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I don't know why you think it is unambiguosuly right to apologize for past crimes. My Finnish friend is super into history and he basically remembers the event

I don't know why you think it is unambiguosuly right to apologize for past crimes. My Finnish friend is super into history and he basically remembers the events of history by it's relative position in time to a European war. There were so many horrific wars. The stories of past highlight the worst parts of human nature, but many people got by in love without murdering the locals next door. We should turn away from evil and denouce it. The apology for it, suggests a naive belief one is separate from that human nature which drove the crimes. Maybe with more lead in air from leaded petrol, or more internet radicalization, or an end to our local agriculture, we might be the 1% that turns toward evil. Examining past crimes can lead to more crime, as we have seen with internet radicals lately and copycat people following news media stories. Studying that sh*t and mulling it over in apology for crimes one never did is dangerous, we should move towards loving the good things done, past and future.

smcl 4y ago
I think there's very clearly a point beyond which any reasonable person agrees that what's done is done and it doesn't make sense to make apologies anymore. Like today in 2022 nobody but the most peculiar weirdo in Scotland holds a grudge against people with the surname "Campbell" because of the Glencoe Massacre[0] after more than 300 years (though they do exist!). But for something like the Mau Mau massacre, for the Iraq War, for the Afghanistan War or for any number of atrocities in British India or anything like that - these were huge events whose effects can still be felt today. I don't think it is unreasonable to expect some sort of official apology from the state. Or failing that - simply allowing a level of acknowledgement in our History curriculum that says "The British Empire was not good, and was in fact quite often bad for a very long period of time" might help. Because right now doing so is walking on very thin ice[1] and there are a lot of people walking around in the UK who think our imperial project was one which colonised and civilised, rather than brutalised it. [0] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Massacre_of_Glencoe https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Massacre_of_Glencoe [1] - https://www.gov.uk/government/news/guidance-on-promoting-british-values-in-schools-published https://www.gov.uk/government/news/guidance-on-promoting-bri...
- barrysteve 4y ago
  The Mau Mau massacre is not 'unambigously right to apologize for'. The moral argument that one must make amends for his/her sin should apply to the perpetrators of the sin, not people who were uninvolved and the government has already compensated the victims of British torture financially. But the Kenyan view that the Mau Mau were heroic freedom fighters and colonialism was bad, is painfully simplistic. The Mau Mau started the war by murdering innocents, they killed their own people if they did not swear an oath of alliegance and they escalated the brutality every step of the way. The real Kenyans who wanted nothing to do with either the Brits or the Mau Mau are nearly completely unrecognized and yet the political narrative is dominated by the impacts of war, resources and money. Your second link doesn't suggest anything to do with the British Empire. The values it's advertising are bog standard secular democratic stuff. The values of the British Empire were more religious, monarchical and imperialistic. If this is the anti-empire narrative then it is disappointly anemic. Tribes who escalate economic warfare to the level of pure psychopathy and a small british colony that escalates to respond in war-camp, torturous kind, is not a good face value judgement of the largest empire the planet's seen, and all the good that it brought.
boffinAudio 4y ago
>Studying that sh*t and mulling it over in apology for crimes one never did is dangerous, we should move towards loving the good things done, past and future. This shows a severe lack of empathy. Put yourself in the shoes of a people whose immediate relatives and ancestors were annihilated by the same social order currently running the country. You might see a use for apologies.

smcl 4y ago

I think there's very clearly a point beyond which any reasonable person agrees that what's done is done and it doesn't make sense to make apologies anymore. Like today in 2022 nobody but the most peculiar weirdo in Scotland holds a grudge against people with the surname "Campbell" because of the Glencoe Massacre[0] after more than 300 years (though they do exist!). But for something like the Mau Mau massacre, for the Iraq War, for the Afghanistan War or for any number of atrocities in British India or anything like that - these were huge events whose effects can still be felt today. I don't think it is unreasonable to expect some sort of official apology from the state. Or failing that - simply allowing a level of acknowledgement in our History curriculum that says "The British Empire was not good, and was in fact quite often bad for a very long period of time" might help. Because right now doing so is walking on very thin ice[1] and there are a lot of people walking around in the UK who think our imperial project was one which colonised and civilised, rather than brutalised it. [0] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Massacre_of_Glencoe https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Massacre_of_Glencoe [1] - https://www.gov.uk/government/news/guidance-on-promoting-british-values-in-schools-published https://www.gov.uk/government/news/guidance-on-promoting-bri...

barrysteve 4y ago
The Mau Mau massacre is not 'unambigously right to apologize for'. The moral argument that one must make amends for his/her sin should apply to the perpetrators of the sin, not people who were uninvolved and the government has already compensated the victims of British torture financially. But the Kenyan view that the Mau Mau were heroic freedom fighters and colonialism was bad, is painfully simplistic. The Mau Mau started the war by murdering innocents, they killed their own people if they did not swear an oath of alliegance and they escalated the brutality every step of the way. The real Kenyans who wanted nothing to do with either the Brits or the Mau Mau are nearly completely unrecognized and yet the political narrative is dominated by the impacts of war, resources and money. Your second link doesn't suggest anything to do with the British Empire. The values it's advertising are bog standard secular democratic stuff. The values of the British Empire were more religious, monarchical and imperialistic. If this is the anti-empire narrative then it is disappointly anemic. Tribes who escalate economic warfare to the level of pure psychopathy and a small british colony that escalates to respond in war-camp, torturous kind, is not a good face value judgement of the largest empire the planet's seen, and all the good that it brought.

boffinAudio 4y ago

>Studying that sh*t and mulling it over in apology for crimes one never did is dangerous, we should move towards loving the good things done, past and future. This shows a severe lack of empathy. Put yourself in the shoes of a people whose immediate relatives and ancestors were annihilated by the same social order currently running the country. You might see a use for apologies.