Joined: 2 Aug 2018 Gender: Male Posts: 1,087 Location: Kent, UK
30 Jan 2021, 12:05 pm
I know Britain has had a history which I am not proud of at all and appalled with including the slave trade. I seem to think some people have gone too far over the past year wanting to tear down statues such as Churchill, whom I am not really a fan of and wanting things renamed such as OBE (Order of the British Empire), which I do think is irrelevant now as we don't still have an empire. I remember seeing a BBC history programme about Britain's slave trade and described people's experiences in a cramped slave ship hold in which people died on the journeys and showed how people were branded and a plantation owners book on the number of floggings they enforced. I was glad the topic was brought up as it does seem like we don't teach enough about it in schools and so on or that it is just ignored about. I think it should be taught about more and talk about those who abolished it like Wilberforce. But I seem to think those people who ashamed of British History want to erase everything even people like abolitionists who wanted to stop and end the terrible suffering while at the same time were still complicit in them and those who are not ashamed focus on one narrative and tend to ignore the terrible stuff. I does irritate me sometimes.
Joined: 9 Jan 2021 Age: 35 Gender: Male Posts: 4,431 Location: Britain
30 Jan 2021, 12:36 pm
false dichotomy is false.
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Joined: 29 Oct 2011 Gender: Female Posts: 11,476 Location: ᜆᜄᜎᜓᜄ᜔
30 Jan 2021, 1:46 pm
Each cultures have their own brand of shame, one may blame everything about said respective culture as the most shameful of all.
Only and only because of being directly too tied to it -- be it ancestral or by some collective member proxy of sorts (i.e. nationality, ethnicity, etc.) Therefore the present who finds out this sort of past, well, may also thought 'presents' this same shame as well.
So I do not understand the question. I'm a foreigner, from a place where Britain isn't very involved in my country's history or recent affairs.
Joined: 3 May 2016 Age: 43 Gender: Male Posts: 3,419 Location: Yorkshire, UK
30 Jan 2021, 2:06 pm
I'm still proud of Britain's scientific, technological and artistic history, and selected parts of its political, social and military history. I can face up to the bad parts without chucking all the rest away. It always seems to me a bad faith argument when right-wingers say "Well, if you're not proud of the Empire (or the Monarchy or whatever) you have no pride in Britain." Or when left-wingers say "If you have any pride in Britain, that must mean you're happy about every single atrocity in British history." A country is a much bigger concept than those reductive arguments would allow.
It also infuriates me that the way to be a "patriot" nowadays is apparently to lie about your country, and to harm your country and its people while waving a nice big flag. A true patriot would recognise their country's flaws and work to make them better, to build a country that really is worthy of pride for what it does in the present day.
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This sounds like a deep topic..... could go all the way back to the time of Holy Roman Empire and built up parts of London and all the way up the coastline to Wales not including its southernmost outposts . Should the Romans be abolished as a slaving empire ? Where as Romans took slaves from everywhere . So how far back do you go into Britain’s history . All this is part of how the Empire came about . Where do you begin with patriotism or stop for that matter ?
Joined: 3 Jan 2021 Age: 19 Gender: Non-binary Posts: 1,234 Location: UK
30 Jan 2021, 3:53 pm
I am ashamed of some parts of Britain's history too. But there are things about the country I love, such as fish and chips.
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Joined: 13 May 2019 Gender: Male Posts: 14,202 Location: .
30 Jan 2021, 4:23 pm
chris1989 wrote:
I know Britain has had a history which I am not proud of at all and appalled with including the slave trade. I seem to think some people have gone too far over the past year wanting to tear down statues such as Churchill, whom I am not really a fan of and wanting things renamed such as OBE (Order of the British Empire), which I do think is irrelevant now as we don't still have an empire. I remember seeing a BBC history programme about Britain's slave trade and described people's experiences in a cramped slave ship hold in which people died on the journeys and showed how people were branded and a plantation owners book on the number of floggings they enforced. I was glad the topic was brought up as it does seem like we don't teach enough about it in schools and so on or that it is just ignored about. I think it should be taught about more and talk about those who abolished it like Wilberforce. But I seem to think those people who ashamed of British History want to erase everything even people like abolitionists who wanted to stop and end the terrible suffering while at the same time were still complicit in them and those who are not ashamed focus on one narrative and tend to ignore the terrible stuff. I does irritate me sometimes.
I think you need to know something. The reson why the sailors treated the blacks badly was because for centuaries the blacks had enslaved them so they were in fear of even living near the the coasts of southern Britain, South Wales and much of Europe. The thought that black slavery was a case where the British came into Africa and snatched black people was not the case as the whites were buying the slaves from the wealthy black slave traders in the northern parts of Africa in exchange for British goods. Britain did this initially to prevent the black "Pirates" (Slave traders) from raiding the British shores.
It is also a falacy that when Britain stopped the Atlantic slave trade that slavery in Africa was brought to an end as the East African slave traders sold an estimated 10.5 million slaves of their own kind to the Middle East and this did not come to an end until almost 100 years after Britain had ceased trading. Slavery in Africa was nothing new as the northern coastlines had been dealing in slaves for thousands of years and their number one income for the coastal Regions of Africa was the capturing and selling of slaves.
It is a shame that the history of slavery is not put in perspective as it creates a divide between the blacks and the whites in the western world where if the whole picture is taught, we can all come together as one as we can put things of the past in the past and move on together as one people instead of divided sections of people we call races.
Joined: 5 Jun 2020 Age: 49 Gender: Male Posts: 1,450 Location: Derby, UK
31 Jan 2021, 5:35 pm
PhosphorusDecree wrote:
I'm still proud of Britain's scientific, technological and artistic history, and selected parts of its political, social and military history. I can face up to the bad parts without chucking all the rest away. It always seems to me a bad faith argument when right-wingers say "Well, if you're not proud of the Empire (or the Monarchy or whatever) you have no pride in Britain." Or when left-wingers say "If you have any pride in Britain, that must mean you're happy about every single atrocity in British history." A country is a much bigger concept than those reductive arguments would allow.
It also infuriates me that the way to be a "patriot" nowadays is apparently to lie about your country, and to harm your country and its people while waving a nice big flag. A true patriot would recognise their country's flaws and work to make them better, to build a country that really is worthy of pride for what it does in the present day.
30 Jan 2021, 12:05 pm
