla 6y ago
Can't blame the UK for playing the game against yet another colonialist player Iran (or Persian Empire.) This naive view of the world has been pushed by Marxists in the West for decades, and the only real goal was always to weaken the Western Empire so that a Marxist Empire could take over and do everything they accused the West of.
Shivetya 6y ago
well let us not focus just on them, European colonialism as a whole did not end until the 1960s and by then the damage was done. The Arabian peninsula and surrounding areas were pretty much divided up with borders created to respect European influence and not consider much of the existing structure, hence the strife that goes on to this day. The US and USSR meddling while extensive came at a much later date and involved states created prior to their involvement with very little changes to borders. Remember, France wasn't thrown out of Vietnam until the 1954 and had to be thrown out of Algeria a decade later. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_colonialism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_colonialism
- qserasera 6y ago
  > not consider much of the existing structure Could you provide examples of such structures?
  - greedo 6y ago
    Countries were "created" based on geographical criteria, leading to various tribes being in both new countries.
    - qserasera 6y ago
      Right I was asking him to describe the areas/tribes in the middle east that were split between a few countries.
  - chishaku 6y ago
    https://wcfia.harvard.edu/files/wcfia/files/alesina_artificialstates.pdf https://wcfia.harvard.edu/files/wcfia/files/alesina_artifici... > Artificial states are those in which political borders do not coincide with a division of nationalities desired by the people on the ground. We propose and compute for all countries in the world two new measures how artificial states are. One is based on measuring how borders split ethnic groups into two separate adjacent countries. The other one measures how straight land borders are, under the assumption the straight land borders are more likely to be artificial. We then show that these two measures seem to be highly correlated with several measures of political and economic success. > Eighty per cent of African borders follow latitudinal and longitudinal lines and many scholars believe that such artificial (unnatural) borders which create ethnically fragmented countries or, conversely, separate into bordering countries the same people, are at the roots of Africa's economic tragedy. > Under the Skyles-Picot agreement between British and French during WWI, Northern Palestine would go to the French, Southern Palestine to the British, and Central Palestine including Jerusalem would be an allied Condominium shared by the two. After the war, the French agreed to give up any claims to Palestine in return fo rcontrol over Syria. The British abandoned their protegee (Faisal) in Syria and offered him Iraq, cobbling together three different Ottoman provinces containing Kurds, Shiites and Sunnis. This set the stage for instability and the military coups that lead to Saddam Hussein. In Lebanon, the French added Tripoli, Beirut and Sidon to the traditional Moronite area around Mount Lebanon, giving their Maronite Christian allies control to what were originally Muslim areas. > Latin America is a lesser known (and much earlier) example of artificial borders drawn by a colonial power, in this case Spain. > The partition of India and Pakistan is [a] famous example of artificial borders https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Partition_of_India https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Partition_of_India > The partition displaced between 10–12 million people along religious lines, creating overwhelming refugee crises in the newly constituted dominions. There was large-scale violence, with estimates of loss of life accompanying or preceding the partition disputed and varying between several hundred thousand and two million.[1][c] The violent nature of the partition created an atmosphere of hostility and suspicion between India and Pakistan that plagues their relationship to the present.
dang 6y ago
Please don't take HN threads further into nationalistic flamewar. This is a step in the generic direction, which we don't want on HN, and especially not on flamewar topics: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sort=byDate&type=comment&query=generic%20discussion%20by:dang https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sor... https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sort=byDate&type=comment&query=generic%20ideolog%20by:dang https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sor... https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

by as300 6y ago

0x262d 6y ago

The British have a horrible history of imperialism, but just to be clear, this was mostly carried out the by US, who also have a horrible history of imperialism.

as300 6y ago
Agreed, but I'd argue that the US's imperialism is fairly well-known. The British managed to avoid that via shrewd and destructive campaigns of divide-and-conquer that stacked the odds against future democracies.
- Ar-Curunir 6y ago
  ? I don’t know if you’ve lived in any British colony, but tons of people despise the British Empire to this day
DanBC 6y ago
People may be interested to read a history of Iran-UK relations: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran%E2%80%93United_Kingdom_relations#History_of_Anglo%E2%80%93Iranian_relations https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran%E2%80%93United_Kingdom_re... tl;dr Britain has a long history of causing harm to other countries.
nmstoker 6y ago
It would be good to get some specifics applied here rather than vague generalisations like "X were horrible". Scope, proportion of British / US involved, level of "horrible" activities seem like they would help avoid this becoming a stereotype. After all it wouldn't be acceptable to make stereotypes about Persians or others in a similar position.
- chishaku 6y ago
  I'm not sure "stereotype" is the right word here. Parent is not making stereotypes about people from the UK or US. They are describing the reputation of those two political entities. As for specifics, I'd refer the unfamiliar to Wikipedia which itself refers to a very limited subset of about hundred or so books on the topic. Perhaps you'll find some particular aspect or angle of British or US imperialism particularly enlightening and will want to research further. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Empire https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Empire https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_imperialism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_imperialism
  - nmstoker 6y ago
    Thanks. I agree on further consideration that stereotype isn't quite the right word. It seemed that vague terms like "horrible" were not likely to mean the same thing to different readers, in contrast to the way that more tangible accusations might stand up and be more universally understood.

heavenlyblue 6y ago

> they suffered and overcame in WW2 Were they the only ones who suffered?

as300 6y ago
Absolutely not. Tens of thousands of Indians fought and died (not counting the Bengal famine which killed millions, but may or may not have been a result of malfeasance. Resource extraction from the colonies helped them fight as well.

totalZero 6y ago

I am unsure if you are suggesting otherwise, but to be clear: Iran was never a British colony.

techer 6y ago
It basically was... >The Anglo-Persian Oil Company (APOC) was a British company founded in 1908 following the discovery of a large oil field in Masjed Soleiman, Iran. The British government purchased 51% of the company in 1914,[1] gaining a controlling number of shares, effectively nationalizing the company. It was the first company to extract petroleum from Iran. In 1935 APOC was renamed the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company (AIOC) when Reza Shah Pahlavi formally asked foreign countries to refer to Persia by its endonym Iran.
- ginko 6y ago
  I don't see how having a large British-owned company in your country makes it a colony.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - 082349872349872 6y ago
    How about client state? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24070495 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24070495 "Would His Highness kindly abdicate in favour of his son, the heir to the throne? We have a high opinion of him and will ensure his position. But His Highness should not think there is any other solution."

booboolayla 6y ago

Can't blame the UK for playing the game against yet another colonialist player Iran (or Persian Empire.) This naive view of the world has been pushed by Marxists in the West for decades, and the only real goal was always to weaken the Western Empire so that a Marxist Empire could take over and do everything they accused the West of.

Shivetya 6y ago

well let us not focus just on them, European colonialism as a whole did not end until the 1960s and by then the damage was done. The Arabian peninsula and surrounding areas were pretty much divided up with borders created to respect European influence and not consider much of the existing structure, hence the strife that goes on to this day. The US and USSR meddling while extensive came at a much later date and involved states created prior to their involvement with very little changes to borders. Remember, France wasn't thrown out of Vietnam until the 1954 and had to be thrown out of Algeria a decade later. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_colonialism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_colonialism

qserasera 6y ago
> not consider much of the existing structure Could you provide examples of such structures?
- greedo 6y ago
  Countries were "created" based on geographical criteria, leading to various tribes being in both new countries.
  - qserasera 6y ago
    Right I was asking him to describe the areas/tribes in the middle east that were split between a few countries.
- chishaku 6y ago
  https://wcfia.harvard.edu/files/wcfia/files/alesina_artificialstates.pdf https://wcfia.harvard.edu/files/wcfia/files/alesina_artifici... > Artificial states are those in which political borders do not coincide with a division of nationalities desired by the people on the ground. We propose and compute for all countries in the world two new measures how artificial states are. One is based on measuring how borders split ethnic groups into two separate adjacent countries. The other one measures how straight land borders are, under the assumption the straight land borders are more likely to be artificial. We then show that these two measures seem to be highly correlated with several measures of political and economic success. > Eighty per cent of African borders follow latitudinal and longitudinal lines and many scholars believe that such artificial (unnatural) borders which create ethnically fragmented countries or, conversely, separate into bordering countries the same people, are at the roots of Africa's economic tragedy. > Under the Skyles-Picot agreement between British and French during WWI, Northern Palestine would go to the French, Southern Palestine to the British, and Central Palestine including Jerusalem would be an allied Condominium shared by the two. After the war, the French agreed to give up any claims to Palestine in return fo rcontrol over Syria. The British abandoned their protegee (Faisal) in Syria and offered him Iraq, cobbling together three different Ottoman provinces containing Kurds, Shiites and Sunnis. This set the stage for instability and the military coups that lead to Saddam Hussein. In Lebanon, the French added Tripoli, Beirut and Sidon to the traditional Moronite area around Mount Lebanon, giving their Maronite Christian allies control to what were originally Muslim areas. > Latin America is a lesser known (and much earlier) example of artificial borders drawn by a colonial power, in this case Spain. > The partition of India and Pakistan is [a] famous example of artificial borders https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Partition_of_India https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Partition_of_India > The partition displaced between 10–12 million people along religious lines, creating overwhelming refugee crises in the newly constituted dominions. There was large-scale violence, with estimates of loss of life accompanying or preceding the partition disputed and varying between several hundred thousand and two million.[1][c] The violent nature of the partition created an atmosphere of hostility and suspicion between India and Pakistan that plagues their relationship to the present.

dang 6y ago

Please don't take HN threads further into nationalistic flamewar. This is a step in the generic direction, which we don't want on HN, and especially not on flamewar topics: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sort=byDate&type=comment&query=generic%20discussion%20by:dang https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sor... https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sort=byDate&type=comment&query=generic%20ideolog%20by:dang https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sor... https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html