WWBU - Racial Guilt?

[LyannaStarktheWolfMaid]

I had dinner with some very good friends last night. At two in the morning after a skinful of wine, my friend (who is a British man of Sikh Indian descent) casually threw out the idea that white Brits should feel cultural guilt about the (obviously horrific) cruelty in the history of the British Empire. Cue discussion about cultural guilt in general, e.g. how do Germans feel about the Nazis, etc. To which I responded, as a white Brit, I need to feel guilt about the crimes of my forebears to the same degree that you should feel guilty about the crimes of men against women. General dinner party concensus was that that's completely different. I'm not sure that it is. What do you think?

Nobody is saying that the british empire was ‘a good thing’

Well quite Choco

(i mean people like to think we were somehow the 'good colonists'. kind of untrue. i mean there's so much, from how the British basically traded on opium, slaves in the earlier days to much more recent torture in Kenya during the mau mau rebellion, the millions who died in India in several of the famines.. not to mention our involvement in partition. ) fundamentally colonisation means taking control of another country, suppressing local revolts and imposing your views./religion/ governance, preventing local people from voting, massive taxes....)

Actually, RickOShay we had the world's largest empire. We controlled about 20% of the World.

Yes, nearlyhellokitty. And at the rate at which you are extrapolating, Choccopop you will end up with Indians should be ashamed of themselves. I never said anything about ethnicity. I said all of our ancestors (assuming you are British), had a part in colonizing the world and looting the wealth. It is nothing to be proud of.

Actually, RickOShay we had the world's largest empire. We controlled about 20% of the World.

Roman Empire, , Persian Empire, Caliphate (sp) Mongol Empire etc we weren't the only ones... But apparently we should be the only ones to apologise and take "responsibility"

choccopop =but don't you reckon people should be aware of how Britain became wealthy? and also why we have so many people from across the world immigrating/ living here? I see quite a dangerous narrative around of how we somehow became 'great' by ourselves, one which also tells black people and others to 'go home' and ignores that those who profited from colonisation etc. are still the wealthy. Did you see that thing about how Cameron's family was one of the slave owners "compensated" by the British government.
incidentally, after slavery in the Caribbean, the former slaves basically got nothing and ended up working again on the estates, maybe a bit of land here and there. its certainly set up certain issues that still exist there..

I don’t think anyone’s proud of it bluebells.
Also depending on whether you are looking at land occupied or people under rule Rick could be correct.

'Roman Empire, , Persian Empire, Caliphate (sp) Mongol Empire etc we weren't the only ones... But apparently we should be the only ones to apologise and take "responsibility" '

All of them perished. We are well and truly alive with a Queen whose crown jewels contains spoils from her ancestors' empire. Also being the most recent, more of our atrocities are well remembered if not documented.

*tonicandlime
you can't be serious. so empires that finished a thousand years ago and five hundread or so years ago (possibly not exactly the right dates) should be somehow allow us to forget about the one that's still to some extent ongoing and only really finished in the latter half of the last century?
and that have a visible effects on the UK today.. ? of course those empires were nasty and had impacts but that doesn't somehow excuse us from thinking about our past...

Mmm...I think this isn't as clear cut as some are making out. Although OP isn't personally responsible (unless she headed the E India Company or was in a similar position of power 150 odd yrs ago!) Britain as a nation still continues to benefit frm its colonial past.Also some really odd points above eg on quran, caste as op says friend was Sikh, not muslim or Hindi.

Yes you are right, it was the biggest. my mistake.

I used to teach in an international school in London, I had a great class of mixed nationalities, French, Brazilian, Japanese, S. Korean, Columbia and one German guy. One day the German guy just stood up and poured his guts up about how awful he felt about his nationality, the guilt, how he though others perceived him, how powerless he felt, how stigmatised, he was very upset, everybody was silent, and then kind, but bewildered, he sat back down and it was never mentioned again.
We can tear our breasts bluebell, but what does that achieve?

Well I think the British Empire is pretty much gone and I am no fan of Monarchy whatsoever. How long ago are you going to draw the line though?

Why concentrate on European Slave Traders when you 'excuse' the Africans that sold them in the first place?

It's way to complicated for that.

Also Britain did partition Panjab (and Bengal) 70 yrs ago. Still living memory for many.

NB i think that there's a lot of people around trying to somehow deny what went one and glorify the empire, keep hearing Daniel Hannan do it and generally, the bad stuff is ignored

www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2012/apr/23/british-empire-crimes-ignore-atrocities
e.g. did you know we interned 1.5 million people in Kenya in the 1950s? and that involved, torture, gang rapes, probably 10,000s of deaths.

*tonicandlime - can't we just condemn both? plus in the end, the Europeans probably benefited much more, since they both sold the slaves and benefitted from the labour over years.
What happened with partition etc still has enormous implications.

Nearlyhellokitty you are putting many many words into my mouth.
I consider myself central and balance is needed here.
Historical Education is very very important, not once did I imply that people need to not be aware. They need to be more aware if anything, of ALL the empires and invasions and wars and everything that has shaped the world we see today. I think those who claim to be proud of where we came from are in regards to the British Empire are either heartless or ignorant. I think those who tell people to ‘go back home’ because their skin colour or accent is different than theirs are deplorable racists and have no place in modern society. But you brought up all of this, when it wasn’t up for discussion. I think you’ve made horrible assumptions that people are either one extreme or the other.

i guess i don't think we need to feel guilty per se, but certainly we should be aware of what colonism meant for the world and what it means for us. And not try and gut foreign aid budgets, understand why immigration is the way it is etc etc.

hi chocco, i didn't mean to imply you per se, but throughout the thread there's a lot of people who seem to somehow think it's all in the past, has no relevance to their lives today.. which is pretty ahistorical.

don't you think a lot of the 'go back home' stuff is linked to people having no idea about what happened with colonism?

And agree we should learn about all empires, but surely in our country we should be aware of ours? I don't think people really are.

can't we just condemn both? plus in the end, the Europeans probably benefited much more, since they both sold the slaves and benefitted from the labour over years.

Yes I think ALL should be 'condemned' (prob not right word) BUT if you're going to condemn one county/peoples actions with things like this you need to condemn them all - PLUS there are still massive atrocities happening in many countries which people don't seem to bothered about (but maybe they will 'apologise' in 100 years!)

I just will not be held responsible for something that happened before I was born.

I think nearlyhellokitty has said it right. We must be more aware of our embarassing history and be more sensitive to the people who bore the brunt.

but tonicandlime a lot of the infrastructure you use now was built on the back of the empire? surely worth being aware.

Bluebells Plenty of countries don't give a sh*t or refuse to acknowledge their pasts. Why should we feel compelled to?

We are not the conscience of the World (and a lot of countries have done and continue to do worse to their own people let alone anyone else)

Doesn't make it right but you could always try and get every country in the World handwringing about it's past wrong doings - I'm sure those pesky Vikings (sorry know they don't like to be called that these days but can't remember the correct term) profited from us and those Normans too, oh and the Romans - bloody exhausting .

Hi tonic, this isn't all ancient history...it's all wuite recent. Not to mentionn that our Foreign policy affects real lives, real people.

quite