Britain should have conquered the world

[KrazyHorse]

Hera's point is bull

The British Colonies that are doing great are those in which the locals were replaced or overwhelmed with British colonists, when you look at the asian and african colonies, your point does not stand.

Actually, it does. There is a large body of scholarly work suggesting that intraregionally, British colonies have fared much better than those of other Euro nations. This has even been shown to hold true intranationally in certain cases where circumstances permit...

[Bugs ****ing Bunny]

Sorry, but Mozambique was Portugal. Still, carry on.

I got it confused with Malawi. Carry on.

[KrazyHorse]

Malawi: less ****ed up than Rwanda.

Uganda's one of the worse British ones.

[C0ckney]

i don't think rwanda is that bad these days, it's come a very long way since the genocide. in fact in recent years it's been held up as an example of good governance in africa.

i'd say burma is one of our worst former colonies.

[Hauldren Collider]

But Canada had Ben Kenobi....surely that would make Canada the worst.

[KrazyHorse]

i don't think rwanda is that bad these days, it's come a very long way since the genocide. in fact in recent years it's been held up as an example of good governance in africa.

a) Yes, they are no longer killing each other at the pace of 8000 per day, so what they have is an improvement
b) They are still not in a great place, though they do seem to be doing better than some of their neighbors
c) You can't just ignore history. Those killed in the genocide still count

[C0ckney]

it's certainly not ignoring history to point out the progress that has been made since the genocide.

i don't think anyone expected the place to be sweden, but when you look at the state of the country today compared to the aftermath of the genocide, it's a remarkable story and one worth telling.

[KrazyHorse]

1) I think there has been some whitewashing of their government by Western media due to the genocide. They may not be the worst actors in the region, but they have been caught playing with fraternal guerrilla groups in neighboring countries, and the government ****s with the opposition fairly regularly in undemocratic ways

2) When we're talking about the state of affairs in various colonies since liberation, it certainly is ignoring history to point at the last 15 years in Rwanda and think that somehow counts for anything near as much as the genocide itself

[bc1871]

There was actually a movement in the 19th Century, which I believe was called Many People One Language, who advocated for a union of the British Isles, the Dominions, The Indian Empire (as a special status partner) and the United States. Colonies of the British Empire and territories of the United States would continue to be jointly administered, but would not receive any special status in the new union, until they achieved responsible government.

Though the idea of union hit its apex in the 1890’s, it died along with Queen Victoria and the rise of nationalism in the dominions.

[GePap]

How does one account for colonies that changed hands? Like Namibia, Cameroon, Togo, or Tanzania, that went from German to British of French? Is the British finishing touch more important than the German foundation?

And should colonies that were made up mostly of actual European colonists (like Australia and NZ) be looked at the same was as Colonies where a foreign political power was imposed on an existing local system of rule? (Like India, Burma, the ME?)

I would posit that the fact Britain was rich and a state like Portugal wasn't would account for a lot of the development gap between the two. Not like the Portuguese state would be busy developing its colonies when it had a hard time developing its own core region.

[Thoth]

But Canada had Ben Kenobi....surely that would make Canada the worst.

Texas has him now.

Nuff said.

[Dinner]

We keep trying to put him in the post with a note to "return to sender" but they won't take him back.

[Tupac Shakur]

Zimbabwe, Tanzania, Kenya, Mozambique, Iraq....

[BlackCat]

Texas has him now.

Nuff said.

Yeah, but it was canucks that spawned him

[Thoth]

We keep trying to put him in the post with a note to "return to sender" but they won't take him back.

Canadian Postal service FTW.