Said the Carnegie Mellon linguistics professor Uju Anya, quoted in "I Won’t Cry Over the Death of a Violent Oppressor" (The Cut).
Anya wrote the much-discussed tweet: "I heard the chief monarch of a thieving raping genocidal empire is finally dying. May her pain be excruciating."
She's not backing down.
In my tweet, I did not wish her death. I did not tell anyone to kill her. I said nothing except wishing her the pain in death that she caused for millions of people. There’s not going to be any apology from me. I stand by what I said. As a direct recipient of her governance and as the child of colonial subjects, I reserve the right to say what this woman’s life and monarchy and the history of the British monarchy as a whole means to me.
“Speak no ill of the dead” is a weapon that’s leveled against the oppressed to silence them, to lionize oppressors, and to sanitize their history. What respect am I supposed to have for her, for her family? “Oh, well, her family is mourning her.” My family is mourning as well.
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128 comments:
“Anya was born in Nigeria in the aftermath of its civil war, which included a genocide aided and abetted by the U.K. over oil interests.”
Look at Nigeria today. Much worse off than when it was a British colony.
The Queen was the Head of State. She didn’t make any decisions to fund a war in Nigeria.
I don't like this Sub-Saharan appropriating my ancestors language. Clicks and whistles please...preferably paired with a bone through her nose. Thank you.
She is totally civilized, isn't she?
I reserve my hatred for her brothers who first sold the African slaves.
Oh wait, Im Slavic, I dont give a rats ass about her ancestors.
I always thought speak no ill of the dead was wise advice to protect your own reputation or that off your cause. How many people read her tweet and were convinced to switch their positive or neutral assessment of the British Monarchy and Great Britain to negative? All the risk is on turning people against you or your cause. No one wants to be one of the bad guys, so don't act like a baddie.
I would say the same thing about Hillary Clinton.
Children of a Lesser God. Chop this woman into three parts. Cast one part of her into the Allegheny, one part of her into the Monongahela, one part of her into the Ohio.
Top ten hateful people. Number five will shock you!
Tucker Carlson put it best. The Brits gave us and the Commonwealth countries the rule of law, a free press, fairness, an independent judiciary, liberty and the meritocracy. That’s what makes us different than if the Germans, Japanese, Chinese or Russians had ruled the world and colonized the US and Commonwealth countries.
Kenya, Nigeria, Uganda and the former Brit colonies are now run by the natives are fucked up corrupt messes.
Little Miss Carnegie Mellon linguistics professor wouldn’t be where she was today but for the system the Brits and Americans had established.
She’s an ingrate.
"... she existed because of those decisions."
If we have, as google says, seven generations in existence, at this moment, right now, the professor Uju holds the Queen responsable for her ancestors' actions going back over seven generations?
I'm struggling with the framing.
In defense of the Queen, didn't she, like Gorbachev and his Soviet Union, oversee the dismantling of the British Empire?
Words matter, but actions backing up intent matter way more than mere words. Especially when we are talking about governance.
At the link, she equates speech with violence. Idiot.
Sounds a lot like - let others forgive, but I shall never forgive nor forget, not to a single one of you people, ever. To this our measured Christian response is to say:
And let us not be weary in well doing: for in due season we shall reap, if we faint not. - Galatians 6:9
Are we a bunch of saps?
If only Lyndon Larouche were still alive, we would be hearing a lot more about the queen's manifold culpabilities. He was much better prepared when given the spotlight than this professor.
Something similar happened in South Africa in a progressive conflict between two indigenous tribes, a native tribe, and a global demand for the redistribution of natural resources. Libya, Egypt, Syria, etc. too.
That said, she came, she saw, but didn't conquer, but her ancestors did, and she will be judged on the modern model of diversity.
Black people in Nigeria murdered other black people in Nigeria (civil war over oil money).
But yeah, OK blame whitey. Got it. BYU all over again.
Nobody likes an asshole. Nobody. She might even have a point. But because she's an asshole, nobody cares what her point is. That's what these Twitter twats don't understand.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nigerian_Civil_War
Dave Begley said...
"Look at Nigeria today. Much worse off than when it was a British colony."
Like being a British colony - against it's will - didn't warp everything.
You can't believe how short-sighted people are, sometimes.
I know you guys LOVE siding with the winners, but they're not the only ones with stories to tell.
Because without the British, her homeland was Shangri-la. There were puppies and kites and everyone was happy. Until the British arrived with their railroads and education and, worst of all, a white person in charge. They’re responsible for every bad thing that happened after they arrived because nothing bad happened before.
Solla Sollew was based on pre-colonial Nigeria.
If Christopher Hitchens was still alive, he'd have a few less-than-kind words about the "Prince of Piffle" (as he called Charles) finally being king, now, too.
"Speak no ill of the dead” is a weapon that’s leveled against the oppressed to silence them,..."
It's not leveled against the 'oppressed' (oppressed these days meaning university professors with tenure making over $140,000 or so per year). It's used as a constant norm for behavior among many cultures, regardless of who or what you think you are. And what is she? Well, she's a linguistics professor at Carnegie Mellon, which to me sounds very impressive. On the other hand, when reading her bio I get this bilge: I also have expertise in diversity, equity, and inclusion in instructional practices and curriculum design, language study abroad, applied linguistics as a practice of social justice, intercultural communication, and service-learning in secondary and university-level language programs.
I know I'm outdated, but when I studied linguistics in college in the 70s, it had nothing to do with Social Justice, Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (whatever that is). It was all about...I dunno...linguistics.
Her comment about "speak no ill of the dead" is kind of like when a white person makes a comment or an observation about a criminal who happens to be black, or about the state of our black communities. Or a comment about a professor who happens to be black, making outrageous statements. And the white person gets told to hush up. They're told that, being white, they cannot speak about anything that has to do with black people at all. It's used as a weapon to cut off any discussion of things that need discussing. It'll be happening in this case as well, if it hasn't already.
PS- Colonization is the way of the world and has been since forever- even in Africa among Africans. It is one way cultures intermix and share what they are, creating a new culture with bits of both. It is sometimes good in many ways, sometimes very bad, but it always remakes a culture. What the British did around the world encompasses both great things and horrible things. I doubt the Queens directives were to do horrible things, even as they happened.
Speaking of colonization, the US is being colonized as I write this, and no one on the left seems at all concerned until those colonizers are bussed into their neighborhoods. Interesting how that works. In history, all of us are from peoples who have been on the side of colonizers and colonized. It's human history. Move on. You have to move on. I don't hold today's German people responsible for what they did to my people just a few years ago.
Oh wait, Im Slavic,
I appreciate the irony.
“ Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPCGROUP) CEO Melee Kyari has revealed that Nigeria is losing nearly all the oil output at oil hub Bonny…”
Theft. What a country.
Hundreds of millions of lives saved by clean water, medical treatment food aid, and agricultural advancements. Iowa native Norman Borlaug saved more lives, than any government in history, including the US
The dead accredited to the Colonizers assumes rule by military dictators would be much better. Power vacuums are always filled.
My father's parents were born in stone cottages. No indoor plumbing, no electricity, little heat. The people of Ireland have little to thank the English for. I suppose the monarchy, or at least some of the monarchs were responsible for their plight. The prime mover, however, of Irish sorrows was Cromwell. He moved the Irish off the arable land and managed to kill thirty to forty percent of the Irish Catholic population with his agrarian reforms. I wouldn't count him as a friend of the English monarchy though. In fact, Cromwell and his New Model Army exhibited the same kind of self righteous anger that this twat exhibits. God save us from such high minded idealists.
Good prog: Africans kill Africans, blame Brits.
From the Forsyth piece linked in the article: "with neutrality and diplomacy from London it could all have been avoided." Maybe, maybe not. Big ifs on which to hang a charge of genocide against a queen who could have done nothing to stop it.
Nigeria still hangs by a few threads. Killing in the north proceeds on a regular basis. Political feuds in the south are settled by violence. Also the Brits' fault?
David,
You say that the queen didn't make any decisions regarding Nigeria. That may be true, though I don't think either of us know. All funding and laws must be approved by her so whether she made the decision or not, she did approve (Assented to) of it.
She is head of state as you point out. A polite fiction for the past 100 or so years is that she is not head of government. Since she appoints the government and can force a resignation anytime someone displeases her as well as assents to all laws and funding, commissions officers and much more, I would argue that she is head of government as well. She may take a hands-off role but it is still "her" government. BoJo was the queen's prime minister, not UKs. He was not elected, he was appointed. He was appointed to a position that doesn't even formally exist. (Yeah, I know, the party elected him and the queen just went along. But she didn't have to.
She must bear responsibility for what happened in Nigeria.
NB: I don't know enough about Nigeria to say what she should or should not have done. I am only speaking of what she could have done as the ultimate authority for all UK activities.
John Henry
She may not have taken an active or visible role but
All right, but apart from the sanitation, the medicine, education, wine, public order, irrigation, roads, a fresh water system, and public health, what have the British ever done for us?
All right, but apart from the sanitation, the medicine, education, wine, public order, irrigation, roads, a fresh water system, and public health, what have the British ever done for us?
Look, I liked the Queen, but I'm willing to acknowledge her death is a dream come true for a lot of people - mostly poor and of color - who did nothing more than be alive when the British Crown decided those people needed to pay a price because Britain needed more iron ore or something.
She may have freed their nations, but not because she wanted to, or it was the right thing to do, but because they forced her hand after decades of usually violent interference causing countless deaths.
THAT is not a sign of benevolence to anyone.
Not sure vile is worse than stupid but the combination settles on this daughter of the diaspora. Clearly the squalid countries of Africa with their vast untapped natural (human?) resources would have been more prosperous had the British remained. Instead they are shitholes run by thieves. Never a whiff of condemnation against the corrupt plunderers selling off to the Chinese who will strip the place clean.
Christopher Hitchens said this is what you get when your values come from Henry VIII
Come to America, be a "university professor and researcher in applied linguistics, critical sociolinguistics, and critical discourse studies primarily examining race, gender, sexual, and social class identities", or some other useless, make believe discipline and become another tasteless whiner of academe.
Tell us, dearie, how do you feel about the genocidal attacks on Christians by Muslims enabled by the government in Nigeria?
About 3600 people die on an average day in London. Each of those deaths contain an element of tragedy.
You could choose one at random and it would mean as much to me as the death of Queen Elizabeth.
The only concern for me is that it elevates her pinhead son to greater prominence and more opportunities for public mischief.
Also, what Temujin said at 9:07.
The dead sit at the Judgment Seat. We speak no ill in recognition that we aren't the dead's final judge, and that one day we too will sit for judgment.
Or, if you don't believe in or understand the basis of that tradition, you can still hold your righteous anger for a week. Unlike the Queen, it's not going anywhere.
Anya wrote the much-discussed tweet: "I heard the chief monarch of a thieving raping genocidal empire is finally dying. May her pain be excruciating."
I'll bet she's a lot of fun at parties.
Christopher Hitchens said this is what you get when your values come from Henry VIII
Henry VIII was by far the best educated and most intellectual monarch of his time.
His father Henry Tudor (to whom I am distantly related) was the truly bad guy. He usurped the throne from Richard III despite a ridiculously bad claim and unleashed a propaganda campaign against Richard that was worse than a similar campaign against Donald Trump.
1) The monarch is the living symbol of Great Britain, the Commonwealth the Empire and it's history...all of it, not just the good stuff.
2) Anya is entitled to her opinion and she's not all wrong, just blinkered. Even if I find her opinion loathsome, I support her right to express it, if only so I know who I'm dealing with.
3) Anyone who hates Jeff Bezos can't be all bad.
Ding, ding, ding, we've got a nutty LaRouchite in the thread. One must admit a certain vigor in a man who managed to play the CIA, Maoists, Stalinists, Iranians, French Marxists and MI6 off each other while running for president of the United States more times than anyone else in history, but no, Two-Eye Jack, the Queen actually was not an intergalactical lizard.
I work at a major oil company. I sit next to a Nigerian born coworker, who was sitting next to me when the news of Elizabeth's death broke. My coworker is not bitter at all nor felt any reason to feel bitter. It could be because she knows her life is better regardless of what happened in the past. Personally, I have no time for bitter people. Let their angry heart and mind devour their time and resources. However, let's be clear, Uju Anya is what bitter angry hatred looks like, as compared to anything Trump or his supporters are accused.
While I wholeheartedly disagree with her, I at least admire her balls to stick by her words and not bow to the mob (even if I agree, in THIS instance) about the mob. I’m so sick of these weak, sniveling little celebrities and politicians who come out with these 4-paragraph-long apologies for “misgendering” or for daring to call gangs GANGS. So, like, good for her for at least being a woman of conviction
Said the Carnegie Mellon linguistics professor Uju Anya[,]... "As the direct recipient of her governance and as the child of colonial subjects..."
Give me a break. What lack of self-awareness.
Terrible things have been done by many actors, including government actors, as part of colonialism. But it astonishes me that anyone can look at British colonialism as anything but a net good, given the modern results and comparing them to places where the fruits of colonialism have been smashed and allowed to rot.
I have to admit, I never knew much about Biafra/the Nigerian Civil War, and I had forgotten whatever I once knew. Let's just say Anya is more justified in taking a shit in the middle of the Queen's funeral than, say, the wife of one of the Queen's grandsons.
The Nigerian government, with a newly independent country, was very skilled at sucking up to the Brits, and probably lying to them about facts on the ground--like how long a civil war would last. Yes, oil deposits were a factor on everyone's mind. As Biafra declared independence, the Brits and the Soviets together (!) provided military and other supports to Nigeria. France and eventually Israel supported Biafra. A blockade/deliberate starvation was a strategy of Nigeria from early on, in 1967, and many cases of starving children were found in 1968, triggering a considerable response in unofficial, even illegal, aid to civilians. The war didn't end until 1970, and if three million civilian dead is on the high side, it is not by much. Did the Brits have a practical way of ending the war? Did the Queen speak up in her conversations with the PM? I don't know.
The ancient Athenians, as they became more sophisticated (no doubt influenced by philosophy) said something like: you may be right that in our empire we are no better than anyone else, but we are reasonably confident we are no worse. Have there been empires other than the European ones? Yes. The European ones stand out for their scale, their ability to reach around the world; do they stand out for their brutality? In a way the Europeans were forced to confront the fact that there were very "different" people in different parts of the world. The indigenous people of the Americas and Australia had been previously "unknown," sub-Saharan Africa was barely known, China was barely known, etc. There was a tendency to fall back on racist clap-trap, and pretend it had something to do with science. Not only do we observe superficial differences, but we "know" what they mean: possibly some good characteristics, but definitely some bad ones. This can all become a pretext for brutality.
Even if the people running an empire are enlightened, the mere fact of empire opens the door to very brutal people doing their thing on the front lines, or what is thought of as the frontier. It seems that the Brits sleep-walked into supporting a much bigger war than they expected, and like generals in Vietnam or WW I, they could only think of escalating. Somehow independence for Nigeria meant "it is up to them how brutal this becomes, the blood is not on our hands." In some ways the Brits over time may have been the most enlightened of the Europeans when it came to their treatment of "natives." The massive escalation of the slave trade (building of course on the intra-African and Arab-African slave trades) became British-American, but the Portuguese and Spanish showed the way to using slaves on large plantations.
Nigeria in particular had a lot of wealth, but also a lot of war and slavery, before the Brits came along. Starvation as a strategy on a large scale? Who knows?
Crack complains that the Queen (and most of us) just celebrate the winners.
In a sense that's true. The European colonizers' (UK, France, Belgium) economies and standards of living have increased many times over when compared to those of their former colonies, since they went home. (N.B. The French still maintain a presence in Africa that they have no intention of giving up.)
In some cases, economies and standards of living in the former colonies have regressed,
Seems like Africans just can't win, even when they win.
Progressives and especially progressive marxists always favor sudden radical change over any orderly process. You can see their influence in obvious ways like the BLM riots, the Soros DAs and Obama’s oft stated desire to “fundamentally transform America.” This professor is profoundly ignorant of the process of decolonization even though the world is still populated with former colonies that listened to people like her but never got around to creating the type of constitutional republic we have. The Queen was absolutely vital to the success of the colonies that became part of the UK or allies or outposts of freedom like Hong Kong. HK is a good example of what can be done under which system. I wonder if the hateful professor believes Hong Kong is better off now or as a colonial outpost.
Monarchy, oligarchy, dictatorship, and democracy equitable and inclusive.
Blogger Dave Begley said...
"Tucker Carlson put it best. The Brits gave us and the Commonwealth countries the rule of law, a free press, fairness, an independent judiciary, liberty and the meritocracy."
And then proceed to piss off the locals. That always got a laugh from my Indian neighbor.
"Look at Nigeria today. Much worse off than when it was a British colony."
Like being a British colony - against it's will - didn't warp everything.
It's not possible to run two timelines simultaneously; maybe if Nigeria had been left alone, its sheer observation of what was happening around the world may have enabled it to develop into an industrialized nation with rule of law and protection of individual liberties, but we can't know. Not many countries have done that - just made changes to themselves by observing what others have done. France tried it with disastrous results.
But to assume that if history had happened differently, the result would have been wonderful, is wishcasting, it seems to me.
This is not to excuse Britain or any other country from atrocities committed under their imposed rule. But colonialism has not been demonstrated to be pure evil, based on results.
So what's this ignorant bint on about? Nigeria? Did someone scam her out of her iPhone or something? I could have told her, nothing any good ever came out of Nigeria.
And what the fuck is she doing at Carnegie-Mellon? Linguistics? God, I bet her classes are a hoot. This dumb cow standing at the whiteboard with her mile-wide ass pointed at the students, trying to figure out how to diagram a sentence, while the students all try to keep a straight face. It's a required class, and she flunks anyone who laughs at her.
This professor whines for a living.
Tina Trent, don't be so gullible. I was only pointing out the diminishing quality of politico-conspiratorial discourse. Twitter ruins everything.
Hey Crack, quick question.
Why did your race start selling their own people?
Lets get real.
So this half-wit attends Carnegie-Mellon University, formerly Carnegie Tech. Named after Andrew Carnegie, known for his off-the-charts benevolence, but also for his steel company killing union strikers by the hired guns of the Pinkertons. Hmm, similar to the Brits history of colonization?
Making the world stupid is nothing to celebrate.
https://www.reddit.com/r/skeptic/comments/x9eyjp/faculty_of_homeopathy_homepage_today_sept_8_2022/
Maynard said...
Henry VIII was by far the best educated and most intellectual monarch of his time."
He was also a fanatical killer.
Man, you guys will overlook anything.
Offered in all humility: it's good to hear from Crack again.
more pertinent to ask Q: does/did Lizzie have agency
==discuss==
I spent a lot of time in Nigeria in the early 80s. Its population was the largest black country in Africa. But like a lot of former colonial countries its boundaries contained tribes and cultures that had no relation to each other. In the north there were the Muslim Hausa Fulani cattle herders. In the coastal sections there were the animist Yoruba tribesmen, and further south along the coast the Ibos (or Igbos)lived in what became, briefly, Biafra. Some of the Ibos had adopted Christianity--and the British colonial government tended to hire Ibos for work in their offices.
Nigeria as it existed in the early mid 20th Century was the result of the combination of two earlier British colonies. You get all that diversity jammed together in a single entity where there's no real reason for it to hang together--other than a single colonial rule--and trouble will ensue.
But since Nigeria gained its independence as a nation around 1960, it's a stretch for our linguistics professor to say Britain was responsible for casualties in a war that took place 7 to 10 years after independence. Britain's fault--if any--was in combining dozens of petty kingships, sultanates, chiefdoms in a single purported nation state--or toxic stew.
If Britain had never created this colony, the linguistics professor's ancestors and such would have happily gone on killing and enslaving each other. And for that matter Muslim Boko Harum is enthusiastically kidnapping and killing Christians in Northern Nigeria today.
Leland said...
"Personally, I have no time for bitter people."
Make the oppressed swallow it - whatever "it" was: the death of your family, civilization, etc..
That's the spirit.
Jamie said...
"It astonishes me that anyone can look at British colonialism as anything but a net good"
You simply can't6 conceive that - good or bad - no one wanted to be colonized, can you?
Narr said...
"Seems like Africans just can't win, even when they win."
I remember something about not being able to put Humpty-Dumpty back together again.
Jamie said...
"o assume that if history had happened differently, the result would have been wonderful, is wishcasting, it seems to me."
That's an assumption of what I meant, and a wrong one: damning people to a history of your knee on their neck is never going to be appreciated, no matter what they would've done on their own.
Jamie,
BTW - how can you stand to hear Tucker Carlson's over-excited laugh?
Its drives me away every time.
Lloyd W. Robertson said...Anya is more justified in taking a shit in the middle of the Queen's funeral than, say, the wife of one of the Queen's grandsons.
I don’t know much about the Biafran war for independence either. Among other shortcomings, it’s unclear to me how them declaring a secession they couldn’t defend on the battlefield is Britain’s fault.
She may have freed their nations, but not because she wanted to, or it was the right thing to do, but because they forced her hand after decades of usually violent interference causing countless deaths.
Crack is getting poetic on us. The Ashante sold a lot of the slaves that were shipped to Brazil and a few to America. England outlawed the slave trade in 1835 and the Ashante lost their business. The Nigerian civil war was mostly the Muslim side versus the Biafrans, or the Igbo tribe. Today, the Nigerian immigrants are among the highest income levels in the US. Know why ? They are smart and good at math. They are also all Igbos. That's what the civil war was about. The smarter Nigerians resisting rule by the dumb ones.
Just another Nigerian grifter.
Something else to regret: The new king of England is a quack.
"Charles took consistently poor advice and pursued a largely anti-science agenda and promoted the uncritical integration of unproven treatments into the NHS. In this way, I am afraid, he became an obstacle to progress in healthcare and generated more harm than good."
"Generated more harm than good." = people died because of his stupidity and mismanagement.
https://edzardernst.com/2022/09/charles-the-alternative-king/
Without colonialism, her 'people' would still be living in mud huts, eating grubs and worms, and worshipping clumps of mud.
She should get down on her knees every day and pray for the Queen and the people of Great Britain.
Ingrate.
And what creative intellectual excellence does it take to speak ill of the dead, to insult their passing with provable, hateful lies? It's one of the oldest cheap tricks in the book. So she has revealed herself and is proud of it, revealing even more.
I don't mind this professor being an *sshole, I'm free to ignore it and to be honest, don't even remember her name and will consider her worth forgetting tomorrow. But: She has lost any standing as a putative figure to condemn others for the same, whether it's 'whitey', or Clarence Thomas, or any other notable figure that outrages her warped sense of self. She's the self-cancelling canceller.
A prehistory of post-colonial Africa resuming a legacy of colonialism, genocide, slavery, diversity, and redistributive change from the Xhosa and Zulu's conflict suppressed under "apartheid", Hutu vs Tutsi vs Hutu, Rwandan genocide, Kennan elite's oppression of Keynan deplorables, redistributive change and minority progress, and the several Springs carried out in recent history.
"Look at Nigeria today. Much worse off than when it was a British colony."
Like being a British colony - against it's will - didn't warp everything.
It did warp everything...primarily by banning the slave trade. Before British colonization, the various kingdoms in the area grew wealthy and powerful by capturing and selling their fellow Africans to European and Islamic slave traders. The impetus for British involvement and eventual colonization in the area was to end the slave trade.
Since the British left, Nigeria has been plagued by failed republics, military coups and deeply embedded political and economic corruption.
who did nothing more than be alive when the British Crown decided those people needed to pay a price because Britain needed more iron ore or something.
Or, as actually happened, decided to force those people to stop selling their African brothers and sisters to European and Muslim slave traders.
I'm not going to defend globalists and imperialists. The response to her has been pathetic. "Don't you understand how much we did for Nigeria? How dare you attack the Queen". As if the Brits built roads or maintained law and order because they were a Charity organization!
Nobody in Nigeria asked the Fucking Brits to take over their country. Or pay African Chieftans money to take Africans to the "New World" as slaves.
So, here's clue: Stop invading the world. And stop the inviting the world.
If you feel the need to say "but ....." about someone who has just died, you are probably an asshole. Consider corrective action.
If you feel the need to say "but ....." about someone who has just died, you are probably an asshole. Consider corrective action.
If you feel the need to say "but ....." about someone who has just died, you certainly think too highly of yourself and you are probably an asshole. Consider corrective action.
If tommorrow the Chinese could prove that making the USA their colony would improve life for the vast majority of Americans, would you favor it?
No, you probably wouldn't. You think, I'd rather suffer under Joe Biden, then be ruled by "Benevolent" Chinese imperialists.
That's the Nigerians POV. "Thanks for all the roads, but you didn't build them for us, you built them to make your colonial rule easier."
Obama the Kenyan hated the British Empire. And then he also hated its successor Empire , the American Empire. Elizabeth ll saw it all and bit her tongue well. Trump’s crime is his love for both of those Empires.
They should all thank God and Harry Truman that the Japanese Empire no longer rules Asia.
Obama the Kenyan hated the British Empire. And then he also hated its successor Empire , the American Empire. Elizabeth ll saw it all and bit her tongue well. Trump’s crime is his love for both of those Empires.
They should all thank God and Harry Truman that the Japanese Empire no longer rules Asia.
Obama the Kenyan hated the British Empire. And then he also hated its successor Empire , the American Empire. Elizabeth ll saw it all and bit her tongue well. Trump’s crime is his love for both of those Empires.
They should all thank God and Harry Truman that the Japanese Empire no longer rules Asia.
Obama the Kenyan hated the British Empire. And then he also hated its successor Empire , the American Empire. Elizabeth ll saw it all and bit her tongue well. Trump’s crime is his love for both of those Empires.
They should all thank God and Harry Truman that the Japanese Empire no longer rules Asia.
Obama the Kenyan hated the British Empire. And then he also hated its successor Empire , the American Empire. Elizabeth ll saw it all and bit her tongue well. Trump’s crime is his love for both of those Empires.
They should all thank God and Harry Truman that the Japanese Empire no longer rules Asia.
Tina,
Larouche is an interesting character. Batshit crazy to the extent that he gives batshit a bad name but that may be what makes him interesting.
He was also a stonecold international socialist/globalist to the extreme. He published an econ textbook in the 80s called something like "So you want to learn Economics" that was even more bizarre than his press and media depictions. I suspect that if the media had told the truth about LaRouche, everyone would have suspected them of making it up. Nobody is that nutso. I'd put it on my reading list when they would let me loose in the freshman econ 101 class. I don't think any of the students ever read it. (Atlas Shrugged and Moon is a harsh mistress were also on the list)
I used to have a copy and it was kind of interesting in the way that bizarro world Sci-Fi is interesting.
John Stop fascism, vote republican Henry
Joe Smith said...
Without colonialism, her 'people' would still be living in mud huts, eating grubs and worms, and worshipping clumps of mud.
And the most isolated people on the planet - living that same way - still want nothing to do with you.
Rudyard Kipling's best book may be "Kim". I certainly enjoy reading and rereading it. As recently as last spring when I bought a copy for my grandson.
For those not familiar, Kim is the orphan son of a British army sergeant, who grows up in the streets of Lahore in the 1890s. He is recruited into the Imperial Survey Service which was essentially a British spy agency. Many adventures ensue.
Although British, Kim grew up Indian and is essentially an Indian. It is Kipling so it is rather rah-rah imperial governance of India's "lesser peoples"
Probably because I bought Kim, Amazon recommended "The Imperial Agent" by Timeri N. Murari. It is the story of Kim where Kipling ended. Murari is Indian and the tale is told from the Indian indepentist view. Kim gradually becomes disenchanted with the British and becomes fully Indian, working for independence.
A sequel "The Last Victory" continues the story. Both books free on Kindle unlimited. Both are pretty good, though Kim is a really tough act to follow.
I found the three books interesting because of the the contrasting views on British imperialism.
Murari's view, through his characters and story seems to be that "Yes, you Brits have done some good things but also some bad things. But it is our country, not yours. It is ours to succeed or fail, not yours. We want you gone."
Interesting chapter on the 1919 Amritsar massacre by General Dyer. Told from the Indian perspective.
John stop fascism, vote republican Henry
All Uju Anya really needs to do is watch The Crown, then she would understand why it would be utterly improper for the queen to have made any such statement.
"... she existed because of those decisions. She never once opened her mouth to say sorry for the role of her government in the slaughter of 3 million civilians."
Is it too much to ask for a professor at a prestigious university to be generally informed in areas in which she opines?
rcocean said...
"Here's clue: Stop invading the world. And stop the inviting the world."
These are the kinds of people who love admiring the Colosseum - just don't mention the Romans cut off people's feet, poured honey over the stumps, and then fed the rest to bears for "entertainment".
Something else to regret: The new king of England is a quack.
He's got some pretty dumb ideas about a lot of things. I was certainly hoping that Parliament would decide to skip him and put William on the throne instead. Charles is 74 and has spent his life waiting for his mother to die. Chances are high he's going to die relatively soon, causing a fair amount of expense as they do the next year all over again.
William is 40, old enough to make mature decisions, young enough to be a vital role model. With his beautiful and charming wife and young children, he could be the British JFK. While there are certainly people who respect Charles and Camila...perhaps even prefer them, but does anybody actually like either of them?
Nigerians in Nigeria who consider history and wish the Brits had never arrived and are glad they left are entitled to their opinion, and deserve sympathy and even help in rebuilding their country to the way it was before, if that is what they really prefer. I suspect but cannot prove that the actual number of these people is very low.
Nigerians who left Nigeria and settle in the USA (or UK), and then criticize the US/UK/Western civilization, while enjoying the benefits of such societies, should be ignored, or, if possible, sent back to Nigeria.
(This is not a criticism of Nigerians who recognize their homeland for the shithole that is is, emigrate to America, and make it good. They are celebrated).
My Bottom Line:
Men are corrupt and there's no such thing as a glorious history.
Make it an even six, traditional guy!
Brits are always bragging about "Ending the slave trade". They don't mention that they were the biggest slave traders and brought more african slaves to the new world than anyone else in the 18th century.
Its like the biggest crook, after getting rich on stolen goods, turning over a new leaf and becoming a crusader for law and order. Hey, look at all the crooks I put in Jail, says Al Capone.
Crack
Have a look at a map of Congo and note the absence of roads. Find a map when the Belgians controlled it. Compare and contrast. The jungle took the roads back. Why?
Ambivalence towards the British Empire and monarchy is our American heritage.
Africa wasn't the only part of the empire. Whether or the British were a positive influence on China or India may be harder to say. There is something to be said for self-government and development at one's own pace and for one's own benefit.
Ambivalence towards the British Empire and monarchy is our American heritage.
Africa wasn't the only part of the empire. Whether or the British were a positive influence on China or India may be harder to say. There is something to be said for self-government and development at one's own pace and for one's own benefit.
rcocean said "Brits are always bragging about "Ending the slave trade". They don't mention that they were the biggest slave traders and brought more african slaves to the new world than anyone else in the 18th century."
According to this site, the British were only #2 overall:
https://www.statista.com/chart/22057/countries-most-active-trans-atlantic-slave-trade/
"The most active European nation in the trans-Atlantic slave trade was Portugal, which used the forced labor of Africans in their Latin American colonies in present-day Brazil. Almost 3.9 million enslaved Africans were forced to embark on Portuguese ships. Present-day Brazil received around 3.2 of them, making it the country in the Americas where most enslaved people arrived during the period. British ships also carried upwards of 3 million Africans forcefully removed from the continent, mostly to the Caribbean, the United States and the Guyanas. French ships carried 1.3 million enslaved Africans."
Michael said...
"Crack
Have a look at a map of Congo and note the absence of roads."
Did you see what I wrote about the Colosseum above? That's the Romans - they built tons of roads - as they cut off people's feet, poured honey over the stumps, and then fed the rest to bears for "entertainment
I like a good road as much as the next guy. I also want feet, so I can use it, too. Even if I don't have a road, I want my feet. That means I can do without people who cherish roads more than feet.
People who don't get that make life hard.
.
I didn't even think about how much the Belgians liked chopping off limbs in the Congo when I wrote that.
Crack writes: "Men are corrupt and there's no such thing as a glorious history."
Men are corrupt, check. That's the lesson of all serious religions and philosophies, not to mention the historical record at large. Glorious histories? Those are like beauty.
As for Charles III, he's a doofus. Too cozy with Islam for my taste in monarchs.
'And the most isolated people on the planet - living that same way - still want nothing to do with you.'
The most isolated people on the planet don't go more than a few miles from home and have no idea 'we' even exist.
Try harder...
Another oppressed black who migrated to the US at age 10 and was unfortunate enough to get a BA from Dartmouth and an MA from Brown and a PHD from UCLA. God if she had only had a chance. About her down trodden ancestors: were they the ones that captured the tribesmen so they could be sold off into slavery? Her parents certainly had the wherewithal to immigrate to this cesspit of racism. The question is why?
May her pain be excruciating.
What a hateful specimen!
- Krumhorn
"If tommorrow the Chinese could prove that making the USA their colony would improve life for the vast majority of Americans, would you favor it?"
Honestly, I think they'd do a better job with the ghettoes. They would put a stop to black crime in the major cities, without feeling an iota of guilt about it. That would be an improvement.
She's taking a page out of the Trump playbook: never apologize to the mob. In fact, double down. Good for her.
Yep, Crack is a coward. Like Howard.
With his beautiful and charming wife and young children, he could be the British JFK.
You say that like you think it would be a good thing.
Michael said...
Crack
Have a look at a map of Congo and note the absence of roads. Find a map when the Belgians controlled it. Compare and contrast. The jungle took the roads back. Why?"
The Belgians were truly evil. It is estimated they were responsible for 10 million deaths.
Cubabib
Agreed. But they had roads, hospitals,universities. All gone. Covered by jungle.
Never wish excruciating pain on anyone---it's that simple. If the linguistics professor had simply tweeted that she couldn't mourn the Queen's death because of all the horror visited on Nigeria by the British Empire, there wouldn't be any controversy.
We now have an opportunity to see if Charles III will by the grace of the Almighty grow into a wise and steadfast leader. So far the praise and morning for the Queen’s term seems to be centered on her personal embodiment of tradition and majesty. The small amount I’ve seen of the pomp and tradition has been moving. It’s an institution that has generally enjoyed the respect of British subjects and Charles has looked and acted perfectly as a new King in these early days.
Joe Smith said...
"The most isolated people on the planet don't go more than a few miles from home and have no idea 'we' even exist."
Not true - one we know of just died last week. He, too, wanted nothing to do with us.
cubanbob said...
"The Belgians were truly evil. It is estimated they were responsible for 10 million deaths."
But the ROADS, Man, the ROADS.
Without European imperialists spreading new-fangled ideas like the germ theory and public sanitation, the populations of the colonies would never have exploded.
I'm fine with billions fewer people on poor old Terra, so yes, European imperialism definitely had a down side.
I guess Crack has slipped out of his solipsism for a while; either that or he's bored enough to banter here with the enemies in his head.
Don't hate the Nazis - look at the autobahn!
Country / Destination Slaves Delivered
Brazil 4,000,000
Spanish Empire (including Cuba) 2,500,000
British West Indies 2,000,000
French West Indies (including Cayenne) 1,600,000
British North America & U.S. 500,000
Dutch West Indies (including Surinam) 500,000
Danish West Indies 28,000
Europe (including Portugal, Canary Islands, Madeira, Azores, etc. 200,000
http://www.slaverysite.com/Body/facts%20and%20figures.htm
Also from the same site:
Black population of us free and slave per census
1860 4,441,830
1850 3,638,808
1840 2,873,648
1830 2,328,642
1820 1,771,656
1810 1,377,808
1800 1,002,037
A natural increase of 3mm in 50 years after importation of new slaves was banned. I knew there had been a substantial increase, I don't think I knew it was this substantial. Thomas Sowell and others have pointed out that the us was the only country to have a natural increase
Cubanbob,
Fully agree. The Belgians in the Congo made the worst excesses of Portugal and France (Haiti) seem like a Sunday school picnic.
Of his autobiographical "heart of darkness" Conrad says he had to tone it down considerably to get it published. Both because of the horror and because his publisher thought he was exaggerating.
In addition to the millions of hands the Belgians chopped off, right up to the 1950s and the millions murdered.
And the beat goes on. Estimates are that 6mm have been killed in the Congo since 2000. Where's the outrage over this holocaust? Not even the black community cares enough to say anything.
If I was Congolese, when the Belgians left I'd have been out destroying roads, blowing up bridges and so on to prevent those evil bastards from returning or finding me if they did.
Ditto Mobutu and all the other local evil bastards.
6mm Han lives. I don't know if the Chinese colonizers will be better. It will be hard for them to be worse.
John stop fascism vote republican Henry
Brits are always bragging about "Ending the slave trade". They don't mention that they were the biggest slave traders and brought more african slaves to the new world than anyone else in the 18th century."
The spainish/portaguese started importing slaves to the New world
6mm Han lives. I don't know if the Chinese colonizers will be better. It will be hard for them to be worse.
Should have been 6mm human lives, not Han. Especially confusing since I mention Chinese in the next sentence.
John stop fascism, vote republican Henry
Narr said...
"I guess Crack has slipped out of his solipsism for a while; either that or he's bored enough to banter here with the enemies in his head."
I've been in solipsism? Wow. I thought I worked to stay outside that crowd. I see more of it here, with all these wrong assumptions asserted as fact, than in my posts. But yes, I'm bored, and you guys are fun when fairly civil, so - hey.
Brits are always bragging about "Ending the slave trade". They don't mention that they were the biggest slave traders and brought more african slaves to the new world than anyone else in the 18th century."
Name any other nation or empire in human history who time as much time, resources and lives to eliminate the scourage of slavery, or any similar horror as Britain in ending slavery.
You simply can't6 conceive that - good or bad - no one wanted to be colonized, can you?
On the contrary, I can't imagine anyone's wanting to be colonized. (To draw a very inappropriate parallel, I don't like the idea of more coastals coming to my city. But - for example - the restaurants have had to step up their game, and the downtown is a more interesting place to be since they started showing up. Now if only I can get them to decolonize us before they ruin what was already good here with their progressive ways...) But I can also look around at the world and see that British colonization has not been a pure evil for the colonized where it has happened, but rather a net - not an unalloyed - good.
I just started to write, "Why is this so difficult?" But the answer is, "Who cares?" It's more difficult for some, less difficult for others. Accepting that the past is what it is, trying to perceive its echoes in the present clearly, and trying to sort out the good from the bad so that we can try to avoid past errors, wrongs, and outright crimes ought to be our goal, in my view. But there's a lot of room in there for differences in perception.
Name any other nation or empire in human history who time [sic] as much time, resources and lives to eliminate the scourge of slavery, or any similar horror as Britain in ending slavery.
USA.
Crack, one of the last comments of yours I recall was TTE that you sometimes thought you were the only real person and everyone else a figment.
That said, if you want to come back and discuss things civilly, I'm game.
John Henry: of all the batshit crazy people I've studied, the smartest and craziest two are LaRouche and Bernardine Dohrn, who was the real brains behind the Weathermen and much of the BLA.
The LaRouche organization didn't die with him. They still contact me sometimes -- not an effective path to relevance. I think they're lonely. Someday even Ron Unz will get another hobby. They served the Chi-coms well. Lots of old Nazis bouncing around those folks decades ago.
Dohrn, otoh, literally orchestrated the final takedown of American education and before that made sure Michelle stayed with Obama as he race-baited his way into the White House. Ironic that the "powerful and feminist" First Black First Lady submitted to such a sexually violent, terrorist hag. It seems her mother didn't approve. But it's in everyone's interest to bury the truth.
As LaRouche is on the way to Bob Avakian level irrelevance, now we find out who's more dangerous: young airhead Maoists like AOC or the old-school, smarter ones.
The things that got me about the tweet - I'm English - are (a) the malevolence. You have to be evil to think that and put it into words. and (b) the ignorance. Nigeria was a Protectorate. There were no colonists as West Africa is a graveyard for Europeans. Nigeria was run with the existing ruling elites - we're nothing if not cheapskates, trying to run Empires on the cheap - and the Biafran war was a civil war between Nigerian peoples, starting well after independence (1960). How should Britain have intervened and on on which side?
A rising star and Cabinet Minister in the new Government is a Kemi Badenoch, who's well worth following. She's also born of Nigerian parents.
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