How England Sees Itself
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Mr. Tea
Let's Talk About Ceps
How many letters? And have you got any of them already?
so you saw that i read this article on facebook, but i don't understand why you felt it necessary to bring it up here, since it is entirely unrelated to this thread.
thanks for the digression, Luka. what can we expect next? lol-cats? how about some funny gifs just for the hell of it. and i'll remember to return the favor next time you start a thread.
are disagreements necessary for a good conversation? like i said i've enjoyed the banter between tea and droid, various small contributions by others, and also the articles which got linked.
as far as disagreements go, i would like to hear Craner's take on the Empire book, why he thinks it is good, and how he feels about the general outlook of "yes there were blunders and problems, but british imperialism was mostly a good thing, for keeping a lid on "ethnic tensions" in the colonies (which erupted as soon as we left), and for bringing trade and Western Civilization to various primitive armpits of the world"
are disagreements necessary for a good conversation? like i said i've enjoyed the banter between tea and droid, various small contributions by others, and also the articles which got linked.
as far as disagreements go, i would like to hear Craner's take on the Empire book, why he thinks it is good, and how he feels about the general outlook of "yes there were blunders and problems, but british imperialism was mostly a good thing, for keeping a lid on "ethnic tensions" in the colonies (which erupted as soon as we left), and for bringing trade and Western Civilization to various primitive armpits of the world"
to backtrack a bit, i dont like niall ferguson cos he might not present a defence of empire exactly, but its still a 'yes some things went wrong but mostly what came out of it was good and positive' and so on. its the argument you hear that ok it wasnt nice, but it was necessary, sort of like ppl like cameron and blair who basically say its nothing to be ashamed of (fwiw, imo, some good things did come out of empire actually, but a lot didnt). most people i find are somewhat defensive about it, as though admitting it was wrong is somehow too much to bear, and then they have this sort of arrogance/defensiveness about it. the other defence is that 'well it was just a different time, you cant impose todays morals and politics on something that happened over a 100 years ago'. funny how no one says that about nazis in germany.
baboon2004
Darned cockwombles.
Haven't read all the thread, but the point about Britain not having been defeated in the recent past is an important one. It has such a tunnel vision view of itself.
More broadly than Britain, what I find a headache is the way that the West seeks to pay unofficial reparations for Empire through 'development', while denying that these are in a way (vastly insubstantial) reparations for theft, murder, plunder etc etc of the rest of the world, and also that it is charging interest on some of these reparations (IMF loans etc), thus making them not even reparations.
It's fucked up beyond measure - as gumdrops says, seemingly we can forget bad things if they happened before the Nazis. Which is, of course, why Nazism was incredibly convenient, PR wise, for Britain.
More broadly than Britain, what I find a headache is the way that the West seeks to pay unofficial reparations for Empire through 'development', while denying that these are in a way (vastly insubstantial) reparations for theft, murder, plunder etc etc of the rest of the world, and also that it is charging interest on some of these reparations (IMF loans etc), thus making them not even reparations.
It's fucked up beyond measure - as gumdrops says, seemingly we can forget bad things if they happened before the Nazis. Which is, of course, why Nazism was incredibly convenient, PR wise, for Britain.
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i dont know how colonial histories are regarded/dealt with in other european countries but im guessing its the same in spain/france/portugal etc as in britain. the west might be good at hailing BRIC countries as a threat but i dont see any sign of its self image crumbling any time soon. in fact, the rise of those countries will only make europe and the US' self image even more pronounced, ppl will feel the need to assert their pride/history etc even more. esp when theres more immigration.
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This is a ludicrous statement! Glib beyond belief! I'm 34 and took history at A-level, and I have never been force-fed Empire PR. In fact, I was carefully and constantly tutored in the crimes and defects of the British Empire, and I went to a school called Christ College, so my education wasn't even comprehensive. I think pride about about WW2 is not exactly the same thing.
As for Ferguson, I find his editorials and TV appearences to be a different thing to his books, same with Andrew Roberts; Empire and Masters & Commanders are both exemplary works of writing and research.
As for an apology to the Irish, David Cameron did that last year, in parliament, did he not?
D
droid
Guest
Oh dear.
He apologised for the events of Bloody Sunday, not the deaths of 2 million and the displacement of another two million in the pseudo-genocidal Irish famine. I guess to a student of Empire like yourself there's little difference.
baboon2004
Darned cockwombles.
Genuinely perplexed as to why you think it's ludicrous. Or glib? :slanted: Of course the prevalence in people's minds since 1945 of the evils of Nazism has allowed British people generally to feel smug about their own history - it's in popular culture everywhere, and the general perception of the populace is what we're talking about, no?
Having taken history at A level sets you apart from most people, for a start. i took it at GCSE, the level that (presumably) most people took it to, and was duly educated about the terrible things the Nazis and Stalin had done, with nary a mention of the British empire. Or of the Spanish Civil War and the British government's sick refusal to officially fight the fascists, for that matter.
i wasn't saying that I was forcefed empire PR at all, rather that it was barely mentioned, whereas I was forcefed about the evils of other European nations.
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Mr. Tea
Let's Talk About Ceps
Thing is, discussion of "Britain's self-image" needs to take into account that Britain, like any country, or like most countries that aren't North Korea, is not a monolithic entity. Clearly people who went to school in the 90s or the last decade were not force-fed imperialist propaganda, even if they weren't given a detailed breakdown of every single massacre, famine or deportation - quite possibly the same cannot be said of people who were educated in the 50s or 60s. And the view of the establishment is not the same thing as the view(s) of the public, which vary from radical anti-imperialism to outright nationalism.
baboon2004
Darned cockwombles.
This is true. And it's the difficulty in any discussion about national opinion. But to crudely generalise, I'd say British people are far less aware of the past horrors committed 'in their name' than are citizens of some other European countries. Of course there is a large minority which is familiar with these things.
i think what I found shocking was that I left (in the scheme of things, a good) school with huge gaps in my history knowledge, among which was the age of (blatant) empire.
i think what I found shocking was that I left (in the scheme of things, a good) school with huge gaps in my history knowledge, among which was the age of (blatant) empire.
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Mr. Tea
Let's Talk About Ceps
or, indeed, the leftist militias that also murdered tens of thousands.
Britain in the 30s was severely economically depressed and towards the end of the decade was starting to consider its own security in the face of German re-armament and militarism. Who knows what might have happened if the armed forces had been already involved in a foreign war in 1939?
baboon2004
Darned cockwombles.
Sure, that's a fair point. But the fact that the Nazis were explicitly providing air power to Franco casts Britain's later 'anti-Nazi' struggle in a bit of a ridiculous light. As you say, to do with national security, and very little to do with ideology - I know that's the story of world politics through the ages, but it's remarkable how fictions about moral actions refuse to die.
There's a great chapter in the 'What If?' book about what would have happened had Lord Halifax become PM instead of Churchill, and how close this was to happening (if I'm not completely misremembering). Fading memory means the details are sadly hazy in my mind, but I recall it being fascinating.
Dunno about your question. Possibly Hitler would have been given more pause for thought, had he seen a genuine reaction against fascism. Maybe he was emboldened by Franco's success/ the lack of action by other nations? No idea.
baboon2004
Darned cockwombles.
As an aside, this anecdote re Halifax is pretty funny:
"In November 1937 Halifax went to Germany at the invitation of Hermann Göring on the pretext of a hunting exhibition........On meeting the Führer, Halifax almost created an incident by nearly handing his coat to Hitler, believing him to be a footman: "As I looked out of the car window, on eye level, I saw in the middle of this swept path a pair of black trousered legs, finishing up in silk socks and pumps. I assumed this was a footman who had come down to help me out of the car and up the steps, and was proceeding in leisurely fashion to get myself out of the car when I heard Von Neurath or somebody throwing a hoarse whisper at my ear of ‘Der Fuhrer, de Fuhrer’; and it then dawned upon me that the legs were not the legs of a footman, but of Hitler" "
"In November 1937 Halifax went to Germany at the invitation of Hermann Göring on the pretext of a hunting exhibition........On meeting the Führer, Halifax almost created an incident by nearly handing his coat to Hitler, believing him to be a footman: "As I looked out of the car window, on eye level, I saw in the middle of this swept path a pair of black trousered legs, finishing up in silk socks and pumps. I assumed this was a footman who had come down to help me out of the car and up the steps, and was proceeding in leisurely fashion to get myself out of the car when I heard Von Neurath or somebody throwing a hoarse whisper at my ear of ‘Der Fuhrer, de Fuhrer’; and it then dawned upon me that the legs were not the legs of a footman, but of Hitler" "
Ok, but the Nazi obssession in GCSE curriculums is questioned all the time, by conservative critics (the people trying to put Empire back into the curriculum) more than liberal; actually liberals are usually fairly happy with GCSE history, which is an astonishing position to take if ever there was one, as it is obviously a disasterous waste of time.
When I was doing GCSEs in the mid-90s, the British Empire certainly was part of the curriculum and did not glorify or endorse it in the slightest. In fact, Roberts and Niall largely write in response to the opposite senario, a perceived left-liberal cultural assault on British history that takes place precisely at school level.
My GCSE course put a heavy premium on "bias" and "propaganda" and knwoing how to spot it, who uses it and why; we learnt more about that than any actual history, from what I remember.
In my lifetime, the mainstream mood has not been smugness about Empire, it's been a glorification of deteating tyranny and reverance for the fallen of two World Wars; whatever you think of that (and it's more extreme now than, say, 10 or 15 years ago), it's a different thing.
When I was doing GCSEs in the mid-90s, the British Empire certainly was part of the curriculum and did not glorify or endorse it in the slightest. In fact, Roberts and Niall largely write in response to the opposite senario, a perceived left-liberal cultural assault on British history that takes place precisely at school level.
My GCSE course put a heavy premium on "bias" and "propaganda" and knwoing how to spot it, who uses it and why; we learnt more about that than any actual history, from what I remember.
In my lifetime, the mainstream mood has not been smugness about Empire, it's been a glorification of deteating tyranny and reverance for the fallen of two World Wars; whatever you think of that (and it's more extreme now than, say, 10 or 15 years ago), it's a different thing.
Mr. Tea
Let's Talk About Ceps
Well Chamberlain helped hand Hitler a large chunk of Czechoslovakia just a year before the war broke out in an attempt to get Britain out of the firing line, that's no secret!
Mr. Tea
Let's Talk About Ceps
This is an interesting assertion. Are you basing it on people from other European countries you've met? In which case how do you know it's not the same selection bias (i.e. liberal-leftwing types are unlikely to voluntarily hang out with raving nationalists) that applies in the UK?
I ask because, whatever prejudices people might harbour in private, I think it's fair to say there's a lot more open racism displayed in certain other European countries than in the UK. And that's the west European countries that had overseas empires, never mind eastern Europe.
In Holland here festivities are getting underway for St. Nicholas's day on 5th December. I've already seen several people walking around the town centre dressed up as his little darky helper, Zwarte Piet:
Can you imagine someone walking around a British city like that in this day and age?!