It’s a bit long but it’s worth a watch if you’re interested in seeing our (and others) glorious Empire from the other side. It’s about the exact opposite of what we were taught in school in my day.

https://www.arte.tv/en/videos/086124-001-A/biding-their-time/

And yet our govt while wanting to business with ex-imperial possessions has labeled their programme Empire2, so presumably our kids are still taught about the benefits of empire.

Reminds me of Mahatma Gandhi’s response when asked “What do think about Western Civilisation?”

(I think it would be a very good idea)

so presumably our kids are still taught about the benefits of empire.

We weren’t 30 years ago and my kids haven’t been yet. It wasn’t even mentioned which tbh it should have been, that might’ve dispelled the mythology of it.

We weren’t 30 years ago and my kids haven’t been yet. It wasn’t even mentioned which tbh it should have been, that might’ve dispelled the mythology of it.

Back when I was at school (2000 ish) History was chronological, so you did British history from 1066 to about 1800, the slave trade, then the american civil war, WW1, Russian revolution, WW2. Then GCSE was the great depression, interwar soviet russia, womens history (1910-1950 ish), Nazi germany, chinese revolution upto the late 70’s.

Which meant they missed out or glossed over most of the bad stuff. Which is a shame, but most countries tend to teach their own revision of history ignoring the bad bits

so presumably our kids are still taught about the benefits of empire

😉 Less than 30 years ago mention of empire(s) in non elective history was limited to roughly:
It wiped out native civilisation in the Americas.
It led to the mass slavery we tend to think of when we think of slavery.
It led to the 100 years, napoleonic, first and second world wars.
Led to apartheid.
railways.
common languages.
World trade
Made Europe richer, at everyone else’s expense but allowing us to do things like enforce the “end” of the slave trade that we started.

I can’t say I remember any even begrudging endorsement in honesty

dangeourbrain
…I can’t say I remember any even begrudging endorsement in honesty…

That was my impression – that school history had stopped the jingoist approach a while back. (My generation got the full jingo 🙂 )

Hence my puzzlement that anyone on the Civil Service would have thought Empire2 was a good designation even as an internal name.

Hence my puzzlement that anyone on the Civil Service would have thought Empire2 was a good designation even as an internal name.

I have to assume you’ve not met many senior civil servants, especially if you think any of them finished school this side of 1960

To be honest the British empire **** over most of Britain not just the globe. It’s a miricale it held together. Ireland, Scotland and much of the north and midlands and London itself had as little political representation in Westminster as our colonies and life chances for the average joe in the industrial Cities were just astonishingly bad. Worse than they had been pre industrial revolution.

Watched about 20 mins of that documentary and will go back to it. Excellent recommendation epicyclo.

Govt refering to current project as Empire 2 reminds me of George W Bush calling for a Crusade against terrorism after WTC attack.

Empire and the desire for Empire has been a part of the human condition for millenia. It’s good that history is now taught more objectively than in my day, though a danger can lie in seeing the Euripean empires of tha late 19th and early 20th Centuries in the same light as previous Empires, filed under bad things we did in the past but we’re not like that anymore.

That’s where the Enlightenment comes in. These horrors were perpetrated in an Age of Reason, not an era of superstition and ‘ignorance’.

From the little I’ve watched of the film so far, the things that stand out for me are the role of the camera and the machine gun in the Congo, two more rational things it would be hard to find.

Bookmarking.

Reminds me of a British tv presenter interviewing a Chinese government representative in Africa somewhere and asking if they (the Chinese) were taking advantage of the continent and it’s people.

He replied that unlike the British during the Empire, at least the Chinese were paying for what they take out of the continent rather than stealing it.

Colonialism was an aberration, but just to be clear there were dissenting thinkers through the Renaissance, enlightenment and beyond. Montaigne (died 1592) was a very influential thinker and was critical of the Spanish conquests and was fascinated by the society and culture of the native people, even describing it as a sort of utopia. J.s. Mill articulated very well the reasons why European’s are not suited to govern over foreign colonies in the Victorian period.

There are also many non-European imperialist states in history, although the Europeans took it to new heights.

They could start by teaching some of the atrocities committed under colonialism. Starting with England’s first colony, Ireland. I’m so surprised that my English friends have no knowledge of Cromwell’s murderous campaign in Ireland.

At school I was told that History was written by the winners. I’ve come to realize it’s written by the loosers as well (because one day they want to be the winners).

The whole Cromwell in Ireland thing bothers me. The Irish obviously needed a figure to focus their hatred of the English, but the more I read the more I can’t help thinking they picked the wrong man, or the right man for the wrong reasons.

And the more you get into the details of experience at individual and family level the less the great themes of history (as sold by professional historians of all persuasions) make sense.

At school I was told that History was written by the winners. I’ve come to realize it’s written by the loosers as well (because one day they want to be the winners).

Have a read of;

The Black Swan*: The Impact of the Highly Improbable – Nassim Nicholas Taleb

Explains how History comes to be written and how that related to events at the time.

One example is WW1, Eveyone knows the Archdukes assassination kicked things off, yet in contemporary accounts it barely gets a mention. But it makes for a nice logical this then that narrative of events.

*No its not about ballet dancers, it’s a reference to how what you think you know influences your view of the world and how anything that changes that seems utterly improbable. Everyone knows swans are white. Until Europeans went to Australia where they’re black.

The whole Cromwell in Ireland thing bothers me. The Irish obviously needed a figure to focus their hatred of the English, but the more I read the more I can’t help thinking they picked the wrong man, or the right man for the wrong reasons.

Would you rather the focus was on Churchill and the Black and Tans? Or one of the numerous famines? Maybe the shelling of Dublin, or how about the Monaghan and Dublin bombings and the role of the British state in the troubles?

‘Co-funded by the European Union’

Far-rage will have something to say about that. Descustang self-hating revisionist lefty claptrap. Boooo, jeeer. Etc.

Empire2.0 has a nice ring about it. I predict that it will be popular.

Malvern Rider
Empire2.0 has a nice ring about it. I predict that it will be popular.

Oh, indeed it will.

Hopefully the enthusiasts for it will be first to volunteer for the front lines when it becomes necessary to persuade the natives about the rightness of the Empire2 cause…

Thisisnotaspoon-

Yep, read that and some of his other books as well. A bloke entirely concerned with how thins are rather than how they should be. He sees himself in the mould of Karl Popper, who’s book ‘An Open Society and it’s Enemies’ advanced the theory of falsification. John Gray is of similar mind and a contemporary British philosopher. (I referenced them both in the Brexit thread but got chased out of there.)

History loves narrative arcs, populated by unique individuals. You mention the significance placed on Arch Duke Ferdinand retrospectively, where the suggestion is that had he not been assassinated, WW1 would not have happened, discounting the possibility that other events could have resulted in a similar outcome with regards a world war breaking out, the prevailng political conditions being what they were.

History is much more random than we like to think, (hence the black swan.) To counterfactualise for a moment, just imagine if Labour had selected the right Miliband, how different would things be? Or had Colin Powell stood for president in 2000 instead of Bush? Any narrative arc is contained within a spinning coin.

My understanding was that Empire 2.0 was the ironic name for Brexit used by those in the Civil Service who though the whole idea was pretty stupid.

There are also many non-European imperialist states in history, although the Europeans took it to new heights.

Would you rather have been colonised by the British or the Mongols? Not wishing to defend the Empire but the stories of conquerors through history are breathtaking in their brutality.

I get what you mean, I guess I’m more on about the geographical extent enabled through technology.

Although mentioning the Mongols is interesting as it just shows how silly these type of shows can be. The British imperialists would have regarded the Mongol empire as barbaric. We regard the British empire barbaric. Both the Mongols and British imperialists thought what they were doing was ok, and that they were morally compelled to do it.

So I’m always wary of anything that lets viewers look back and feel morally superior without giving a fuller understanding of government and society of the day. Because it ignores that it is an absolute certainty that we are doing barbaric things now (for example, how will the concept of a “working week” in a capitalist system appear to people in 2350?)

molgrips
Would you rather have been colonised by the British or the Mongols?…

You ended up just as dead or oppressed, but we were sold that meme when I was a lad. We did our killing and oppressing more kindly apparently. However histories being written by academics belonging to those former colonies present a different picture.

Conquering or colonising usually involves going into someone else’s country and stealing their land and resources. It’s never given up willingly so it results in massacres and atrocities.

The alternative way was to buy the ruling class, but that usually ended up needing reinforced with the military. It’ll be interesting to see how the current buyout of the British ruling class will look in retrospect.

I don’t think anyone disputing that. Human thought progresses and colonialism as a concept and state of affairs was shot to pieces in the 19th and 20th centuries whereas other enlightenment hangovers still exist. I’m not really sure what the point of attacking it further is?

tomd
…I’m not really sure what the point of attacking it further is?

Can’t change the past, but maybe learn something for the future?

Hopefully but the lesson most people seem to take is how horrible colonialism is, and that they should feel more guilty. Which is of no real use as it doesn’t really challenge any ideas or beliefs we have today (outside of fringe nutters).

We will look as utterly backwards to future generations as colonial era imperialists look like to us. We need to find our “colonialism”.

People like Montaigne got stuck into the ideas of colonialism before it really got going. Imagine he’d been Captain Hindsight and written about the wrongs of the Crusades instead, where would we be now?

You ended up just as dead or oppressed

No, I really don’t think you did.

Eh? Surely you can’t be half dead?

It’s a question of degree. You can argue that there were a few benefits of the British Empire (as well as a lot of disbenefits) but by & large the Mongols just killed all the men & raped all the women. One in two hundred men alive today are direct descendents of Ghengis Khan, that’s a lot of raping by just one man.
There is a lot of anachronistic thinking going on: there is very little that went on in the past which is acceptable today & it is pretty misleading to judge things by modern standards. See, for example that bastion of democracy, ancient Athens and the Melian dialogues.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siege_of_Melos#The_Melian_Dialogue

Agreed re modern standards – and I also sort of see Moleys point but whilst in some cases being part of the British Empire could bring certain benefits (railways, the civil service (!)), there were lots of other examples where crimes committed by the British were every bit as barbaric as those committed by GK – even the most basic reading of the aftermath of the Indian Mutiny will tell you that….and it’s not contested nor controversial in that respect.

Also I don’t think it is about feeling guilty, but I think it is important to recognise why perhaps modern India does not have the same rosy view of the Raj that a lot of Brits seem to..

there were lots of other examples where crimes committed by the British were every bit as barbaric as those committed by GK – even the most basic reading of the aftermath of the Indian Mutiny will tell you that

Indeed. But the point is that the British Empire went on for a long time and lots of different people were involved in lots of places. The original aim was mostly trade rather than simply slaughter. That was a side project. It has more in common with the Roman Empire IMO.

I know it’s fashionable to stick black or white labels on everything these days but nothing is ever black and white. It’s not helpful to simply beat ourselves up about the Empire. For starters we weren’t there.

I think the “Empire was bad” thing is used as an antidote to modern British Jingoism and it has a role to play here, but I don’t think it’s a very useful tool. You’ll get labelled in patriotic and vilified by the people you want to convince. The answer to “we’re British, aren’t we great?” isn’t “Britain is shit, we murdered loads of people and we’re scum”.

modern India does not have the same rosy view of the Raj that a lot of Brits seem to..

True but their history lessons also have a bias.

And how many Brits actually have a ‘rosy view of the Raj’? I mean, actually how many people, not just stereotypes?

I eventually got round to watching it, thanks for sharing epicyclo. I really enjoy discovering other narratives which challenge my own beliefs.
It was impressioned on me in my childhood through education, media and some family that British is Best. We were taught about the Scottish and European Enlightenment, the revolution in thinking and invention, my own family lit up the world (invented parifin) The fact that we colonised and civilised most of the world was testament to this. My family had benefited greatly from the empire and wars, they owned a nice wee island in the Caribbean and almost 900 slaves when slavery was abolished. Really no idea why the slaves were complaining when we’d given them god and clothes.
The legacy of the empire still plays out in our prejudices today, not only racial it effects all aspects of our cultural structure and it’s important to question.
What really strikes me about many of the African narratives is that they are about leading women.