British Empire.... Good or Bad?

[Jimgward]

"The British people suffer "historical amnesia" over the atrocities committed by their former empire, an Indian MP and author has claimed.

Former UN under-secretary general Dr Shashi Tharoor said the British education system fails to tell the real story of empire.

He said: "There's no real awareness of the atrocities, of the fact that Britain financed its Industrial Revolution and its prosperity from the depredations of empire, the fact that Britain came to one of the richest countries in the world in the 18th century and reduced it, after two centuries of plunder, to one of the poorest."

YouGov found 44 per cent were proud of Britain's history of colonialism, while 21 per cent regretted it happened.

The same poll also found 43 per cent believed the British Empire was a good thing, while 19 per cent said it was bad and 25 per cent said it was neither good nor bad.

At its height in 1922, the British empire governed a fifth of the world's population and a quarter of the world's total land area.

Although proponents of Empire say it brought various economic developments to parts of the world it controlled, critics point to massacres, famines and the use of concentration camps by the British Empire.

Here, The Independent looks at five of the worst atrocities carried out by the British Empire.

1. Boer concentration camps
During the Second Boer War (1899-1902), the British rounded up around a sixth of the Boer population - mainly women and children - and detained them in camps, which were overcrowded and prone to outbreaks of disease, with scant food rations.

Of the 107,000 people interned in the camps, 27,927 Boers died, along with an unknown number of black Africans.

2. Amritsar massacre
When peaceful protesters defied a government order and demonstrated against British colonial rule in Amritsar, India, on 13 April 1919, they were blocked inside the walled Jallianwala Gardens and fired upon by Gurkha soldiers.

The soldiers, under the orders of Brigadier Reginald Dyer, kept firing until they ran out of ammunition, killing between 379 and 1,000 protesters and injuring another 1,100 within 10 minutes.

Brigadier Dyer was later lauded a hero by the British public, who raised £26,000 for him as a thank you.

3. Partitioning of India
In 1947, Cyril Radcliffe was tasked with drawing the border between India and the newly created state of Pakistan over the course of a single lunch.

After Cyril Radcliffe split the subcontinent along religious lines, uprooting over 10 million people, Hindus in Pakistan and Muslims in India were forced to escape their homes as the situation quickly descended into violence.

Some estimates suggest up to one million people lost their lives in sectarian killings.

4. Mau Mau Uprising
Thousands of elderly Kenyans, who claim British colonial forces mistreated, raped and tortured them during the Mau Mau Uprising (1951-1960), have launched a £200m damages claim against the UK Government.

Members of the Kikuyu tribe were detained in camps, since described as "Britain's gulags" or concentration camps, where they allege they were systematically tortured and suffered serious sexual assault.

Estimates of the deaths vary widely: historian David Anderson estimates there were 20,000, whereas Caroline Elkins believes up to 100,000 could have died.

5. Famines in India
Between 12 and 29 million Indians died of starvation while it was under the control of the British Empire, as millions of tons of wheat were exported to Britain as famine raged in India.

In 1943, up to four million Bengalis starved to death when Winston Churchill diverted food to British soldiers and countries such as Greece while a deadly famine swept through Bengal.

Talking about the Bengal famine in 1943, Churchill said: “I hate Indians. They are a beastly people with a beastly religion. The famine was their own fault for breeding like rabbits.”

[geoffreys]

Haha, this should be good but I think Dominic may need to remove it from the 'moderates' section

Good post, but I agree it is pushing the boundaries a bit for the moderates section.
Actually I never understood why it was thought necessary to have the two politics sections; just like Brexit is Brexit so Politics is Politics.
Nobody is forced to read any of it.

Geoff.

[bromerzz]

I am proud Britain once had an Empire.
What happened is History and not the responsibility of the present British people.
I get sick and tired of the negative comments about what Britain and Colonisation meant. Was Britain the only country ever to have an Empire or simply colonise a far flung land - no of course not, but where are the drips about that?
Throwing the question of Apologies and Compensation into the fire as has been done over the last few years only winds me up even further. How far back into History do we go- German, Spanish, Dutch, Norman, Viking, Greek, Persian, Roman, Mongolian,Byzantine, Egyptian, Italian, Austro-Hungarian, Ottoman and the list goes on. I dare say there are a few African empires we never learnt about in school to cap that of with. Then all the Dynasties etc in Asia.
Personally I'm comfortable with my Anglo Saxon British heritage and what my forebears did, it does not stop me getting a good nights sleep.

[ApusApus]

Nobody is forced to read any of it.

Geoff.

True .............. but if all the posts were in one section you would have to read them first to decide if you didn't want to read them, so splitting them gives you the option, if you get my drift?


Shane

[geoffreys]

Nobody is forced to read any of it.

Geoff.

True .............. but if all the posts were in one section you would have to read them first to decide if you didn't want to read them, so splitting them gives you the option, if you get my drift?


Shane

Not really Shane. Either politics is of interest to you or it isn't.
Your argument applies to either of the two existing sections - you still have to have a look to find the stuff you might dislike.
Geoff.

[Royal]

All atrocities should be condemned, no matter who perpetrated them. They can never be justified or condoned. The examples given in the Independent are no different, and are not proud moments in British history - which included the appalling slave trade.

Let's not forget, however, that every country, including the British Empire have incidents in their history which in retrospect and with the benefit of modern thinking should never have taken place. How far back should we go? What about the Romans using crucifixion as a tool of warfare? What about the Vikings raping and pillaging England? What about the US treatment of the Red Indians or the Australian treatment of the Aboriginals? What about the German 'Final Solution' or the ethnic cleansing in Bosnia, Croatia and Serbia? The list of atrocities is endless. It is typically British that we fixate on our bad deeds rather than the good - maybe it's what forces us to never go there again.

These individual acts are without doubt a stain on our proud history but they do not define what Empire was all about. Why can we not focus on the positives of our old Empire?

I suggest that we have left a rich cultural legacy to nearly a quarter of the world's land mass and its' population. Who built the railways in India? Why do Americans (and so many other countries including India, Pakistan and even Cyprus) speak English? In fact 400 million people in the world speak English as a first or second language. We left democratic political and legal systems in place where there were none before we arrived. We built infrastructure that remains to this day. We also brought so many British sports to the world - golf, football, rugby, hockey, tennis and cricket.

OR

We can apologise to the world for having had an Empire, offer to recompense them all, take 'Great' out of Britain's title and all look sheepishly at our navels to make up for the Empire our forebears made and which gave us the power and finances to be where we are in the world now.

Let's look forward rather than back.

[Dominic]

Nobody is forced to read any of it.

Geoff.

True .............. but if all the posts were in one section you would have to read them first to decide if you didn't want to read them, so splitting them gives you the option, if you get my drift?


Shane

Not really Shane. Either politics is of interest to you or it isn't.
Your argument applies to either of the two existing sections - you still have to have a look to find the stuff you might dislike.
Geoff.

The "moderates" applies to the tone of the debate, not the political leaning.

The section exists so that people can post their view without being subject to a barrage of abuse, and people should note that that means that anybody can post here moderately, not just the liberals, so to speak.

If you prefer a more robust debate, where you can get more heated, then the politics section is your friend.

Now, given that some of the people who preferred more robust debates left soon after the moderates section was formed, it may be argued that it is no longer needed. However, I do think it still serves a purpose, if only to remind people that it is possible to debate politics without personally attacking each other.

[Dominic]

With regards to the British Empire, like all things, it has it's good and bad points. Let him who is without sin cast the first stone, and all that. To pretend that it was all good is wrong, but so is to pretend that it is all bad.

The important thing, is to learn from past mistakes, and not repeat them.

I'm all for reparations though, provided they are paid for by the money we get from the Vikings and Normans, as reparations for their invasions.

[Pete G]

Only true if you view it completely out of context with all the other conditions the colonized countries have been in.

There are very very few areas indeed where colonization by the British didn't result in an increase in prosperity [for all] better public infrastructure and governance, and a reduction in the number and depths of famines, a massive reduction in the use of political, religious or tribal violence and the deaths therefrom.

Proof can be found, should it be required, in the fate of those countries since 'freed' from the British Colonial 'yoke'

Either they have prospered by maintaining the conditions created by their 'oppressors' as if the British had just stepped out for a moment, like Australia, Canada, Hong Kong and .... errrr ..... Cyprus, or reverted back to the high levels of internal violence, famine, and despotism that they 'enjoyed' prior to the brutish British Colonisation, as with most of the old African colonies, Pakistan, and seems to be the direction Zuma is now dragging South Africa.

The only exception seems to be India, where they appear to have maintained the British Culture for the rich, but reintroduced the pernicious caste system [largely eradicated under British stewardship], to consign the rural poor to levels of grinding poverty and government thuggery even higher than pre-colonisation.

I'm not pretending atrocities didn't happen, just suggesting they only reveal their true nature if viewed in the context of the pre-colonial conditions.

All that is not counting the cost of colonisation to the coloniser, of course. For a slightly different viewpoint [and assuming you aren't already familiar with it] abandoning reading of the Independent with this evenings glass of wine, in favour of Kipling's warning to the US about the costs of empire 'White Man's Burden' might illuminate a interestingly different perspective

[kingfisher]

Jimgward- as a Brit who evidently feels uncomfortable about Britain's colonial atrocities, I would suggest you try giving yourself a damn good flogging on the steps of your club old boy. You'll feel much better after!

[Devil]

The British Empire? Ask why Anastiades and Akinci are currently at loggerheads. It is a direct result of its deliberate policy of 'Divide and Rule', common to many colonies, now former, but still suffering, even many decades later. I'm not saying either all was good or all was bad, but many of the ex-colonies are still more or less divided with ethnic problems.

[geoffreys]

The British Empire? Ask why Anastiades and Akinci are currently at loggerheads. It is a direct result of its deliberate policy of 'Divide and Rule', common to many colonies, now former, but still suffering, even many decades later. I'm not saying either all was good or all was bad, but many of the ex-colonies are still more or less divided with ethnic problems.

Not just ethnic, religious also, e.g. Ireland.
Geoff.

[Jimgward]

Jimgward- as a Brit who evidently feels uncomfortable about Britain's colonial atrocities, I would suggest you try giving yourself a damn good flogging on the steps of your club old boy. You'll feel much better after!

Interesting.... since I never expressed any view, but posted it as it was yesterday's news and therefore current!

I believe good and bad came from any rule..... I also believe that you should not pay reparations for pasts, unless to currently alive individuals... such as the Mau Mau and the Cyprus internees.....

The point being made by the writer of the original article, is that Britain plays no part in discussing the negative aspects of it's past. i.e. nothing in schools, no mentions in museums etc. I think we need to be honest and open and state the good and the bad as lessons for the future. Other countries, such as Germany, have dealt with this better.

Without doubt, many individuals in the British past were controversial, such as Churchill, who was probably the best wartime leader we could have had, but not a decent person in terms of treatment of many cultures and individuals. Maybe that was what made him a good wartime leader?

[Dominic]

This one:
________

3. Partitioning of India
In 1947, Cyril Radcliffe was tasked with drawing the border between India and the newly created state of Pakistan over the course of a single lunch.

After Cyril Radcliffe split the subcontinent along religious lines, uprooting over 10 million people, Hindus in Pakistan and Muslims in India were forced to escape their homes as the situation quickly descended into violence.

Some estimates suggest up to one million people lost their lives in sectarian killings.

________

If India hadn't been partitioned, how many more people would have died? It isn't as if they divided it for fun.

[PhotoLady]

I just googled - looking back did we really need the British Empire and found an article in The Guardian...



Some paragraphs I found interesting:

The British, as a result, were often involved in a three-sided contest. Battles for imperial survival had to be fought both with the native inhabitants and with already existing settlers – usually of French or Dutch origin.

There was nothing historically special about the British empire. Virtually all European countries with sea coasts and navies had embarked on programmes of expansion in the 16th century, trading, fighting and settling in distant parts of the globe. Sometimes, having made some corner of the map their own, they would exchange it for another piece "owned" by another power, and often these exchanges would occur as the byproduct of dynastic marriages. The Spanish and the Portuguese and the Dutch had empires; so too did the French and the Italians, and the Germans and the Belgians.

Lots of other stuff in between of course..... you can read the article below, if you so wish.

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2011/ ... erial-past

Personally, I have no thoughts on it one way or the other. It happened, it had nothing to do with me and it isn't something I can change or indeed, could have controlled - so I don't worry about it.

[Devil]

Not just ethnic, religious also, e.g. Ireland.
Geoff.

Religion and ethnicity often go hand in hand. In the case of Ireland, historically it was the English/Scottish invaders (William of Orange, a Dutch Protestant) against the native Irish (under French Catholic James II) culminating in the Battle of the Boyne in 1690. It was William's victory that really started the Catholic resentment against the Anglo-Scot invaders, who later adopted orange as their symbolic colour. Yes, the division is nowadays as much religious as ethnic, but originally it was political with the throne of England/Scotland at stake. Ethnic differences are often equally political and religious (cf. Cyprus, Malaya, India, Kenya, Indonesia, S. Africa etc.) . However, many civil strifes are caused by lack of food or water, as well. (cf. Irish potato famine, Biafra, Sahel etc.) and these may be exacerbated by the other three causes. In the case of colonies, most problems are often caused by either clumsy or simply stupid actions by the colonial administrators and this has been seen in British, French, Portuguese, Spanish and Dutch colonies (probably etc.) in the past 400 years. In the case of British administration, it was the stupidity of mad George III that lost what is now the USA from the Brits!

[Royal]

If India hadn't been partitioned, how many more people would have died? It isn't as if they divided it for fun.

Quite so, Dominic.

Some people seem to be rewriting history. It actually wasn't Great Britain which unilaterally partitioned India. Has no-one seen the film Gandhi which was based on historical events? Britain did not want to partition India, but was forced to consider it because of ethnic violence on both sides and the insistence of the Muslim leader Muhammad Ali Jinnah. The choice was stark - either a separate state for muslims or civil war. It was decided to have a single division rather than many.

The ethnic violence had started well before partition and was one of the reasons Britain had decided that it no longer wanted India and announced that it would become independent some 2 years earlier...

[Devil]

... you can seriously blame the British for the current situation between Anastasiades and Akinci, nothing to do with generations of ethnic and religious discrimination, Enosis and violence?

Yes! I personally witnessed what happened in the 1950s. My work at the time often took me into the villages between Nicosia and Morphou. There was little real tension before 1954 between the two ethnicities. I often quote that I've seen many times Turkish-speaking and Greek-speaking Cypriots playing tavli together, with their (then Turkish) coffee on a straw-bottomed chair beside them, in the village coffee shop. Notice I don't say TC or GC, they were just Cypriots who happened to speak differently. This discrimination started 1955 to 1959 because the British masters played the language game, to differentiate between potential EOKA terrorists and mainly pro-British Turkish-speakers, whom they appointed as policemen, prison warders and assistants to the hangman. This was when violent strife started between the communities, exacerbated by the British army personnel who often behaved deplorably because they weren't trained to handle the situation. I was recalled by my employer in October 1956, so I didn't have first-hand knowledge of what happened after that. I cannot say when the terms Greek-Cypriot and Turkish-Cypriot started; all I can say is that I never heard the expressions from my arrival in 1952 to when I left in 1956 and I used to work with Cypriots who happened to speak different languages. The important point is that each accepted the other as colleagues (and most had at least a smattering of the others' language). I don't say that pre-1955 Cyprus was paradise (there were many problems) but it worked very smoothly.

Then in 1960, Makarios was bulldozed into the Presidency after the London and Zurich 'agreements', totally unprepared for the task and he very clumsily caused the final political breakup of the communities in 1963, started a few years earlier. I guess since that day, the bequest of the results of colonialism bore their fruit, which is why I said that Akinci and Anastasiades have inherited that same bitter fruit.

[Devil]

Oh please, there has always been inter communal tension between the Greek speaking and Turkish Speaking Cypriot Communities, during the Ottoman occupation and British Colonial times...The Greek Cypriot Community were desperate for Enosis with Greece long before the troubles in 1954 onwards, look at the recent decision to "Celebrate" the "Referendum" in 1950, and troubles dating back to the early 1930's. There may have been a perception by some of a peaceful coexistence but the tensions were never far from the surface. And that distrust still exists, it is built into the psyche of the Cypriot people and I am afraid we will not see reunification in our time. The British may have been part of the problem, but certainly were not the instigators, the Cypriots have only themselves to blame for that and its continuance.

I agree that tension has always been under the surface and it has risen to the surface from time-to-time. You mention the 1950 'referendum'; the thing that surprised me was the 4% 'no' vote, as those who dared to vote 'no' were often publicly beaten up. It was actually a shameful episode in Cyprus' history which earned neither the Church nor Archbishop Makarios II any kudos.

The formation of the TMT, supporting taksim, in 1958, did nothing to calm the situation as its aim was terrorism. Proportionally speaking, they were probably better armed than EOKA because they had been gun-running from Turkey for many years prior to the founding, as had AKEL.

However, with four lack-lustre governors in the last 8 years, including Harding who went out of his way to antagonise Cypriots of all flavours against himself and each other, it is not surprising that things went from bad to worse.

[PhotoLady]

Hudswell, check the post about Cyprus radio stations....

For everyone else, it's nothing to do with the British Empire - so don't all go being nosy now