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How many deaths do you think the British Empire is responsible for?
- Thread starter Deleted member 3534
- Start date
...But if an Irish nationalist is in Northern Ireland, or otherwise considers Northern Ireland a rightful part of Ireland that is presently occupied by the British, then that terminology is still applicable. Maybe I'm being too literal, sorry.
Are you claiming Irish nationalists would disagree with that. Thinking that the British state presence in the North is an occupation is the core of nationist line in 2018
British Empire never went away. How many are they still responsible for causing in modern times? War on 'Terror' was obviously a joint venture but that's a million people right there alone.
Not to let other Empires like the French, Spanish, Dutch, etc. off the hook either.
Not to let other Empires like the French, Spanish, Dutch, etc. off the hook either.
Yeam my take too. If I call someone an Irish nationalist, I was referring from someone from either Ireland or Norther Ireland that wants a unified country.
An Irish nationalist in the north is still an Irish nationalist. What else are we going to call the provos?
You could say the exact same thing about any former empire. Like Rome for example.
The empire was a net drain in a direct sense. Indirect effects are probably incalculable.
I think we should also consider the Spanish and French, who are responsible for the vast majority of deaths of the aboriginal peoples of America, killing an estimated 90% via disease before the British arrived to plant their colonies.
The British Empire can also be accredited with destroying Iran's last truely democratic government by instigating a coup in collaboration with the CIA, to protect British Petroleum's (BP) control over Iran's oil reserves. They had the legally elected prime-minister deposed. And this happened as recently as 1953.
I didn't know about this until some Iranians I know told me about it, so I am guessing it isn't that well known.
I didn't know about this until some Iranians I know told me about it, so I am guessing it isn't that well known.
Rome collapsed, Britain decolonized. Pace ukip, but there are no unwashed hordes stealing Britain's wealth. One of the problems with the word imperial and its derivatives is that it implies a common experience that's generally not accurate in practice
I think you are correct, I tried to be too literal and you corrected me on it so its all good.
Perhaps but it's a pointless exercise to look at any former empire and say "that was a waste they have nothing left to show for it"
Virulent disease like smallpox is pretty much the one source of mass death I wouldn't pin on the colonial empires. Diseases spread of their own accord, because they evolved to do so. Death from disease is inherently different from things like death due to military action, slavery, or oppressive economic policies. People can spread disease just as easily whether they are interacting through war or peaceful trade. This is especially true for the times before modern medicine and vaccines.
Ascribing the spread of disease to malevolent human action, or believing that benevolent human action seperate from the actual practice of medicine can stop the spread of disease, is a very poor way to think of things. It is literally an anti-vaxxer line of thinking.
Indirectly? I wouldn't be surprised if it was +500mil.
Falklands is looking to be an oil gold mine so it turned out alright for them. :P
Falklands is looking to be an oil gold mine so it turned out alright for them. :P
The British empire was responsible for several deaths probably ranging around 60-120Million possibly (Considering the the European colonisation of the Americas is estimated to be a max of 130M and a mean of 35M and that's several European nations. The British empire is likely responsible for a decent chunk there), there's the famines in the Indian Subcontinent (famine deaths account for about 35-50M) and other atrocities.
People start to sit and take notice when a huge percentage of the population is wiped out such as the Mongols who possibly wiped out a huge chunk of the Eurasian population.
And then there's the case of democides (when the government killed unarmed civilians). Just in the 20th century alone we've got some interesting figures
People start to sit and take notice when a huge percentage of the population is wiped out such as the Mongols who possibly wiped out a huge chunk of the Eurasian population.
And then there's the case of democides (when the government killed unarmed civilians). Just in the 20th century alone we've got some interesting figures
- China: 1949–1987 - the communist party killed 76,702,000 people
- USSR: 1917–1987 - the communist party killed 61,910,000 people
- Combined western colonialism: killed 50,000,000 people
- Germany under Hitler: 1933–1945 killed 20,946,000 people
- Japan: 1936–1945 killed 5,964,000 people
I don't want to derail the thread by my childish post. Your right. There is Irish nationalists in the north, and also in the south. I just wanted clarification of location and I did a bad job.
Edit: not reading your post correcty. Taken out Provo comment
Aye, all good. Well, except for the British empire's penchant for oppressing people. That was bad.
Also Britain was attacked by an aggressive expansionist dictator who wanted to annex aoverwhelmingly British identifying people. It's one of the few transatlantic wars that actually is quite justifiable.
Dont forget they also had a hand in whats going on in the Middle East.
Reading north American history is really funny because my god do the british come out looking like massive ass hats
Like reading about New France, champlain and the huron, and saint tekakwitha youre like "this is moderately pleasant".
Then after the 7 years war and britians new involvement in Canada and youre like "gawdamn, stop being assholes". No idea how the five nations put up with them for so long
Like reading about New France, champlain and the huron, and saint tekakwitha youre like "this is moderately pleasant".
Then after the 7 years war and britians new involvement in Canada and youre like "gawdamn, stop being assholes". No idea how the five nations put up with them for so long
Why such a low estimate for Japan? Also, I don't how you reached 61 million with the soviets.
Yep, it wasn't like the people were being subjugated like their other territories. It's why Argentina is still the only country mad about it.
You can also blame most wars in the middle east on the messed up boundaries they drew up. Including Israel.
Because they could play them off the French, and vice versa. The absolute shift in the local balance of power after the Seven Years War ended was not great for the natives, putting it mildly. After that, their hope was that keeping on Britain's good side would minimise issues which... didn't pan out in the succeeding decades, again putting it mildly.
Well, the numbers can go up rather considerably if you expand the definition to include 'stuff we didn't technically orchestrate but by god laid the foundation for'. Lot of civil wars in Africa sparked in such a fashion.
Well, the cliffnotes:
-Established the tone of race relations in Anglo-America that's been perpetrated throughout the world ever since due to the disproportionate power of Britain and America that hangs over Africans and their descendants to this day from one side of the world to the other, no matter how little a culture may have interacted with darker skinned people
-Treated Ireland as a colony for most of their rule over the island, and exploited it's internal divisions to enable this. Pitting Ireland's Protestants against the majority Catholic populace is where the playbook for divide and conquer practiced on the rest of the world came from. Also gave us the origin of intra-European racism and that whole 'Anglo-Saxon stock' horseshit that ended up getting peddled to make any European state outside of Britain, the old Frankish Empire, and Scandinavia into Others throughout the 19th century onwards, even before then with respect to Eastern Europe. Set America's playbook for 'proper' immigrants and treating the Irish like shit until their fear of black people overcame it
-Slavery in the British American colonies and the rest of the world where it was peddled as forced labor. Perpetuating the slaver kingdoms of West Africa's coasts through their business and doing a great deal to expand it, such as when they went to war for the right to provide Spain it's slave shipments
-Exportation of near unchecked capitalism globally as a justification to meddle in the affairs of other states
-Pretty much singlehandedly deserves the trophy for China's atrocious 19th century by peddling opium against Chinese law then acting offended when called the fuck out on it. The British are the OG drug kingpins of the world. And from there, China's rocky transition into modernity. All because of greed. Things like the Taiping Rebellion, the Boxer Rebellion, and the Chinese Civil War and the rise of Communist China would have been near assuredly averted if the British had just fucked right off
-India. From its deindustrialization in the 19th century so as to peddle British industrial goods, criminalizing capitalist ventures by native Indians flying in the face of their fellatio of capitalism, the exploitation of its people to produce cash crops, ruling a good chunk of the country under a fucking company of all things until forced otherwise, and playing up internal divisions to pit Muslims and Hindus against each other, where the ramifications are felt to this day in the division of the subcontinent
-The Middle East. The Balfour Declaration(because fuck the rights of the Ottomans to try and keep the region stable or have any say in land they'd held for 300+ years), the splitting of the Middle East between them and France arbitrarily, the protections they extended to the Gulf sultanates in the period that's kept those states in existence instead of being annexed by the Ottomans or the Persians and putting that oil wealth to a greater use for more people instead of the sheikhs, BP, and British investors, and the combined European effort to destabilize the Ottomans. 19th century Europe as a whole(though primarily Russia) deserve the lion's share of the blame for why Ottomanism failed and why we can't have nice things in the Middle East and the Balkans
-Africa. Where the fuck do we even begin. Let's just leave it at that. Cecil Rhodes, Cape to Cairo, fuck the natives' previous state and tribal divisions, racist justifications for their actions, injustices and exploitation for centuries, the list goes on
That's the highlights of Britain's rap sheet. The only explanation I have as to why they're not a pariah state is that they surrendered their colonies barring America peacefully and that any state that tried to embargo or boycott Britain would get rekt financially considering London's importance as the financial center of the world.
-Established the tone of race relations in Anglo-America that's been perpetrated throughout the world ever since due to the disproportionate power of Britain and America that hangs over Africans and their descendants to this day from one side of the world to the other, no matter how little a culture may have interacted with darker skinned people
-Treated Ireland as a colony for most of their rule over the island, and exploited it's internal divisions to enable this. Pitting Ireland's Protestants against the majority Catholic populace is where the playbook for divide and conquer practiced on the rest of the world came from. Also gave us the origin of intra-European racism and that whole 'Anglo-Saxon stock' horseshit that ended up getting peddled to make any European state outside of Britain, the old Frankish Empire, and Scandinavia into Others throughout the 19th century onwards, even before then with respect to Eastern Europe. Set America's playbook for 'proper' immigrants and treating the Irish like shit until their fear of black people overcame it
-Slavery in the British American colonies and the rest of the world where it was peddled as forced labor. Perpetuating the slaver kingdoms of West Africa's coasts through their business and doing a great deal to expand it, such as when they went to war for the right to provide Spain it's slave shipments
-Exportation of near unchecked capitalism globally as a justification to meddle in the affairs of other states
-Pretty much singlehandedly deserves the trophy for China's atrocious 19th century by peddling opium against Chinese law then acting offended when called the fuck out on it. The British are the OG drug kingpins of the world. And from there, China's rocky transition into modernity. All because of greed. Things like the Taiping Rebellion, the Boxer Rebellion, and the Chinese Civil War and the rise of Communist China would have been near assuredly averted if the British had just fucked right off
-India. From its deindustrialization in the 19th century so as to peddle British industrial goods, criminalizing capitalist ventures by native Indians flying in the face of their fellatio of capitalism, the exploitation of its people to produce cash crops, ruling a good chunk of the country under a fucking company of all things until forced otherwise, and playing up internal divisions to pit Muslims and Hindus against each other, where the ramifications are felt to this day in the division of the subcontinent
-The Middle East. The Balfour Declaration(because fuck the rights of the Ottomans to try and keep the region stable or have any say in land they'd held for 300+ years), the splitting of the Middle East between them and France arbitrarily, the protections they extended to the Gulf sultanates in the period that's kept those states in existence instead of being annexed by the Ottomans or the Persians and putting that oil wealth to a greater use for more people instead of the sheikhs, BP, and British investors, and the combined European effort to destabilize the Ottomans. 19th century Europe as a whole(though primarily Russia) deserve the lion's share of the blame for why Ottomanism failed and why we can't have nice things in the Middle East and the Balkans
-Africa. Where the fuck do we even begin. Let's just leave it at that. Cecil Rhodes, Cape to Cairo, fuck the natives' previous state and tribal divisions, racist justifications for their actions, injustices and exploitation for centuries, the list goes on
That's the highlights of Britain's rap sheet. The only explanation I have as to why they're not a pariah state is that they surrendered their colonies barring America peacefully and that any state that tried to embargo or boycott Britain would get rekt financially considering London's importance as the financial center of the world.
Member of a former british colony (that somehow still has the british emblem in their flag) speaking. Hi.
Just the famines alone....my God. Easily millions of deaths. Look up Irish potato famine and if you want something more recent, the Bengal famine. Dont go googling images though unless you want to be depressed for days.
Absolutely evil fucking empire.
Absolutely evil fucking empire.
OP
OP
Millions.
The British empire had it's hand in every single jar. Asia(includes the middle east), Africa, America, Europe.
Many places are still directly affected by the actions of the British empire to this day.
The British empire had it's hand in every single jar. Asia(includes the middle east), Africa, America, Europe.
Many places are still directly affected by the actions of the British empire to this day.
Rummel's book in 1997 is widely available. The numbers aren't disputed really
The US prison statistics aren't great and the UK itself is responsible for 816k of its own citizens. Plenty of information around on democides really. These aren't arbitrary statistics.
Define "responsible".
There's probably a few billion people in between those murdered on express direction of the king or queen, and everyone touched in the fourth generation by English meddling.
There's probably a few billion people in between those murdered on express direction of the king or queen, and everyone touched in the fourth generation by English meddling.
I'm not sure about a billion, if only because populations only really sky rocketed in the 19th century, but easily millions. Actually maybe more than a billion, but anymore than that might be a bit much.
Certainly I think the British Empire has infamous honor of probably killing the most people compared to any other empire. Though Russia probably gives it a good run. The way the Russian Empire expanded and they way it and it's successor the USSR treated different ethnicities within it certainly has a massive kill count.
Certainly I think the British Empire has infamous honor of probably killing the most people compared to any other empire. Though Russia probably gives it a good run. The way the Russian Empire expanded and they way it and it's successor the USSR treated different ethnicities within it certainly has a massive kill count.
The number of chinese dead as a result of the japanese invasion seems very disputed actually. The only way I can see that being legit is if you don't include all the chinese people that died from famines or other in-direct forms of violence.Rummel's book in 1997 is widely available. The numbers aren't disputed really
The US prison statistics aren't great and the UK itself is responsible for 816k of its own citizens. Plenty of information around on democides really. These aren't arbitrary statistics.
Not any nastier than any other people, but way more advanced for sure. Enabled us to conquer everyone.
They also helped with the genocide of the indigenous people of America so I'm going to approximate a billion.
Depends on which one. The one in 1770 killed about a third of that state approx 10M. Churchil's famine killed about 2-3M
UH YES, but not low key in the fucking slightest.
WW 1-2 is what really drained the UK of all of their colonial wealth.
Basically all of the banking wealth in London got sent to NYC during WW1 due to all the loans they had to take out to fund that fucking war.
They paid off one of their WW1 loans like 8 years ago!
I'm going to estimate about half a billion people over the period of...what, 400/500 years? I'm thinking from roughly the Tudor period to WW2.
I think because a) it is a very long time ago b) we gave up our colonies c) the empire was highly influential so that colours things somewhat and d) For a time, I'd imagine Britain sort of redeemed itself or at least started on the journey of 'redemption' with both World Wars.
I think because a) it is a very long time ago b) we gave up our colonies c) the empire was highly influential so that colours things somewhat and d) For a time, I'd imagine Britain sort of redeemed itself or at least started on the journey of 'redemption' with both World Wars.
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Lol there wasnt 5 billion people on the planet when the British empire existed!
The numbers will be much lower than that. There were a few famines under their watch that the empire could have done more to alleviate.
Wow a graph. what I really want to know is why y your man says 4 million Chinese dead because of Japanese invasion while most others places range between 14 and 20+ million. Is he just that much of a genius?