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Though empires are out of fashion , British colonies universally benefited from the British empire. The ones who are thriving today owe a huge debt of gratitud
by tonymet 1y ago
Though empires are out of fashion , British colonies universally benefited from the British empire. The ones who are thriving today owe a huge debt of gratitude, and the languishing ones are that way because they decided not to continue the British tradition.
The 20th century decline of the British empire is one of civilization's worst failures, on par with the decline of the Roman Empire.
- lcvw 1y agoI don’t think that is at all accurate. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_genocide https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_genocide
- ludicity 1y agoYeah. I'm from Malaysia, and while we definitely benefited in many ways, to state that we do not still have massive and pervasive social issues as a result of colonization is insane. I'm glad you posted the link above and spoke up. I didn't even know where to start, but was worried someone might take the original comment seriously.
- jeromegv 1y agoThis viewpoint is still way too popular and was also used to genocide millions of indigenous people, we definitely need to keep speaking up against that.
- tonymet 1y agowhat point are you making?
- sys_64738 1y agoI remember asking this question to a work colleague from India almost 30 years ago. I asked something like if he hated the Brits for invading his land. He said on the contrary. They advanced their people so rapidly and efficiently through education and technical advances that would have taken hundreds of years by themselves. He said this allowed them to kick the British out once they had outlived their usefulness. Or something like that. It's been along time since I thought about it.
- jeromegv 1y agoSo you found 1 person 30 years ago to justify colonialism?
- grugagag 1y agoIt appears the person didn’t justify colonialism, they noted the benefit they got which concluded with them kicking out the colonizer.
- Spooky23 1y agoLike anything, it depends on your point of view and time. My grandparents and their generation were all born in Ireland, and had a very different outlook than the people who remained and folks you talk to today there. People just want to live their lives.
- throawaywpg 1y agoSome Indians benefitted, but the vast majority suffered.
- fakedang 1y agoSpecial mention: the Partition. But then again, without the British, there wouldn't have been a unified India but a multitude of states, sort of resembling the EU (in the best case). Worst case scenario, mini Africa. Having a common hated enemy did have its benefits.
- graemep 1y agoTh vast majority suffered under various Indian empires too. The lower castes suffered millennia of oppression (and still do) - imagine millennia of Jim Crow or apartheid. Some of them benefited hugely from British rule as a result, probably including my mother's ancestors.
- lyu07282 1y agoThe caste system itself is wildly considered to be exacerbated and promoted by British colonial rule in post colonial studies, not unlike the US empire promoting sectarianism in the aftermath of the Iraq war. The caste divisions did exist before British rule but it wasn't as systematic and unified across India as after. Boy how do we even talk about neocolonialism today if there are still people with full on colonialist sympathies holy shit
- Eextra953 1y agoThankful for what exactly?
- tonymet 1y agocommon law, sanitation, industrialization, administration, diplomacy, record keeping, archeology , business culture, tea culture, etiquette, economics, trade & maritime science -- I could name 50 more.
- kelseyfrog 1y agoIt sounds like you're saying, "British colonialism was worth it." Am I getting that right? I wonder what the aggregate sentiment of colonialism is in former British colonies.
- closewith 1y ago> Though empires are out of fashion , British colonies universally benefited from the British empire. That's not at all true. There are many examples, but no need to look farther afield than Ireland, which has not yet recovered from the deliberate genocide of the Irish famine. The island of Ireland had not yet reached the population it held pre-famine, and if Ireland had grown at the rate of its neighbours, it would now being closing in on 25 million+ instead of the ~7 million across the island. > The ones who are thriving today owe a huge debt of gratitude, and the languishing ones are that way because they decided not to continue the British tradition. Britain owes a debt to its colonies. The colonies owe nothing to it, except contempt. > The 20th century decline of the British empire is one of civilization's worst failures, on par with the decline of the Roman Empire. In a comment brimming with ignorance, this becomes absurd. The dissolution of the British empire is the great victory of the 20th century. A victory of human rights, decency, and even off the British population, who are disposable to the empire as foreign "subjects" were.
- physicsguy 1y ago> Britain owes a debt to its colonies. The colonies owe nothing to it, except contempt. There's pretty clearly a distinction between different individual colonies on this one. Something like the Falkland Islands which had no indigenous population is very very different from Jamaica which was a plantation colony full of slaves, which is yet again very different something like Aden (now part of Yemen) which had about 600 people living there at the time it was annexed and which has had a very very difficult post-independence story.
- vixen99 1y agoRather surprising then that we have the Commonwealth of 56 member states, most of which were former territories of the British Empire from which the Commonwealth developed. They are connected through their use of the English language and cultural and historical ties. Doubtless these countries have appalling memories of the evils perpetrated by the Brits. And yet they even accept Charles III as the head of the Commonwealth. Also amazing that in most colonies independence was achieved without a shot being fired. Unbelievable eh? Maybe it's a case of Stockholm Syndrome. On the other hand it could have been worse. We should remember that for almost every colonized people, the alternative to British Jurisdiction was not unmolested progress towards modernity but conquest by someone else, the French, the Germans,the Turks, the Russians,the Japanese and worst of all, the Belgians. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commonwealth_of_Nations https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commonwealth_of_Nations
- decremental 1y ago[dead]
- bji9jhff 1y agoI like to read HN because the conversation here is higher quality than elsewhere, when the subject is tech. But when the conversation deviate to politic, I'm reminded that outside their limited expertise, people here are no better than elsewhere as I read the same ignorant drivel I can find everywhere.
- tonymet 1y agoI envy your level of introspection.
- protocolture 1y agoLmao no. You seem like you have podcast brain. Ireland and Wales are no where near where they would be without being colonised. Let alone states further from the core of the empire. >The 20th century decline of the British empire is one of civilization's worst failures Greatest successes. Honestly it could only be better if the britons pushed the angles and saxons back into the ocean.
- wqaatwt 1y agoWales and in a large part Ireland were conquered long before British Empire was a thing, though.
- protocolture 1y agoThe correct labels werent yet applied it doesnt count! Bear in mind that a lot of the bad policies only started to be repealed in like the 60s. And that among other things, both suffered through a lot of the forced cultural assimilation the british empire was peddling.
- wqaatwt 1y agoWell yes, because medieval England or England in the 1500s was in many ways a fundamentally different state than the United Kingdom was in the second half of the 19th and early 20th centuries.
- tonymet 1y agoit's a fair argument, and tips the scales a bit, but the balance is still overwhelmingly in favor It's not like Ireland and Wales are doing much to preserve their legacies regardless. So it's hard, as an outsider, to intuit how much they actually care.
- platevoltage 1y agoI read this using Gul Dukat's voice and cadence and it didn't sound that far off.
- tonymet 1y agoMaturing is realizing that the Cardassians and Klingons are the only serious races on Star Trek.
- platevoltage 1y agoLet me guess... The Bajor owes Cardassia "A Great debt of gratitude". After all, they got a super cool space station out of a brutal occupation.
- tonymet 1y agoif you're reading a story and there's a harmless & innocent victim and an evil , brutal and insensitive oppressor then your script was written by communists.
- platevoltage 1y agoThat statement just tells me you're not familiar with the story at all.
- tonymet 1y agoI remember the protagonists were multicultural utopian communists whose every venture and campaign was perfectly noble. And the antagonists were evil power hungry or corrupt races. So of course I'm inferring the writers values here.
- platevoltage 1y ago"multicultural utopian communists" was the only thing you got even remotely right.
- ripe 1y ago> British colonies universally benefited from the British empire I can’t tell whether this is a joke or a sincere opinion, but HN readers might be misled if it’s allowed to stand. Briefly, this is an absurd claim. I can speak confidently about India, and I am pretty sure the story is similar for other unfortunate colonies. Instead of arguing here, let me provide an accessible starting point to learning about it: The podcast “Empire,” by William Dalrymple and Anita Anand. The first series looks at the British in India, covering The East India Company, the Raj, Gandhi, Independence and Partition.
- tonymet 1y agoof course i'm sincere, and obviously India is infinitely better off today, and the best parts of India are the British Tradition
- archagon 1y agoMaybe China should colonize Britain to make things better, then.
- tonymet 1y agoin many ways they are carrying on the British tradition
- gadders 1y agoI was listening to Dominic Sandbrook the other day (from "The Rest is History" podcast). His point was that if you had to pick any empire through history to live in (without knowing your place in it - a sort of Rawlsian Veil), you would probably pick the British Empire. It wasn't perfect, but more benevolent than a lot of other empires.
- tonymet 1y agoI would choose the Byzantine Empire but I'm biased. But you can tell based on my romanticizing , British Empire gets the silver.
- dumbledoren 1y ago> British colonies universally benefited from the British empire Yeah, the 100-200 million Indians who were killed by the East India Company through famines after being forced to raise opium instead of grain to help EIC to sell opium to kill 10-20 million Chinese every year would definitely agree... https://yourstory.com/2014/08/bengal-famine-genocide https://yourstory.com/2014/08/bengal-famine-genocide
- tonymet 1y agoSo India gets the praise and the British Empire gets the blame? And how about Since '47? Are you taking the same critical approach? Every great regime will experience crisis. But you have to ask yourself -- where would I have been otherwise? Indians are still clamoring to get into this supposedly genocidal regime.