That Thucydides quote is in relation to the growth of Athens, who very much lost the war. It was also the personal view of Thucydides over Melos. A personal view is not historical fact.There are countless histories and memoirs written from the nazi point of view with sympathy of some level to its politics. There are countless Indian history writers, Irish etc.
Don't be ridiculous. The Melian Dialogue has stood as a reflection on the wielding of power and the necessities of state for over 2,000 years.
The Irish and Indians wrote the history of their dealings with the British Empire from the pov of victors. Up until those victories over the Empire from which they freed themselves, British accounts of the Irish and the Indians tended to emphasise the fact that these people had serious flaws of character and weren't capable of self government. History taught in schools in Ireland emphasised the wondrousness of the Empire and how privileged the Irish school children were to be a part of it, to speak English, and to have the chance to leave all their Irish backwardness behind. My grandparents recited the following daily in their little Irish school:
"I thank the goodness and the grace
That on my birth have smiled;
And made me in these Christian days
A happy English child."
Grandad joined the IRA when he grew up, and granny the Cumann na mBan.
German accounts and academic histories all have as their foundation the acceptance of the loss of the war. The loss of war as opposed to liberation from a tyrannical regime was the prism through which the experience of 1945 was viewed in Germany up to the late 60s. The entire political and legal structure of Germany is geared to prevent a repeat of the dynamics that led to the fall of Weimar and rise of the Third Reich.
Neither were the british rampaging, empire builders then? and what of Wellington? A flag has no significance.
You are hair-splitting here.
Of course a flag has significance. The British government raised and controlled the armies and the navy that built and maintained the empire.
Your point about human nature - I assume this is what you are going on about - is silly. Yes we are all people. We cheerfully kill our fellow man when trained, when told the other guy had it coming for whatever reason, and when ordered to do so. Hence flags, uniforms, and the building of empires.
What about Wellington? He was a British aristocrat by birth and class loyalty, and an Imperialist who saw the island of his birth as wholly British and the Irish population as scoundrels to be despised and distrusted, a very common opinion of his time. His family belonged to a garrison class.
You think its fair to attach morality to nations? do you still go on at ordinary germans? Americans? whats the line exactly?
No I don't 'go on' at ordinary Americans or Germans. And I don't 'go on' at British people either. I hold governments responsible for conditions they create. If those governments were British then I use the term British. If those governments subsequently fail in providing an appropriate education for their citizens covering even the basics of hundreds of years of an Imperial history, shame on those governments.
Scot egiments were targetted due to their perceived greater sympathy to unionism and in somme cases their behaviour. The whole pretence that its always been rosy between ireland and scotland is absurd.
Not sure what pretense you are talking about. Everyone knows about Rangers and Celtic and the tribalism that exists in Scotland just as in NI.
All of the regiments in NI were hated by the Republicans. All were targeted. What did you expect to see happen to troops in Northern Ireland?
You seem happy to deny any specific nationality or official policy when it comes to the conduct of British armed forces involved in building and maintaining the Empire, you bang on about nationalist nonsense, you insist that a flag has no significance, yet you are strangely touchy on the topic of the Black Watch and their alleged targeting.
Maybe I am being obtuse. I tend to respond in kind to this backward nationalist nonsense.
It's not 'backward nationalist nonsense' (or revisionist clap trap as you complained upthread). You claim to have done a module in Irish history, yet you post outrageous, dismissive statements that owe much more to the pages of Punch circa 1847 than to any reading of histories of Ireland from the last 50 years.
FYI, press ganging wasn't the same as conscription.
Impressment was common during the Napoleonic Wars and in all other British hours of need after the late 1700s. Up to then Irish Catholics were held in too much suspicion to allow them access to arms. Modern day conscription was not tried in Ireland because the government feared open insurrection would result when the idea was bandied about in April 1918.
Angela Merkel didn't visit Auschwitz in order to 'move on'. She did so because of the rise of the Right in Germany, as a reminder to Germans that Right wing politics and policies are a horrific dead end.
Wrt the Boer War, a deliberate scorched earth policy was carried out under Kitchener, involving the destruction of homes, farms, crops and livestock, and the internment of an entire population. Entire regions were depopulated. The camps were badly run and accommodation was not suitable for climate conditions. Rations were poor and medical treatment was often unavailable. Over 25,000 women and children died of malnutrition and disease. That is about one quarter of whites held in the white camps. Black Africans were kept in separate camps and were expected to work for the British while also growing their own food. About 20,000 Africans died under the grim conditions.
I am aghast and horrified that you assert that the Boer War concentration camps are somehow irrelevant because they were set up 120 years ago. In 2060 the camps of the Holocaust will also be 120 year old history. Will the passage of time make them irrelevant too?
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Why not make the most of future opportunities instead of looking backwards?
About 99.9999999999999% of the time Irish people are busy making the most of future opportunities and do not give Britain or the British or Northern Ireland a single thought. Then a thread like this pops up to remind Irish people that politicians with responsibility for Northern Ireland are elected by British voters with little or no knowledge of either British or Irish history.