31–40 of 89 posts
Yes one of the great quirks of European history is that the British Empire is not held in the same esteem as the Nazi empire. The British Empire was bizarrely racist and killed tens of millions of people worldwide. Maybe even more than that if you include the promotion of slavery as a business on global scale. England is so lovable now though.
British concentration camps predated Nazi's
Shouldn't we as humans bury the longer past and move on and look at the present-day scenario? I know many will say - "What about justice to our ancestors?". Justice is done to them when their children(descendants) do not suffer similar injustice and/or live a better life. How many parents want their kids to live in a war-waging world? I understand what she did was very hard work. But what's the point? People who rais…
- I can't speak for Caroline Elkins, but I think that many historians, including myself, believe that every human life that was ever lived has some value and deserves to be remembered, as far as that's possible. As living human being we naturally have a tendency to privilege our present moment and the lives of the humans who happen to be alive alongside us, and there's nothing wrong with that. But it's humbling to realize that there are tens of billions of lives that have faded from memory, but which were every bit as vivid and profound to the people who experienced them as your own life is to you. So I think one core benefit of history is simply in preserving the memories and the experiences of all sentient beings. (This is going to get very interesting in the decades to come when we get better at digitally preserving people's personalities and memories, but that's for another discussion).
- There are a surprising number of people in the mainstream of political and cultural discussion who truly seem to believe that the British Empire should be uncritically celebrated. Niall Ferguson being probably the most famous example. This kind of work forces us to confront the fact that the good intentions of some British imperialists were counterbalanced by atrocities and acts of unthinking violence. Caroline Elkins' work is important in the same way that George Orwell's "Shooting an Elephant" is - it documents cruelties, not to settle scores, but to help us avoid repeating them.
- Arguably, more violence and hatred could be incited by failing to remember horrible past events. In other words, if a people have a sense that they've been wronged within living memory, and that as those memories fade, the injustice done to them will be forgotten, this could generate even more distrust and hatred then an acknowledgement and apology. This is a debatable point, but one that makes sense to me from the standpoint of my own life - we tend to get angriest at unacknowledged wrongs.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Blood and repression is the norm for empires, from Sumeria down through. The new thing is being ashamed of it.
Well the first phase of the British Empire was much more about the trade than repression and saw abolition of suttee and slavery. Early treaties attempted to preserve native rights. Intermarriage was relatively common, as was some immigration into the UK. The later "benevolent empire" phase, broadly around the time of the Opium wars, saw the repression, misrule and attempt to civilise these places. That saw more sepa…
I think a better example of the evilness of the British Empire is the Irish experience in the 19th century. You lose the "excuse" of racism and are left with religious sectarianism and sheer greed for the policy. The British put inhumane and genocidal policies in place, starving millions in a land of plenty.
This doesn't seem like an action of a government intent on genocide.
It seems more to me that British policy in Ireland during the famine is marked by an extreme ideological commitment to laissez faire economics (ie, letting land owners export food from Ireland in large quantities to make money, letting ports export food etc) and no little incompetence and prejudice against imagined "workshy" irish layabouts.
But I wouldn't say there was a deliberate policy of genocide as such.
As far as I know, the potato blight was not started by British settlers gifting infected towels to the natives.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Blood and repression is the norm for empires, from Sumeria down through. The new thing is being ashamed of it.
Well the first phase of the British Empire was much more about the trade than repression and saw abolition of suttee and slavery. Early treaties attempted to preserve native rights. Intermarriage was relatively common, as was some immigration into the UK. The later "benevolent empire" phase, broadly around the time of the Opium wars, saw the repression, misrule and attempt to civilise these places. That saw more sepa…
Shouldn't we as humans bury the longer past and move on and look at the present-day scenario? I know many will say - "What about justice to our ancestors?". Justice is done to them when their children(descendants) do not suffer similar injustice and/or live a better life. How many parents want their kids to live in a war-waging world? I understand what she did was very hard work. But what's the point? People who rais…
In education, there are few things more important than teaching the truth about the horrors of the past, and the human capacity for violence, racism, and bureaucratic indifference, in the hope of creating empathy and stopping future genocide.
Also, understanding the actions of the past helps us understand the actions of the present. Without historical context, it's nearly impossible to have perspective on why an individual or group of people hold certain beliefs or act in a way we may not at first understand.
Yes one of the great quirks of European history is that the British Empire is not held in the same esteem as the Nazi empire. The British Empire was bizarrely racist and killed tens of millions of people worldwide. Maybe even more than that if you include the promotion of slavery as a business on global scale. England is so lovable now though.
Shouldn't we as humans bury the longer past and move on and look at the present-day scenario? I know many will say - "What about justice to our ancestors?". Justice is done to them when their children(descendants) do not suffer similar injustice and/or live a better life. How many parents want their kids to live in a war-waging world? I understand what she did was very hard work. But what's the point? People who rais…
Pretending history never happened is not only disingenuous, it actively hurts attempts to heal and move forward. There can be no forgiveness if one side tries to pretend something bad never happened. The example everyone cites is South Africa's Truth and Reconciliation process, in which the horrors of apartheid were laid bare. Everyone acknowledged what happened, and it laid the basis for moving forward.
Facts are facts. If the ugly history of imperialism offends you, look away. It will be there regardless.
Shouldn't we as humans bury the longer past and move on and look at the present-day scenario? I know many will say - "What about justice to our ancestors?". Justice is done to them when their children(descendants) do not suffer similar injustice and/or live a better life. How many parents want their kids to live in a war-waging world? I understand what she did was very hard work. But what's the point? People who rais…
I have no issue with the anti-war aspects of what you wrote. But as an historian, I feel like I ought to write a defense of remembering past injustices. I think there are several grounds for doing so: - I can't speak for Caroline Elkins, but I think that many historians, including myself, believe that every human life that was ever lived has some value and deserves to be remembered, as far as that's possible. As livi…
I agree with that, but the difference is that we have the ability to improve present and future lives, something we cannot do for those of the past. Thus if bringing dignity to the past injures the present and the future, we would not do so.
Shouldn't we as humans bury the longer past and move on and look at the present-day scenario? I know many will say - "What about justice to our ancestors?". Justice is done to them when their children(descendants) do not suffer similar injustice and/or live a better life. How many parents want their kids to live in a war-waging world? I understand what she did was very hard work. But what's the point? People who rais…
Ancestors?!! 50 years ago is in living memory - as the article stated, some the victims of the Mau Mau repression are still walking the earth, why should they 'bury the past'?
Those who do not study the past are doomed to repeat it, we shouldn't bury it, but study and analyze it and make changes to lower the chances of it happening again - Nuremberg was a good thing for humanity, we need more of that.