>In message <00d901be2040$849b0420$85004bca at home>, Enzo Michelangeli
><em at who.net> writes
>
>>I'm not the defense attorney for Britain:
>>I'm not even British. (Even though I must note that there have been much
>>worse colonial masters than them).
>
>Have there?
>
>I'm struggling to think of examples that compare to the opium wars
>against China (in defence of Britain's right to export Opium to the
>heavily addicted Chinese), or the vast numbers killed in the suppression
>of the boxer rebellion, or the forcible annexation of Hong Kong and the
>denial of its citizens a vote for 95 of the hundred year-long lease, or
>invention of concentration camps in South Africa, or the bombardment of
>Dublin in 1916, or the use of air power against the Kurds and Iraqis in
>1918, or the Amritsar massacre in India in 1919, or the partition of
>Ireland in 1922, or the three and a half million killed in the Bengal
>famine of 1943, or the partition of India in 1946, or the annihilation
>of the Mau-Mau in Kenya, or the suppression of the Malaysian insurgency,
>or the war in Aden, or the quarter century long struggle against the
>nationalists in northern Ireland, with its assassinations, torture,
>military occupation, psy-ops and blanket fire on civilian demonstrators.
Oh well, nobody behaved well in foreign land: not the Japanese in Korea and China, not the French in Indochina and Algeria, not the Russians in Afghanistan, not the Americans in Vietnam, you name it. Not to mention what happened in ancient times: Alexander or Caesar were not famous for philanthropic deeds. However, the British at least managed to disengage from most places in a relatively clean way, apparently without leaving behind too much bitterness and, often, leaving decent public infrastructure, administration and civil service.
>Not wishing to boast, exactly, but its as well to remember the reasons
>why 'my' country earned the name 'perfidious Albion', and its flag is
>called 'the Butcher's Apron'.
Considering that 'perfidious Albion' was one of the preferred expressions of the fascist propaganda, I really don't feel like sharing it. Perhaps Pinochet, now, would ;-)
Cheers --
Enzo