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British Military Invasion/Colonialization.

Historically, there are only 22 countries in the world today where Britain has never attacked, invaded or achieved a military presence.

As a British, how do you feel about Britain’s past invansion to other countries?

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Reply 1
Original post by Çharizard
Historically, there are only 22 countries in the world today where Britain has never attacked, invaded or achieved a military presence.

As a British, how do you feel about Britain’s past invansion to other countries?


I am proud of British history. All the good parts and the not so good parts. It is what made the UK what it is today. We are able to look back at history with our modern perception on things. It was a different time and the world had different dynamics.

For the majority of mankind the dynamic has been that the strong should rule the weak, in fact it is only the past sixty to eighty years where we've thought that might not be the best idea.

Britain has paved the way for a global and modern world and we should be grateful for that.

I always love that people point the finger at the British say what terrible people we are. However they never point the finger at the Turks and the Ottoman empire, somehow they're above any recourse for no reason given.
Original post by Çharizard
Historically, there are only 22 countries in the world today where Britain has never attacked, invaded or achieved a military presence.

As a British, how do you feel about Britain’s past invansion to other countries?


It was pretty awesome and we should do it again.
mixed views on terms of how it benefitted us, but on the part of the colonised I think they should worship us instead of blame us for all their ills (which are almost entirely their own fault)


I’m glad the Romans Colonised the brits because just like the places the brits colonised, back then we were dumb savages. We brought civilisation to these places and they’ve got the cheek to moan to us about some things that didn’t even happen to them anyway.

The idea that they could have done anything of note without us is laughable.
Obviously colonialism is nothing to be proud of, but what am I supposed to do about it?
Reply 5
I'm not sure why I, as a British person, should have some particular insight into something that ended long before I was born. It's history, and in general I try to understand it rather than take sides or have emotional attachments.

The British Empire was obviously pretty impressive, as it goes - and its legacy remains considerable - but in terms of moral judgements, I don't really bother with all that. If I did, I'd have to start making moral judgements on things like the Mughal empire or African tribal societies before European influence. Hardly seems worth it.
Original post by L i b
I'm not sure why I, as a British person, should have some particular insight into something that ended long before I was born. It's history, and in general I try to understand it rather than take sides or have emotional attachments.

The British Empire was obviously pretty impressive, as it goes - and its legacy remains considerable - but in terms of moral judgements, I don't really bother with all that. If I did, I'd have to start making moral judgements on things like the Mughal empire or African tribal societies before European influence. Hardly seems worth it.


At what point do you draw the line though? What about the Nazis or the USSR? And if you can do it for them why not for the British Empire which was committing atrocities at that time too?
(edited 5 years ago)
I didn't authorise it, condone it or involve myself directly in it; I don't feel responsible.
Reply 8
Original post by Davij038
mixed views on terms of how it benefitted us, but on the part of the colonised I think they should worship us instead of blame us for all their ills (which are almost entirely their own fault)


The places Britain colonised generally love Britain and are our best allies who fought beside us in world war 2. It's only post-truth ideas in this country which says everyone hates us for it.
Perhaps what the UK government has been doing for the last few decades should be the real concern.
Reply 10
Original post by Davij038
At what point do you draw the line though? What about the Nazis or the USSR? And if you can do it for them why not for the British Empire which was committing atrocities at that time too?


I think living memory probably has a lot to do with it. I'm probably too remote from the WWI to really give much of a toss about the moral positioning of the arguments. WWII is certainly closer - my grandparents were directly involved in it - but it is possible to look at the Nazi ideology around concepts like Lebensraum and think it wasn't actually too distinct from some of the other European empire-building projects, or how the Americans moved west, or the Australians expanded their control over their country.

There's probably a fair argument that Germany just came late to the expansionist party and did it rather cackhandedly, after the rest of the world had developed different norms of behaviour. What was once acceptable was no longer so - which does mean there always has to be a level of moral equivalence in looking at what happened there, so you might argue that's me detaching myself from overt moral judgment.

Still, their legacy of genocide remains a stain on humanity. I certainly feel an emotional response to it and other acts of genocide that followed around the world than I do for the suggestion that our ancestors killed off the Neanderthals, or what the Mongols got up to. I suppose you could argue that's just a human response though: we care less about what seems remote from us. We stand by war memorials to the memory the dead in the last century or so, but we're hardly tromping down to the local church to commemorate the deaths of the thousands who fell in the First Anglo-Afghan war.
Original post by Çharizard
Historically, there are only 22 countries in the world today where Britain has never attacked, invaded or achieved a military presence.

As a British, how do you feel about Britain’s past invansion to other countries?


All wealthy and (relatively) powerful nation-states of today have come to this through exploitation and aggression of various sorts. And it's still going on of course. Nothing to be proud of but nothing to feel guilty about either, 'we' didn't do it just by virtue of being born in Britain and being 'British'.
Original post by L i b
...I'm probably too remote from the WWI to really give much of a toss about the moral positioning of the arguments...


Despite politicians sometimes doing their best to suggest otherwise (like Gove) WWI wasn't in any meaningful sense a 'moral' war in the way that WWII can be characterised as. WWI was still the old empires and their alliances clambering over each other for supremacy and playing 'games' with war.
Original post by Axiomasher
Despite politicians sometimes doing their best to suggest otherwise (like Gove) WWI wasn't in any meaningful sense a 'moral' war in the way that WWII can be characterised as. WWI was still the old empires and their alliances clambering over each other for supremacy and playing 'games' with war.


How was WW2 moral and not WW1?
Original post by Davij038
How was WW2 moral and not WW1?


WWI was in a sense still very much a 19th century war of elite rulers and generals in that it was part of a longstanding 'chess game' of empires all playing in the same way, all waiting for a 'trigger' event which came in the now famous assassination of Franz Ferdinand. Britain wasn't in any sense a 'good guy' allied as we were to Tzar Nicholas who was just as bad as the enemy of Kaiser Wilhelm. It certainly wasn't a war to defend democracy as about half of Britain's males were not franchised. The truly dreadful ideology of Nazism, combining fascism and racism, was something else and Britain's opposition had a genuinely moral dimension. My opinion of course but that's the nature of historical interpretation.
Proud.
Original post by Çharizard
Historically, there are only 22 countries in the world today where Britain has never attacked, invaded or achieved a military presence.

As a British, how do you feel about Britain’s past invansion to other countries?


Never did it to Wakanda
Original post by Kyber Ninja
Never did it to Wakanda


Only becuz we couldnt.
Original post by L i b
I think living memory probably has a lot to do with it. I'm probably too remote from the WWI to really give much of a toss about the moral positioning of the arguments. WWII is certainly closer - my grandparents were directly involved in it - but it is possible to look at the Nazi ideology around concepts like Lebensraum and think it wasn't actually too distinct from some of the other European empire-building projects, or how the Americans moved west, or the Australians expanded their control over their country.

There's probably a fair argument that Germany just came late to the expansionist party and did it rather cackhandedly, after the rest of the world had developed different norms of behaviour. What was once acceptable was no longer so - which does mean there always has to be a level of moral equivalence in looking at what happened there, so you might argue that's me detaching myself from overt moral judgment.

Still, their legacy of genocide remains a stain on humanity. I certainly feel an emotional response to it and other acts of genocide that followed around the world than I do for the suggestion that our ancestors killed off the Neanderthals, or what the Mongols got up to. I suppose you could argue that's just a human response though: we care less about what seems remote from us. We stand by war memorials to the memory the dead in the last century or so, but we're hardly tromping down to the local church to commemorate the deaths of the thousands who fell in the First Anglo-Afghan war.


Speak for yourself, I cry everytime I look upon the paintings of Elizabeth Butler.

Truth be told what the Nazis did was more evil than what Britain did, the creation of India as British sovereign land happened by way of treaties and contracts rather than theft. If we had to send in the Redcoats it was because they broke their treaties.
Original post by Axiomasher
WWI was in a sense still very much a 19th century war of elite rulers and generals in that it was part of a longstanding 'chess game' of empires all playing in the same way, all waiting for a 'trigger' event which came in the now famous assassination of Franz Ferdinand. Britain wasn't in any sense a 'good guy' allied as we were to Tzar Nicholas who was just as bad as the enemy of Kaiser Wilhelm. It certainly wasn't a war to defend democracy as about half of Britain's males were not franchised. The truly dreadful ideology of Nazism, combining fascism and racism, was something else and Britain's opposition had a genuinely moral dimension. My opinion of course but that's the nature of historical interpretation.


Britain and the US were racist too and the USSR/ China objectively killed far, far more people than the Nazis (who themselves were a retaliation against communism)

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