As a Brit I’m always shocked people focus on us so much. Like yeah we fucked up a lot of places and did awful things, but basically every country in Europe has committed atrocities that are as bad if not worse, like the French in Vietnam or Belgium in Africa, or mother fucking Spain basically wiping put the entire south American continent.
Most of the current day border conflicts are related to the past century’s British policy, both due to the extent of the British Empire and its little interest in preventing trouble in their way out. You see similar issues with French ex-colonies, but since they weren’t as many they don’t appear as much in the news. Border conflicts in old Spanish colonies mostly took place during the 19th century, and they’ve been independent for long enough for their current issues not to have as much to do with Spain anymore. In contrast, there are British people alive today who were kicking around when the victors of WWII decided to split Palestine in half without asking Palestinians for their opinion, and afterwards chose to ignore the ethnic cleansings of Palestinians.
In any case, you shouldn’t take of this personally, unless you actually hold any position of relative power.
Palestinians were in fact asked for their opinion before the UN voted to split it in half…
Do you have a source for this?
There’s a shituation very comparable to Palestine happening today in Western Sahara. A former colony of Spain.
Fair enough. Spain had an UN mandate that ordered them to oversee the process of decolonization, and instead they just gave it up to Morocco against the wishes of the Saharawi people themselves. The contemporary attitude of both the US and Spain is disgusting in this issue.
So the majority of Palestinians just flat out refused to discuss splitting their country apart, just like it would happen everywhere. The way in which you presented facts is disturbingly misleading.
Three things: Scale, recency and contrition or perceived lack thereof.
The British Empire is the largest empire there has ever been. At its greatest extent, in 1920, it covered about 1/4 of the entire world, long after having lost many holdings like the US. The second largest, the Mongol Empire, reached almost the same size, but hundreds of years earlier.
In the same time period as the British, the Russian empire covered <20% in 1895, but its proportion of colonial lands to their own was much smaller than for the British Empire and the proportion of the current world population living in those areas is also much smaller. The French colonial empire covered less than 1/10th of the world at its peak in 1920, and was by far the other largest recent holding of colonies geographically and culturally outside of the immediate sphere of the holding country.
Spain is rarely brought up, I think, in large part because the Spanish empire reached its peak in the early 1800’s and so is “history”. Belgium doesn’t get discussed at much because 98% of their colonial holdings was Leopold II’s personal ownership of the Congo Free State. And then we get to the last bit: Contritition.
Nobody goes around saying the massive scale of gross abuse that happened under Leopold II’s rule of the Congo Free State was a good thing. Few people I’ve met ever defend France’s atrocities in Vietnam. Even the defence of their ownership of Algeria, which was special enough to trigger an attempted coup against Charles de Gaulle when he wanted to let it have independence because many saw it as part of France itself, is relatively muted.
But there’s still mainstream support for the British Empire in the UK. There are still people who insist the British Empire was awesome for the colonies that were exploited because they got English and rails and British legal systems and that somehow outweighs the mass murder and brutal exploitation and erasure of local cultures.
E.g. this survey from 2019, where 32% were proud of the British Empire, 37% were neutral, and only 19% considered it “more something to be ashamed of”. 32% were proud of their country’s history of colonialism and oppression. Critically this was significantly higher than for other colonial powers other than the Dutch. At the same time 33% thought it left the colonies better off vs. only 17% who thought they were worse off.
I’m not British, but I’ve lived in the UK for 23 years, and I’ve experienced this attitude firsthand from even relatively young British people (ok, so all of them have been Tories) - a refusal to accept that the fact that a substantial number of these former colonies had to take up arms to get rid of British rule might perhaps be a little bit of a hint that the colonial rule was resented and wrong.
No other modern empire has left behind such a substantial proportion of the world population living in countries that have either a historical identity tied up to rebelling against British rule, and/or have relatively recently rebelled against British rule, and/or still have substantial reminders, such as Commonwealth membership or the British monarch as their monarch. When a proportion of the British population then keeps insisting this was great, actually, there you have a big part of it.
We aren’t giving the others a pass, but this shitshow has a certain Etonian stench. It’s like the British Empire looked at Zionist and saw a shared colonial heart…
Traditionally, churches and other religious institutions, have been good at building community and programs that benefit the less fortunate among us. You know, the whole “love your neighbor as yourself” thing.
More and more, though, it has devolved into not much more than political extremism and often hateful rhetoric and even calls to physical violence.
In all seriousness, community is the biggest benefit of religion, and the reason I’m ok with it existing in modern society. The idealized church (and these do still exist in smaller churches) is a safe place for people to come, not be judged, and find acceptance and support.
A friend of mine goes to a church like this, and honestly sometimes I’m jealous. I’m as atheist as they come in my personal beliefs, but hearing all the actually cool stuff they do to support their members is really cool. I don’t agree with their religion, but they’re practicing it right as far as I’m concerned.
Religion should absolutely be either personal or small community, though. As soon as you have states using it as justification for violence, that religion has stopped being useful or acceptable.
Agreed, it’s mostly community as far as personal benefits. We had a friend group through it that fell apart recently and my wife wants to go back to church only for the community.
Outreach is mostly a guise in my opinion, a show that’s put on to make the congregation think their money is being used wisely. I have a lot of disdain for organized religion though, having grown up in it and painfully “deconstructing” a couple years ago. I can’t step foot in a church ever again (minus a wedding).
Religion can give a framework of morality when people lack one. There’s, of course, secular justifications for morality, but in times of hardship and despair, some could find it incredibly difficult to see a humanist perspective as justified, e.g. it’s other people who create hardships for people, so why should I be good to others when they won’t be good to me?
Religion can fill in that gap. The assumption of a benevolent omnipotence can inspire people to help others when it seems pointless and ineffective to do so. There’s a quote attributed to Rabbi Tarfon in the Pirkei Avot, “It is not up to you to finish the task, but you are not free to avoid it.” that has personally helped me a great deal to remember to work hard to do good and help others, even in a small way, when it seems I can have no effect on a great injustice.
Religion can also give structure and guidance to life when things fall apart. Jewish tradition, ritual, and holidays in particular can be quite grounding in hard times. To give another example, during the pandemic, many people lost their daily, weekly, monthly, routines. I, personally, found it very grounding and calming to observe the rituals of my ancestors, if for nothing else to mark the passage of time, but also as a reminder to take time in your life to slow down and refocus yourself.
Another poster mentioned the benefit of community religion can provide, so I won’t.
The danger comes in when ritual, tradition and faith turn into ardent dogmatic following, zealotry. When people use these tools for finding morality and peace in our lives and with others as justification for horror and malice, they lose sight of these benefits and worsen the world around us at great harm to our fellow humans and ourselves. Something capable of doing great good is twisted and weaponized for political purposes and the darkest of human desires.
Religion works best when we separate doctrine from strict action and reflect on the intent of tradition and law and use them to inspire us to make the world a better place for all people.
What’s going on now feels very much an example of this horrendous zealotry. I cannot see how these actions help us be better stewards of the planet, how they help heal the world or accomplish anything we should aspire to. It’s heartwrenching to see demagogues pervert faith into casus beli for political and military victory.
Religion isn’t unique in the way it gets twisted for vile actions, there are many, many secular ideologies that this happens with, as well, in blatant and subtle ways. But I understand how it can feel especially bitter when something rhetorically benevolent gets used so horrendously.
Religion is a plague. It’s the reason we’re going to destroy ourselves. How many of the people who deny climate change (and every other batshit insane position taken by lunatics) are religious right-wingers? By far, most.
Religion has not done a lot of good in the world lately. Turns out the “my way or the highway” approach creates nothing but death and violence.
Religion, and British imperialism
The Roman empire’s spawn. Western imperialism and christianity/islam.
As a Brit I’m always shocked people focus on us so much. Like yeah we fucked up a lot of places and did awful things, but basically every country in Europe has committed atrocities that are as bad if not worse, like the French in Vietnam or Belgium in Africa, or mother fucking Spain basically wiping put the entire south American continent.
Most of the current day border conflicts are related to the past century’s British policy, both due to the extent of the British Empire and its little interest in preventing trouble in their way out. You see similar issues with French ex-colonies, but since they weren’t as many they don’t appear as much in the news. Border conflicts in old Spanish colonies mostly took place during the 19th century, and they’ve been independent for long enough for their current issues not to have as much to do with Spain anymore. In contrast, there are British people alive today who were kicking around when the victors of WWII decided to split Palestine in half without asking Palestinians for their opinion, and afterwards chose to ignore the ethnic cleansings of Palestinians.
In any case, you shouldn’t take of this personally, unless you actually hold any position of relative power.
Palestinians were in fact asked for their opinion before the UN voted to split it in half…
There’s a shituation very comparable to Palestine happening today in Western Sahara. A former colony of Spain.
Do you have a source for this?
Fair enough. Spain had an UN mandate that ordered them to oversee the process of decolonization, and instead they just gave it up to Morocco against the wishes of the Saharawi people themselves. The contemporary attitude of both the US and Spain is disgusting in this issue.
Edit sorry client won’t post links
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Nations_Partition_Plan_for_Palestine
So the majority of Palestinians just flat out refused to discuss splitting their country apart, just like it would happen everywhere. The way in which you presented facts is disturbingly misleading.
I’m just replying to the statement they were never asked about their opinion. How is that misleading?
Three things: Scale, recency and contrition or perceived lack thereof.
The British Empire is the largest empire there has ever been. At its greatest extent, in 1920, it covered about 1/4 of the entire world, long after having lost many holdings like the US. The second largest, the Mongol Empire, reached almost the same size, but hundreds of years earlier.
In the same time period as the British, the Russian empire covered <20% in 1895, but its proportion of colonial lands to their own was much smaller than for the British Empire and the proportion of the current world population living in those areas is also much smaller. The French colonial empire covered less than 1/10th of the world at its peak in 1920, and was by far the other largest recent holding of colonies geographically and culturally outside of the immediate sphere of the holding country.
Spain is rarely brought up, I think, in large part because the Spanish empire reached its peak in the early 1800’s and so is “history”. Belgium doesn’t get discussed at much because 98% of their colonial holdings was Leopold II’s personal ownership of the Congo Free State. And then we get to the last bit: Contritition.
Nobody goes around saying the massive scale of gross abuse that happened under Leopold II’s rule of the Congo Free State was a good thing. Few people I’ve met ever defend France’s atrocities in Vietnam. Even the defence of their ownership of Algeria, which was special enough to trigger an attempted coup against Charles de Gaulle when he wanted to let it have independence because many saw it as part of France itself, is relatively muted.
But there’s still mainstream support for the British Empire in the UK. There are still people who insist the British Empire was awesome for the colonies that were exploited because they got English and rails and British legal systems and that somehow outweighs the mass murder and brutal exploitation and erasure of local cultures.
E.g. this survey from 2019, where 32% were proud of the British Empire, 37% were neutral, and only 19% considered it “more something to be ashamed of”. 32% were proud of their country’s history of colonialism and oppression. Critically this was significantly higher than for other colonial powers other than the Dutch. At the same time 33% thought it left the colonies better off vs. only 17% who thought they were worse off.
I’m not British, but I’ve lived in the UK for 23 years, and I’ve experienced this attitude firsthand from even relatively young British people (ok, so all of them have been Tories) - a refusal to accept that the fact that a substantial number of these former colonies had to take up arms to get rid of British rule might perhaps be a little bit of a hint that the colonial rule was resented and wrong.
No other modern empire has left behind such a substantial proportion of the world population living in countries that have either a historical identity tied up to rebelling against British rule, and/or have relatively recently rebelled against British rule, and/or still have substantial reminders, such as Commonwealth membership or the British monarch as their monarch. When a proportion of the British population then keeps insisting this was great, actually, there you have a big part of it.
We aren’t giving the others a pass, but this shitshow has a certain Etonian stench. It’s like the British Empire looked at Zionist and saw a shared colonial heart…
He or she just wanted to look smart, nevermind
deleted by creator
Traditionally, churches and other religious institutions, have been good at building community and programs that benefit the less fortunate among us. You know, the whole “love your neighbor as yourself” thing.
More and more, though, it has devolved into not much more than political extremism and often hateful rhetoric and even calls to physical violence.
In all seriousness, community is the biggest benefit of religion, and the reason I’m ok with it existing in modern society. The idealized church (and these do still exist in smaller churches) is a safe place for people to come, not be judged, and find acceptance and support.
A friend of mine goes to a church like this, and honestly sometimes I’m jealous. I’m as atheist as they come in my personal beliefs, but hearing all the actually cool stuff they do to support their members is really cool. I don’t agree with their religion, but they’re practicing it right as far as I’m concerned.
Religion should absolutely be either personal or small community, though. As soon as you have states using it as justification for violence, that religion has stopped being useful or acceptable.
Agreed, it’s mostly community as far as personal benefits. We had a friend group through it that fell apart recently and my wife wants to go back to church only for the community.
Outreach is mostly a guise in my opinion, a show that’s put on to make the congregation think their money is being used wisely. I have a lot of disdain for organized religion though, having grown up in it and painfully “deconstructing” a couple years ago. I can’t step foot in a church ever again (minus a wedding).
Religion can give a framework of morality when people lack one. There’s, of course, secular justifications for morality, but in times of hardship and despair, some could find it incredibly difficult to see a humanist perspective as justified, e.g. it’s other people who create hardships for people, so why should I be good to others when they won’t be good to me?
Religion can fill in that gap. The assumption of a benevolent omnipotence can inspire people to help others when it seems pointless and ineffective to do so. There’s a quote attributed to Rabbi Tarfon in the Pirkei Avot, “It is not up to you to finish the task, but you are not free to avoid it.” that has personally helped me a great deal to remember to work hard to do good and help others, even in a small way, when it seems I can have no effect on a great injustice.
Religion can also give structure and guidance to life when things fall apart. Jewish tradition, ritual, and holidays in particular can be quite grounding in hard times. To give another example, during the pandemic, many people lost their daily, weekly, monthly, routines. I, personally, found it very grounding and calming to observe the rituals of my ancestors, if for nothing else to mark the passage of time, but also as a reminder to take time in your life to slow down and refocus yourself.
Another poster mentioned the benefit of community religion can provide, so I won’t.
The danger comes in when ritual, tradition and faith turn into ardent dogmatic following, zealotry. When people use these tools for finding morality and peace in our lives and with others as justification for horror and malice, they lose sight of these benefits and worsen the world around us at great harm to our fellow humans and ourselves. Something capable of doing great good is twisted and weaponized for political purposes and the darkest of human desires.
Religion works best when we separate doctrine from strict action and reflect on the intent of tradition and law and use them to inspire us to make the world a better place for all people.
What’s going on now feels very much an example of this horrendous zealotry. I cannot see how these actions help us be better stewards of the planet, how they help heal the world or accomplish anything we should aspire to. It’s heartwrenching to see demagogues pervert faith into casus beli for political and military victory.
Religion isn’t unique in the way it gets twisted for vile actions, there are many, many secular ideologies that this happens with, as well, in blatant and subtle ways. But I understand how it can feel especially bitter when something rhetorically benevolent gets used so horrendously.
Pope hats are kinda cool.
It gives some people a lot of comfort.
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Religion or not, it sure would be nice if we could not killing civilians and not genocide.
Religion is a plague. It’s the reason we’re going to destroy ourselves. How many of the people who deny climate change (and every other batshit insane position taken by lunatics) are religious right-wingers? By far, most.