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Comment by onyva | Hacker News Reader

What is a Scotsman doing in Algeria? I love it how the story of colonialism (starting 1830, which was as violent in Algeria as elsewhere) is told without any context. Just brave, "imposingly tall and broad"... sure. National Geographic will never change, I guess.

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As the article mentions, he was the British consul in Algiers from 1763 to 1765. At the time, Algeria was a vassal state in the Ottoman Empire and far from being colonized by Europeans. On the contrary, during the 17th century Britain had excellent relations to the Barbary pirates of the region, cooperating against Spain and France in the form of Anglo-Turkish piracy: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anglo-Turkish_piracy

Because it's off-topic. It's a piece about Thamugadi as an arhceological site. There is no need for political commentary.

He was proving that the colonialism of Algeria started much early than 1830. (1730 years earlier at minimum).

Horrible Romans were so violent. What have they ever done for us? Well, besides roads and the aqueduct, but other than that?

I specifically indicated in my comment that colonialism in Algeria starting in 1830, and trust me, I didn’t need Wikipedia to find that out. So don’t try to distract. I’m talking about NG’s nonchalant style of writing.

>Horrible Romans were so violent. What have they ever done for us? Well, besides roads and the aqueduct, but other than that?

Exactly. The same people who claim about colonialism are the same ones who complain about intertribal warfare when we leave. We should be thanking colonialists for bringing Peace to the places they conquered, a peace which has washed away since decolonization.

Thanks for Killing millions of us, our population still hasn't recovered to it's peak 8 million

Signed Ireland.

Also I'd like my father's family farms and moors back, please.

Signed Scotland.

There's 40 million Irish descendants in the US. The Irish weren't wiped out, they just left. Also it's hard to take that concern seriously when today's Irish government has done more to increase foreigner control over Ireland than the British government ever did.

> The Irish weren't wiped out, they just left

They “just left” because the British starved them.

Can't blame the British for Agricural drought. Imagine how many more would have starved without Britain running poor houses there.

Please don't take HN threads into dismal ideological flamewar. Look at what a wreck we got below.

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