Britain’s destruction and concealment of colonial records (2017)
tandfonline.com
tandfonline.com
I certainly was not saying you were excusing, just adding an addendum to your comment.
Here is the map of British massacres in Australia that have written evidence (so you can double, triple the actual number). They have this right across their empire.
https://c21ch.newcastle.edu.au/colonialmassacres/map.php
If detail accounts I recommend reading "Conspiracy of Silence" a detailed account of massacres throughout colonial Queensland in Australia, the accounts and actions and just as horrifying.
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/17674559-conspiracy-of-s...
While it is probably true, it is a woefully low bar to clear.
The Australian aborigines have clearly been treated appallingly. Whether it amounted to a deliberate genocide I don't know enough to say.
I had my awakening on this subject in my 30s, I started to read academic writing on colonialism. Having grown up in Australia and knowing colonial history having been learnt from the British perspective I was just shocked at my ignorance on British Empire and it's colonies was.
Truly horrific.
The text that accompanies the image is so much worse than the image.
I had never heard of the state-sanctioned Belgian cut-off hand trade, and state-sanctioned child cannibalism and beheadings really takes it to another level.
It makes modern terrorism seem mild in comparison.
This is the sort of thing that should be taught in history classes.
No indigenous population was left better off - as much wealth and resources as possible were looted.
To say that it was anything but utterly disgusting is an understatement.
I mean, if I think about North America, when one native tribe attacked and defeated another tribe and took their land, was that land theft? When the British, French or Spanish did the same, was that “land theft”?
When someone commits a murder do you say. Well what about all the other murderers?
What hypothetical American indigenous tribes may or may not have done is not the subject of this thread.
To me they are the same thing
The concept of conquest does not imply "crime" as it occurs at the intersection of two societies with different laws, and in most cases neither would consider a conquest benefiting them to be a criminal/negative activity.
I have never read a definition of "land theft". If it is supposed to mean the same as "conquest", it goes about it in a confusing way, by including the word "theft" which is a crime, whereas as we saw, "conquest" cannot be a crime in the traditional sense. It's also unclear to me why use "theft" rather than "robbery" which seems more appropriate given the violent nature of conquest.
I guess the point of using "land theft" instead of "conquest" is to imply that in an ideal world there would have been a supranational law enforced on all human groups that forbids violent displacement of one group of humans by another (i.e. conquest), which I guess most people would agree would be a good thing.
So, assuming conquest and land theft are synonymous, with the latter being used to express disapproval, and going back to your first comment: "To say that it was anything but utterly disgusting is an understatement". I suppose this is true, but the reply from refurb seems appropriate: humans have engaged in warfare long before we have written record. Our cousins, the chimpanzees do abominable things to each other in war, and so did our ancestors, of every race and every culture, including the native people that were the victims of the British empire.
"What hypothetical American indigenous tribes may or may not have done is not the subject of this thread" is a silly reply, as far as I can tell. American indigenous tribes engaged in warfare and conquest [1] like every other human group in history.
The British Empire did not, as far as we can tell, come up with new and particularly hideous ways to inflict harm upon other humans, that we had not considered in the hundreds of thousands of years we've been harming each other.
They have the distinction of being the first ones to do it globally. The true harm of the British empire is the delta between the harm they caused to humans in the places they occupied and the harms other humans (the ones conquered, others in the region) would have caused in the same area over the same period of time. Unfortunately, I don't have a way to estimate what that delta is. But I am sure the answer is not "all the harm the British empire caused minus 0 because everyone they conquered was a peaceful post-warfare civilization, disturbed only by the British savages".
[1] https://www.canada.ca/en/department-national-defence/service...
You have decided to get into the semantics of conquest vs land theft. My reading of your reply is that conquest is an excusable activity?
My understanding of your argument rests on that everyone does it (conquest) so what the British Empire did was only unique in its scale.
I think your question and argument takes on more a personal morality question and I will present you with the way I think about it.
A couple of questions, if you have different answers to me then we just have different personal belief systems and we can leave it at that.
Do you excuse murder, rape, kidnapping, robbery in your current life as just being something people and chimpanzees do?
If the answer is no (I am sure it is) then why do you say conquest is excusable? Which by my definition is just larger groups of people engaging in the above mentioned crimes?
I do not want to be celebrating an organisation which is responsible for those crimes.
Finally, indigenous people's violence (and remembering there are 1000s of nations across the world which is kind of ridiculous to be saying them all at once) does not culturally define them in the same way mass violence defined the British Empire.
Violence, oppression and misery was the modus operandi of the British Empire.
No, I believe you have misread my response. I said: "in an ideal world there would have been a supranational law enforced on all human groups that forbids violent displacement of one group of humans by another (i.e. conquest), which I guess most people would agree would be a good thing."
> Do you excuse murder, rape, kidnapping, robbery in your current life as just being something people and chimpanzees do?
No. Your prediction is correct.
> I do not want to be celebrating an organisation which is responsible for those crimes.
That's reasonable.
> Finally, indigenous people's violence (and remembering there are 1000s of nations across the world which is kind of ridiculous to be saying them all at once) does not culturally define them
I agree.
> Violence, oppression and misery was the modus operandi of the British Empire.
Agreed. It was the modus operandi of the British and every empire before them, and most organized groups of people with power before them. Which is the reason why "violence, oppression and misery" does not define the British empire culturally, as it does not define any of the indigenous peoples' culture.
The main difference in the modus operandi of the British empire is they replaced other groups exerting this violence globally because they were the only ones with the technological advantage that allowed them to do so at the time. Does not excuse the acts, but does not make the British empire any different than most organized groups of humans that have ever lived either (as far as willingness to perpetrate violence and oppression goes).
I see we agree on most points except the final point which is ok because I was not arguing whether or not the British empire supplanted a culture that had violence - that topic of discussion would is incredibly complex and I wouldn't be able to make sweeping statements on it. But I can see that you have proven that perhaps some indigenous nation's in North America had a culture of violence.
If I kill someone and call it “self-defense” and someone else kills someone under the same circumstances and I call it “murder” that doesn’t make sense does it?
I have made a statement that the British Empire is absolutely / objectively bad - what's the comparison aiming to do?
You seem to draw a distinction between the British conquests (which you refer to as "land theft") and the native conquests (which you do not label as "land theft") and I'm trying to figure out why.
You seem to be fall for the myth of the "noble savage"[1]. The myth is basically that before the white man arrived, the natives lived in some "natural, uncorrupted" form of life that was inherently superior. This is a myth.
At least with some native American Indians, conquests involved things like rape, slavery and the murder of non-combatants. And warfare not because of some dire need for resources, but rather just for conquests sake.
So I would argue that what the British did is not exactly unique (except for the breadth of it) and thus doesn't deserve a label of "land theft" unless you're willing to apply that with any type of conquest and in that sense, it's a pointless distinction.
The Partition is what happened after the British Empire left. The British were very much NOT in favour of it, and it was a policy created and implemented entirely by the local population and their leaders. Hindu vs Muslim animosity was a long term problem, very deep seated and something the Empire worked hard to keep the peace around. Even as the British implemented independence, they were encouraging the two sides to form a united India and were brokering what were effectively 'peace' conferences to try and ensure that outcome.
However, it didn't work. Once independence was granted the two sides immediately went to war to create the partition.
Thus describing that event as being caused by the British Empire seems doesn't seem fair. The British were the ones suppressing it during the time of Empire and arguing against it even as they granted independence to engage in it.
From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Partition_of_India:
In early 1946, new elections were held in India. With the announcement of the polls, the line had been drawn for Muslim voters to choose between a united Indian State or partition ... The negotiations between the Congress and the Muslim League, however, stumbled over the issue of partition ... Recovering from its performance in the 1937 elections, the Muslim League was finally able to make good on the claim that it and Jinnah alone represented India's Muslims[66] and Jinnah quickly interpreted this vote as a popular demand for a separate homeland ...
Britain had wanted India and its army to remain united to keep India in its system of 'imperial defence' ... Even though the unity of India would have been preserved, the Congress leaders, especially Nehru, believed it would leave the Center weak. On 10 July 1946, Nehru gave a "provocative speech," rejected the idea of grouping the provinces and "effectively torpedoed" both the Cabinet mission plan and the prospect of a United India ...
That very evening, in Calcutta, Hindus were attacked by returning Muslim celebrants, who carried pamphlets distributed earlier which showed a clear connection between violence and the demand for Pakistan, and directly implicated the celebration of Direct Action Day with the outbreak of the cycle of violence that would later be called the "Great Calcutta Killing of August 1946"
Fundamentally, trying to blame the British for religious sectarian violence that occurred the moment independence was granted looks like the standard attempt by certain viewpoints to blame westerners for all the world's problems.
* The British has done plenty to stoke up division between different ethnic groups as part of their 'divide and rule' policy.
* Britain could have used its troops to help ensure a peaceful transition, but decided not to.
As for stoking up division via divide-and-rule, that's a very subjective claim of the sort we should treat with suspicion. Clearly, the tensions didn't decrease once British rule ended, they ramped up drastically.
Granted, I was at primary school in the 1970s, and it was a much less enlightened time, so there was little or no balance in the retelling of the history of the Empire. We we told that the Empire did good, and those that opposed it at the time were just wrong. Even the US revolution got boiled down (pun intended) to those pesky colonialists just not liking our tea.
As an adult, I can easily see both sides of it. Yes the Empire did a lot of good things, and if it had not existed a lot of technical, mechanical, dietary and cultural breakthroughs may not have happened which ultimately benefited more than just the UK. On the flip side, it treated most of it's foreign subjects as little more than slaves, and the rest literally as slaves (Although it must be pointed out here, that all western Nations with remote colonies had their own slave trades, and not only with just black slaves). I'm sure that most of the colonised regions would have been perfectly happy not being made British subjects (and then later also being forced into Christianity).
It is a hard one, it's part of my cultural DNA and I'm proud of how my home country was once one of strongest and forward-thinking nations on the planet, but I can definitely see it's faults. Should I apologise for it? My personal view is 'No'. I'm not directly responsible for it, in the same way that modern Germans are not responsible for the Nazis; We don't make them apologise for World War II, so nor should modern British people apologise for the old British Empire.
It boils down to this: Any group of people who wield absolute power will eventually become blind to their own faults as there's no-one to keep them in check. In this instance it was the British, but history is replete with other strong nations exploiting weaker nations wherever they could.
We should learn from history and try not to repeat the mistakes. We should not use it as a tool for blaming others.
I am not sure about this. If Einstein didn't come up with theory of relativity or Newton hadn't come up with gravity, someone else would have, isn't it? Humans are curious creatures. Inventions/progress are bound to happen, the timeline might be different.
Applying the talking point of a governmental act of apology to a personal level is a common straw man. Who has ever asked you personally to apologise for the actions of the British empire?
To take your example of young germans today, do they owe anyone an apology? No. But are they sensitive about their place in history? Very much so. Do they "see both sides"?
One thing is certain though - humans are as capable of horrific shit as we are capable of great love and empathy.
Early next year she’ll have a book out that touches on this area. Here’s a brief summary: “And she makes clear that when Britain could no longer maintain control over the violence it provoked and enacted, it retreated from empire, destroying and hiding incriminating evidence of its policies and practices.” [0]
[0]: https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/45877/legacy-of-vio...
"A great number of these records were destroyed and a sizeable portion sent to Britain to be kept secret. "
Not all have been destroyed.
Also, document-B might show up in the set that wasn't burned, but taken away and classified
Just as a start (and only a start) maybe Britain should stop celebrating the (non-existent) Empire which caused so many problems around the world.
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2020/jun/22/calls-for-re...
you’re viewing this through the prism of the present.
A cursory look at colonial India is enough to show this to be complete nonsense. The Rowlatt act wasn’t exactly the beacon of human rights.
But whatever, if it wasn't the British, it would've been someone else, such is human nature and such were the times.
Besides, it wasn't that long ago. It was done by your parents and grandparents, and you are still enjoying the fruits of that exploitation.
Agreed on every other point though.
The current British government does not appear to wish to face up to anything, but that isn’t merely limited to war crimes or crimes against humanity committed by those who are now half forgotten statues — this particular one also denies its own election pledges.
Their government is still descended from a government which committed genocide.
> The British response to guerrilla warfare was to set up complex nets of blockhouses, strongpoints, and barbed wire fences, partitioning off the entire conquered territory. In addition, civilian farms and livestock were destroyed as part of a scorched earth policy. Survivors were forced into concentration camps. Very large proportions of these civilians died of hunger and disease, especially the children
As soon as you introduce novel technologies or extensive record-keeping, your actions remain cemented in history and popular consciousness.
Then some guy on the internet says, "I don't think the colonizing force ever did anything deliberately genocidal" as if that somehow excuses all the other evil they committed.
Certainly I'm not out to excuse the British empire for any atrocities that were committed. Yes, times were different and other empires have been much worse. But a lot of dreadful things were done. Britain gunboats forcing China to accept Indian opium comes to mind as a particulalry shameful and inexcusable example.
"the deliberate killing of a large number of people from a particular nation or ethnic group with the aim of destroying that nation or group."
Did the British empire do plenty of bad things? Yes, I would say so. Did it deliberately commit genocide? I'm not so sure. Please feel free to provide an example.