Should Britain compensate for its empire ?

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I hear about some people saying that Britain should compensate for slavery and other wrong-doings that happened during its time of empire and its always Britain and never asking other countries compensate for their empires, I mean where do you draw the line, should all the countries invaded by the Mongols ask Mongolia to compensate for its empire ?, should all the countries invaded by Spain ask the Spanish compensate for its empire ?, should Greece ask Iran to compensate for the Persian Empire ?, should we ask Italy to compensate for the Roman Empire ?. I could go on forever naming all the empires but I won't do that.

It is a good question. What is the "statute of limitations" on national injustice? One metric could be if the actions of the past are still impacting the present. I doubt the Roman Empire is impacting the social functioning of Europe. The effects of colonialism, on the other hand, are still impacting nations. Then the other part of this equation, what can be done?

Yeah but uniting Ireland's more of a priority

[Moved to PPR]

Damn all them Anglos!

Why just Britain? The US, Britain (and Canada, Australia, New Zealand), France, Spain, Portugal, Belgium, Germany, the Netherlands, Denmark and Japan all have nations and peoples they owe reparations to.

Ideally if something like this were to be done it would involve those states funding the program and it would have to primarily focus on helping collectively. Cutting individuals cheques and saying 'our hands are clean now' wouldn't really be enough.

I’m guessing those people were either British, or from a former British colony, or both. It’s natural that they would focus on a country they are familiar with. I’m reasonably sure that if you asked they would certainly say that the other European colonial powers should compensate their former holdings.


The effect of Roman imperialism is certainly still affecting the UK. In fact that’s why it’s the UK and not just the K. But equally the notion of going after the Romans for compensation is ludicrous. The Roman Empire withdrew from Britain over a thousand years ago and entered into a slow but total collapse. Modern Italy is in no sense the successor state to the Roman Empire - most of Italy was conquered by Rome, and by the end the Empire wasn’t even based in Rome. Contrastingly, the British Empire existed within living memory. The head of the British Empire is still Britain’s head of state. I think there’s a clear temporal distinction there.

You ask what can be done to rectify the effects of Empire. Well, in some cases, like the Mau Mau torture victims, there are clear victims who can be compensated. And often have been compensated. That seems right.

In other cases, Britain messed things up through reckless grand-scale negligence, things like dividing the land up in stupid ways. But no action is ever going to put that right. Often our attempts to make things right just make them worse. We’ve given billions in development aid over the years and it’s mostly just made things worse.

I think the best way to make amends is by treating these countries as full partners. Open your borders and accept anyone who wants to come, with perhaps exceptions for violent criminals. Make it easy to send remittances. Sign trade deals. Invest in infrastructure. Help them gain access to capital markets. If there’s a natural disaster then be ready to help them out. If they have trouble with terrorists then be ready to provide security. You can’t erase the past but you can be better in the present.

Well, I suppose it wouldn't hurt with - at the very least - an apology to China for the Opium Wars...

I wonder how Britain would react if a Chinese navy invaded London, plundered Buckingham palace and burned it to the ground just so they could keep selling drugs to the British.

The Germans actually did pay reparations to Israel after ww2.
Of course, this has more symbolic value than it is an attempt of making up for the Holocaust.
But reparations like that are not unheard of.

The Germans did not pay reparations to the Herero, where the genocide was near complete.

The British empire, due to its long existence, would have to pay substantial sums, even if the individual country that's given money isn't getting that much. But there are so many countries...
And then, yeah, the Mau Mau. There are individuals who were tortured in the name of the queen that's still reigning. That's not historical. Here it's not "victims of colonialism" in any abstract sense, but living people.

What about Communism?
Communism has done far worse things.
Estimated dead due to communism is 80-100 million people.... SO FAR.

And communism is alive, well, thriving, and still conquoring.

What about forgive and forget?

Actually, upon reflection, I would be against reparations as I believe none of the former colonies have enough money to pay Great Britain back.

i think things like the balfour declaration did huge damage intentionally. as part of their tiresome but indefatigable 'great game'
replace think with know (but think sounds more polite)
practically though...
assisting (or directly participating) in the bombing of civilian populations/committing state-sponsored terrorism NOW, can/should definitely stop-- at the very least. (goes for all participants not just them)
example https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/ ... deadly-war

but it won't. 'should' never accomplished much in this world.

The idea of reparations to the descendants of Black American slaves does surface from time to time.

Does "Britain" or "America" have anything in the bank? The last I heard, they were deep in debt. It is the rich who benefited from slavery, and who hold the wealth now, not the nations.

The US, Canada, and Australia, among others, are still adding to their crimes against the native populations. Within recent history there have been dozens of Holocaust-like events, but only one is being used to set major policy.

Yes. This is the precedent, the compensation by Germany for the Holocaust, that the rest of these reparations ideas are citing. American Blacks being compensated for slavery, and this notion about the British empire.

Too much time has passed to do it for the American Blacks because its now been more than six generations, and two typical human lifetimes since Lincoln freed the slaves. Interestingly enough right at the time (during the early post Civil War years) there was a movement to have elderly former slaves be paid a "retirement pension". Makes sense to me. And it would pumped money into the Southern economy and helped both Blacks and Whites in the defeated south, and it wastnt that far removed this modern "reparations for slavery" idea. The notion gained some political traction before it finnally died out. Its too late to do it now.

The British Empire cost Britain more to maintain then it got back from exploiting it's colonies. So it was in a sense "paying reperations" for oppression at the same time it was oppressing. And the Brits built some nice railroads in India. Built them to access India's resources, and not for transportaton by the locals, but...hey better than no railroads at all! So with colonial empires like Britain and France you would have subtract the value of stuff they put into their third world colonies from the value of what they took out. You would probably end up with most of the former colonies of Britain and France's colonies owing Britain and France money!

One exception to West Europe colonial powers MIGHT be Belgium. King Leopold of Belgium so ruthlessly and efficiently exploited the Congo that my guess is that that got their money's worth out it, AND what he did in the Congo was easily comparable to things Hitler did to occupied Europe. And it all happened slightly more recently than American slavery. So Belgium compensating the Congo in a way comparable to Germany compensating Israel is something that might make some moral and practical sense.

The Roman Empire?

You want the modern nation of Italy to pay reparations to modern nations that were once provinces of the Roman Empire?

Britain and France themselves were the backward colonies when they were ruled by Rome. You would have to do a similar arithmetic in reverse to that for those two countries' own later empires. Figure out a price tag for Roman oppression, but then... well...the modern UK, and the modern republic of France, would have to take that price tag and then subtract the value of the roads that the romans built, the cities that the romans built (including both London and Paris), the aquaducts, and basically ...civilization itself!. France and the UK would probably end up owing Italy money!

In the 12 Century Genghis Khan launched a blitzkrieg that succeeded in conquering more of Eurasia than Hitler and Tojo combined conquered in WWII. And he commited at least as much genocide as the Germans and the Japanese in WWII combined. Russia, and Iraq, still havent recovered from some of the destruction wrought by the Mongols of 800 years ago. But what are you gonna do? Make the modern Republic of Outer Mongolia pay "reparations" to modern countries in Europe and Asia? Mongolia is both poor, and sparsely populated. Like a third world Montana. Even if suddenly got per capita rich it has so ridiculously few people that it still wouldnt have much money to pay anyone for anything.

Its interesting that when something is relevant and immediate and still possible to stop most people don't say anything (or actively condone it). Or when it is truly possible to bring about some justice and accountability and help those impacted..


but are happy to say stuff for things that happened centuries ago..i would think in the interest of honouring the ideals which cause us to look back centuries ago all these ppl would be equally motivated to look now at what is happening and make some noise and refuse to allow it or condone it.

Instead they are either unaware or wilfully ignore it if brought up or actively praise and try to justify humanitarian wrongdoings on a mass scale which was the basis of their supposed outrage over the past.