Hear Hear! The Brits frakked up a lot of people for over 200 years.
-
Brahmastram — 17 years ago(January 13, 2009 02:46 PM)
Are you serious? The British empire was the most atrocious in handling their 'subjects'.
Kindly peruse this document/article which will shed light on some of them.
http://www.hindu.com/2005/12/28/stories/2005122804961100.htm
The British were the the foremost practitioners of the slave trade. Upto 20 million were removed from their home countries and nearly half died in 'storage'.
The policy of Divide and Rule has led to most of modern wars and conflicts(Muslim-Hindu hatred in India and pakistan, Catholic-protestants in Ireland. and the middle east crisis).
The policy culminated in one of history's worst loss of lives - the Partition of India which lead to as many as 5 million lives being lost.
The British effectively plundered India's wealth (They ravaged other economies too, but India was one of the wealthiest countries at the beginning of British conquest).
http://www.visualizingeconomics.com/2008/01/20/share-of-world-gdp/
Also Read "Dancing With Giants" By L. Alan Winters, Shahid Yusuf.
Involving Indian people in European wars- WW1 and 2. Hundreds of thousands of Indian soldiers were casualties in a war they did not have to fight.
Yes, Iam Indian and I hate the british empire & the monarchy for what they did to India and the other countries under their rule. -
truthlord — 17 years ago(January 27, 2009 02:10 AM)
Its very interesting and sad to see the extraordinary hatred expressed in these posts. The same old tired stories brought out of the cupboard
The slave trade for example..The main occupation of black African tribes was fighting and capturing slaves.Because there was little use for slaves-with no infrastructure- they were sold to slave dealers usually Arabs.This had been going on since Roman times-over a thousand years before the British arrived-and why incidentally is it always the British?-Many other European nations were involved-and of course most people in Europe were slaves themselves, either in fact -as in Russia but as Indentured Labour -where a person signed away their rights in return for food and lodging.
The British bought slaves from Arab traders from 1621-something that lasted until the American/British took over in 1776.Britain passed anti slavery laws in 1800 and worked to prevent slavery ever since-difficult because many countries in Africa and Asia and India etc are still buying and using slaves in secret today
Too bad the British are not around to stop it
People are complaining about comparing empires etc.This is almost funny.The person who says the British Empire was the worst says he is an Indian.
If Britain had been defeated by the Germans in WW2 and the Germans had taken over India Im afraid Ghandis tactics of passive resistance would have been useless. Lying down in front of German tanks would most definitely not have worked! India would still be part of the German Empire today
Another game played by some people is always to blame the worlds present problems on the British
If the British decision to create Kashmir is a problem why hasnt Pakistan and India sensibly settled it? They have had over 60 years to do so .Most African countries have been independent for nearly fifty years-and have had huge amounts of aid.Why do they still blame the British for their troubles? Why cant they get their act together and settle their problems themselves?
But the real reason why people still attack Britain is because unlike Spain for example, Britain is still a force and influence in the world despite being bankrupted by two world wars.
Thats not bad for a small nation-to have been at the top of the world since 1600 and to be still -despite present problems -still going strong! -
runbone — 16 years ago(May 03, 2009 04:03 PM)
Amen Brother!
British Imperialism was a short period of two hundred years. Folks can not still be blaming all there problems on John Bull, and I keep thinking how great off would these nations have been if Imperialist had not come? -
wavelength121 — 16 years ago(May 31, 2009 11:35 AM)
Yeah, how in the hell would people with FIRST HAND EXPERIENCE know anything about how the Brits royally screwed up their countries, cultures and lifestyles?
The only refuting statements to the reality of British cruelty on this thread seem to consist of "well the alternative would be worse" or "those places were already worse of"; all relative, circumstantial evidence that does not revoke or justify the behavior of the British Fascist Empire during that 200 year period.
That they are still a major world player (sure) after getting away with murder only speaks to the conniving, corrupt nature of the British government on the world stage and rightly justifies them for overdue blame and scorn.
Lastly, no more "well what if the Brits weren't there to stop the _______?" (insert worse fascistic government here)
The answer is simple: The other countries would have done it themselves. And probably a lot more efficiently, had the East India Company not worn them down over a hundred years. Don't claim to pretend to know what WOULD have happened had the Brits not gone about their business; this isn't time-travel sci-fi, this is what actually happened and the Brits have been rightly accused. -
m_viggers — 16 years ago(September 11, 2009 12:52 PM)
In Defence of the British Empire:
Firstly, I need to make clear that I am British.
Oh, it wasn't that bad. In general, it was better than other empires, massacring less of the indigenous populations, certainly less so out of a matter of government policy (I say less, not none). The British were ruthless, you can't have an empire without ruthlessness, but they attempted to rule their empire according to a moral code, particularly in the C19th and C20th.
Without a British Empire there would be no Australia, Canada, New Zealand or USA. One might say these countries would still have been colonised (or not) by another European country and would still exist in some form today, but not as we know them now and most likely not as good as they are now. Look at Mexico and all countries south of it, then compare them to the above list.
A Britain without an empire would not have been strong enough to stand up to Napoleon. Austria, Prussia, Russia and Spain were the main protagonists in the actual job of fighting Napoleon, but it was British political leadership and British money that kept them in the fray. Furthermore, Napoleon invaded Russia to force it to cut all trade links so he could starve Britain, which he would not have had to do had Britain not been a threat.
Had Napoleon been successful, then the 2 world wars may not actually have happened, at least not as we knew them. However, had they done then there would have been no-one to support France in 1914 and prevent the Germans taking Paris as they had done in 1870. Moreover, there would have been no-one to carry on the fight after the Fall of France in 1940 (and no USA to win the war in 1945).
It is argued that Britain hindered the development of its colonies, thwarting any nascent industries so it could use them as a source of cheap materials and protect its own industries. There would be some truth in this. However, many of these countries would have been colonised regardless.
Take India as a case in point: Britain began to conquer India in response to French attempts to do so. Had the Royal Navy been less powerful, India's 2nd language would now be French. Also, Britain built India's modern infrastructure, but at the cost of hindering her industrial capability. Only now are Indian companies becoming a world force. Yet would Indian companies really be so big now? They currently have a huge and growing market to feed upon, which also happens to provide a cheap labour force. India as a politcal entity is also growing in stature, as is right for a country of 1.2 billion people. However, would it be a democracy if it had not been British? Could it have developed into a dictatorship like the largely uncolonised China? Furthermore, would India even exist as a single entity? As it was, Pakistan and Bangladesh broke off in 1947 (Partition) due to religious differences, but in the late C18th the whole continent was breaking into small states as the Mughal Empire waned - that's exactly the reason why the British were able to take over in the first place.
Britain spread fire and warfare across the globe. It conquered territories, sometimes massacring or marginalising the native populations (Australia, New Zealand). It sucked resources in to power its own economic development.
On the other hand, it spread democracy, enlightenment, individual liberty and opened up markets around the world to create the global system of wealth and exchange of ideas that we enjoy today. Think hard: for all its faults, would the world really be a better place if the British Empire never existed? -
kyle-348 — 16 years ago(January 09, 2010 09:18 PM)
Funny how the British actually ended the slave trade in India, against the wishes of the locals. They also tried to stop the brutality against untouchables, which Gandhi opposed. Yeah, the Brits did some bad things, but I'd prefer being ruled by them over your beep up caste system any day.
-
donbrent — 16 years ago(July 28, 2009 11:48 PM)
All this is a very interesting exchange of old grudges and skewed versions of history and in some cases retarded reasoning (Britain was responsible for religious hatred i.e. hindu's hating muslims and catholics hating protestants? LOL, seriously - do you tie your own shoelaces son?) but no one has actually proven the OP's opinion to be "invalid". He gestured two main points;
Firstly that the British Empire compared to other globe spanning empires was less brutal in it's operation. This in many cases is true. He never claimed it was done using kind words and ruled with an overwhelming fairness to the native peoples, but it is a far cry from, say the Ottoman empire. Need I mention Khan or Hitler and their plans for the peoples they conquered?
Secondly and stemming from his first point he questioned the films motives and claimed that the film gave an overly negative and false view of the British (Empire). No one seems to have picked up on this being his main issue and instead seem to read every other word and assumed he was saying something utterly different. But this is not the first film to portray the British in an overly negative light, and totally twist historical facts so far as for them to become no more realistic than Donatella Versace's face cough Braveheart cough The Patriot.
Lots of people using slightly obscure words to convey their disgust and baffle any readers into believing they're right about the British being akin to Nazi's just doesn't work, sorry. Yes the British empire was far from perfect, but fascists? (Please feel free to use wikipedia to see what this political ideology actually entails).
"I'm just a chilled out entertainer" -
Sheriff_Of_Nottingham — 16 years ago(September 26, 2009 05:32 AM)
If there was no British Empire, there would be no U.S., Canada, Oz, or New Zealand. The nations that the British Empire built are the most peaceful, prosperous, democratic, technologically advanced, and stable places on the planet. Millions of people from around the globe have made substantially better lives for themselves as a result. The British Empire "brought light to the darker corners of the earth." Like anything that comes from man, it was FAR from perfect, but on balance the good outweighed the bad. What would the world look like if there was no British Empire? Most likely, alot more like the third world.
-
Johnny-Cakes — 12 years ago(August 26, 2013 03:25 PM)
Dearest sheriff of Nottingham, lol so hard I poop a little in my pants. The Brits didnt build America. In fact, I believe that most of the expansion of America happened after a bloody war fough to emancipate it from the Britsbut my history is iffy. The funny thing about this entire thread is how wrong most people are. It's Internet comedy operating at its highest levels. Willful ignorance in a world of information. Glorious really. Humanity at its finest. Pip pip, Cheerios, and all that rot.
-
Arthur_Nelson — 16 years ago(October 12, 2009 12:29 PM)
I would agree that the British Empire was greatly preferable to that of any other colonial power. And to caricature all imperialists as evil racists is patent nonsense. The whole point was that India and the other colonies COULD attain the same level of development as Britain. The liberal Victorians believed that they had rediscovered the Medieval world in many of their colonies, and were motivated by a desire to raise their subject peoples out of darkness, to bring them to the same level of civilisation enjoyed in the mother country. A fascist power like Nazi Germany would not believe that dark-skinned peoples could better themselves, and they certainly wouldn't have tried to 'improve' them rather than merely exploit - or indeed, exterminate - them. While the earlier, 18th century empire existed alongside native peoples on a 'live and let live basis', it was undoubtedly more ruthless, cruel and exploitative: by the 19th century, the Empire was beginning to transform in character, many of its movers and shakers motivated by genuinely good intentions over the desire for profit, even if its subjects did not always agree - Arabs forced to swear on the Koran to abolish slavery, for example, or Hindus angry that the custom of forced self-immolation by high-caste females upon the deaths of their husbands was to be outlawed.
Today the Empire may popularly be perceived as the worst form of capitalist exploitation, but many people living in 19th century Britain would have seen themselves as undertaking an almost altruistic civilising mission, determined to stamp out the evil creed of slavery (no nation ever devoted more money and resources to eradicating this practise across the globe) and to spread the fruits of the industrial revolution across the world, as well as exporting liberal British political values. It is interesting today to note that an African government is measured by the yardstick of a colonial administration, rather than by the standards of a Cetshwayo or a Ranavalona I, for instance (although it is also interesting to note that the death of nearly half the population of Madagascar - largely by torture - under the latter is regarded by many Africans today as being a unique cultural quirk, rather than as the grisly work of a 'female Caligula', as she was denounced by Western scholars of the time. Ah well - it's always better to have a home-grown autocrat than the 'enlightened' rule of a foreign power, eh?). Britain wanted its colonies to share in its developments, even as they were directly benefiting British power. If the Russians had gotten hold of India, would they have been thus inclined? What about the Japanese? Or even the Belgians, whose king, Leopold II, had ruthlessly exploited his 'private' colony in the Congo?
In the end, of course, the Empire went into meltdown after exhausting itself utterly in two world wars - and, ironically, by educating men such as Gandhi in liberal western values, at English universities (though it's debatable how much of an impact Gandhi actually had on an empire already entirely drained by the titanic effort of taking on Hitler in the Second World War). Would Hitler have allowed 'racial inferiors' equal access to education? Would a Nazi administration have increased the percentage of Indian children attending schools? I, for one, believe that the British Empire was not such a bad thing as is often made out - and, realistically speaking, it was certainly a more appealing prospect than the many alternatives on offer, perhaps even some of the alternatives on offer today in a world wracked by war, civil war and poverty.
Cecil Rhodes is often regarded as the worst type of imperialist, but his Last Will and Testament (1902) is instructive in that it expresses the desire for, in the British Empire, the 'foundation of so great a Power as to render wars impossible, and promote the best interests of humanity.' Hypothetically, if the Pax Britannia still existed today, would the world be one of greater peace and stability? Government, if the ICS is anything to go by, might well be less corrupt and more cost-effective. If the Empire had continued to evolve, according greater rights to its subject peoples with the passage of time and providing them with greater opportunities within the colonial administration, I believe that the answer could well have been yes. -
Knecht_Rupprecht — 16 years ago(November 13, 2009 05:19 AM)
To be a smart ass, acording to Alfred Rosenberg the (Northern) Indians were members of the arian race and there existed a Indian Legion in the Waffen SS under the command of Subhash Chandra Bose so I guess with a German vitory India would have become independet (or more likely a close satelite to the Reich).
Afterall I don't think that imperialism wasn't as bad as it is always depicted. Of course Europeans killed a lot of innocents and exploited the natives. But in most cases the situation for the average african wasn't that different from bevore. Bevore European colonization he was exploited by his local tribal king or sultan an now by european. Not much of a difference. And not to forget europeans introduced modern medicine and built up the african infrastructure and hospitals, so afterall left africa richer than they came. -
anotherbrilliantmind — 14 years ago(June 13, 2011 12:53 AM)
I just love the argument that Africans (or Black people for that matter) ended up being "better off" because of British Imperialism, the slave trade, and the exploitation of the continent's people and resources. I'm sure anyone with a slight grasp of history will tell you the continent wasn't "left richer" - those who profited from the discovery and sale of Africa's resources weren't African nations. Oh, and I'm pretty sure the "average African" wasn't used to being taken from their homeland, forced to endure a horrifying voyage across the sea, beaten, raped, maimed, or killed.
But to address the original issue this post has raised: Obviously, people from various backgrounds will have differing opinions of history. One should recognize, however, that history is extremely subjective and just because a "fact" is widely believed or even backed by "evidence" doesn't mean that it is true or right.
By the way, for the post bragging about Britain's offspring being such peaceful nations and prosperous nations You've got the prosperous right, pretty much. But you might want to reference Australian and American history when you talk about "peace." -
turin0016 — 14 years ago(September 14, 2011 02:54 AM)
It was an empire. As in, one country deciding that because they could bring to bear more of and more powerful weapons than the people who'd historically lived on a piece of land, they therefore had a right to take ownership of that land from the indigneous people.
There's no way to paint that mindset or action in a positive light.
Yes, there are "less bad" empires, relatively speaking. That's hardly an excuse, though. It absolutely is jingoistic claptrap to claim "oh the Brits weren't so bad, and we enlightened a lot of countries through our presence."
They also didn't just give back land when asked. They gave up pieces of their empire bit by pride-swallowing bit as it became economically unreasonable/unprofitable to maintain a hold on a place (they removed all the resource wealth, or the natives kept on making them pay a price in blood to hold said land, etc) or in later years as it became less and less politically expedient (the negative PR war waged by Gandhi, etc) to maintain any sort of control over a land not theirs.
Most people that aren't rank apologists will even admit that Ireland has been a longstanding example of just how non-benevolent the British empire was (does not excuse many [most] of the acts taken by such as the IRA, but still). It's just a very "visible" example.
It was an empire. Not cool. Selfish, blind, greedy, inhumane action.
Does this mean that the average British soldier of the varying times was a brute with no conscience? Of course not, and a lot of films that deal with subject matter touching on the British empire make their point with broadsword strokes where a scalpel's touch would be more appropriate (if less effective - let's face it, the average moviegoer is an idiot). You can't, however, hide behind the soldiers in defending the wars. The US gov't has been trying that slimy tactic for years on end and it's still disingenuous at best, sociopathic at worst.
Anyway. This was a forgettable movie. Heath Ledger wasn't bad, and Djimon Honsou was strong as always, but in general it was hamfisted and took far too long to tell its story at too irregular a pace. -
ns_garcia — 14 years ago(October 30, 2011 09:07 AM)
You all are judging people from the past by our moral and modern tastes. We have learned from their historical behavior. We have a distaste for war, exploitation and violence because we have their past steps to guide us. Britain changed over time, the world changed as well.
The great wars of the 20th century were about which empires would control the world, and as sad as the choice were, we would not do much better if we were on their shoes at that time. -
!!!deleted!!! (6241938) — 13 years ago(September 18, 2012 01:19 PM)
Does the film say that the reason they launched the expedition was not to conquer anything or to stop the uprising, but simply to rescue Gordon, the British general who was trapped in Khartoum?
Why should it say? It's not about history, it's not about events, it's about characters.
And I don't see anything particularly bad about the British in this movie. Your oversensitive.