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British empire killed 165M Indians in 40 years: How colonialism inspired fascism

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Re: British empire killed 165M Indians in 40 years: How colonialism inspired fascism

#11
post #6

Britain is still deeply racist to this day.

Compared to where? I have no dog in this fight. I'm not British. I don't live in Britain. I am certain that racism exists in Britain. But I don't think I've been anywhere that racism doesn't exist. More to the point, I don't think I've been anywhere with less racism than Britain. I've been to every continent but South America and Antartica. Perhaps Brazil is the utopian ideal you're using as a baseline? I saw racism…

> they certainly cover a fair gamut of skin colors

If races to you are a "gamut of skin colors" I have not much to say here.

Re: British empire killed 165M Indians in 40 years: How colonialism inspired fascism

#12
post #10

So the 100M figure comes from an excess deaths analysis. Let’s assume it’s accurate. It’s an indirect indicator. What was the direct mechanism that caused all those deaths?

I wonder how many "killed" would an excess deaths analysis produce for Britain itself during that time

Re: British empire killed 165M Indians in 40 years: How colonialism inspired fascism

#13
>This staggering figure does not include the tens of millions more Indians who died in human-made famines that were caused by the British empire.

Does it not? The figures are based on excess deaths. Unless there were human made famines before the British empire, so there wouldn't be excess deaths?

I'm struggling to work out how excess deaths is a meaningful figure over such a long time frame. Am I misunderstanding, or is this essentially reflecting a rising population. If someone dies a year 'early' is that booked as an excess death for the period? Is it reasonable to say the British empire killed them?

Re: British empire killed 165M Indians in 40 years: How colonialism inspired fascism

#14
post #8

Can fascism produce colonialism tomorrow? I mean just look at the defense of Ukraine. The west has had a whole year and not even been able to raise one Brigade worth of troops. Hypothetically if Ukraine collapses anything is possible.

While I certainly wish we in the west would do more for Ukraine, "not one brigade" is a silly thing to say. We'd have to be all in if we went in with ground troops. Personally I'd like to see us go all in with aircraft and destroy every last bit of Russian hardware in Ukraine territory, but I've no idea if that's realistic or possible.

Re: British empire killed 165M Indians in 40 years: How colonialism inspired fascism

#15
post #6

Britain is still deeply racist to this day.

Compared to where? I have no dog in this fight. I'm not British. I don't live in Britain. I am certain that racism exists in Britain. But I don't think I've been anywhere that racism doesn't exist. More to the point, I don't think I've been anywhere with less racism than Britain. I've been to every continent but South America and Antartica. Perhaps Brazil is the utopian ideal you're using as a baseline? I saw racism…

There's been a lot of studies done on racism in the UK.

Basically a victim is less likely to be punched in the face as compared to the past, but racism shows up in school grading, job finding success, hospital treatment, justice system etc...

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/sep/01/more-than-1200...

https://www.theguardian.com/money/2022/dec/15/job-discrimina...

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2022/aug/28/facing-the-u...

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2014/jun/12/racism-north...

Re: British empire killed 165M Indians in 40 years: How colonialism inspired fascism

#16
post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Compared to where? I have no dog in this fight. I'm not British. I don't live in Britain. I am certain that racism exists in Britain. But I don't think I've been anywhere that racism doesn't exist. More to the point, I don't think I've been anywhere with less racism than Britain. I've been to every continent but South America and Antartica. Perhaps Brazil is the utopian ideal you're using as a baseline? I saw racism…

> they certainly cover a fair gamut of skin colors If races to you are a "gamut of skin colors" I have not much to say here.

>I have not much to say here.

No, and yet you wrote this, which just begs the question what you think the issue is.

Your issue seems to be one of equating race with skin colour? Except you seem to be the one doing that. And in context I'm not sure what the issue is. I don't personally know the heritage of the current cabinet, but I can see their skin colour on TV. Therefore I can't comment on the racial diversity. I could comment on the colour diversity, unless you feel everyone should equate the 2, but then why raise the issue to start with?

Re: British empire killed 165M Indians in 40 years: How colonialism inspired fascism

#17
This conclusion seems to use highly questionable methodology.

Why should England's in the 16th and 17th centuries mortality rates be a good assumption for the baseline pre colonial mortality rate of India? Why 16th as opposed to 14th or 15th? I can't help but become more suspicious of the author's intentions when they lay blame on capitalism when Empire and Colonialism were not sole domains of market economies but also the Communist Soviet Union which had inflicted exactly that onto Ukraine and much of Eastern Europe.

>The rise of capitalism from the long 16th century onward is associated with a decline in wages to below subsistence, a deterioration in human stature, and an upturn in premature mortality.

This claim in particular from the source author's seems particularly hard to believe.

Make no mistake, the Bengal famine of 1943 was in no small part caused by the British Empire. But arbitrarily comparing death rates and declaring full culpability goes beyond belief.

Re: British empire killed 165M Indians in 40 years: How colonialism inspired fascism

#18
post #8

Can fascism produce colonialism tomorrow? I mean just look at the defense of Ukraine. The west has had a whole year and not even been able to raise one Brigade worth of troops. Hypothetically if Ukraine collapses anything is possible.

> The west has had a whole year and not even been able to raise one Brigade worth of troops.

Yes, most certainly this was the entire point of the elaborate weapon delivery schemes. To not escalate this to a world war by sending in NATO forces.

Re: British empire killed 165M Indians in 40 years: How colonialism inspired fascism

#19
post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Compared to where? I have no dog in this fight. I'm not British. I don't live in Britain. I am certain that racism exists in Britain. But I don't think I've been anywhere that racism doesn't exist. More to the point, I don't think I've been anywhere with less racism than Britain. I've been to every continent but South America and Antartica. Perhaps Brazil is the utopian ideal you're using as a baseline? I saw racism…

There's been a lot of studies done on racism in the UK. Basically a victim is less likely to be punched in the face as compared to the past, but racism shows up in school grading, job finding success, hospital treatment, justice system etc... https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/sep/01/more-than-1200... https://www.theguardian.com/money/2022/dec/15/job-discrimina... https://www.theguardian.com/society/2022/aug/28/f…

>One black Caribbean lecturer in the south-west of England told researchers: “I drive a nice car and one member of staff asked me if I was a drug dealer, because how else could I afford [it]?”

Well this is the first example I got to and it doesn't seem racist to me. Or am I racist for taking the Mick out of my friends white BMW???

Re: British empire killed 165M Indians in 40 years: How colonialism inspired fascism

#20
post #14
post #8

Can fascism produce colonialism tomorrow? I mean just look at the defense of Ukraine. The west has had a whole year and not even been able to raise one Brigade worth of troops. Hypothetically if Ukraine collapses anything is possible.

While I certainly wish we in the west would do more for Ukraine, "not one brigade" is a silly thing to say. We'd have to be all in if we went in with ground troops. Personally I'd like to see us go all in with aircraft and destroy every last bit of Russian hardware in Ukraine territory, but I've no idea if that's realistic or possible.

Why they are not our allies? What is so great about Ukraine?
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