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The most "humane" colonial empire? |
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 Topic: The most "humane" colonial empire?Posted: 24-Jul-2007 at 15:42 |
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 Absolutely. English were the most brutal colonial power of all. Theirs genocides account by tens of millions and they were the main source of inspiration for the hollocaust of the Nazis.
Not only Africans and Amerindian suffered, though. They affected all the people around the planet. They were also the starters of the international drug trade.
Curious "humane" people.
I preffer Irish people, indeed.
Pinguin
Edited by pinguin - 24-Jul-2007 at 15:43 |
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edgewaters
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Snake in the Grass-Banned Joined: 13-Mar-2006 Location: Canada Online Status: Offline Posts: 2394 |
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Posted: 24-Jul-2007 at 16:36 |
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Well, I think you're going way overboard, I don't see how the Nazis were inspired by British colonialism. The British were generally happy to have "hewers of wood and drawers of water", they just tended to react with brutality to uprisings. But the Jews weren't exactly forming mobs and throwing stones or anything. They were just like other Germans.
Well that just shows the size of their empire, not how intense their brutality was. If France had an empire as big as Britain, they would have affected more populations with colonial brutality as well.
Oh, hardly. Drugs have been traded across long distances since time immemorial. One of the most ancient urban centres in the Americas, Caral in Peru, actually coalesced because of a trade in drugs which caused it to become a center of trade in other things that could be exchanged for drugs. |
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Posted: 24-Jul-2007 at 16:44 |
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(1) British are quoted in Hitler "mein kampf" as a source of inspiration. The genocide of Native Americans was the inspiration for ethnic cleaning in Europe. The same British colonial idea of different "races" or castes of people. (2) Yes, France show its brutality as well, particularly in Haiti. (3) International drug trade was started by Britain when forced the entrance of oppium to China after the war of the same name.
(4) Drugs have been used in the Americas since ancient times for shamanism, as in Chavin for example. Not for hippism or drug addiction. There is a huge difference in there. Besides, chewing a coca leave is hardly the same that sniff a row of cocaine
 Pinguin
Edited by pinguin - 24-Jul-2007 at 16:49 |
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calvo
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Joined: 20-May-2007 Location: Spain Online Status: Offline Posts: 846 |
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Posted: 24-Jul-2007 at 16:57 |
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Hitler might have got some of his ideas from the British Empire, but equating the exploits of the British Empire to the holocaust is going overboard.
The British did invent the concept of the "White Race" that we talk about so much of today.
Curiously, prior to the 19th century the concept of a "White Race" didn't exist, and it was invented in the Victorian Imperial to separate the colonising nations to the colonised. It was a way to use biological explanation to justify a nation's dominance.
"White" doesn't equate to "Caucasoid", because the latter, as an anthropological term, also includes Middle-Easterners, North Africans, Indians and South Asians, and even Sudanese and Ethiopians to some extent...
The concept that "White is superior" is a very recent concept and only came into being after the 1800s, thanks to British colonialism.
Hitler took what was a common social practice in British colonies and built an even more radical theory based on the "Aryan Race".
In fact, I really wish that countries like the USA could stop using "White" and "non-White" as ethnic classification, because "Whiteness" was a victorian political race, rather than anything with any biological, anthropological, or even cultural significance.
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The_Jackal_God
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Posted: 24-Jul-2007 at 19:03 |
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i went with the french, considering their extensive building of schools and the goal of building up native intellegentsia.
they saw themselves not as frenchifying but rather as modernizing, and truth be told, they should've been given more time. i think france's record in africa is much better than her colleagues. |
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Constantine XI
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Posted: 24-Jul-2007 at 21:40 |
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But wait a minute, didn't all the other Empires fight really really hard to keep their empires when they didn't have the power to, while the British at the end of WWII chose to withdraw on the whole quite peacefully? That sounds rather enlightened. The British crafted their imperial policy to suit realities, unlike a lot of other powers who would do it for the pomp of being called an empire.
And also, who says the British were worse? Overall, they ran their empire more humanely than say, the Belgians.
Not only that, many british colonies today are among the most successful in the world. The ones which were most receptive to British ideas and culture are generally the ones who have developed best.
And also, where is your proof the Nazis copied the British? Seems to be that if the Nazis wanted to copy a contemporary in setting up concentration camps, they would need only look to the Soviet gulags. Apart from that, the Nazis were sufficiently hateful to come up with a range of original ideas all on their own. Sure, Hitler might admire the Brits for building an empire, but Hitler admired everything which was an example of strength and power, it doesn't mean he copied them in everything. I bet you Hitler thought the Romans were pretty great too, shall we also blame the Roman Empire for the holocaust?
The drug trade flourished in many parts of the world long before the British showed up. India had a particularly rich drug trade. People in both India and China had been taking opium long before the British showed up. Only difference was that the British took control of India, and India had opium of a far superior quality to that of China. Back then, of course, "drugs" was not a word with such a negative connotation as today. It was just another commodity like sugar, or coffee or any range of Indian spices.
Well if you know what the Payati (I think I spelt it wrong) cactus does, you would have to conclude the Native Americans were using drugs to have psychadelic experiences just like other people in the world. The aim of opium wasn't to be a hippy or an addict either, it was recreation.
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Posted: 24-Jul-2007 at 22:37 |
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France? Please, France had a terrible humanitarian record in Haiti
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Posted: 24-Jul-2007 at 22:50 |
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Perhaps a little bit more human, but the scale of the British empire was bigger. Britain should accept its past and not pretend it was a perfect nation, because it wasn't.
As I say before, economical success doen't erase the genocides of the past. Besides Britain is lagging with respect to Asia, today. Morality is not measured in dollars or pounds.
Just the law of action and reaction. Europe spread hate around the world, Europe paid for it with its own homegrown monster: Hitler.
Yeap! Recreation against the will of the Emperor of China. What an humilliation for the Celestial Empire!!!
With respect to drugs in the Native Americans, some of them have them and used,mostly for ritual purposses. It were the hippies, though, with theirs revolution of the flowers, which created a new market for drugs worldwide.
Remember Eric Clampton singing "Cocaine"?
Well, the criminals of Colombia listened
 It is no mystery that one of the first drugs lords loved John Lennon, do you guess why?
 Edited by pinguin - 24-Jul-2007 at 22:51 |
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The_Jackal_God
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Posted: 24-Jul-2007 at 23:03 |
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heh, europe paying for hitler...and stalin.
yes, france had a bleak spot on its history with the case of Haiti. and i don't like how they suppressed syrian indepedence in 1922. but overall, in comparison with the two other major colonizers, the British and the English, they come out on top, a little ahead of the Spanish, and way ahead of the English. |
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Constantine XI
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Posted: 24-Jul-2007 at 23:12 |
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Personally I would feel better knowing my ancestral society was destroyed if the invaders replaced it with something that today's people benefit from today. For example, most West Europeans feel pretty good about Rome. It's public baths, roads, aquaducts and city organisation gave society a push in the right direction - and today we benefit from that. The Romans were nasty to be sure, raping and killing on a massive scale. But unlike the Vikings, for example, they made a much more positive impact in the long term. So I think it does matter if some long term benefit came out of an invasion, as opposed to if a broken society was not replaced with any form of improvement.
Sorry buddy but you need to provide more evidence than that. I don't believe in karma so you will have to provide historical evidence to show that overseas colonisation resulted in Hitler launching WWII. Saying "it happened because they deserved it" is not proper history.
Well it's true that the 60s was really the age in which a strong drug culture began to develop, mostly with the emergence of new types of drugs in the Western world. Previously, opium, tobacco and alcohol had been most people's drug of choice - and opium wasn't even that common in the West. With the spread of marijuana and new chemical based drugs, partiers, layabouts, hippies and celebrities had a whole new world of fun little treats to help them get off their tits. Compared to what is around today, they actually seem quite tame. Edited by Constantine XI - 24-Jul-2007 at 23:15 |
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Posted: 24-Jul-2007 at 23:59 |
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I can agree on that. Even more, it seem Britain tried to correct itself while time passed, which is something possitive in its favor.
Viking made a possitive contribution in Britain as well. At least that's what the history channel said once
Not because it was predestined, or Karma at all. Just because the success of British colonization awake envy in Germans, so they tried to copy the methods.... Nazis didn't read the book of contemporary Britain, though, but of its origins as a pirate, genocide and slave trading nation of centuries already gone.
It was the blessing of drugs what matters. The baby boomer generation was the main promoter of drug consumption ever.
Pinguin
Edited by pinguin - 25-Jul-2007 at 00:00 |
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edgewaters
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Posted: 25-Jul-2007 at 00:57 |
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Well that would presume that they didn't accept their past and do pretend they are a perfect nation, which is hardly the case at all. British introspection over the colonial period is extremely well-documented and is also a part of the common culture and popular perceptions. Just like most of the other ex-colonial powers.
I'll agree with you there. The modern success or lack thereof of former colonies doesn't tell us anything about how brutal or humane the empires who founded them were. South Africa is probably the wealthiest of all African nations, and yet the history there is chock full of brutality. New Guinea, on the other hand, experienced very little or no brutality but today is quite poor.
Oh well then, that's not brutality, just one empire humiliating another empire.
Common misconception. Drugs were actually far more widely available and far more widely used before WW1 than during the Sixties (in the US, prior to the Harrison Narcotic Act of 1914). You could get diacetyl morphine (heroin) injection kits at the general store or pharmacy, and people did. Edited by edgewaters - 25-Jul-2007 at 00:58 |
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Constantine XI
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Posted: 25-Jul-2007 at 01:19 |
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I do see what you are saying, but what I am searching for is proof. Many nations in Europe had large empires and became wealthy because of them, Britain's was simply the most magnificent in scale. As I was saying earlier, the Nazis valued anything which demonstrated power, lack of compromise and a dauntless belief in the rightness of one's own nation of people. So the Nazis looked to any empire which was an example of that. Britain was one, Rome another, the Holy Roman Empire at its height another. So what makes you think that it was specifically Britain that inspired Nazi ideals?
You are saying there is a process here. At the beginning of the process, Britain carves out an empire using some immoral methods. Then, Nazis take note of those methods and develop them further. Finally, Nazis apply these super methods and the result is WWII and all that follows. Therefore, Britain causes the Nazis to cause WWII.
I think this is flawed. Firstly, you need to provide a direct link showing Britain's policy influencing Nazi policy, e.g. Britain did something, a Nazi writer took note of it, the Nazis started doing it. Secondly, you need to guarantee the Nazis would not have done all the awful things they did if Britain never existed. I personally think they would have gone right ahead, used their imaginations and still come up with awful methods.
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Tar Szernd
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Posted: 25-Jul-2007 at 01:19 |
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What about the concentration camps for Boers in South-Africa? |
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Constantine XI
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Posted: 25-Jul-2007 at 01:22 |
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It is possible the Nazis picked up on that. It's also possible they copied concentration camps from the USSR modelled on the Siberian gulags. Until someone presents direct evidence linking one to the other, all we have is speculation, which isn't proof.
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Patch
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Posted: 25-Jul-2007 at 04:23 |
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The Germans were running death camps (not concentration camps - there is a big difference) in Namidia before ww1. The Herero Genocide in what was then German South West Africa was also characterised by the German attention to detail - they deligently recorded each death, again another characteristic about the Holocaust.
Concentration camps where also used in the 1890s in Cuba by the Castilians so not a British invention.
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HEROI
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Joined: 06-Jul-2007 Online Status: Offline Posts: 468 |
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Posted: 25-Jul-2007 at 06:08 |
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I m split between the Ottoman and the British empires,Had not Britain behaved the way it did in africa (specially in Kenia) I would have given my vote to Britain but in the ottoman empire there was quite an equal treatment of all peoples thats why it stands out as an example.Very hard ,i m not sure,i think that colonianism in itself is evil,and setting to colonise is settin to kill people,burn civilisations,rape cultures,enslave and rip other human being of dignity and belonging,and above all colonising is taking away from people the freedom they enjoy within their comunity to which they identify themselves.For me all colonial powers are equaly guillty and equaly inhumane.
I would though like to point out Belgium in the Congo as the worst example of inhumanity in human history. |
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Me pune,me perpjekje.
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HEROI
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Posted: 25-Jul-2007 at 06:15 |
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By the way my vote did not go to any of them,for the reason that is something wrong with the way the question is put ( looks like the guy is journalist or something
 ) Is asking who is the most humane as if the colonial empires were in some sort of competition on who would behave most humanly,and now we the spectators of history give our vote to whom we think is the most humane,is wrong,in this way we give credit to an particular colonial empire for being the least cruel,and the least inhumane,
I sugest the Poll question be changed in to ,Which empire do you think was the most INHUMANE.And then i would cast my vote.
Ps.i did not vote in the current poll.
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Me pune,me perpjekje.
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gcle2003
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Posted: 25-Jul-2007 at 06:47 |
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a) Hitler admired the British for their achievements. As anyone would, really.
b) the genocide of native Americans was not done by Britons or for that matter Englishmen, but by Americans of all sorts of different ancestries. In the timespans and areas of North America controlled by Britain, native Americans were treated far, far better than those in the US. Which for example is why the Blackfeet found Canada a convenient refuge, and is one of the reasons for the American war of independence in the first place.
c) the concept of different 'races' or castes' of people is present in all civilisations since time immemorial, and even in pre-civilised hunter-gatherer communities. To call the idea 'British' is simply lunatic.
That's as daft as saying the British invented racism. Granted Britain fought the opium wars, but to say that they invented the drug trade is just stupid. How do you think the Chinese got the habit in the first place?
Well, no. And smoking a joint or sniffing glue or injecting heroin or swallowing ecstasy tablets are hardly the same either.
I suppose you believe the British were responsible for all of those too?
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Posted: 25-Jul-2007 at 07:10 |
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If you believe in the Black Legend of Britain (like most Hispanics do
), then of course Britain is guilty of all the evil of modern world . No doubt about it. |
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