Cycling UK Forum

mercalia wrote:well since Putin is just a Russian mafiosis I think the above views are wrong. he isnt really interested in resurrecting the USSR just in stripping Russia of its ressources for personal use.

I think Putin is much more complicated than people give him credit for. Who's to say he would stop at former Soviet bloc countries? Who would stop him if he rolled into the likes of Italy or Spain? Especially if there is further break up of the EU. Who would step in to help?

I think you would find the big three definitely lacking, France, Germany and Britain would probably just shrug their shoulders. The Russians are well known for playing the long game, the waiting game. If Putin could be certain American interests wouldn't intervene, why would he not seek to increase the empire?

He's been testing the water with Ukraine since 2014 and so far with little resistance from the west. We live in interesting times and if Trump is serious about pulling up the drawbridge, then Europe is in a spot of bother...

Cyril Haearn wrote:

Ben@Forest wrote:..
compared with nearly all its European rivals or contemporaries the UK was relatively benign
..

Really? The British Empire was so big and all to do with trade, money, power, spices, resources, ivory etc etc
All colonial powers were after $$$, what about Australia for example?
'Australians let us all rejoice
For we are young and free
..
We took the black man's land
And threw him in the sea'
(Cyril Haearn)

Maybe the Indians are grateful now, they have railways, English language, call centres, but colonial history is a miserable shaming business altogether I think

As l said in my post the British Empire was one of many and frankly was better than many. That's not to say it wasn't exploitative or unequal, it was, but those with more parochial attitudes seem unable to see it the broader sweep of European history at the time.

Plus of course some of those exploited hailed from lands which once did the exploiting. How many thousands of slaves lived and died to build pyramids, or to act as galley slaves for the ancient Greeks or maintain the living standards of the rich of the Roman Empire? These things happened, we have to see them in their context.

Cyril Haearn wrote:Maybe the Indians are grateful now, they have railways, English language, call centres, but colonial history is a miserable shaming business altogether I think

Maybe not

2) The Bengal Famine
Rather than benevolently ruling India as Roberts suggests, Britain oversaw some of the worst famines in human history. The famine of Bengal on 1943 was so bad that it's been likened to a genocide. Three million Indians starved to death. The policies of Winston Churchill, who was prime minister at the time, were largely to blame for the suffering. Britain exported huge amounts of food from India, all for its own consumption. 70,000 tonnes of rice left the sub-continent between January and July 1943.

Still not convinced? Churchill said this about the Bengal famine of 1943: “I hate Indians. They are a beastly people with a beastly religion. The famine was their own fault for breeding like rabbits.”

https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/th ... 29106.html

roubaixtuesday wrote:

Cyril Haearn wrote:Maybe the Indians are grateful now, they have railways, English language, call centres, but colonial history is a miserable shaming business altogether I think

Maybe not

2) The Bengal Famine
Rather than benevolently ruling India as Roberts suggests, Britain oversaw some of the worst famines in human history. The famine of Bengal on 1943 was so bad that it's been likened to a genocide. Three million Indians starved to death. The policies of Winston Churchill, who was prime minister at the time, were largely to blame for the suffering. Britain exported huge amounts of food from India, all for its own consumption. 70,000 tonnes of rice left the sub-continent between January and July 1943.

Still not convinced? Churchill said this about the Bengal famine of 1943: “I hate Indians. They are a beastly people with a beastly religion. The famine was their own fault for breeding like rabbits.”

https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/th ... 29106.html

The French were pretty appalling too. What they did in North Africa and the Congo was disgusting, but any measure. Puts the slave trade kinda into the shade. The torture they performed in Algeria and Indochine was sickening.

https://theconversation.com/its-time-fo ... nity-74886

Canuk wrote:

roubaixtuesday wrote:

Cyril Haearn wrote:Maybe the Indians are grateful now, they have railways, English language, call centres, but colonial history is a miserable shaming business altogether I think

Maybe not

2) The Bengal Famine
Rather than benevolently ruling India as Roberts suggests, Britain oversaw some of the worst famines in human history. The famine of Bengal on 1943 was so bad that it's been likened to a genocide. Three million Indians starved to death. The policies of Winston Churchill, who was prime minister at the time, were largely to blame for the suffering. Britain exported huge amounts of food from India, all for its own consumption. 70,000 tonnes of rice left the sub-continent between January and July 1943.

Still not convinced? Churchill said this about the Bengal famine of 1943: “I hate Indians. They are a beastly people with a beastly religion. The famine was their own fault for breeding like rabbits.”

https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/th ... 29106.html

The French were pretty appalling too. What they did in North Africa and the Congo was disgusting, but any measure. Puts the slave trade kinda into the shade. The torture they performed in Algeria and Indochine was sickening.

https://theconversation.com/its-time-fo ... nity-74886

And the Belgians where its kIng treated the Belgian Congo as his own possession?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atrocities_in_the_Congo_Free_State He looks a monster and was one

As for Spain, well they still have those 2 enclaves in Nth Africa they just wont let go of? and then take the UK to task why we wont let them have Gib ( which we have had for 300 years )

roubaixtuesday wrote:https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/th ... 29106.html

.

You couldn't have found a less impartial source. Looking elsewhere the writer Amit Singh has a worldview of blaming previous or current authorities, he writes on race for the Guardian and co-launched a magazine called 'Consented' in 2017, it seems to have folded already.

A while ago Jeremy Paxman said that 'those citizens of India who blame all their ills on British colonialism which ended 70 years ago are like middle aged men, having failed to achieve anything in their lives, blame their parents'.

It's a reasonable analogy, especially when you see that other countries which were colonies with similar levels of development at the end of WW2 have done far better than India. Pakistan and Bangladesh. Countries like Malaysia, South Korea and Vietnam have done better in terms of literacy, development of new technologies and women's rights - and especially in the case of Pakistan - democracy.

It's also worth noting that Great Britain never directly ruled about 40% of India (about 25% of the population). These princely states came to agreement with the British and could be considered vassal states, but of course many had been vassal states of bigger Indian powers before the British hegemony.

Ben@Forest wrote:

Oldjohnw wrote:Pretty disgraceful stuff. As if true blue blooded Brits had much to be proud of in their colonial past. Invading counties, imposing laws and religion, severely and cruelly punishing anyone objecting. As recently as my grandfather's time. Quite apart from modern day Iraq, Libya and goodness knows where else.

Though not wanting to be an apologist for Empire some of the above is only partially true - for instance the Empire and its antecedents (such as the East India Company) had little interest in proselytising, religion was only an issue where it conflicted with commercial advantage

And compared with nearly all its European rivals or contemporaries the UK was relatively benign, especially compared with Spain, Portugal, Belgium or Germany. It's almost never mentioned that the Portuguese started the Atlantic slave trade.

British missionaries travelled all over the Empire. The British were responsible for policies approaching genocide in Australia. Then there was the invention of Concentration Camps during the Boer War. Here's some pictures of a children in them - remind you of anything later in the century?

pete75 wrote:

Ben@Forest wrote:

Oldjohnw wrote:Pretty disgraceful stuff. As if true blue blooded Brits had much to be proud of in their colonial past. Invading counties, imposing laws and religion, severely and cruelly punishing anyone objecting. As recently as my grandfather's time. Quite apart from modern day Iraq, Libya and goodness knows where else.

Though not wanting to be an apologist for Empire some of the above is only partially true - for instance the Empire and its antecedents (such as the East India Company) had little interest in proselytising, religion was only an issue where it conflicted with commercial advantage

And compared with nearly all its European rivals or contemporaries the UK was relatively benign, especially compared with Spain, Portugal, Belgium or Germany. It's almost never mentioned that the Portuguese started the Atlantic slave trade.

British missionaries travelled all over the Empire. The British were responsible for policies approaching genocide in Australia. Then there was the invention of Concentration Camps during the Boer War. Here's some pictures of a children in them - remind you of anything later in the century?

A different context. The camps under the British were a response to the Boers terrorist activty who were given sanctuary by the local Afrikaan population. It was a direct response to this. A conparison to the Germans later misguided. ( you might at well drag up the Zulu wars where at Ulundi the British exterminated the royal impis spears against canon & early machine guns, British casualties I think less than a dozen)

Ben@Forest wrote:

roubaixtuesday wrote:https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/th ... 29106.html

.

You couldn't have found a less impartial source. Looking elsewhere the writer Amit Singh has a worldview of blaming previous or current authorities, he writes on race for the Guardian and co-launched a magazine called 'Consented' in 2017, it seems to have folded already.

A while ago Jeremy Paxman said that 'those citizens of India who blame all their ills on British colonialism which ended 70 years ago are like middle aged men, having failed to achieve anything in their lives, blame their parents'.

It's a reasonable analogy, especially when you see that other countries which were colonies with similar levels of development at the end of WW2 have done far better than India. Pakistan and Bangladesh. Countries like Malaysia, South Korea and Vietnam have done better in terms of literacy, development of new technologies and women's rights - and especially in the case of Pakistan - democracy.

It's also worth noting that Great Britain never directly ruled about 40% of India (about 25% of the population). These princely states came to agreement with the British and could be considered vassal states, but of course many had been vassal states of bigger Indian powers before the British hegemony.

I believe the word for this is "whataboutery"

mercalia wrote:
A different context. The camps under the British were a response to the Boers terrorist activty who were given sanctuary by the local Afrikaan population. It was a direct response to this. A conparison to the Germans later misguided. ( you might at well drag up the Zulu wars where at Ulundi the British exterminated the royal impis spears against canon & early machine guns, British casualties I think less than a dozen)
ulundi.JPG

Not only that but the idea that the British invented 'concentration camps' is a well-proven historical myth. The term 'concentration camp' derives from the policy of '"Reconcentracion" that sent thousands of Cubans into concentration camps. It was a policy implemented by General Weyler of Spain from at least 1896 in the lead-up to the Spanish-American War.

Under the policy the rural population had eight days to move into designated camps located in fortified towns; any person who failed to obey was shot. It is estimated 400,000 people died as a result of the policy. The Second Boer War (in which the British established similar -if not the same type of camps) did not start until 1899 and the forcible resettlement did not start until at least a year later.

The worst aspect of all this is that the first person to claim that the British 'invented concentration camps' was Dr Joseph Goebbels. Every time someone says this they are repeating Nazi propaganda. This could of course fall under the heading of 'whataboutery'.

Ah! So the British did not invent it: they merely adopted it. So that's ok.

Which is what my Hitler/Stalin reference was about. Because someone else is even worse does not justify me.

Oldjohnw wrote:Ah! So the British did not invent it: they merely adopted it. So that's ok.

Which is what my Hitler/Stalin reference was about. Because someone else is even worse does not justify me.

You're right it doesn't. But it's a peculiar trait which likes to see British actions or policies as unusually cruel or harmful when in fact these have been perpetrated by other peoples too.

And parroting Nazi propaganda is particularly low - wherever he is l suspect the Gauleiter of Berlin is chuckling to himself.

Ben@Forest wrote:

Oldjohnw wrote:Ah! So the British did not invent it: they merely adopted it. So that's ok.

Which is what my Hitler/Stalin reference was about. Because someone else is even worse does not justify me.

You're right it doesn't. But it's a peculiar trait which likes to see British actions or policies as unusually cruel or harmful when in fact these have been perpetrated by other peoples too.

And parroting Nazi propaganda is particularly low - wherever he is l suspect the Gauleiter of Berlin is chuckling to himself.

Britain has used cruel and harmful policies in the past the fact that others have done the same and worse in no way diminishes the fact. If you have a source for Goebbels being the first to say Britain invented concentration camps I'd like to see it. I was told they had by a Zimbabwean student in Leeds in the late seventies.

Ben@Forest wrote:

Oldjohnw wrote:Ah! So the British did not invent it: they merely adopted it. So that's ok.

Which is what my Hitler/Stalin reference was about. Because someone else is even worse does not justify me.

You're right it doesn't. But it's a peculiar trait which likes to see British actions or policies as unusually cruel or harmful when in fact these have been perpetrated by other peoples too.........

You're doing it again,excusing British cruelty by comparison to others.
The truth is the British were no better and sometimes worse than other colonial regimes and empires around the globe.

pete75 wrote:

Ben@Forest wrote:

Oldjohnw wrote:Ah! So the British did not invent it: they merely adopted it. So that's ok.

Which is what my Hitler/Stalin reference was about. Because someone else is even worse does not justify me.

You're right it doesn't. But it's a peculiar trait which likes to see British actions or policies as unusually cruel or harmful when in fact these have been perpetrated by other peoples too.

And parroting Nazi propaganda is particularly low - wherever he is l suspect the Gauleiter of Berlin is chuckling to himself.

Britain has used cruel and harmful policies in the past the fact that others have done the same and worse in no way diminishes the fact. If you have a source for Goebbels being the first to say Britain invented concentration camps I'd like to see it. I was told they had by a Zimbabwean student in Leeds in the late seventies.

In previous centuries societies with power over other societies committed what we now consider human rights abuses. That was the norm. Think of the way the Romans and the Greeks behaved in conquered lands, taking slaves and committing massacres. The fact that we in the UK (as an example) now look critically at what happened during the days of Empire shows that some progress has been made at last. What the Nazis did was to take the misuse of power exercised by other powers and combine it with modern industrial efficiency to ramp up the scale and thoroughness, and at a time when we in the UK were beginning to look at the world with more enlightened eyes.