Colonialism: ah, ye olde glorie!

[Crixus]

A poll shows nearly 44% of Britons are 'proud' of their colonial past. I was frankly stunned, as I'd imagined the % to be considerably lower, given the current widely accepted views on colonialism re: the havoc it created on the occupied countries.

It reminds me--however inaccurately--of the polls done with Muslims (Pew) that display a disturbing approval of archaic shit/the past. This, where slightly less than half of Britons actually take pride in their history of invading, occuping, stealing, plundering, and killing indigineous people, is comparable in terms of the mnindset/opinions held (the rigidity and focus on the past).

Of course, being from where I am, it has a personal aspect as well.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/worst-atrocities-british-empire-amritsar-boer-war-concentration-camp-mau-mau-a6821756.html

 

 

 

 

[Spockydog]

1 hour ago, Crixus said:

A poll shows nearly 44% of Britons are 'proud' of their colonial past.

Nobody asked me.

 

[Crixus]

Ha! Honestly I don't know the sample size, demographic spread and such.

The article mentions gaps wrt the way British colonial history is taught in some(?) schools. What's your take on that?

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/british-people-are-proud-of-colonialism-and-the-british-empire-poll-finds-a6821206.html

It paints a rather surprising picture of Britons, especially compared to my impression of the ones I know. I can't imagine any of them waxing nostalgic on colonialism (well, not in any conversations I've had anyway).

Though to be fair, an older Irish colleague did use the word 'native' quite recently; I was quite unforgiving of that one!

 

[lessthanluke]

I was never taught anything about British colonial history in school for what it's worth. I'd wager a decent chunk of the population doesn't really know a lot about it.

[Spockydog]

22 minutes ago, Crixus said:

It paints a rather surprising picture of Britons, especially compared to my impression of the ones I know. I can't imagine any of them waxing nostalgic on colonialism (well, not in any conversations I've had anyway).

I'm sure there are those who harken back to those days. Perhaps people like these full-kit-wankers.

 

13 minutes ago, lessthanluke said:

I was never taught anything about British colonial history in school for what it's worth. I'd wager a decent chunk of the population doesn't really know a lot about it.

Same here. I was taught about things like the Viking invasions, crop rotation in the fourteenth century, Henry VIII, Battle of Hastings. Shit like that.

[Mathis]

19 minutes ago, lessthanluke said:

I was never taught anything about British colonial history in school for what it's worth.

Same for me. History classes were all about WW2, the Tudors and the middle ages. There was some stuff on the industrial revolution, but I don't recall it ever being linked to colonialism.

44% seems high to me though. OTOH newspapers are losing their minds about a statue of Cecil Rhodes; and try and mention the words Mau Mau, or Kurd, in the same sentence as Winston Churchill and see what reaction you get.

[SeanF]

Most peoples tend to be fairly proud of their national history.  If you took a similar poll in France, Russia, China, or the USA, you'd probably find similar results.

[Crixus]

SeanF

Agreed. However, colonialism especially on the scale of the British Empire is seen as problematic now, to say the least. It's generally accepted that along with, say, bringing railroads to India, it also involved a shitload of subjugation, killing, stealing, drawing up arbitrary borders: stuff that still has an impact on countries across the world.

I don't think you could compare this to China or Russia, for instance. France, yes. USA, with its history of slavery, has the most complicated past of the lot, IMO.

 

 

 

 

[SeanF]

8 minutes ago, Crixus said:

SeanF

Agreed. However, colonialism especially on the scale of the British Empire is seen as problematic now, to say the least. It's generally accepted that along with, say, bringing railroads to India, it also involved a shitload of subjugation, killing, stealing, drawing up arbitrary borders: stuff that still has an impact on countries across the world.

I don't think you could compare this to China or Russia, for instance. France, yes. USA, with its history of slavery, has the most complicated past of the lot, IMO.

 

 

 

 

Russia and China have certainly been imperial powers, and are still a major power (Russia) and a Superpower (China).  And, their expansion over the centuries has involved a great deal of violence and subjugation (Russia's version of the Manifest Destiny was probably even more brutal than America's).

[Crixus]

I'll confess to not knowing too much about either as I'm more well-versed with Britain's history. Certainly the scale of the British Empire was vast.

Shall look up the Manifest Destiny; thanks!

[Tijgy]

I think it is more the fact Britain was the greatest power at the world then than they are proud of the atrocities. There is probably some cognitive dissonance by the Britons. Sadly people like to have their countries bigger or more powerful than others. 

In Belgium our colonial history and his big atrocities is told to us at school (the whole is history is more complicated than Congo was a colony of Belgium. Technically Belgium did not want a colony so that part of Africa was given to our king as his private property who did there a lot of monstruous things (which were in fact addressed by the Britons, just saying). So much that Belgium was forced by the international communities to annex Congo as their colony with as result that the atrocities were lessened and that the Belgian did some good (railroads) and paternalizing stuff. But we did learn about it during high school. I remember we saw certainly some hours of video about Congo and the violence past by the Belgian. 

China, Russia, the USA, France and Germany committed also a lot of atrocities during their time of history. And at the same side Britain also committed a lot of atrocities in Europe (f.e. Ireland) and in Belgium during the 19th century the Dutch speaking population were also treated as inferior to the French speaking population. IIRC one of the people who was the leaders of the Belgian revolution, said about the Belgium population they were just as backward as black people. This is not really a compliment if you know how black people were perceived during that time (early 19th century). 

[ThePrunesThatWasPromised]

Islam colonized, took slaves (from Great Britain among others). Often castrating them as well.The Ottomans committed genocide in Armenia and elsewhere.

African empires, the Mongols and the Aztecs all did similar things.

Just not as well.

[Stannis Eats No Peaches]

Yeah this doesn't surprise me at all. When asked about Britain's colonial past, a lot of Britons are just going to think about how the British Empire was the largest in the history of the world, which is a source of pride for them. As others have said, we simply don't learn enough about the bad shit in school.

[DireWolfSpirit]

This is why it's critical to educate ourselves through multiple views. I know much of what passed for History class in earlier decades can only be described as indoctrination in many Western cultures. Fortunately there are historians out there that have done painstaking research to bring us other voices. The U.S. Is blessed to have Howard Zinn who has given us his monumental classic, " A Peoples History of the United States."

If your not familiar with Zinn or History through the peoples lense, it sounds a bit like this- 

I'm not sure who the British equivalent of Zinn may be? But i'm sure I would like to become familiar with him/her.

[Grand Moff Mithrandir]

Shit explains Chris Patten's response to some Oxford students calling for the removal of Rhodes' statue.

[NestorMakhnosLovechild]

1 hour ago, DireWolfSpirit said:

This is why it's critical to educate ourselves through multiple views. I know much of what passed for History class in earlier decades can only be described as indoctrination in many Western cultures. Fortunately there are historians out there that have done painstaking research to bring us other voices. The U.S. Is blessed to have Howard Zinn who has given us his monumental classic, " A Peoples History of the United States."

If your not familiar with Zinn or History through the peoples lense, it sounds a bit like this- 

I'm not sure who the British equivalent of Zinn may be? But i'm sure I would like to become familiar with him/her.

As much as I appreciate what Zinn was trying to do with "A People's History" - it's bad history and Zinn was a terrible academic historian. "A People's History" is a simplistic, ideological fairy tale and straight up bad historical scholarship. 

[TerraPrime]

3 hours ago, ThePrunesThatWasPromised said:

 

African empires, the Mongols and the Aztecs all did similar things.

Just not as well.

The Mongolian empire at its height occupied about as much landmass as the British empire did. And they did it in the 1200s, without the help of firearms or long-range navy.

[SeanF]

41 minutes ago, TerraPrime said:

The Mongolian empire at its height occupied about as much landmass as the British empire did. And they did it in the 1200s, without the help of firearms or long-range navy.

Genghis Khan must have been one of the cruellest men in his history.

But, his record as a commander, statesman, politician, and ruler was extraordinary.  His entire career reads like a far-fetched historical novel.

[ThePrunesThatWasPromised]

 

African empires, the Mongols and the Aztecs all did similar things.

Just not as well.

The Mongolian empire at its height occupied about as much landmass as the British empire did. And they did it in the 1200s, without the help of firearms or long-range navy.

Impressive no doubt.

Are Mongolians constantly shamed for it?

I honestly don't know.

[HexMachina]

40 minutes ago, Leap said:

We really didn't learn that much about colonialism in school. Hell, I still don't know much about it.

There is some good to be said of English history lessons though, they did let us watch Blackadder as part of our section on WW1. 

 

I learned more about colonialism from 1/3 of a module in A level geography Thani ever learned in any history lesson. Granted, I stopped taking history in Y9, but even so, I know the following two years focused entirely on WWI/WWII so I wouldn't have been better off there. I'm not even sure I can recall what we did learn in history now...I think a little about William the Conqueror. A little on Victorian society. The plague came into it somewhere...we really didn't do a lot.