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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

#51

Post by smogcutter »

baursak wrote: post #36
rmdundon wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

I also used to think that anti-Zionism = anti-Semitism, until I learned more about it. There are plenty of anti-Zionist Jews, both inside and outside Israel. This short clip explains the difference pretty well: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u7dJLP3L0Xw

Speaking as an anti-zionist Jew, I'm generally extremely suspicious of gentiles who throw the word "zionist" around. Within the Jewish population there's a broad spectrum of opinion between AIPAC and Jewish Voice for Peace. In the mouths of the goyim, though, "zionists" doesn't often mean "supporters of Israeli nationalism". It means "the cabal of hebrews who manipulate world affairs to their own profit." Even though it's not the dictionary definition, that context is inextricable and often deliberate.

For myself, I'm perfectly comfortable with a non-Jew calling themselves anti-Israel. That's just politics. But anti-zionist? Now I'm waiting for the other shoe to drop.

Re: The East India Company, the original corporate raiders

#52

Post by lucaspiller »

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:/…

It’s worth also mentioning the the Armenian genocide (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Armenian_Genocide ) which happened around the same time by the Ottoman Empire, and is just as unknown. That resulted in the death of over 1.5 million people, and tensions between Armenia and Turkey are still rather tense today. Many Western countries still refuse to accept it took place, most likely due to their favourable political position with Turkey.

Re: The East India Company, the original corporate raiders

#53

Post by fooker »

BlackJack wrote: post #27
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:/…

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 peo…

"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."

I wouldn't be so sure of that. A lot of Akbar's praises can be attributed to 'creative' history writing after the 1950s.

Re: The East India Company, the original corporate raiders

#54

Post by BlackJack »

jvanloov wrote: post #47
BlackJack wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 peo…

The park was called after Leopold I, the first king of Belgium, to commemorate the 50th anniversary of Belgium. This was in 1877, a decade before the Congo atrocities. (Source: https://nl.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leopoldpark_(Brussel) in Dutch)

Thanks for educating me. I updated my post.

Re: The East India Company, the original corporate raiders

#55

Post by horsecaptin »

sol_remmy wrote: post #48
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…

Misdeeds of the British aristocracy . Leave my grandparents out of this. IF you ever meet a Englishman from nobility, know that he is culpable to blame for all of this.

Common folk everywhere have more in common with each other than they have with people in power. The problem is that they are constantly fooled into believing otherwise. This is why our grandparents shouldn't be left out of this. All too often children are taught blind devotion to one's country, when in reality this means blind devotion to the leaders.

Things have gotten better though. We have elections and the internet. We can more openly sympathize and empathize and learn and hopefully this will make us all better together.

Re: The East India Company, the original corporate raiders

#56

Post by apsec112 »

fooker wrote: post #53
BlackJack wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 peo…

"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." I wouldn't be so sure of that. A lot of Akbar's praises can be attributed to 'creative' history writing after the 1950s.

Interesting, do you have sources for that?

Re: The East India Company, the original corporate raiders

#57

Post by product50 »

fooker wrote: post #53
BlackJack wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 peo…

"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." I wouldn't be so sure of that. A lot of Akbar's praises can be attributed to 'creative' history writing after the 1950s.

Yeah - great point with amazing sources. This is really helpful.

Now we will wait for you to give 1 of those links which will confirm your point while you ignore 1000s which contradict it. If Akbar was bad and made to look good by creative history writing, why didn't the same apply for other Mughal rulers such as Aurangzeb (who was just evil) or Shah Jehan (who was a weak ruler)?

Re: The East India Company, the original corporate raiders

#59

Post by user982 »

chimeracoder wrote: post #33
BlackJack wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 peo…

> Churchill's decisions directly lead to the death of millions of people in India. He's no better than Hitler It gets even more ironic than that. During the 1940s Bengal famine, things were so bad that the Axis powers offered to step in and send humanitarian aid. Churchill not only refused, but he tried to prevent the newspapers from printing news of the offer, so that people wouldn't know how truly unnecessary their…

Churchill was merely following proud English tradition: when the Great Famine decimated Ireland as a result of British policies (and during which Irish food exports to England continued unabated), Queen Victoria prevented the Ottoman Sultan from donating more aid and food than she had herself.
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