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The East India Company, the original corporate raiders

theguardian.com

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Re: The East India Company, the original corporate raiders

#21

Post by gizmodo59 »

apsec112 wrote: post #15
newyankee wrote: post #5

It is actually amazing how little British folks today know about their own historical misdeeds, they may accept the issues towards USA and other countries but tend to downplay atrocities magnitudes higher in India and other countries India is important because it was the crown jewel of the British empire and was completely destroyed of its soul by the colonialists with very clever mixture of politics, military and ot…

AFAICT, the British Empire gets much more criticism for its various evils than other historical empires do. Very few people in the West, for example, even know about the ethnic cleansing of the Greeks under the Ottoman Empire ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greek_genocide ), and that was less than a century ago. Probably the worst European colonialists were the Belgians, of all people, under King Leopold II ( https:/…

I'm not sure why you are bringing this point. OP is not saying British are worse than Ottoman or other empires.(Two Wrongs Make A Right Fallacy)

Re: The East India Company, the original corporate raiders

#23

Post by apsec112 »

gizmodo59 wrote: post #21
apsec112 wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

AFAICT, the British Empire gets much more criticism for its various evils than other historical empires do. Very few people in the West, for example, even know about the ethnic cleansing of the Greeks under the Ottoman Empire ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greek_genocide ), and that was less than a century ago. Probably the worst European colonialists were the Belgians, of all people, under King Leopold II ( https:/…

I'm not sure why you are bringing this point. OP is not saying British are worse than Ottoman or other empires.(Two Wrongs Make A Right Fallacy)

The claim seemed to be that historical British crimes were disproportionately ignored, compared to historical crimes committed by other countries. I am arguing against this by pointing to other crimes that (I'm guessing) most Westerners don't even know about.

Re: The East India Company, the original corporate raiders

#24

Post by chimeracoder »

adamnemecek wrote: post #7

Even though they mention it, I came across this chart a while back that shows just by how much bigger it was than the recent largest corporation https://i.pinimg.com/736x/14/4a/6c/144a6c7feb3823f5fd4baa562... It seems to have originally come from here https://i.pinimg.com/736x/14/4a/6c/144a6c7feb3823f5fd4baa562...

> Even though they mention it, I came across this chart a while back that shows just by how much bigger it was than the recent largest corporation

FYI, that's the Dutch East India Company, which was separate from the British East India Company, which this article is about.

The British East India Company was actually much larger.

Re: The East India Company, the original corporate raiders

#25

Post by jorams »

adamnemecek wrote: post #7

Even though they mention it, I came across this chart a while back that shows just by how much bigger it was than the recent largest corporation https://i.pinimg.com/736x/14/4a/6c/144a6c7feb3823f5fd4baa562... It seems to have originally come from here https://i.pinimg.com/736x/14/4a/6c/144a6c7feb3823f5fd4baa562...

While it is never mentioned explicitly, this article is about the British East India Company. While that appears to be the most generally accepted interpretation of the name without further specification, making it explicit would've been great. There were a few different East India Companies.[1]

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/East_India_Company_(disambigua...

Re: The East India Company, the original corporate raiders

#26

Post by rmdundon »

baursak wrote: post #13
newyankee wrote: post #5

It is actually amazing how little British folks today know about their own historical misdeeds, they may accept the issues towards USA and other countries but tend to downplay atrocities magnitudes higher in India and other countries India is important because it was the crown jewel of the British empire and was completely destroyed of its soul by the colonialists with very clever mixture of politics, military and ot…

Crimes of Britain is pretty informative Twitter account on this topic. Here's a sample of a lot more recent British history: https://twitter.com/crimesofbrits/status/905035282046742528

Interesting. However, when anything, such as that video, mentions "zionism", that automatically triggers my anti-Semite radar.

Re: The East India Company, the original corporate raiders

#27

Post by BlackJack »

apsec112 wrote: post #15
newyankee wrote: post #5

It is actually amazing how little British folks today know about their own historical misdeeds, they may accept the issues towards USA and other countries but tend to downplay atrocities magnitudes higher in India and other countries India is important because it was the crown jewel of the British empire and was completely destroyed of its soul by the colonialists with very clever mixture of politics, military and ot…

AFAICT, the British Empire gets much more criticism for its various evils than other historical empires do. Very few people in the West, for example, even know about the ethnic cleansing of the Greeks under the Ottoman Empire ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greek_genocide ), and that was less than a century ago. Probably the worst European colonialists were the Belgians, of all people, under King Leopold II ( https:/…

The Mughal's did bad things too, but some of their kings like Akbar at least tried to integrate society and not cause religious strife. The Mughal Empire did a lot of bad things in India, especially nutcases like Aurangzeb, and Indian people recognize those bad things.

The problem, as I understand, is that a lot of British people don't know all the bad things the Empire did, or don't learn about it the way German people learn about the Holocaust and the Nazi's. Same thing might apply to Belgium - I was appalled to visit Brussels and see a park called "Leopold Park" [1] in the center of the city.

Edit: Turns out this park is named after King Leopold I, the first king of Belgium, and before the Congo atrocities. See https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15314232 for the person who educated me :)

On a more personal level, as an Indian person who grew up in the US, I always thought Churchill was a badass dude and a good wartime leader. It wasn't until Middle School that I learned about the WW2 famines and all the stuff he said about Indian people. He hated Indians and was extremely racist. His decisions directly lead to the death of millions of people in India. He's no better than Hitler or any of those dictators in my view, and it's mind boggling that people idolize him as the Lion.

Tangent aside, a lot of people did bad things (globally), but saying the Ottomans are bad or the Belgians are bad doesn't absolve the British Empire of its crimes. I don't think we need reparations or blame anybody today, since we all understand bad things happened, but more people should be educated about what happened and how to make sure it never happens again.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leopold_Park

Re: The East India Company, the original corporate raiders

#28

Post by rhaps0dy »

travmatt wrote: post #17
newyankee wrote: post #5

It is actually amazing how little British folks today know about their own historical misdeeds, they may accept the issues towards USA and other countries but tend to downplay atrocities magnitudes higher in India and other countries India is important because it was the crown jewel of the British empire and was completely destroyed of its soul by the colonialists with very clever mixture of politics, military and ot…

I've heard some Brits complain about American misdeeds throughout the Middle East without a hint hypocrisy crossing their face.

Right, but that's happening _now_ so we (well, the people who are doing it) have the power to prevent it.

Re: The East India Company, the original corporate raiders

#29

Post by nonamechicken »

blackrock wrote: post #18
chimeracoder wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It is actually amazing how little British folks today know about their own historical misdeeds, they may accept the issues towards USA and other countries but tend to downplay atrocities magnitudes higher in India and other countries To add to this, it's not just the British. The Portuguese, French, Dutch, Danish, and Swedish (among others) colonized parts of India long before the British did, and the Portuguese an…

> If you're thinking of responding to this with a comment about how the British "improved" India by industrializing it, or all the "benefits" India got from being plundered for 450 years I once overheard my white coworker say, that the British did India a huge favor, by bringing them English. It was in his belief that back then, the Indians were just killing each other for fun. So the British did them a huge favor by…

If westerners think that, I can understand. Unfortunately, lot of Indians think the same way, that the British invasion was good for India since they gave us the railways and some other stuff. I don't know much history, but seeing how they destroyed India and killed millions (through famines), I can't wonder how brainwashed these Indians are.

Re: The East India Company, the original corporate raiders

#30

Post by OzzyB »

apsec112 wrote: post #15
newyankee wrote: post #5

It is actually amazing how little British folks today know about their own historical misdeeds, they may accept the issues towards USA and other countries but tend to downplay atrocities magnitudes higher in India and other countries India is important because it was the crown jewel of the British empire and was completely destroyed of its soul by the colonialists with very clever mixture of politics, military and ot…

AFAICT, the British Empire gets much more criticism for its various evils than other historical empires do. Very few people in the West, for example, even know about the ethnic cleansing of the Greeks under the Ottoman Empire ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greek_genocide ), and that was less than a century ago. Probably the worst European colonialists were the Belgians, of all people, under King Leopold II ( https:/…

> Very few people in the West, for example, even know about the ethnic cleansing of the Greeks under the Ottoman Empire (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greek_genocide)

Fewer still know about the "Turkish Genocide" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turkish_genocide) but that's more to do with cherry-picking "historians" such as yourself.

Of course that Wikipedia page redirects to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persecution_of_Ottoman_Muslims which kinda proves the point that for some reason we can't use the term "Turkish Genocide" and must use quotes and softer language like "Persecution".

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