badass-bharat-deafmuslim-artista:
One in three adults wishes Britain still had an empire
What kind of fuckery is this?
Ahhh, white people who love imperialism, colonialism, forcing the Bible and the English language down everyone’s throats! Banning local cultures, traditions, languages, and religious customs. Banning homosexuality and imposing racist, sexist, patriarchal, homophobic Victorian ideals down brown + black people’s throats! Lovely.
Seriously, the whitewashing of history in school is NO joke. No wonder many people are woefully ignorant.
this is why i dont like the british. the british kids i knew when i studied overseas still had plenty of imperial aspirations.
This is why when people ask me about what people in Britain think I say “I don’t think my opinions match anyone else’s” – because my school history teachers were very much “Look how much we fucked up the world”.
Most people’s education seems to have been “look how much we made the world better” which seems… wrong.
My secondary school history lessons were basically
WAR OF THE ROSES
mumble mumble mumble
WORLD WAR 2
with almost no mention of our brutal colonisation of half the planet.
This is why we suck so badly. I love(d) Britain, but I love(d) it with its faults. I knew we did some good, even some great things. But like every other country I also knew we did some terrible, terrible things.
I remember listening to a radio discussion about the history of gas chamber use and hearing that as part of the British Empire’s plan for defeating a large native population in one country they debated the use of gas chambers and then decided it was too costly. Cheaper and easier to shoot them. It makes it very difficult to stand on some principled thing when we just went ‘no, kill them for less’.
And the reason we got into the Second World War, from my history class was not any high-minded protecting Europe or the Jewish people. Really it was much more self-preservation (mixed with stubborn imperialist ‘they can’t have an empire’).
I’m sure some sensible, respected, and more than GCSE equipped person can come along and fill in the blanks better’n me, but basically, Britain is just as much of a shit as lots of other countries, and no one should have an empire. However, unbuilding an empire is difficult and complicated, because we’ve basically destroyed every country that we’ve tried to release from empire-ness too.
The one area in which my history education (and science education) was distinctly lacking is how much we built on earlier advances from other civilisations that have fallen. I think that’s probably a ‘thing’ that’s become more accepted by scholars, or at least, more popularly expressed by scholars, but reading ‘4000 years of science’ and the current slavery exhibition at The M Shed in Bristol really brings home just how advanced other cultures were.
We basically stole from everyone, and just as we’re, in the west, gradually slipping further from being the leaders – (somewhere else will get their turn, and their history will probably write us as bit-part players who brought a little bit of something uninteresting to the table of culture and science, but look at what *we* have done) so have other cultures. The cities and complexities of the cultures have that have gone before us are just astonishing.
Oh, and if you ever think we’re some fucking prize in the history of human evolution, go find some of the lead tablets Romans inscribed and threw into the springs at Bath, demanding punishment from the gods to be meted out to people who they believed had broken laws or agreements. It’s entirely relatable.
“Punish Bob! He stole my sandals! I know it was him! I’ve seen him wearing them!” or somesuch.
Ooh, and I remember seeing (in the British Museum, I think) a clay tablet which basically goes ‘My shipment of grain was underfilled, what the hell do you think you’re doing, send me my damn grain, damn it you cad’.
Clay tablet.
And we think we’re so clever because we have digital watches television.
badass-bharat-deafmuslim-artista:
One in three adults wishes Britain still had an empire
What kind of fuckery is this?
Ahhh, white people who love imperialism, colonialism, forcing the Bible and the English language down everyone’s throats! Banning local cultures, traditions, languages, and religious customs. Banning homosexuality and imposing racist, sexist, patriarchal, homophobic Victorian ideals down brown + black people’s throats! Lovely.
Seriously, the whitewashing of history in school is NO joke. No wonder many people are woefully ignorant.
this is why i dont like the british. the british kids i knew when i studied overseas still had plenty of imperial aspirations.
This is why when people ask me about what people in Britain think I say “I don’t think my opinions match anyone else’s” – because my school history teachers were very much “Look how much we fucked up the world”.
Most people’s education seems to have been “look how much we made the world better” which seems… wrong.
My secondary school history lessons were basically
WAR OF THE ROSES
mumble mumble mumble
WORLD WAR 2
with almost no mention of our brutal colonisation of half the planet.
This is why we suck so badly. I love(d) Britain, but I love(d) it with its faults. I knew we did some good, even some great things. But like every other country I also knew we did some terrible, terrible things.
I remember listening to a radio discussion about the history of gas chamber use and hearing that as part of the British Empire’s plan for defeating a large native population in one country they debated the use of gas chambers and then decided it was too costly. Cheaper and easier to shoot them. It makes it very difficult to stand on some principled thing when we just went ‘no, kill them for less’.
And the reason we got into the Second World War, from my history class was not any high-minded protecting Europe or the Jewish people. Really it was much more self-preservation (mixed with stubborn imperialist ‘they can’t have an empire’).
I’m sure some sensible, respected, and more than GCSE equipped person can come along and fill in the blanks better’n me, but basically, Britain is just as much of a shit as lots of other countries, and no one should have an empire. However, unbuilding an empire is difficult and complicated, because we’ve basically destroyed every country that we’ve tried to release from empire-ness too.
The one area in which my history education (and science education) was distinctly lacking is how much we built on earlier advances from other civilisations that have fallen. I think that’s probably a ‘thing’ that’s become more accepted by scholars, or at least, more popularly expressed by scholars, but reading ‘4000 years of science’ and the current slavery exhibition at The M Shed in Bristol really brings home just how advanced other cultures were.
We basically stole from everyone, and just as we’re, in the west, gradually slipping further from being the leaders – (somewhere else will get their turn, and their history will probably write us as bit-part players who brought a little bit of something uninteresting to the table of culture and science, but look at what *we* have done) so have other cultures. The cities and complexities of the cultures have that have gone before us are just astonishing.
Oh, and if you ever think we’re some fucking prize in the history of human evolution, go find some of the lead tablets Romans inscribed and threw into the springs at Bath, demanding punishment from the gods to be meted out to people who they believed had broken laws or agreements. It’s entirely relatable.
“Punish Bob! He stole my sandals! I know it was him! I’ve seen him wearing them!” or somesuch.
Ooh, and I remember seeing (in the British Museum, I think) a clay tablet which basically goes ‘My shipment of grain was underfilled, what the hell do you think you’re doing, send me my damn grain, damn it you cad’.
Clay tablet.
And we think we’re so clever because we have digital watches television.
badass-bharat-deafmuslim-artista:
One in three adults wishes Britain still had an empire
What kind of fuckery is this?
Ahhh, white people who love imperialism, colonialism, forcing the Bible and the English language down everyone’s throats! Banning local cultures, traditions, languages, and religious customs. Banning homosexuality and imposing racist, sexist, patriarchal, homophobic Victorian ideals down brown + black people’s throats! Lovely.
Seriously, the whitewashing of history in school is NO joke. No wonder many people are woefully ignorant.
this is why i dont like the british. the british kids i knew when i studied overseas still had plenty of imperial aspirations.
This is why when people ask me about what people in Britain think I say “I don’t think my opinions match anyone else’s” – because my school history teachers were very much “Look how much we fucked up the world”.
Most people’s education seems to have been “look how much we made the world better” which seems… wrong.
My secondary school history lessons were basically
WAR OF THE ROSES
mumble mumble mumble
WORLD WAR 2
with almost no mention of our brutal colonisation of half the planet.
This is why we suck so badly. I love(d) Britain, but I love(d) it with its faults. I knew we did some good, even some great things. But like every other country I also knew we did some terrible, terrible things.
I remember listening to a radio discussion about the history of gas chamber use and hearing that as part of the British Empire’s plan for defeating a large native population in one country they debated the use of gas chambers and then decided it was too costly. Cheaper and easier to shoot them. It makes it very difficult to stand on some principled thing when we just went ‘no, kill them for less’.
And the reason we got into the Second World War, from my history class was not any high-minded protecting Europe or the Jewish people. Really it was much more self-preservation (mixed with stubborn imperialist ‘they can’t have an empire’).
I’m sure some sensible, respected, and more than GCSE equipped person can come along and fill in the blanks better’n me, but basically, Britain is just as much of a shit as lots of other countries, and no one should have an empire. However, unbuilding an empire is difficult and complicated, because we’ve basically destroyed every country that we’ve tried to release from empire-ness too.
The one area in which my history education (and science education) was distinctly lacking is how much we built on earlier advances from other civilisations that have fallen. I think that’s probably a ‘thing’ that’s become more accepted by scholars, or at least, more popularly expressed by scholars, but reading ‘4000 years of science’ and the current slavery exhibition at The M Shed in Bristol really brings home just how advanced other cultures were.
We basically stole from everyone, and just as we’re, in the west, gradually slipping further from being the leaders – (somewhere else will get their turn, and their history will probably write us as bit-part players who brought a little bit of something uninteresting to the table of culture and science, but look at what *we* have done) so have other cultures. The cities and complexities of the cultures have that have gone before us are just astonishing.
Oh, and if you ever think we’re some fucking prize in the history of human evolution, go find some of the lead tablets Romans inscribed and threw into the springs at Bath, demanding punishment from the gods to be meted out to people who they believed had broken laws or agreements. It’s entirely relatable.
“Punish Bob! He stole my sandals! I know it was him! I’ve seen him wearing them!” or somesuch.
Ooh, and I remember seeing (in the British Museum, I think) a clay tablet which basically goes ‘My shipment of grain was underfilled, what the hell do you think you’re doing, send me my damn grain, damn it you cad’.
Clay tablet.
And we think we’re so clever because we have digital watches television.
