Did the British Imperialism improve the world?

[yavoon]

africa is a disaster because its africa. a lot of times the west coddles the completely backward and screwed up ways of ppl who have it hard and blames it on purely on the ex imperialist. which doesn't do the ppl of that nation any good cuz it means that they are basically allowed to continue cuz they've been "wronged." prime example, the extreme racism in all of the ME is allowed to continue cuz the west supposedly was unfair to it after WWII. hell if u r racist enuff we might give u ur own country just to shut u up!

while I dont think the imperialist is guilt free, or at the very least was not acting in consideration of the colonies best interests. but lets face it, these areas are screwed the hell up for more reasons. they'd all be fighting w/ sticks if they didnt get ak 47's.

[yavoon]

lotsa ppl are offended by the thot that imperialists did ne good for neone, cuz imperialism in general is a big taboo.

did u really want an answer or were u just poking me for fun?

[Ned]

Originally posted by Spiffor
It depends of your priorities. If you're first interested about economic growth and the instillation of the western's idea of progress, the British imperialism sure had a positive impact in these regards pretty much everywhere it went.

If you don't consider economic growth and scientific knowledge to be self-obvious aims for the human beings, and if you accept the validity of non-technologically bent societies, the answer is a firm no.

The European imperialism, with the British one being the most important, spread European values throughout a world that was still medieval (if not tribal), and that would have remained so much longer without that imperialism.
In order to success, this imperialism had in the best case to belittle these cultures, and in the worst case to genocide them.

Hence, from my perspective, the answer is no.

IMHO, Western civilization, with its respect for human rights, democracy and the family, and its emphasis on education for all, is worth spreading to more "primitive" cultures.

I am willing to bet that those who here believe in the equal validity of all cutlures were anti-war on Iraq; while those who believe in the value of Western culture are pro-war. The pro-war types found Saddam's brutal police state simply unacceptable.

I don't know if the Brits spread their culture across the globe for any motive other than for profit. But the Romans certainly believed they were spreading a superior civilization when they conquered the "world."

[Ted Striker]

africa is a disaster because its africa. a lot of times the west coddles the completely backward and screwed up ways of ppl who have it hard and blames it on purely on the ex imperialist. which doesn't do the ppl of that nation any good cuz it means that they are basically allowed to continue cuz they've been "wronged." prime example, the extreme racism in all of the ME is allowed to continue cuz the west supposedly was unfair to it after WWII. hell if u r racist enuff we might give u ur own country just to shut u up!

Africa was fine before it was raped by imperialism.

u hav no idea wut ur talking bout yavoon

[yavoon]

in wut way has africa ever been fine? u mean just so tribal that lil wars were of no real consequence? when we went to africa to get slaves ppl volunteered to kill the neighboring tribes and put them into slavery w/ the help of our technology. cuz it removed a rival.

african tribes indeed practiced slavery between themselves. in wut god damn way was africa just fine? the only way I can think of it was fine is that it was all but completely ignored and it simply turmoiled in its own tribal ways. which seemed normal cuz it was never much different.

[Spiffor]

Except for some organised empires (Mali and Ethiopian), precolonial Africa was an extremely special place where political structure had nothing to do with what we know elsewhere. Because political structure wasn't bound to a territory but to a malleable lineage.
Wars between tribes had a definite, almost ritual function, as well as intertribe feasts. Don't get me wrong, wars killed people, but not even nearly to the extent they do today.

The colonial powers brought with them a political order based on territory they deemed self-obvious, and it completely ruined the African way of politicing. Most of the problems we see now in Africa (corruption at each layer of society, ethnical favoritism, nepostism, confusion between the leader's and the state's treasury) are a direct legacy of the traditional way of politicing which have nothing to do with our Eurasian political system.

[monkspider]

I would have to agree that, looking at the big picture, British imperialism has been one of the worst thing to ever happen to humanity.

[Ted Striker]

ah yes, thanks to "our" technology ppl were killed on a grand scale!

ppl

[Kramerman]

undecided...

Canada, Austrailia, and the US turned out ok, but cant say the same about the middle east or africa. Perhaps this has more to do with the conflict of culture and ideas brought by the Brits than it does with the Empire itself. India is arguablely a better place becasue of the British Empire.

[Ted Striker]

Originally posted by Spiffor
Except for some organised empires (Mali and Ethiopian), precolonial Africa was an extremely special place where political structure had nothing to do with what we know elsewhere. Because political structure wasn't bound to a territory but to a malleable lineage.
Wars between tribes had a definite, almost ritual function, as well as intertribe feasts. Don't get me wrong, wars killed people, but not even nearly to the extent they do today.

The colonial powers brought with them a political order based on territory they deemed self-obvious, and it completely ruined the African way of politicing. Most of the problems we see now in Africa (corruption at each layer of society, ethnical favoritism, nepostism, confusion between the leader's and the state's treasury) are a direct legacy of the traditional way of politicing which have nothing to do with our Eurasian political system.

[Kirnwaffen]

did u really want an answer or were u just poking me for fun?

Not poking fun, just genuinely interested in who you thought would be offended. It's a legit question, and when I said 'loaded', I meant that most of the responses would be predictable. Anyway...

they'd all be fighting w/ sticks if they didnt get ak 47's.

Possibly, but it's a lot harder to committ genocide with sticks. Besides, the AK-47s were actually the result of an entirely different era.

I think, though, that it's a bit narrow to imply that the only result of British imperialism was to modernize these countries. These nations spent decades under repressive British and British backed governments, and then were quite suddenly left to fend for themselves. Sudden upheaval causes social problems, plain and simple. Is that to say that British imperialism is to blame for all of these nations' problems? Certainly not. However, it would be incorrect to say that it had no influence on them.

[yavoon]

wut a random useless comment ted. so the african continent was only held back by the fact it didnt have a bigger gun? sounds like a great place to me.

[Ted Striker]

wut?

[yavoon]

yes the british imperialism sucked for lots of reasons, but when its all sed and done the british did a few things that have had long term benefits.

the idea of order, the introduction of education, and the obvious introduction of labor. that have had risidual effects that weren't planned but it doesn't make them ne less nice.

realize the places that spain/the dutch imperialized in general turned out considerably worse. since they were more about raping/pillaging. the british definitely had a moral mandate to their imperialism, whether its looked on kindly now or not.

[Spiffor]

Originally posted by Ned
IMHO, Western civilization, with its respect for human rights, democracy and the family, and its emphasis on education for all, is worth spreading to more "primitive" cultures.

Erm, at what point of the British conquests did the Britsh, or whomever, have democracy as a strong value ? Democracy became an important value in France in 1789, and became acknowledge as a value in Britain even later, despite what Cromwell-apologists could say.
Medieval European Republics were cities whose power rested in the merchants rather than the nobility.

Besides, these noble values have never been applied to the conquered people, except at extreme margin. There were modern-day slaves in 20th century colonies.
France long had a universal agenda, and there are still remnants of it. Our colonization of Africa was officially intended to "civilize the Barbarians", and we genuinely thought it would be better for them. Thanks to us, the Africans now know a mayhem they could have never experimented should they have been left alone.
The Belgians were even worse in this regard, and completely and absolutely disregarded local cultures and local elites (read Tintin in Congo if you want to get an idea of how the Belgians saw their colonies). It made Congo, Burundi and Rwanda even messier than other colonies, and even more prone to the bloodbaths we have sadly witnessed.