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Uncovering the truth about the British empire and the Mau Mau uprising

theguardian.com

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Re: Uncovering the truth about the British empire and the Mau Mau uprising

#81

Post by alimw »

tgarma1234 wrote: post #20

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.

> England is so lovable now though.

Clearly you feel that anybody of this opinion is in error. Does everyone who posts an article about the nastiness of the (historical) British Empire feel the same way? There are quite a few come up on Hacker News. To me it doesn't seem like England is perceived as lovable at all, in fact I can't imagine where you got the idea.

You mention the Nazis, but I don't think I've ever seen a post about those guys. It's almost as if one needn't hold modern-day Germans accountable for the crimes of their forebears? What a strange idea.

Re: Uncovering the truth about the British empire and the Mau Mau uprising

#82

Post by gozur88 »

throwaway-hn123 wrote: post #48
RcouF1uZ4gsC wrote: post #42

The sad truth is that empires require massive amounts of violence to maintain. There is no other way. Just look at Sumer, Assyria, Persia, Rome, China, Ottoman, France, Britain, and Germany. Also, make no mistake, the United States is also a defacto empire. Unfortunately, the alternatives to empires is isolation and infighting between smaller powers. For an example of this, take a look at the middle east. The middle…

> The judgement should be over whether the British empire was a net positive or a net negative overall for the people involved. That's easy, it was a net negative for the Indians.

That's not an easy statement to make at all. The Indian kingdoms were perpetually at war, and there's no reason to think things would have changed without the British. Beyond that, the Brits left India with a common language and pretty good set of governance institutions.

Re: Uncovering the truth about the British empire and the Mau Mau uprising

#83

Post by gozur88 »

pjriot wrote: post #51
JetSetWilly wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except it was the British Empire that persecuted slavery and brought to an end the slave trade far in advance of other nations. What people forget is that the norms of the past are not the same as the norms of today. At one time, slavery was normal across vast swathes of the planet. That it isn't today, is in part due to a moral revolution that took place in Britain and resulted in a policy change by the British empi…

Once the economic advantages were outweighed by the political disadvantages. "while nearly all other countries in the world at the time were totally fine with it". I guess this depends on how you define "country", but lets take it to mean the majority of a population. I'll give you that countries benefiting from the slave trade were clearly fine with it. I sincerely doubt the populations being enslaved were though. (…

I'm not sure you realize just how ubiquitous the institution of slavery was prior to the 19th century. Those "populations being enslaved" themselves had slaves when they were strong enough to take them.

Slaves made empires (true empires) possible because captive people are a net positive for the conquerors. You could conquer your neighbors and... sell them to pay for the war, which isn't the case today. Outside Syria, I guess. When the Roman Empire was at its peak citizens could pay their taxes with only two days of work per year.

Re: Uncovering the truth about the British empire and the Mau Mau uprising

#84

Post by golergka »

ganeshkrishnan wrote: post #80
golergka wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think that the parent comment author meant the usual anti-colonialism which attacks western colonialism as something unique and blames virtually any hardships of former colonies on it. I recently saw an article which argued that honor killings in Pakistan are to be blamed on colonialism — because, apparently, palistani men felt oppressed by colonial past and had to take it out on their wives, daughters and sisters.…

Not sure about Pakistan but such honor killings exist in India too. I never heard anyone blame colonialism for these behavior. Infact social reformers were working on eradicating these behavior years before the British even arrived in India (For example: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ram_Mohan_Roy ). That said: We just elected our first ever PM that was born in post-colonial India and you are implying that colonialis…

No, I'm not implying it. Once again: if you're trying to guess opponents position and put words in his mouth, this kind of discussion becomes meaningless very fast.

Re: Uncovering the truth about the British empire and the Mau Mau uprising

#85

Post by AnAfrican »

anexprogrammer wrote: post #2

Whilst Kenya was an undoubted low point of the British overseas territories, it's chilling to think they were markedly better behaved than the French and especially Belgian colonies in Africa. Quite how any of these were able to rationalise such behaviour, and so comparatively recently, whilst claiming to be civilised beats me.

> it's chilling to think they were markedly better behaved than the French and especially Belgian colonies in Africa

I'm somehow suspicious of this claim. There's some circumstancial evidence that make me think that Belgium's crimes were more exposed.

For instance, compare the death tolls of the railways in the two Congos.

Re: Uncovering the truth about the British empire and the Mau Mau uprising

#86

Post by _Codemonkeyism »

JetSetWilly wrote: post #50
_Codemonkeyism wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are right of course. One might think though if the famine happened to Britain and not to the "inferior" Irish "race" [see other comments], wether the government would be "letting land owners export food from [Britain] in large quantities to make money".

I think you are right to some extent, the Irish were definitely "racialised" in 19th century britain and considered essentially subhuman. There was a potato famine in the Highlands of Scotland as well as Ireland, so it did hit Britain: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Highland_Potato_Famine And we can see that "prompt and major charitable efforts by the rest of the United Kingdom ensured that there was relatively little…

Major point of the Wikipedia article too me looks like most of the help came from Scotland itself,

"The Free Church of Scotland, strong in the affected areas, was prompt in raising the alarm and in organising relief, being the only body actively doing so in late 1846 and early 1847; relief was given regardless of denomination. In February 1847 the (non-governmental) Central Board of Management for Highland Relief, supported by Relief Committees in Edinburgh and Glasgow, took over from the Free Church ; by the end of 1847 the Relief Committees had raised about £210,000 to support relief work."

Looks like your quote from the abstract of "prompt [...] charitable efforts by the rest of the United Kingdom" is contradicted by the "being the only body actively doing so in late 1846 and early 1847" of the main body of the Wikipedia article.

Re: Uncovering the truth about the British empire and the Mau Mau uprising

#87

Post by Ressuder »

RodericDay wrote: post #53
Ressuder wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find it curious how some people seem to not believe in moral relativism. Do they not recognise that by doing so they are saying that they themselves are "evil" and immoral? If you look at the contemporaries of the British Empire they do not stand out as exceptional either good or bad morally. Meanwhile, if you compare the Nazis to their contemporaries they do however stand out (though not nearly as some people migh…

This is an ultra-conservative mindset. By only judging people according to what their contemporaries were doing, you basically relieve pressure from questioning the mores of our own day, since we rest easy knowing we will be judged according to what was "normal" for us. I find it ethically very dubious. Certainly many people committing atrocities have been "going along with the flow" of their own local environments.

That's absolutely untrue. It does no such thing. All it means that as long as you're acting within the norms of our times you're morally neutral. Who has ever aspired to that? "Are you a moral person?" -> "Well, you know. At least I'm not immoral. I just barely pass the bar lowest bar for that". The future will look back at people who pushed beyond that, just like we do today, even if even those people will be (at best) morally neutral on many other issues.

Bartolomé de las Casas, Martin Luther King Jr., Gandhi etc, all of these people are looked back upon with great respect because of their morality - but the truth is that none of them would seem like morally great people today. They stand out because they pushed further on certain issues compared to their contemporaries, not because their thoughts and actions would stand out compared to ours (other than that they would seem very backwards and immoral concerning a lot of things).

Re: Uncovering the truth about the British empire and the Mau Mau uprising

#88

Post by throwaway-hn123 »

gozur88 wrote: post #82
throwaway-hn123 wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The judgement should be over whether the British empire was a net positive or a net negative overall for the people involved. That's easy, it was a net negative for the Indians.

That's not an easy statement to make at all. The Indian kingdoms were perpetually at war, and there's no reason to think things would have changed without the British. Beyond that, the Brits left India with a common language and pretty good set of governance institutions.

Actually, it's a really easy statement to make. The British were directly responsible for millions of deaths in India.

Re: Uncovering the truth about the British empire and the Mau Mau uprising

#89

Post by gozur88 »

throwaway-hn123 wrote: post #88
gozur88 wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not an easy statement to make at all. The Indian kingdoms were perpetually at war, and there's no reason to think things would have changed without the British. Beyond that, the Brits left India with a common language and pretty good set of governance institutions.

Actually, it's a really easy statement to make. The British were directly responsible for millions of deaths in India.

"Millions"? How is that?
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