IMMIGRATION thread

[rajpoot]

I'm bored and history allways interests me, could you explain what the idea of "white man's burden" caused that was bad?

I ask because of all the ideas of the 19th and early 20th century I was under the impression that one was one of the more harmless ideas. Condescending as hell, of course, but not harmful to my knowledge.

On the surface it's fairly harmless but ideas never get implemented like they're planned do they?
As far as my knowledge goes, the perceived responsibility caused the nations to deny peoples whom they considered savages the freedom to rule themselves. Regardless of how messy the alternative histories might have been had Europeans not embarked on their empire building trips, what did happen wasn't very pleasant either, at least not for those who were subjugated.

By lengthening our involvement in these countries, and thus making us responsible for everything bad that's been happening since, even decades after they've gained independence (with everything good being the hitherto restrained potential of the natives, of course). I raised the example of Hong Kong some time ago as an example of where Britain has governed a colony responsibly, and the appreciation of the native Chinese was dismissed, whilst everything that wasn't ideal was pinned as the fault of the British, even where the native Hong Kongers point to Beijing as the source. Trying to do good is pointless. We might as well embrace the universally agreed fact that we're evil, and look to our interests only.

People who say the colonial rulers gave nothing good to their colonies are either blind or have deliberately closed their eyes. People who say that everything they did was for the betterment of their colonies are no better. The truth lies somewhere in between but nothing changes the fact that a group of people should be given the right to govern themselves unless they're doing something catastrophically self destructive (or harmful to others).

Thanks for sharing your opinion, if you don't mind could you clarify what you mean by "Doing stupider stuff"? Are you referring to bombing campaigns/interference in the Middle East? The current refugee situation?

I might be completely wrong here but IMO inviting hundreds of thousands of outsiders to stay in Europe all at once, people who come from a vastly different culture and upbringing and many of whom perhaps don't even like Europe and might even consider the actions of the Western nations the root of their misfortunes (and might harbour dangerous extremists amongst them), is stupid.