senojekips
Active member
Ghengis Khan, Stalin, Hitler all helped develop the world we know today, but I wouldn't want them to be looking after my interests.
How Churchill 'starved' India
Yin717
Active member
You know, I'm greatly offended you consider me a racist. Are you telling me you toured every darn town and city in the bloomin country? Yeah. People are racist. But to be totally frank we are not more racist than the US. If anything I would argue that parts of the US are by far more racist than the UK combined. And this is it. Parts! The south of America is far more racist than the north and I would probably say in the UK this is vice versa/ Mainly because the north has never really had to cope with immigrants before.
Now as to the commonwealth. I personally wanted to stay out of this argument but I have sort of been pulled into it by a comment that us, in a way, true. Sad, but true. Now, yes Britain may have treated the commonwealth cruelly. But then you tell me an empire that hasn't done that? Maybe we should have gotten rid of it earlier. But when you consider that the time you are refferring is a time when racism in the south of America was rife. And the government did crap all to do anything! It took another 20 years after WWII to solve anything. Britain, well. We may have ruined their countries but at least we allowed them to enter our country without visa's or wahetever to start a new life. And it is only now they are considering stopping that because we simply can't hold them. I would agree. I am British so therefore I do have a biased view and as you have rightly commented I have had biased teaching. But really, who's to comment on being cruel? You know, asfter WWII Britain was ruined by the debts they owed to America for the war productions. And you know what happened straight away, the US refused to make it easier for us! It took us many negotiations to make it easier. Even then we were ruined and yet we still owned an Empire. You think Churchill was cruel? I bet he had plans to make it up afterwards. I wont know though. I aint Churchill. But how would that have been possible if we were ruined by the darn US? Sure Churchill wasn't perfect. ut your telling me all your US Presidents have been? Core then you must blind if you think that.
And yet the nation you live and would fight for today was shaped by Britain. An African example to your question I would use would be South Africa. Yes, it's not perfect and there was bad racism there. Nothing I like. But yey, they're one of the most successful African nations. But I don't want to enter a battle of the commonwealth because if I'm honest it's not my expertise.
But would you want it to be different? Sometimes evil is a necessity to make a better world. You can't make a better world with no evil to fight.
senojekips
Active member
That does not even enter the equation, firstly, I'm not so sure that your statement is even vaguely true. I feel that if there were no evil it would have a far better chance of having been a much better world.
Secondly it is something over which, neither I nor anybody else has any control. After all, I was merely putting forward my views of Winston Churchill and used Stalin et al, to show that people who shape history do not necessarily have to be good people.
I also find your answer to MontyB as somewhat odd,
The shaping of New Zealand was hardly attributable to Winston Churchill. You seem to be going off at a tangent that has little or nothing to do with the subject of the thread.
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Yin717
Active member
And I simply stated that whether he was cruel or not, which I don't really care about to be frank, he did help shape the world today that frankly we love. Sure it's not perfect but has the world ever been? And in just stating a reasonably true statement I was shot down in flames.
MontyB
All-Blacks Supporter
The problem is that you can say exactly the same thing about Hitler, Chamberlain, Stalin, Nero, Caligula, Atilla, or countless other leaders including a huge number of failed ones. They all contributed to the world as it is today and in reality every decision you or I make changes the shape of the world a little.
However this is a discussion on the actions of one man and I personally find it hard to accept that anyone can justify the death of up to 1 million people so that his nation can have a surplus of food to give to other nations, I can understand someone putting their nation first when it comes to life and death but not to build a surplus.
It is some what akin to robbing a bank, killing a few bank staff, giving the money to charity and then saying look how good I am.
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senojekips
Active member
I don't expect the world to be perfect, but I don't like to see any more undue suffering than is absolutely necessary either.
However you will note that even with my somewhat blunt assesment of Churchill's personal attributes, I do not believe that he deliberately "Starved the Indian people with malice aforethought". I believe that it was more likely, a complete lack of thought on behalf of others, as a result of his public school upbringing.
LeEnfield
Active member
Yes we could have done better at the time with those that were starving in India, well we could have if we knew about it. I am afraid to say this sort of thing was common in India and had been going on long before Britain took control, and yes this is no excuse. Now you say that rice and food from India was sent else where, well I was alive and kicking in Britain long before WW2 started in 1939 and I can assure you that I never saw any rice around in Britain during the war.
Now with hindsight every one now says that British Colonialism was bad thing, but some of the most Democratic Countries and some of the richest where most immigrants wish to go started of as British Colonies so we must have some thing right.
India before the British arrived was rather like Europe which was a series of internal countries always at war with one another, it was Britain that unified it into one great country which is growing into a super power, and also their official language is English.
Now with many of the other countries where democracy has not taken hold so well that we used manage is due to us giving up power before they were ready for it. One of the reasons we had to get out early was to obtain huge loans to keep us going after the war and this was some of the conditions laid down for the loans.
Also if America is so horrified about the millions of Indians that died from starvation then I wonder what happened to millions of American Indians once the Buffalo herds had been wiped out and they had been driven from their lands.
Now with hindsight every one now says that British Colonialism was bad thing, but some of the most Democratic Countries and some of the richest where most immigrants wish to go started of as British Colonies so we must have some thing right.
India before the British arrived was rather like Europe which was a series of internal countries always at war with one another, it was Britain that unified it into one great country which is growing into a super power, and also their official language is English.
Now with many of the other countries where democracy has not taken hold so well that we used manage is due to us giving up power before they were ready for it. One of the reasons we had to get out early was to obtain huge loans to keep us going after the war and this was some of the conditions laid down for the loans.
Also if America is so horrified about the millions of Indians that died from starvation then I wonder what happened to millions of American Indians once the Buffalo herds had been wiped out and they had been driven from their lands.
Partisan
Active member
Firstly let me say that I'm a Brit - and proud of it! I never really knew the British Empire, although I did live in Hong Kong for a bit.
The points raised on all sides are pertinent, colonies do not like being ruled from afar and empire homelands like to think that we added something to each colony and its way of life.
The reality is somewhere in the middle, each takes and gives something to and from the other - is it in equal measure? Probably not, but there is a 2 way flow.
So how Great was the British Empire, geographically it was immense, culturally it was immense, politically it was a shambles, but name me an Empire that really managed to rule its dominions from afar, to the satisfaction of the local population?
It is the nature of Empires and countries to rise and fall, Great Britain has waned, India is rising, America is declining, China is climbing. Fifty years from now we'll be decrying that China bought up all the mineral rights to the United Federation of Africa, whilst they'll be screaming for a voice on the world stage.
At the time the British Empire was founded - it was a land race between all the European nations, it just so happened that we had a bigger navy, won more of the domestic fights, which enabled us to claim more of the lands, or hive them off from the defeated, fair - probably not, morally correct - no, historically accurate - yes.
So whilst you take the time to lambast my country, please stop and think about your own domestic policies and how they have been used to hold down natives. The only one that I can think of that hasn't had any kind of racist policy is Canada, as for the rest of us
POT - KETTLE - BLACK - OVER
The points raised on all sides are pertinent, colonies do not like being ruled from afar and empire homelands like to think that we added something to each colony and its way of life.
The reality is somewhere in the middle, each takes and gives something to and from the other - is it in equal measure? Probably not, but there is a 2 way flow.
So how Great was the British Empire, geographically it was immense, culturally it was immense, politically it was a shambles, but name me an Empire that really managed to rule its dominions from afar, to the satisfaction of the local population?
It is the nature of Empires and countries to rise and fall, Great Britain has waned, India is rising, America is declining, China is climbing. Fifty years from now we'll be decrying that China bought up all the mineral rights to the United Federation of Africa, whilst they'll be screaming for a voice on the world stage.
At the time the British Empire was founded - it was a land race between all the European nations, it just so happened that we had a bigger navy, won more of the domestic fights, which enabled us to claim more of the lands, or hive them off from the defeated, fair - probably not, morally correct - no, historically accurate - yes.
So whilst you take the time to lambast my country, please stop and think about your own domestic policies and how they have been used to hold down natives. The only one that I can think of that hasn't had any kind of racist policy is Canada, as for the rest of us
POT - KETTLE - BLACK - OVER