Colonialism

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Do you realize the events that led up to that incident? Unprovoked attacks on innocent people. Oops, that kind of messes up the idea that you've been doctored to believe. (Let's just gloss over that... *whistle*... MURDERERS!) Much better for yourself like that, no?

Not that anti-British to not come over in their droves though, eh?

You were part of the Empire. If Britain was involved, then India was too. I don't really understand this one. Do you think that if the Germans succeeded in dominating the whole of Europe, they would have left the rest of the world to their own devises? Hitler was a complete and utter nut job and wanted control of the world. India got it's independence after that anyway, so I don't know what there is to complain about .

I can see why you have the views that you do, but you have to see the other side of things too. I doubt there's a single civilian anywhere in the world who thinks "Ah, I'm glad we got invaded by such-and-such". Nobody will think that, every member of every country in the world thinks that they would have been fine on their own. It's called pride, everyone has it. It's not true though.

1 question - Do you understand what happened in the Peninsula Wars very well? Do you know what the French did to the civilians and innocents in Portugal and Spain? If you don't, then I suggest we do as you say and drop this one mate. It's probably not worth either of our time.

 

Fair enough...we agree to disagree...

 

Quite a patronizing tone you have there BA. While you are quite correct about that no one likes to be invaded I'm not quite convinced that invasion has brought anyone any good in the long run. Progress can be quite well achieved as an independent nation too, I've yet to see good examples of progress brought by force. While I'm not an expert in the colonial rule over India I do know about the states before that and they were not all that backward. They were not industrialized sure and the British most certainly did bring some industry to the area but on the other hand neither was Japan and they sure managed to develop on their own.

In any case I wonder what makes you think that your views are less covered with pride than those of Faraaz?

 

Do you mean when they imported foreign advisors to help, or when the Americans rebuilt after WW2?

 

Of course they used foreign expertise. It would have been impossible for them to develop industry from scratch. Perhaps I was not completely clear on that one. I'm not proposing that Europe had no part in it, what I'm saying is that they were able to decide it by themselves and did the industrialization by themselves too. Japan was also a major power allready before WWI so I fail to see what Americas rebuilding of Japan has to do with anything. Except of course you mean that they got democracy, which is certainly true. British rulership over its colonies however had very little to do with democracy.

 

@Morg: In some cases, there just isn't any point arguing...

 

The argument, after wading through the bumf, is "They would have been fine on their own".

This may be true, it may be true. Who knows? Nobody can know. All people are saying is that the majority of British colonies were more advanced after, than before.

If you want to slap empires, get stuck into the Romans (who used slavery to a MASSIVE scale), the Persians (who killed and slaughtered), the Mongols (who killed and slaughtered an took slaves), the French (who ravaged Spain and Portugal beyond belief), the Spanish (who were probably the most religiously intolerant people of their age) etc. etc. etc. May as well leave Britain alone, as the British empire abolished slavery, were mostly religiously tolerant and allowed colonies to rule themselves to a large degree. Angels? No, of course not. The worst? Hell no.

I'll say it again, you're *really* choosing the wrong people if you want to slag off empires etc.

 

You do agree though, that we would have been fine on our own?

 

I don't know. Who knows? Who knows if any of the major empires colonies would have been fine on their own? There's no way of knowing or telling really.

The fact is though, if Britain hadn't won the war for India (we had a fight with the French about it) then someone else would have come along and claimed the place. India's army at the time was very very poor. If it wasn't Britain, then France, Spain or whoever else would have taken the place.

Unfortunately, back in those days it was the lot of weak countries (you understand I use this term in military terms) to be conquered by stronger nations. Britain would be French owned now were it not for our strong military, ruthlessness and clever diplomacy. It was just the way of things.

 

Which is not to say that it was the right way of things?? Just saying "someone else was bound to have done it eventually" does not let England off the hook!

 

As I said I'm not really lashing out against British colonialism in particular, just against colonialism in general, and I can't really agree that the system brought prosperity to the countries where it was implicated. In most places the natives were completely pushed aside by the colonials who took over the power and the government and reaped the profits. Later came the "white mans burden" to bring civilization to these "backward" countries including christianity and western culture. Which really was a very shortsighted way of thinking and completely disregarded any value in the native culture. Imperialism or cultural imperialism are idelogies that I really can not agree with under any circumstances and I have very difficult time in believing that they brought any progress that could not have been achieved by the countries themselves. Not to mention the genocide of the American natives (more or less unintentional through diseases but it's not like the Europeans shed much tears because of it).

As for why not criticize other empires simply because we have none to defend these really. The only ones here defending their colonial mastery are British so I think it's quite obvious why we're predominantly debating about the good and bad brought by British colonialism.

However there are plenty of countries whose actions bother me a lot more. It's quite disgusting that in Brussels you can see statues of Leopold II a man who in his personal colony had going on one of the largest genocides in human history with highest estimates reaching up to 30 million dead, numbers that make guys Hitler look like lightweighters.

 

*sigh* My point Faraaz is that India could (and probably would) have been subjected to much worse under the wing of Spain or France.

The Spanish would have tried to 'purge' the 'heathens' and would likely have gone on about killing all those who didn't convert to Christianity. They even tried to invade Britain and Holland because those countries weren't devout enough (that was comical actually, the Spanish invaded the Holland and Britain sent soldiers over to help the Dutch... we just can't help interfering!). India was far better being conquered by a country who couldn't really give a flying poo-poo about religion.

When the Spanish natives rebelled against French domination (and the British helped them... we weren't all bad!), the French army used a war of terror to try and subdue the locals. They would ride into a town, kill the men and children, rape the women and burn everything in hopes that this would quell any more rebellions. The British went around equipping and training the locals and giving them aid where possible, whilst we won the big battles (Fuentes de Onoro, Talavera, Cuidad Rodrigo, Badajoz etc. etc.).

Basically what I'm saying is that India would have been conquered anyway and Britain was surely the 'lesser of the evils', so to speak.

 

Pretty cavalier way of referring to Britain's evils in India mate! But no, you are right..we are not accomplishing anything by this discussion, so we might as well agree to just disagree...

 

Reading that post would lead anyone to believe that only the French and the Spanish have blood on their hands. Wake up! Colonial wars were waged for world supremacy and colonial powers didn't give a $%§! about the people they subdued, killed or used as pawns to fight their enemies.

Remember the Boers?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Boer_War#The_concentration_camps
I won't even mention India since I don't know the history of this country that well (nevertheless the Amritsar/Jallianwala Bagh Massacre naturally comes to mind).

There is no "good guys" and colonial powers were all greedy and bent on getting as much as they could out of the locals, saying that the British were "better" or were a "lesser evil" is either naive or the expression of some misplaced nationalistic pride...

 

The duchy of Burgundy (which owned at the time the current area of the Benelux countries) was inherited by the Habsburgs of Austria in the late 14th century and in the Habsburg wedding the Spanish and Austrian lands were united under one ruler in Vienna, this was broken with the abdication of Emperor Charles II who divided the the Empire and gave parts of the then Austria controlled lands to Spain, including the Netherlands. Anyway the point of this small background story is that the Netherlands were never (neither was Britain btw unless I'm very badly mistaken) attacked for religious reasons, it was allways a question of politics. The Spanish wanted to hold their domination over the Netherlands which they had gained by legal inheritance and Britain wanted to undermine the power of the increasingly weak and bankrupt Spain even further, claiming that it was a question of religion is simply false. It was all pure politics.

Also by the time India was conquered by Britain, the Spanish Empire was growing weaker with internal strife, there is no way they could have spared the military to strike India. The only ones with relaistic possibilites for that were the French and the British.

You are showing a very one sided view of the Spanish colonialism here. While the Spanish conquest of America could be said to have followed those paths, it in general was not very different from the British rule in northern Africa, especially Marocco. They were not converting people there by the tip of the sword, I don't know where you get that from but it's simply wrong. Marocco was not an ideal colony and was in many ways worse off than most British colonies and was additionally wery unrestful the Spanish economy being completely unable to support any development, but forced conversions and inquisitions were not the policies anymore at that era by any European nation, and not knowing this shows your lack of understanding in non-British colonial rule.

[ December 07, 2006, 18:47: Message edited by: Morgoroth ]

 

Of course the wars were waged for world supremecy. Why the hell else would you invade and conquer? For the laugh? As a dare? Also, actually, most wars of that day were waged for the control of trade routes.

Err.. what about them? They were rebellions. Just like the Jacobites, Welsh under Owain and others. What do you want to say about them?

Who's talking about anyone being good guys? I've made a point in most of my posts here to point out that Britain were guilty of many things, just like the majority of nations. My descriptions of other atrocities by other empires was to show that the British alone weren't the big bad bullies in the playground (as was being portrayed).

Really pal, you should read through what I wrote before you start jumping up and down, as it's evident there that you haven't.

What I meant was, religion was the reason given to the people, as was the case when the Armada sailed to invade Britain. They even had hundreds of priests on the ships. The whole reason behind most 'religious' wars was politics, just like the Crusades etc.

 

EDIT: (quite a lot of edit)

I really should not make claims about the causes of war before reading enough on the subject. Now that I read it it's true that Spain was after the English crown and wanted to invade England. Also there was the papal blessing which can count as a symbol of crusades but still the causes were mostly political and the resentment between the two countries were quite equal at the time.

EDIT2 @Barmy below

Yes I think I understand what you're saying now and I can agree with the most part but this is getting quite offtopic now.

[ December 07, 2006, 19:00: Message edited by: Morgoroth ]

 

I was illustrating that even wars that seem wholly religiously motivated were basically about politics, not comparing the two.

Spain had no means to conquer England? That was the idea of it, that's why the ships they sent were filled up with foot soldiers. They intended to invade, not just defeat our navy. Sure, the piracy against their merchant ships was a contributory factor, as was the fact that we helped their enemies in war. But they came over here with the intention of invading, which is why they were bringing thousands of foot soldiers. They got in a naval fight because Queen Elizabeth gathered nearly our entire navy and went to meet them (we won that one mostly on luck, let me tell you... of course, our more maneuverable ships and better leadership helped, but luck was the main reason!)

 

Sorry for resurrecting this topic, but what would be wrong with the Irish being a little pissed off at 'Bloody Sunday', Barmy? Unarmed protesters were shot dead by foreign paratroopers.

 

There was apparently a shot from the protesters before any action from the paras. It's very difficult for the peace-keepers in tense situations like that. They can quite easily escalate.