Politics masquerading as history.

[MajGenl.Meade]

As ever, the UK PC hand-wringers of the trendy left (virtue-signalling all the way) are on the march. Here in the RSA, it is of course verboten to say or even imply that colonization may (just may) have brought some good things. The former colonizers are honest enough to admit the failings, some of which resonate today, but the other side of the spectrum cannot honestly face truth as they too try to deconstruct science, history and "European" or "western" forms of thought and replace them with a false narrative of native genius and superiority.

Is it my imagination, or are the whitened bones of the British Empire being yet again dug up and trampled underfoot? The latest Labour party manifesto promised ‘an audit of the impact of Britain’s colonial legacy to understand our contribution to the dynamics of violence and insecurity across regions previously under British colonial rule’. The New York Metropolitan Museum of Art is redesigning its British galleries to link every statue and teapot to the Empire ‘with all of its systems of exploitation’. Jesus College Cambridge intends to return a bronze cockerel seized from Benin in a punitive expedition in 1897. Some Cambridge students and academics are pressing to ‘decolonise’ the curriculum, not only in English Literature and History, but in science too, in ‘an acknowledgement,’ says the student newspaper Varsity, ‘of the deep colonial roots of what we now call “science”.’

https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/In- ... YPk64YkSKk

[Darren]

As ever, the UK PC hand-wringers of the trendy left (virtue-signalling all the way) are on the march. Here in the RSA, it is of course verboten to say or even imply that colonization may (just may) have brought some good things. The former colonizers are honest enough to admit the failings, some of which resonate today, but the other side of the spectrum cannot honestly face truth as they too try to deconstruct science, history and "European" or "western" forms of thought and replace them with a false narrative of native genius and superiority.

Is it my imagination, or are the whitened bones of the British Empire being yet again dug up and trampled underfoot? The latest Labour party manifesto promised ‘an audit of the impact of Britain’s colonial legacy to understand our contribution to the dynamics of violence and insecurity across regions previously under British colonial rule’. The New York Metropolitan Museum of Art is redesigning its British galleries to link every statue and teapot to the Empire ‘with all of its systems of exploitation’. Jesus College Cambridge intends to return a bronze cockerel seized from Benin in a punitive expedition in 1897. Some Cambridge students and academics are pressing to ‘decolonise’ the curriculum, not only in English Literature and History, but in science too, in ‘an acknowledgement,’ says the student newspaper Varsity, ‘of the deep colonial roots of what we now call “science”.’

https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/In- ... YPk64YkSKk

History is often inconvenient. Virtue signaling is very much in vogue. Let's purge the landscape of any reminders to assist in the acceptable interpretation of the past.

We're still arguing the Civil War and state's rights along with slavery as a keynote.

[MajGenl.Meade]

History is often inconvenient. Virtue signaling is very much in vogue. Let's purge the landscape of any reminders to assist in the acceptable interpretation of the past.

We're still arguing the Civil War and state's rights along with slavery as a keynote.

(a) quite so

(b) are we? I though that War of the Rebellion thing was settled in 1865. I know the losers carry on pretending they didn't lose. But they did. And rightly so.

[Gob]

not only in English Literature and History, but in science too, in ‘an acknowledgement,’ says the student newspaper Varsity, ‘of the deep colonial roots of what we now call “science”.’

Note the use of inverted commas on "science". It won't be long before they start burning books...

[ex-khobar Andy]

The second paragraph of the piece Meade quoted from The Spectator (I'm surprised to see that on your reading list, Maj Gen) was as follows:

The view they put forward has become over the last generation an orthodoxy: that the British Empire was a system of racism, slavery and exploitation; that it impoverished its colonies to such an extent that many have never recovered; that Britain’s wealth was founded (some say entirely founded) on these ill-gotten gains.

Racism and exploitation, certainly. Not sure about the slavery in the sense of the technical definition, at least in the last hundred years or so of empire. But in South Africa and British East Africa (what used to be Kenya, Tanganyika and Uganda) all the good farmland was reserved for white farmers and the locals who had farmed it for generations were driven off or employed. The concept of land ownership was foreign and just not something they used, so it was pretty easy. Impoverished: well to an extent - where did all those Crown Jewels come from? At least the maharajahs lived among the people - yes, in palaces - so there was a semblance of joint effort towards a common goal. Not unlike the aristocrat and his peasants all wanting a good harvest. The British were, I think, a little smarter than their French, German, Spanish, Dutch and (especially) Belgian cousins in believing that infrastructure (transportation, education) was important for the common good. And wealth founded on Empire: yes, such a source of raw material and even more a source of customers and taxation . Think about Gandhi's Salt March. Not unlike the social significance of tea in the American colonies.

We can quibble about the extent of all this and its lasting legacy; but there is no doubt in my mind that this 'orthodoxy' is a pretty good summary of reality.

[MajGenl.Meade]

The second paragraph of the piece Meade quoted from The Spectator (I'm surprised to see that on your reading list, Maj Gen)

I have low friends.