Can English people explain how they feel about this?

[Green215]

As an English person, do you hold resentment towards any country based on historical grievances like war, invasion, famine, colonialism etc? If so, which; if not, why?

The reason I ask is because I’ve always found it odd how the English tend to be the only people in the world who do not hold such grievances.

Irish people are always complaining about British colonialism; many Scots and Welsh likewise complain about England on a historical basis; Greeks and Turks complain about one another; Africans, Indians, Arabs etc complain about European colonialism and American invasions; China complains about Japanese atrocities and vice versa; Russia complains about German atrocities; post-Soviet states complain about Russian occupation; France and Germany complain about one another; America often complains about the Revolution; Canada complains about the War of 1812; Mexico and Latin American countries and Caribbean countries complain about American invasions or interference or colonialism; some Australians resent British rule etc.

But, rarely do English people demand reparations or sing “rebel songs” or complain about historical grievances. Why?

I could understand if maybe some English people resented Germany due to the two world balls or resented America for things like the Suez crisis and the funding of the IRA. And truth be told, I have come across some English people that are like that. But, they are very few compared to the other peoples I described.

I understand that this is sort of an academic question, but I wanted to come on this forum to ask ordinary English people how they felt and I hope you can give some honest answers rather than sarcastic responses or not answering the question properly.

The last person to successfully invade Britain was William the Conqueror - it’s easier to say ‘no hard feelings’ when it was over 1000 years ago!

Of course, if you’re talking about countries that hold a grudge against us, it’s a different story…

Ugh. Would you feel differently if your relatives had died in shootings and bombs? Maybe you want to ask why the other nations have as you call it an ‘inferiority complex’? Because EVERYTHING is about England in the UK! EVERYTHING! You can’t even go to London and hand in NI Sterling notes without it being ‘checked by a manager’ because what is this foreign nonsense?!

Right, but compared to other places we did off relatively lightly. Just factually.

A but the population of Ireland is much smaller than the U.K. pop

which history are you remembering? We've been 'occupied' multiple times in history, the romans, the nordic countries, france..

Just because it hasn't happened in modern history doesn't mean it never did.. please don't just erase 2000 years of our history.

the Russians held the line for about 4 years losing something like 20 millions troops in that time. The loss of life and utter misery was horrific.

however Stalin was also a dictator responsible for many famines and the “great terror”.

Russian history must be truly fascinating but very complex. An entirely different culture.

That’s not the same as colonisation

Agreed op. We don't really bare historical grudges. I think maybe because we've always been a bit of a melting pot of different cultures historically? I suppose there was a lot of ill feeling against Catholicism at one point in time but that may just have been our monarchy, who knows if normal people cared 🤷‍♀️

The French and German thing is definitely generational. And we think we're more intellectual than the yanks 😂 Until we vote Farage in and then we'll be as bad.

No I don’t. It’s idiotic to hate a country based on the actions of people who have long-since died. I don’t hate Germany for their part in WW2 for example.

We only ‘hate’ the French in a sibling way. If anyone else disses them we tend to get annoyed.

We could be annoyed at the Scandinavia s because of the vikings, but from my limited knowledge life in the Danelaw wasn’t terrible. Also there’s way more of us.

Our royalty has cross bred across Europe so many times it’s a bit pointless to track.

And we’ve not had a proper barney with anyone close by for a while. The Germans have been apologising for nearly a century so it wouldn’t be cricket to keep banging on about it.

Also, in order for a people to be unified in dislike of another - the first group have to be united. We’re not.

In living memory? The Normans, vikings and Romans?

I will hold a grudge against Israel for the rest of my life.

but I imagine this comment will disappear faster than Israel’s humanity.

There seems to be a lot of people who hate the English. Yet they all want to live here.
Strange that , isn't it?

I don’t myself, but I do remember older relatives and family friends being antagonistic towards France, Germany and Japan.

Population of Ireland in 1910 - 4.4 million - so over the next 70 years, 1 in 1200 Irish people would die due to the Troubles.

Population of UK in 1910 - 45.2 million - so over the next 70 years, 1 in 37 people would die in WW1 or WW2

Not even remotely comparable.

Why would it? I think it should be left to stand as an example of hypocrisy, antisemitism and maliciousness.

It's a bit of a joke, especially in upper social circles that we hate the French because 'everyone hates the French'

There've been a fair few hopeless misunderstandings about the Normans in this thread. They were utter bastards. The English didn't assimilate them, we were completely subjugated. They changed the language we speak. They confiscated property and replaced the ruling classes with their own people. William's 'harrying' was a systematic campaign of total annihilation from the north Midlands to the Scots border.

The few Northern survivors probably did hate those to the South, who'd been more easily conquered so were not as comprehensively murdered, and were scared to help the rebels. William's rationale for destroying the North was that rebellions kept springing up, therefore the entire region was guilty of sheltering terrorists: the same policy in action in Palestine today.

It was a thousand years ago, but still quite interesting to see the victor did write the history!

Dad worked with French companies his whole working life, he said the Christmas parties were utter carnage 😂

This, and the confident arrogance and ignorance is a key factor in continued resentments.

What’s odd or funny (your choice of emojis) about a famine that caused the death of 1 million people and forced another 2 million to leave the country to avoid dying? You should read about it (in an Irish history book) and see how funny you find it then.

be upset with their government by all means, but not Israel as a whole. It's people are not its government.

Yeah hilarious how many people died isn’t it