Colonialism

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The economic history of the United States is a story of economic growth that began with successful colonial economies and progressed to the largest industrial economy in the world in the 20th and early 21st century. With the collapse of the Soviet Union at the end of the Cold War, the nation emerged as the world's sole remaining superpower, and today, the United States plays a major role in world affairs. Recent events have served to highlight the nature of the special relationship by increasing the importance of Britain in relation to the US. Following the September 11th Attacks in New York and Washington DC, British Prime Minister Tony Blair flew to Washington. In a speech to the United States Congress, nine days after the attack, President Bush declared "America has no truer friend than Great Britain."

India has the world's fourth largest economy in purchasing power and the second fastest growing large economy. With an active space program, India is considered an emerging superpower.

South Africa is one of the most advanced African nations with a well-developed financial, legal, communications, energy, and transport sectors; a stock exchange that ranks among the 10 largest in the world; and a modern infrastructure supporting an efficient distribution of goods to major urban centers throughout the region.

Due to a colonial based economic foundation Australia has an enviable Western-style capitalist economy with a per capita GDP on par with the four dominant West European economies. Rising output in the domestic economy, robust business and consumer confidence, and rising exports of raw materials and agricultural products are fueling the economy.

Over the past 20 years the government has transformed New Zealand from an agrarian economy dependent on concessionary British market access to a more industrialized, free market economy that can compete globally.

The mid East has been politically instable for thousands of years so how can you place that on British colonialism.

After looking at these facts how then hell can you call these countries screwed by British colonialism.

Even if we were what gives you the right to call all British people colonial tyrants?

 

Compete globally at what exactly? Rugby?

 

Yachting...

 

Sheep herding?

 

So we have British colonialism to thank for our global "competitiveness" in rugby, yachting, and sheep herding? Woohoo! If the French had landed here first, maybe we'd be better at soccer.....

 

Duffin while you set up a fine list of examples lets not forget that in all the cases (except india) the British brought the people too in addition ot the "great development". Do you see any great prosperity that the British brought the natives in Australia, New Zealand or North America for that matter? South Africa being an even finer example because there the white minority are the ones who almost exclusively have the wealth and the blacks the ones who have the poverty. So I can't possibly agree that British colonialism brought these people great progress.

India is another case, while it is indeed growing and becoming one of the most formidable economies in the world I tend to believe that it's despite of colonialism more than because of it. It's not like China has had much worse economical development recently and they were never colonized by any European nation.

Up until the industrialisation India was doing quite well, but without effective industry the Indian textile trade was completely destroyed by European industrial competition and the economy set for decline which the Europeans were more than willing to exploit.

It was a valiant effort considering the odds. I'd like to see you try and charge with spears against firearms. Quite frankly most had no means to rebel against the Brittish. In India the Brittish played quite brilliantly the political game sparing them from uprisings up until the time they became independent. Most uprisings were small because there was no way for independent tribes to organize, small rebellions that the British had no trouble in crushing.

Not directly no. The white colonists set up their own governments but never got any natives involved. Or are you perhaps suggesting that the blacks in South Africa were the ones who voted for apartheid? I didn't think so.

[ December 05, 2006, 05:55: Message edited by: Morgoroth ]

 

Your narrative completely and totally overlooks the fate of the peoples who were present in North America prior to European colonization. Their fate can be summed up with one word: genocide.

And genocide isn't usually a good thing for the folks on the receiving end (though as my nation's history illustrates, it can be great for the people practicing it).

And for the next three, you simply state they're doing well economically at present (hardly true of India, incidentally; the majority of the country is extraordinarily poor, rapid growth or no. To say nothing of AIDS, or relations with Pakistan, or nuclear proliferation). This is, you'll forgive my saying so, a nonsensical response. At risk of stating the obvious, areas can suffer and later recover. The fact that they recover is not a testament that they benefited from their suffering.

Furthermore, one cannot simply refer to economic statistics as though they are the only relevant information; doing so is at best woefully inaccurate, at worst dishonest.

I didn't. I said the area was screwed over by British colonialism. I didn't say there were no other factors in the region's instability.

Put simply, the colonialism made things worse, not better.

I didn't.

 

I'm not sure what you saying here, but you may be correct. One of the driving forces behind the Revolution was that, while the American economy was beginning to prosper, British restrictions on American trade and commerce was hindering any real prosperity for the colonists themselves. As is often the case, the controling nation lives off the fat of what the colony produces at the expense of the locales.

This was not supposed to ba a "battle" in the real sense of the word. It was a "secret" operation in which the English would march to Concord and sieze a stockpile of arms and arrest Sam Adams and John Hancock. Instead, the colonists were warned in advance by a system of night riders, which included the famous Paul Revere. By the time the English force arrived in Lexington, a handfull of local militia had gathered on the town commons. The English ordered them to disband, which they did, but as they were leaving the commons, shots were fired. When the smoke had cleared several of the locals were killed (it's still unclear which side fired first).

Instead of turning back to Boston, which would have been smart, the commander of the English continued on to Concrod where the militia from the surrounding countryside was starting to form up lines. By the time the English arrived, the angry colonists were swarming in the surrounding trees along the road. After a short stay in Concord, the English began a hasty retreat back to Boston, and were fired on from the surrounding countryside almost the entire way. The orginal force would never have made it back without the timely arrival of reinforcements from Boston, which covered their retreat.

[ December 05, 2006, 08:00: Message edited by: Chandos the Red ]

 

The Zulu's did have guns. In fact, they had more than the British did.

@ Chandos - Well, I mean you've got Bunker Hill (2400 engaged), Quebec (1200 engaged), Hubbardton (1000), Trenton (1400), Princeton (only 1200 properly engaged). I'm sure there are a couple I've forgotten about. Do you see why it might have been considered a little insignificant? Especially when compared with the likes of, Vitoria (72,000), Salamanca (52,000), Corunna (153,000), Talavera (46,000). I can see why it might have been decided that we'd concentrate on a bigger threat.

 

Some had guns, and those were very few. While I do not know the amount of guns I'm under a very strong impression that only a select few had them. Even so, they certainly did not possess gatling guns or artillery which both were essential to warfare at the time.

 

Well I know and I'd be glad to tell you . The Zulu's had 'tens of thousands' of muskets and rifles, most of poor quality. However, they had 1200 British used Martini breech loading rifles which they had taken.

Neither force had any kind of automatic guns or artillery. There were 4500 Zulu's and 139 British soldiers (mostly Welsh).

It was just a case of brilliant defensive techniques. The Zulu's weren't, however, unorganized and they used a good, tried and tested attack technique (the "Horns").

 

I'm not sure where you are taking your facts but after my answer I decided to do a little wikipedia search on the subject and it does mention that the British had and used both of them in the war. Also according to the article the British needed a bit more than 139 men for victory.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anglo-Zulu_War

EDIT: It just occured to me if we even are talking about the same thing now or are referring to some later rebellion that I'm not actually aware of?

 

Not at Rorke's Drift, they didn't. That's the entire Anglo-Zulu war you're looking at there in which there were 5 battles. The British used artillery at 3 of these. They didn't have artillery at either Islandlwana or Rorke's Drift. I was talking specifically about Rorke's Drift.

Also, all this 'spears and shields' stuff is really over-stated. Nearly ALL the British casualties in all 5 battles were shot, rather than stabbed. And I *mean* nearly all (at, at least 3 of the battles of the war, each and every one of the British casualties were shot, not stabbed).

 

Anyway even if you had gunpowder weapons and the opposition didn't you're only going to get a few shots off before the enemy is right at you. I myself would absolutely **** myself if natives were bearing down on me with spears and shields and I only had a musket for defence.

 

Just want point out that China was indeed colonized by some of Europe's nations. I dont know to what extend, though. IIRC, the Brits and, to a lesser degree, Germany were involved.

 

Yes Hong Kong was a British colony until it was officially handed over to the People's Republic of China in 1997.

 

Didnt Portugal also have a small area even throguh WW2?

 

Hong Kong

Dalveen, jap. Macau was a colony of Portugal. So sayeth Google.

 

True enough, but two small islands in the big landmass that is China does not mean all that much really, they were both more like trading posts to guarantee the British and Portugese intrests in Chinese trade. China basically was smacked around by Germany, France, Japan, Russia, Britain and France ifor a good part of the 19th century. Brought quite some devastation to the country. Not that it was anything special, China is a country which has been united and torn apart more times in history than I can really even count.

 

@Barmy: Locking the gates and opening fire on unarmed women and children is over-simplification?? Mate, if that is your attitude, I don't even know if we can actually discuss these things. However, I will guarantee you one thing. You will not find a single Indian who thinks the British were anything BUT bad news in India...

I know for a fact there are STILL some very anti British folks here in India to this day, especially the older generation.

Also, you haven't commented on the fact that India was entered into the second World War even though we were not actively involved in any way to begin with...the term Cannon Fodder comes to mind..if you still maintain that all of this was for the benefit of India then I have just lost a lot of respect for England...