Douglas Murray on intolerant politics

Yes, as the bullied sometimes start in turn to bully

George Orwell again (Animal Farm)

It's fairly common for a power reversal to result in the formerly powerless dishing out exactly what they received, whether to the formerly powerful who oppressed them, or to other people.

So I suppose it is just the same now, really. That's a bit depressing.

Antibles agree.

If somebody really weren't at all racist, they would accept that any group of people, given the right circumstances, would be capable of dishing out the same behaviour as any other group. I reckon nearly every successful human culture has cleared, enslaved or wiped out another one at some point along the way at one scale or another, even if another one has come along and done the same to them in turn.

Asking if it's time somebody else got colonised as payback doesn't seem to have ever turned out to be a very...helpful approach.

And this is part of why Labour lost, if anyone needed a neat little illustration. Don't tell people you don't care about them if you want them to vote for you.

Yawn.

The Scottish clearances are very important for understanding contemporary global events, because they’re so well documented. They are an important part of international history.

‘My question is: should Britain be immune to being colonised [in a different way] by the machinations of global capitalism. After all, they did inflict it on other places with real people whose own lives, ancestral lands and traditions were turned upside down.‘

Who is supposedly asking about this immunity though? God? Justice? As a 21st century liberal democracy the people who should get to decide our fate are the British people. Why would we choose to make our own lives worse?

Clearances do still happen all over the world, just as slavery does

The context here was the Scottish Clearances. I'm very bored of hearing whinging about them.

The clearances were in no way comparable with slavery.

Absolutely, it's not like the migrant crises has sprung out of nothing. There are all kinds of reasons populations find themselves pressured into moving.

Clearances do still happen all over the world, just as slavery does.

That's not particularly related to why it was brought up, though. In any case, it's actually still relevant in the lives of people today, they live in the new world rather than the old, because of pressures their ancestors felt. No one is asking them to return, though some might like them to leave. And evidently they are still judged for it by some.

I'm so bored of hearing about the Clearances

Replace clearances with slavery or anti-Semitism

The Clearances aren't remotely in the same league. And aren't still happening.

well, the earlier posts were certainly helpful in making me feel less alone

and the later posts are a great demonstration of why I hate people asking about my ancestors. I just want to get on with my life.

this thread has descended into everything I detest about identity politics

But worth it for the many brilliant earlier posts!

My family mythos/narrative is about the multi-ethnic working class that sprang up in the port cities of a trading/colonial nation on one side, and centuries of sectarianism on the other side. Without this rich and complicated - sometimes joyful, sometimes painful; sometimes righteous, sometimes terrible - tapestry of heritage, I would probably have a very different understanding of the world than the one that I do.

this thread has descended into everything I detest about identity politics.

I'm so bored of hearing about the Clearances

Replace clearances with slavery or anti-Semitism.

Exploitation is boring when it happens to white working class people... And back we are to the start of the discussion: why Labour has lost its heartland votes.

I'm so bored of hearing about the Clearances. And they don't excuse the treatment meted out the indigenous American people

Did someone say they excuse the treatment meted out to Indigenous peoples?
Frontier land grants were a ruling class initiative anyway.

I'm so bored of hearing about the Clearances. And they don't excuse the treatment meted out the indigenous American people.

Ah, not the right kind of exploitation. Or is it too far back?

When is the statute of limitations up on this sort of thing?

I think it's possible to be both a coloniser and oppressed, there is certainly a class divide in terms of who benefited from extracted wealth and who didn't.
It's not as simple as white = bad, brown/black = good.
Indigenous cultures didn't live peacefully before Europeans colonised them, they didn't deserve what happened to them either. Likewise as mentioned earlier someone sentenced to transportation to Australia wasn't exactly a conquistador.

The question is what is fairest now - what are the needs now, how do we attempt to make things fairer for those who are living with the effects of having land and wealth taken from them.
Redistribution is always a bit of a blunt instrument, it has been spectacularly unsuccessful in Zimbabwe for example. If Malema does a Mugabe in South Africa there's a good chance the same thing will happen there.
Things need to be put in place to improve people's lives for the long term.

A lot of the Scots in Canada were dispossessed and thrown off their small tenant farms during the clearances - it suited the genuine colonisers, the people with business interests abroad and big estates back home - to produce this pool of indentured labour for their business and mining interests, while freeing up their estates for more profitable lines of business (sheep)

I'm so bored of hearing about the Clearances. And they don't excuse the treatment meted out the indigenous American people.

Tanith, it's because wealth was extracted and sent back to the metropole (the empire's own country). Britain became great because it relied on its imperial wealth.

But I think that the working classes of England, the colliers etc, were scant beneficiaries. They lived habitually with malnutrition and endured appalling labour conditions. Even today the things people mention here on Mumsnet are shocking. So I do think a class analysis needs to be used.