Re: The rise of the British National Party...
Posted: Tue Sep 09, 2008 1:40 pm
julian. You say we reap what we sow ultimately. There were many bad things done in the days of Empire and many good things too. A terrible example is Tasmania, a country the size of Ireland (now a principality of Australia, of course). We killed every single person there when we took the place over - there is not even ONE indigeonous person left. A good example is Swaziland - I used to work with someone who is from there and she told me that if you speak to very elderly people there, like her grandmother who is 90-something, they all have a good word to say about the Brits. She said the British came to their country and built schools, hospitals, put in sanitation, electrical supplies, introduced advanced farming methods, banking structures, tourism, the parliamentray system, built roads and railways, etc, etc. She said so much of what Britain did to that country they still benefit from today and always will. So we did a lot of good in some places and bad in other places.
There is barely one country in the world though that hasn't had positive things come from having something which we Brits pioneered - whether it was the democratic parliamentary political system to America, Australia, and loads of other places, or whatever. I do agree that we messed up a lot of countries as well, and the legacy of that will go on for years. Nigeria and Zimbabwe are good (bad) examples - forcing differnt peoples to live under one administration, because it was easier to adminster that region that way from London, caused many problems in these places and, later, many deaths. It is also worth noting that the attitude of people years ago was that if someone lived a more primitive life than you, they did not have a written language like you do, and so on, then they are somehow inferior to you and it somehow didn't matter that much if you took their land off them. This is obviously NOT a view I would hold, of course not, but it was held by many upper-class land-gentry British people many years ago. We see it as abhorent now but that was how it was then - just like once upon a time they used to hang, draw, and quarter people; burn people alive who they thought were witches; and transport people to the other side of the world for stealing a loaf of bread.
Lastly, when people equate the huge influx of immigrants into the UK as being connected to the fact we had an Empire - could someone explain to me how we have so many people here who are from countries we had nothing to do with? How is there a huge Lebanese community in London, or a Portugese, or Italian one? To name just three. Lebanon was a French colony which was made independant by Germany when it occupied France during World War 2. There is no more justification for their being a Lebanese community in London than there is for having a Ghanian community in Dublin, Ireland - yet we have a huge one in London. We would have to kiss-ass to these people who are refusing to go along with our ways, most of them having foreign writing on the fronts of their businesses (walk along Edgware Road and see), we would have to mind our p's and q's around them but they would not care about creating a good impression on us. Many people here are from countrues we had nothing to do with, they refuse to integrate, and would happily call us all racist scum if we are not happy about how they do not integrate - knowing full well that the TV media and our Courts would be on their side.
There is barely one country in the world though that hasn't had positive things come from having something which we Brits pioneered - whether it was the democratic parliamentary political system to America, Australia, and loads of other places, or whatever. I do agree that we messed up a lot of countries as well, and the legacy of that will go on for years. Nigeria and Zimbabwe are good (bad) examples - forcing differnt peoples to live under one administration, because it was easier to adminster that region that way from London, caused many problems in these places and, later, many deaths. It is also worth noting that the attitude of people years ago was that if someone lived a more primitive life than you, they did not have a written language like you do, and so on, then they are somehow inferior to you and it somehow didn't matter that much if you took their land off them. This is obviously NOT a view I would hold, of course not, but it was held by many upper-class land-gentry British people many years ago. We see it as abhorent now but that was how it was then - just like once upon a time they used to hang, draw, and quarter people; burn people alive who they thought were witches; and transport people to the other side of the world for stealing a loaf of bread.
Lastly, when people equate the huge influx of immigrants into the UK as being connected to the fact we had an Empire - could someone explain to me how we have so many people here who are from countries we had nothing to do with? How is there a huge Lebanese community in London, or a Portugese, or Italian one? To name just three. Lebanon was a French colony which was made independant by Germany when it occupied France during World War 2. There is no more justification for their being a Lebanese community in London than there is for having a Ghanian community in Dublin, Ireland - yet we have a huge one in London. We would have to kiss-ass to these people who are refusing to go along with our ways, most of them having foreign writing on the fronts of their businesses (walk along Edgware Road and see), we would have to mind our p's and q's around them but they would not care about creating a good impression on us. Many people here are from countrues we had nothing to do with, they refuse to integrate, and would happily call us all racist scum if we are not happy about how they do not integrate - knowing full well that the TV media and our Courts would be on their side.