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You can equate Hong Kongers' opinion with any dismissal you want. But why don't you find out their opinion first before condemning Britain? The last I heard, the antipathy between native Hong Kongers and mainlanders was notorious, with quite a swell of opinion towards the old days of British rule, and mainland Chinese condemning Hong Kongers as traitors. And the British government trying to keep out of the dispute.Quote:
Originally Posted by Sarmatian
What occupation? The NL were legally inherited, there was no invasion whatsoever. It was the dutch who rebelled against their lawful ruler.Quote:
Originally Posted by Husar
What did Germany build in London in the past 60 years that they should be compensated for? Paying war reparations is nothing new. Carthage paid them to Rome. That's hassle pay. Paying for colonisation is a different topic.
Comparison isn't politically correct I admit, but it is appropriate. Additionally, we're discussing organized exploitation of hundreds of millions of people...Quote:
Originally Posted by Montmorency
Just to be clear, I'm not really advocating former colonies have the moral grounds to demand reparations, but it is extremely childish (not to mention legally dubious) to compare to Viking raids or feudal politics. If we could dispense with that, we could have a serious discussion.
I didn't condemn Britain, Hong Kong comparison was a response to something else.Quote:
Originally Posted by Pannonian
On the other side, wherever there's a highly developed part of a country, people from that part often feel antipathy for people from other parts who are coming there "to steal their jobs and places at their schools and generally exploit the fact that they are so developed".
Actually, hold on, I like this idea - If China is the parent to Hong Kong's child, then what about contemporary national entities that were once held under colonial authority to their whole extent?
1. They are not of the age of majority and therefore have no legal standing to enter into any legally-binding agreements with 'adult' states, let alone sue them for anything.
2. Holy :daisy:, these kids have no guardians! This is unacceptable! As responsible adult nations, we must arrange for the custody of these underage states: we must place them into foster care.
To avoid handing over nations to either their one-time kidnappers or to nations that can not adequately provide for them if given the responsibility, it is obvious that China should receive the entirety of the Caribbean, Latin America, and Africa as "wards of the state". :elephant:
Stockholm syndrome also applies to adults, not sure what your problem is.Quote:
Originally Posted by Montmorency
That Louis XIV inherited France didn't make him any less of a dictator. Lawful doesn't mean much if the law is made by the oppressors.Quote:
Originally Posted by SwordsMaster
London was just attempted colonsation, the British are to blame that we didn't build anything.Quote:
Originally Posted by SwordsMaster
Besides, doyou think building some infrastructure and forts so that you can exploit and steal the natural resources faster counts as a positive point?
Well, adults aren't children, so...Quote:
Stockholm syndrome also applies to adults, not sure what your problem is.
The point is that coercing (hehe) sovereign states into these analogies can take you to some weird places.
Are you making a NAMBLA reference?Quote:
Originally Posted by Montmorency
You mean holding entire countries and populations hostage and then drawing arbitrary borders on a map that lead to centuries of conflicts in the regions you "benevolently" left behind after draining them of most of their resources is worse than aducting a single child? In that case I agree with you.Quote:
Originally Posted by Montmorency
I'm not referring to forts. I'm referring to palaces, administration, offices, housing, railroads, trams, ports, and industry.Quote:
Originally Posted by Husar
Laws are always made by the ruling class, so I'm not sure what your point is here, and have nothing to do with colonisation. Laws in Laos or Thailand are made by locals, and slavery hasn't exactly disappeared...
Way to go with making up excuses to dodge the point of the example.
Ah, the arrogance of colonial powers. It's nice to know it's still there.
That's exactly what I said when I said infrastructure and forts....Quote:
Originally Posted by SwordsMaster
And that you are not referring to the inconvenient parts doesn't improve the reality one bit.
I meant the laws of the dictators, and the Dutch decided they had enough of those. Tht the ruling class makes the laws is irrelevant, in a democracy the people are the ruling class.Quote:
Originally Posted by SwordsMaster
“Nobody alive today who pays taxes was responsible for ww2, yet current German taxpayers still pay for it.” No, they don’t. However, in France we still cleaning the mess of the WW1, even not talking of WW2, or the lands that will never be able to produce anything…
“That Louis XIV inherited France” Err, read the childhood of the future Sun King, and you might change this (see: La Fronde). Just for the detail, no need to develop.
A bit like how Hong Kong is the fault of the Brits. The Brits were wrong to hold it for so long as a colony, simply by virtue of an inter-state treaty signed before any of us were born. The Hong Kongers panicked when the Brits left, but only because they were uncertain about their future, but all that's been solved when China guaranteed its future, and now the Brits are gone and good riddance. Except the Brits have been gone for over a decade, have given up the ex-colony as no longer theirs, and Hong Kongers are still pining after them, and are at odds with mainland China whom they regard as more alien than the British. But that can still be blamed on Britain as having once been there, and the opinions of the natives can be dismissed as Stockholm syndrome or whatever it is that dismisses their right to self-determination whilst still blaming Britain.Quote:
Originally Posted by Sarmatian
The lesson in all this is: blame Britain. The arguments may vary, but as long as the conclusion is there, they're pointing in the right direction. If the logic directly contradicts this conclusion, dismiss the logic as irrelevant. So Britain is at fault for promoting slavery, but Britain's massive efforts at stopping slavery should be ignored. To paraphrase Cato, aim for the conclusion and the arguments will write themselves.
Haiti still has slavery, several hundred thousand child slaves.
From Jean-Robert Cadet's "Restavec: From Haitian slave-child to middle class american".
"Restavecs are slave children who belong to well-to-do families.
They receive no pay and are kept out of school. Since the emanci-
pation and independence of 1804, affluent blacks and mulattoes
have reintroduced slavery by using children of the very poor as
house servants. They promise poor families in faraway villages
who have too many mouths to feed a better life for their children.
Once acquired, these children lose all contact with their families
and, like the slaves of the past, are sometimes given new names for
the sake of convenience. The affluent disguise their evil deeds with
the label restavec, a French term that means “staying with.” Other
children taunt them with the term because they are often seen in
the streets running errands barefoot and dressed in dirty rags.
Restavecs are treated worse than slaves, because they don’t cost
anything and their supply seems inexhaustible. They do the jobs
that the hired domestics, or bonnes, will not do and are made
to sleep on cardboard, either under the kitchen table or outside
on the front porch. For any minor infraction they are severely
whipped with the cowhide that is still being made exclusively for
that very purpose. And, like the African slaves of the past, they of-
ten cook their own meals, which are comprised of inferior corn-
meal and a few heads of dried herring. Girls are usually worse off,
because they are sometimes used as concubines for the teenage
sons of their “owners.” And if they become pregnant, they are
thrown into the streets like garbage. At maturity, restavecs are re-
leased into the streets to earn their living as shoeshine boys, gar-
deners, or prostitutes.
...
Every night at ten o’clock, I collected the chamber pot from the
bathroom and placed it beside Florence’s bed. Whenever she de-
tected the smell of urine, she would put the pot over my head and
shake it as if she were ringing a bell. The chamber pot had to be re-
washed with mint leaves from her garden and returned to her bed-
room. And I would sit in a corner of the kitchen, waiting for her to
go to bed before spreading my rags on the cool mosaic floor. I
would lie down, cover my body with an old dress, and listen to the
monotonous hum of the refrigerator until I fell asleep. I would wake
up early in the morning with palpitating heart in a pool of urine.
On occasion, restavecs managed to form friendships with other
restavecs and play together when their “masters” were out for ex-
tended hours. I had met René, a boy about fourteen years old with
a dark-brown complexion. He seemed a few years older than I was.
I must have been between ten and twelve years old. René had been
acquired by the Beauchamp family, who lived three houses away.
Madame Beauchamp needed a permanent sitter for her two boys,
and Monsieur Beauchamp, a tall and stingy mulatto, wanted some-
one to wash his small fleet of taxis every morning. René was thin,
with a face that always looked hungry. He once told me that he
had been acquired from a small village in Jérémi, and that his
mother Dieudonne had named him Prophet. Every morning he
woke up at the crowing of the first rooster to wash the cars before
the drivers arrived. At eight o’clock in the evening he collected the
car keys and the moneybags from the drivers. Between eight and
nine o’clock at night, I would listen for René’s signal—three long
whistles. If I whistled back, we would meet behind Florence’s
house to watch I Love Lucy through the window screen, standing
on cement blocks in the dark while mosquitoes feasted on our
exposed arms and legs. When Florence had left the house and I
was locked out at night, René and I would meet beside the
Beauchamps’ house to eat sugarcane under the almond tree and
count passing cars. In the Beauchamps’ living room, the television
was placed under the window and restavecs were not allowed to
watch it indoors. We rarely saw each other during daytime hours.
René was always busy watching the children, and I had to be con-
stantly within the reach of Florence’s voice.
One beautiful moonlit night, the air was cool, the crickets were
quarreling back and forth, and the mosquitoes were barely notice-
able. The adventures of Tarzan had just started when René arrived
nervously with a hand basket.
“What’s in there?” I asked.
René pulled out a bowl of grillot (fried pork) and plantains, two
bottles of Cola Couronne, and fresh pastries. We sat on the cement
block and ate in silence with our fingers from the same bowl. I
wanted to ask him where he got the money to buy the food, but I
didn’t want to know the answer. At the end of the show, René
walked away without saying good-bye. I watched him disappear
into the darkness as my heart beat faster than usual.
By midmorning, news had quickly spread among the maids
and restavecs that René had stolen two dollars from Monsieur
Beauchamp’s cashbox. René was severely beaten with a rigoise—a
whip made of cowhide. Every strike lifted the skin and formed a
blister.
Monsieur Beauchamp wanted to know whether René had
shared the money with other restavecs, but René did not implicate
me. He was made to kneel on a bed of hot rocks, used by the maids
to whiten clothes under the punishing tropical sun, while holding
two mango-sized stones in each hand high above his head. After
René blacked out, Monsieur Beauchamp threw him in the backseat
of his car and drove to the police station.
The police brought René back late in the afternoon. His nose was
bleeding, his eyes were swollen shut, and his lips resembled two
pieces of raw cow’s liver. His puffy face was twisted to one side and
his ragged shirt was glued to his broken body. That night I listened
for René’s whistles that I knew would never be heard again. Al-
though I never saw René again, I listened every night between
eight and nine o’clock for the signal that I could hear only with my
imagination."
In our defense, we only did it because all the cool nations dit it at the time. Give us a break.
It was the norm among everyone who were able to do it. It only stopped being the norm when some countries decided it was not morally acceptable, defying the opinion of everyone else but them. And Britain proceeded to make this an immoveable testing point for foreign policy, devoting massive resources to stopping slavery. And despite that defiance of historical norms to pursue an ethical ideal and being the first in history to go out of our way to enforce said ideal, we're still blamed for the original actions which everyone else was also doing, while our singular actions in ending the practice are ignored.Quote:
Originally Posted by Kralizec
Is there any other country in history that has done more to end slavery across the world than Britain?
No.Quote:
Originally Posted by Pannonian
Yeah, because HongKong is the only example of a British colony while Africa and the Middle East do not really exist. Did the people of HongKong also greet the British when the British first arrived and did they offer them to govern the city? To pretend colonialism was all honey and milk and daffodils is still weird. Maybe some good came out of it once all the dissenters were killed in bloody military campaigns or left to China but I doubt that it was all roses and orchidees when you tried to subjugate China with opium.Quote:
Originally Posted by Pannonian
It was the stick Sarmatian used to batter Britain with, as an example of how Britain abused its powerful status to grab something that she had no right to. Which amused me with its irony, given I was there not that long ago and many people there were longing for the old days of British rule, and the rightful Chinese rulers and the poor Hong Kongers who'd been so oppressed by the colonialist British absolutely hated each other.Quote:
Originally Posted by Husar
Hong Kong was a response to something else. GC said it was all irrelevant since it had nothing to do with current generation. Hong Kong was an example that international treaties are enforced, regardless of the opinion or involvement of current taxpayers.Quote:
Originally Posted by Pannonian
That being said, it's naive to pretend that Hong Kong was an inter-state treaty. It was taken at gunpoint and later the acquisition was legalized, again at gun point. Luca Brasi diplomacy.
I have not blamed Britain and I have not mentioned slavery. I've mentioned colonialism.Quote:
The lesson in all this is: blame Britain. The arguments may vary, but as long as the conclusion is there, they're pointing in the right direction. If the logic directly contradicts this conclusion, dismiss the logic as irrelevant. So Britain is at fault for promoting slavery, but Britain's massive efforts at stopping slavery should be ignored. To paraphrase Cato, aim for the conclusion and the arguments will write themselves.
Give it a generation or two and animosity will weaken.Quote:
Originally Posted by Pannonian
Noone said that the British engaged in a lot of evil colonialism since WW2, it's not surprising that the modern people of Hongkong like the British given that the British provided them wealth. We are talking about how the city got into British hands in the first place, which wasn't voluntary at all. Most of the colonial oppression stopped somewhere in the 20th century but that doesn't excuse what happened in the centuries before that. Would Germany bringing the Autobahn to Russia, Poland and France have excused the second world war if Germany had won?Quote:
Originally Posted by Pannonian
What inconvenient bits? The fact that these buildings were built with indentured labour does not mean we should tear them down after. That'd be like spitting on the effort of the people who built them. Which is why the case of Germany is completely out of proportion, the net effect of the war was devastation, not edification, and thus they pay reparations.Quote:
Originally Posted by Husar
And about the people being the ruling class. Well, I don't know who this recession made richer in Germany, but in the countries I've been to it isn't the taxpayer.
And on Hong Kong - It was a wasteland with mostly fishermen living there after the first war with the portuguese in the XVII century. Most of the opium trade went through Canton, and the british occupation of the island as a defensible position (for a nation with a strong navy) met little opposition from the powers in China at the time who preferred to keep all the foreigners in one little box (which is why Portugal also got to keep Macao, across the bay).
Going from a small fishing town to a major global metropolis in 150 years while the rest of China remains what is essentially a feudal society with a few urban hotspots is a net positive influence of British rule, I would say.
Surprised no one has brought up the Falklands, Gibraltar and all those little islands we still possess.
Heh, well, I'd say the Falklands issue is only sensitive in some Argentinian political circles, but I hear the Gibraltar debate is heating up in Spain. With the harbouring of contrabandists, pirates, gambling, and tax exempt status. Should be fun.Quote:
Originally Posted by Tiaexz
It's not about net effects, it´'s about there bein g a war in the first place and that people were robbed of their country by force. Germany never had the time or resources to build anything up because it never managed to win the war like the colonial powers usually did in their colonies before they built most of the stuff they built. The question is whether some buildings and roads justify starting a brutal war to achieve superiority and oppress the people, make them build stuff for you and then take their resources for a low or no payment.Quote:
Originally Posted by SwordsMaster
Merkel's party got even more votes this election than in the last, it's obviously what the people want...Quote:
Originally Posted by SwordsMaster
You mean there never was an opium war and noone was ever killed for the glory of the Empire?Quote:
Originally Posted by SwordsMaster
China has over a hundred cities with more than a million citizens, the only city in the UK that counts for something is London. The net influence doesn't really count with crimes anyway, it's just a convenient excuse to detract the attention away from the crimes that started the whole influence in the first place. Like I said, had Germany conquered all of Russia and built the country up, would that have excused the mass murder that preceded it if Russia had a higher GDP now?Quote:
Originally Posted by SwordsMaster
Or do you think if a rich guy kills a family and then donates 5 million $ to a charity, should we let him off because of the net benefit?
Depends on what the Russians, Poles and French thought of the Germans. When the Romans departed from Britain, people didn't complain about their imperialist predecessors that unjustly took over a previously free people. That was par for the course, and nothing to be especially het up about. Their memory of Rome was a peace and civilisation that was the best we had until we produced our own advanced society. Similarly for the Germans. You have various former colonies such as the sausage factory in Tanganyika, whose inhabitants retain a fondness for the days of German rule. Good for you, and you deserve recognition for that. You also tried building an empire in mainland Europe, and the people of those territories are less than fond of the memory of German rule. That deserves recognition too.Quote:
Originally Posted by Husar
And that's what the British should be recognised for. We used slaves, as did everyone who could. But we stopped using them because of a moral argument, and very few countries in history did so. And alone in history, we devoted huge resources to backing up that moral argument, actively stopping slavery as the societal norm. The first bit of our history is carped on about, as the story of the evil British. As we moved more and more towards what is the modern ethical norm, in many cases defining it ourselves, more and more of it gets ignored, so as to maintain the story of the evil British.
As for the Hong Kongers settling with the Chinese given a few more decades, we can only see what will happen after said decades. But their history museums celebrate the economic and social programmes that the British left behind, and the complaints are about what they see as Chinese exploitation of the territory without the parallel care about the health of the society that the British attended to. Funny to see the things the British are often accused of, used to criticise their successors.
Really, don't analogize states to individuals in this context. It doesn't serve your position and it creates :jawdrop: :dizzy: if you think it through.Quote:
Or do you think if a rich guy kills a family and then donates 5 million $ to a charity, should we let him off because of the net benefit?
According to British people and their colonial collaborators...Quote:
Originally Posted by Pannonian
The modern British people did not commit that, they just inherited it. If the modern British are evil, it's just because they continue to support bankers who caused a huge economic downturn and ripped off the taxpayers.Quote:
Originally Posted by Pannonian
First of all, you claim that you built almost everything that Hongkong has and is today, so you probably also built the museums that celebrate you. -> doesn't count.Quote:
Originally Posted by Pannonian
Secondly, modern China may not be the communist country it is today without the early negative capitalist imperial influences that made so many people turn to communism. So while your net influence on Hongkong may look positive today, your net influence on the entire rest of China was a lot worse as you say yourself.
I was merely saying that the net benefit does not equal justice. Not on a personal level and not on a state level either. Would you like to die fighting a Chinese invasion even if there were actually a net benefit for the USA in it after 300 years of Chinese occupation?Quote:
Originally Posted by Montmorency
What you're gonna say about Shenzhen then? Right next to Hong Kong, it was a small fishing village 40-50 years ago and now is rivaling Hong Kong. Obviously they do better job than Brits. Now that it's been proven, choose an area of UK where a huge port can be built and give it to China.Quote:
Originally Posted by SwordsMaster
What exactly is this discussion about anyway?
Britain did not leave its colonies looking like Mordor: that's not really something we should be obliged to be thankful for.
The natives were oppressed by their colonial overlords: they would have been oppressed by native overlords otherwise.
It all seems like a lot of puffery to me.