Atrocities in the Jolly Old British Empire

[Clinton Huxley]

The British Empire was not all railways, pith-helmets and spreading the benefits of cucumber sandwiches and cricket. We liked to enjoy a good old atrocity every now and then, because we could.

The Mau-Mau rebellion in the 1950s was a case in point. George Monbiot talks about it at length here

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfre ... atrocities

His take is largely culled from Caroline Elkin's book Britian's Gulag. I've seen some criticism of the hyperbolic numbers Elkins conjures up for how many people were tortured and executed and the Mau-Mau were not exactly Gandhi....but there is no doubt that there was a certain amount of unpleasantness.

Is it possible to be a "great power" without losing the moral high ground? Hmmm.

Let the Brit-bashing begin. Just want to take some of the heat off the USA before CES bursts....

[MrJonno]

Yeah but we Brits know our history is full of shit , its protestants and catholics periodically burning each other at stakes is one of the big reasons we are so secular these days.

Church of England = king getting his leg over, Catholic Church = making sure no one gets their leg over

[Rum]

The British Empire was largely based on a massive bluff. A District Officer would move into the middle of nowhere in some forsaken place in central Africa with a couple of hundred locally recruited 'police' and announce Britain now was everyone's boss. The bluff was called a few times, but really not that many. When it was retribution was usually very tough and very brutal - and imposed from the 'real' army force marching and meeting out self righteous s retribution!

I know this as my parents in 1951 were part of the last generation to go out to the Empire to 'serve' (for which read 'guard British interests')

[Audley Strange]

I've not long purchased this...



http://www.amazon.co.uk/The-Decline-Fal ... 0224062220

So far the biggest atrocity seems to be we lost most of it because we were drunk off our arses most of the time. A bit of a pity that the cover gives this away.

[Hermit]

During the second Boer War the British developed the concepts of concentration camps and scorched earth policy to previously unimagined nightmarish heights. Hitler only exceeded the scale of them in terms of size almost half a century later, not the extent of their ruthlessness and cruelty.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

http://www.ibiblio.org/hyperwar/WH/XIX/ ... index.html

[Clinton Huxley]

Let's not forget the Indian Famine of 1876 nor the butchering of the Tasmanian Aborigines. Blighty can be quite,quite as rotten as the worst of em.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

Almost like the empire had been run by humans, no?

[Rum]

Let's not forget the Indian Famine of 1876 nor the butchering of the Tasmanian Aborigines. Blighty can be quite,quite as rotten as the worst of em.

On the other hand we spread Christianity about a lot.

..oh - wait.

[MrJonno]

No one is more 'anti British' than the British partly because I don't associate the successes and failures of long dead people with myself. I have a some responsibility for governments that I was involved in electing (even if I voted for the opposition).

Churchill was a racist bigoted shit who didnt like the masses but was bloody good at leading countries in wartime!

[klr]

Time for some rabble-rousing anti-British sentiment then:

[Pensioner]

I served in the Brit army at the fag end of our Empire and we did not play by cricket rules when the natives got restless in Aden and other places. Much to our shame we acted like the Yanks are doing today.

[Svartalf]

What the sassenach have been doing in Ireland for close to 4 centuries, if you begin with cromwell, more than 8 if you start with strongbow... why would you ever doubt they would have used different methods elsewhere in the empire?

[Santa_Claus]

I think we should have more.

I'd start in Ireland.

[Tyrannical]

Atrocities in the Jolly Old British Empire

Should be required reading for all new immigrants, less they get uppity