There are not many countries in the World who have not, at some point in their history, been a bit evil and had a slash and a hack at the population of some other country take land or their resources.
Britain at its peak, controlled the largest empire that the world had ever known, stretching all over the globe from North America to Australia and from Canada to the southern tip of Africa. These huge landmasses, their people and their natural resources were controlled and dominated by Britain but what if
the British empire had never existed? Would the world be a better or a worse place?
Now some people will argue, and they do, that the British Empire was a force for good, dragging otherwise backward nations into the modern era and giving the world a unifying language but that is to overlook the invading, oppression and countless atrocities including over 100 million deaths in India alone.
Of course, Britain's is only one of the colonial empires whose destructive inheritance can still be felt across the world so if it wasn’t the British Empire, it would have been somebody else’s empire, the French, Dutch Spanish or German who were all vying for top spot at the same time.
Without all the money pouring in from abroad at the end of a gun (calculated at least £45 trillion), Britain would be poorer but overall the world would have been better off, particularly in Africa, where the empire systematically milked the colonies and installed dictatorial rulers.
Also World War 1 would probably not have happened as nations (especially Germany) built large navy's to compete with the British There may be some truth in this, although the British did behave abominably in many instances which are largely ignored or brushed under the rug in Britain but the rest of the World isn't so quick to forgive us, quite rightly blaming Britain for sowed the seeds for some of the worst disasters that have afflicted humanity including Apartheid, Atlantic Slave Trade, Opium Wars, The Industrial Revolution, Palestine and the partition of India.
All in all it is therefore easy to say the World WOULD be a better place if the British ships had stayed at home back in those days.
Sunday 2 April 2023
Is The World Better Off Due To The British Empire?
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
3 comments:
- In re Africa, Why do you think the French, Dutch, Portuguese, and Spanish wouldn’t have filled the gap? I mean, the French still have a significant influence in Africa. And if not for the British empire, the Ottomans might have abused Africa.
- WW1? What, the Germans were trying to consolidate Europe under their control because of their inherent geographic weaknesses (especially agricultural production, exposure to French invasion, and fear of Russian invasion) and the UK was one of two serious opponents, the other being France.
You haven’t built a case for establishing the world would be a better place, just that it would be a different place
We don’t know if the French or Spanish etc would have been as ruthless and murderous as the British but hard to think how they could have been worse.
estimates suggest the spanish wiped out up to 90% of the populace in south america (between 20 and 30 million) all on their own.
then there is what they did to the tribes along the gulf of mexico (we shoud rename it to the gulf of texas) and the southwestern united states.
hard to be more brutal than the spanish (who regularly get a pass on genocide and slavery)
Post a Comment