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| Subject: Royal Titles | |
Author: Ed Harris (Venezia) | [ Next Thread |
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] Date Posted: 15:24:16 11/25/04 Thu In reply to: Paddy (Scotland) 's message, "Any yobbo can become "Emperor". A King is special." on 09:43:16 11/25/04 Thu I don't know about that. The Emperor of Japan is hardly a yobbo - he has a direct line of descent from all the Japanese emperors for almost 2,000 years, which is more than can be said even for our ancient monarchy. Also, I don't think that the Royal Titles Act (1877) made Victoria a yobbo. Of course, Gladstone thought that it did, but then he was always saying things like that, and even suggested 20 years later that she should abdicate on the grounds that she was very old and hence a bit past it: pretty cheeky since she outlived him. No wonder she prefered Disraeli. The trouble is that a lot of lunatic usurpers have called themselves "emperor" - Napoleon, the Kaiser, Idi Amin (didn't he call himself Emperor of Scotland?) - and this has demeaned the title. But there are two problems with this. Firstly, as above, there are examples of perfectly civilised emperors. Secondly, there have been plenty of nutcases who have styled themselves 'king' - Leopold of the Belgians; Tharrawaddi, Baggidaw, and Theebaw of Burma; even some of our own kings, from William the Conqueror to Stephen to Edward I - in fact, most of the Plantagenets were a bit hopeless. The use of the word 'Emperor/Empress' needn't be an abrogation of British principles, not need it imply despotism and illegitimacy. [ Next Thread | Previous Thread | Next Message | Previous Message ] |
| [> [> [> [> [> Subject: King Leopold? | |
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Author: Owain (UK) [ Edit | View ] |
Date Posted: 17:26:30 11/25/04 Thu Ed, why was Leopold of the Belgians a loony? We are thinking of the same Leopold right? The imperialist ahead of his times who took the congo and was a key figure in the scramble for africa? I have always admired the man, a good King and a very succesful man in an excepted line of work at the time (imperialism). [ Post a Reply to This Message ] |
| [> [> [> [> [> [> Subject: Leopold & imperialism | |
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Author: Paddy (Scotland) [ Edit | View ] |
Date Posted: 20:28:52 11/25/04 Thu Initially the Congo was ruled directly as his own personal posession, rather than as a posession of the Belgian state. This gave him an enormous source of revenue. The trouble was that he wished to maximise this revenue and told his European overseers on the plantations to do anything they could to maximise profits. The result was that starving underpaid workers had their hands chopped off or their bodies mutilated in the most ghastly way if they were caught stealing a tiny quantity of rubber hoping to sell it to feed their families. Also there were random reprisals against all of the workers for the slight misdeeds of the minority. All of this horror took place on the whim of some ignorant plantation overseer without any form of trial. While the Congo was under direct rule from the crown there was no benefit brought to the natives at all and the crown is responsable for the lack of law and order of this time. In the Congo the Belgians were savgaes right up until they left. They killed more innocent people than the NAZIs did throughout their rule. I deliberately did not use the phrase Nazi-like reprisals above as it would be more accurate to describe NAZI deeds as Belgian-like. Sadly the Congo has learnt a lot from its period ruled by the Belgians. Since 1998, the still-ongoing war in the Congo has resulted in three million deaths, 6 or 7 times the total number of British Commonwealth and Empire deaths of the second world war ( estimated around 450000). The population of the Congo is now about 50,000000 - the war has caused the death of about 6% of the current total. Owain, "Imperialism" is what the British (and to an extent, the French and the Americans) were doing at the time. In the territories occupied/colonised by Britain the rule of law was paramount over all things. Years before the Belgians moved into the Congo the British had concluded the treaty of Waitangi with the natives in New Zealand. The document essentially was an offer of British protection of the rights of the Maori and is incredably enlightened for the time. The natives became British subjects with the benefits of the protection of British law over the white British settlers who wished to take their land off them. The date of the signing is a national holiday in New Zealand, understandably so. General Smuts, in my opinion one of the greatest statesmen in the history of the Empire actually fought against the British during the Boer war but afterwards concluded that wherever the British had established themselves good things had come of it and threw himself in with the new South Africa. Subsequently he fought the Germans out of East Africa with troops from across the British Empire. The French settlers along the coast of Algeria reclaimed land close to the sea from marsh-land, meaning that under Islamic law the land was actually theirs. They did not just throw the peasants off their land crudly, there were elements of diplomacy involved. Looking at the legacy of Empires, former British territories such as Botswana, South Africa on the African continent and India and Malasia are all stable democracies. This is due to leaders having respect for the things they learnt from Britain and a lot of hard work on their part. Yes on the other side of the coin there are Zimbabwe and Burma, though due to the rulers of these nations since Britain left them with the guidebook. There are no French models left from their empire. However, they do actually have a very large number of troops in Africa at any time keeping the peace, the Banque de France controls the currency of 14 sub-saharan African countries (wierdly meaning that now the Banque de France has more control over a foreign currency than it has over that of France) and French investors hold large amounts of investments there. In short, the French know that their former territories are hell-holes but at least they get involved, more often for the better than not. (I for one cannot see Britain should be unwilling to depose Mugabe and get those National Health Service glasses back to give to somebody who does not have 15 billion swiss francs sitting in Geneva). Just because somebody rules over a territory does not make them an imperialist. Imperialism as a concept is actually a noble one in many ways - set up a benign dictatorship until things in a territory get "better" and the Natives know how to behave. The actions of the Belgians, Spanish and Germans in their "Empires" were not Imperialist ones, they were appalling criminal ones for the most part. [ Post a Reply to This Message ] |
| [> [> [> [> [> [> [> Subject: I disagree | |
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Author: Owain (UK) [ Edit | View ] |
Date Posted: 20:58:21 11/25/04 Thu I know about the terrible way the Belgians (and the Germans, though I have read nothing on the Spanish African Empire, though if the Americans thought they were oppressed they should have looked to the South) treated there African subjects. My admiration is for Leopold, not the Empire he created. Indeed atrocities commited by the people of the low countries pop up quite frequently throughout history. I have wondered if perhaps this is in any related to there rather bloody brake from Spain, I dont know enough about that to say so though. I disagree with your definition of Imperialism. Your right to say that someone who rules over a teritory is not neccesarly an imperialist. An imperialist is someone who actively seeks to acquire more territory. Cecil Rhodes was an Imperialist. He was so because he wished to make lots of money, not because he wanted to bring the natives into the 19th century. [ Post a Reply to This Message ] |
| [> [> [> [> [> [> [> Subject: I fail to understand how you can feel any kind of admiration for Leopold | |
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Author: Ian (Australia) [ Edit | View ] |
Date Posted: 23:35:56 11/25/04 Thu He is right up there with the Mugabes, the Stalins and the Pinochets in the far-from-admirable stakes. I admire people who set out to do something positive and who respect the rights and freedoms of others as they do their own. Leopold manifestly did neither. [ Post a Reply to This Message ] |
| [> [> [> [> [> [> [> Subject: sorry about the enormous number of typing errors in the above! | |
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Author: Paddy (Scotland) [ Edit | View ] |
Date Posted: 11:10:39 11/26/04 Fri [ Post a Reply to This Message ] |
| [> [> [> [> [> [> Subject: My my, that says a lot... | |
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Author: Paddy (Scotland) [ Edit | View ] |
Date Posted: 23:40:09 11/25/04 Thu I am sorry if my analysis was too advanced for you to understand. Leopold allowed the most barbaric louts to rule over primitive people with absolute power to inflict any punishment they chose upon anybody - even if innocent. My point is that there was no exportation of ideas or rule of law. It was not imperialist. The term "imperialism" came into being around the time of the Scramble for Africa. Before that the conquest of another country was the natural result of wars. By the late 19th century many Europeans (including the USA which is a European power) through their interactions with other races & cultures began to see their relatively advanced systems of government and way of life were superior to the savage, non-europeanised peoples. It therefore became for many people a moral quest to go out and give civilization to people. Of course, trade concessions/advantages were there two. Imperialism is a blend of the two. The following quotation is from a speech by Lord Curzon after he had returned as Viceroy of India and summarises well the imperialist feelings of the age. "Wherever the Empire has extended its borders ... there misery and oppression, anarchy and destitution, superstition and bigotry, have tended to disappear, and have been replaced by peace, justice, prosperity, humanity, and freedom of thought, speech, and action...... But there also has sprung, what I believe to be unique in the history of Empires, a passion of loyalty and enthusiasm which makes the heart of the remotest British citizen thrill at the thought of the destiny which he shares, and causes him to revere a particular piece of coloured bunting as the symbol of all that is noblest in his own nature and of best import for the good of the world" Imperialism was a belief that the world deserved to get British values. The example that you give, Cecil Rhodes, is in fact one that backs up my argument entirely. He saw British Influence as a civilizing force for good. He decided to finance the railway after he had made himself the controller of the world diamond market. Yes, he hoped to make a profit, but without the territory open to the British it was harder to do buisiness. Cecil Rhodes initially paid his workers in advance to show them that he trusted them. He did not have his overseers chop off the legs and gouge out the eyes of a worker suspected of swallowing a diamond. That is the point. Does anybody else disagree? [ Post a Reply to This Message ] |
| [> [> [> [> [> [> [> Subject: Bravo | |
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Author: Ed Harris (Venezia) [ Edit | View ] |
Date Posted: 00:20:34 11/26/04 Fri No, I don't disagree. In fact, I couldn't agree more. Curzon was an absolute dude, and one of the most enlightened men ever to rule with no democratic mandate. He was practically forced out of India by the British community there because he refused to allow a regiment to hush-up the murder of an Indian servant; he encouraged Indians to keep their national dress and customs and not just ape the British; he spent millions on restoring the Taj Mahal and other irreplaceable bits of Indian heritage which were about to be lost forever; he provided funds to irrigate the deserts of the North West; and he resigned when Kitchener tried to turn India into a military dictatorship. As for Rhodes - a man demonised by African successor governments and in particular by Mugabe - he was the first person ever, anywhere, black or white, to campaign, as PM of Cape Colony, to give black people the vote. He opened up new territory to agriculture and exploration. As the first train to roll into Salisbury (now Harare) said on the front, "Rhodes, Railways, and Imperial Expansion"! I don't know if you've visited his grave up in the rocky Matopo Hills, overlooking the country which he created and which was named after him - awaiting, one feels, not the Last Trump but the next regime - but that says it all. Such men as these are unparalleled in other empires. These men were imperialists, Leopold was a thief, a slaver and a despot. [ Post a Reply to This Message ] |
| [> [> [> [> [> [> [> Subject: Leopold was a brilliant (if distasteful) man | |
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Author: Owain (UK) [ Edit | View ] |
Date Posted: 08:44:23 11/26/04 Fri "I am sorry if my analysis was too advanced for you to understand." I understood your analysis Paddy, I merely disagreed with it. Why cant we debate without patronisation? Why do you feel I have to take everything you say for granted? My only knowledge of this subject comes from Thomas Pakenham's "Scramble for Africa", a book I thoroughly enjoyed. I couldnt help admire Leopold after reading that book, he beat everyone. By the time he did have the congo taken from him he made loads of money. In short I admire his succsess and skills and a polatician. Did the Germna Imperialists beleive the world deserved British values? Did they even belive it deserved German values? These were a bunch or pretty nasty empire builders. They are reffered to as imperialists in the book "Scramble for Africa". Ed, if Leopold was a thief, then so were we, but I suppose at least we werent despots or slavers (on the whole). You make it sound like Britain was the only imperialist nations. Yet so often I hear about "European" imperialism in the 19th century. [ Post a Reply to This Message ] |
| [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> Subject: Owain, I am sorry if I have offended you and will attempt not to patronise you again... | |
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Author: Paddy (Scotland) [ Edit | View ] |
Date Posted: 12:11:08 11/26/04 Fri "Did the Germna Imperialists beleive the world deserved British values?" I was speaking specifically about British Imperialists. No, the Germans believed that the natives in their territories would best be served by giving them German-style authority. They thought that the British were decadent. The difference is that the British had evidence that everywhere they had established control things had got better for the average man compared with what had gone before. The Germans had no such experience and were only there to impose their values on their Empire as an attempt to counter the British Empire. They only knew that they had better weapons than the savages, and principle had nothing to do with it. The same goes for the Belgians. The British did make a lot of money out of the slave trade in its day, but Britain outlawed slavery throughout the British Empire in 1833 and sent the Navy to intercept any slavers attempting to engage in the trade. By 1833 the idea that all within the Empire had the protection of law was established. The USA did not abolish it until a generation later after the civil war. The Spanish outlawed it even later (due to foreign pressure) around 1880 but never made any serious efforts to stamp it out in the 19th century. Leopold had supreme authority over the Congo. He was not the first European ruler to rule over a non-European race and there were plenty of examples such as the British in India and North America for him to observe and subsequently devise a just, prosperous system from the start. This is what he manifestly failed to do. In the Dark Ages in Europe there was a good reason for people not to have advanced levels of civilisation. The old order had crumbled and knowledge was lost. Nowadays, for somebody in Britain to say that we would actually be better off under a NAZI-model dictatorship against all of the historical evidence to the contrary would really have to be considered loony or deeply stupid or very wicked. Leopold ignored some already long-established basic rules of humanity in order to maximise financial profits. To quote Walter Sobchak from "The Big Lebowski": "Nihilists! Fuck me. I mean, say what you like about the tenets of National Socialism, Dude, at least it's an ethos" He authorised the atrocities in the Congo only to make money, not for any reason of spreading "European" civilisation. All this in an age where the British authorities were giving the natives protection under law AGAINST colonial settlers. The New Zealand Maories are loyal to the Crown because of these assurances given more than one hundred and forty years ago. Leopold knew what was going on in the Congo and for this he cannot be considered to be a good King, and he has to be considered a bad person - especially within the context of the age. Yes, he got into the Congo and established a Belgian presence there thus preventing a more civilised power fron establishing its rule over the Congo - but in what way was that a good thing? [ Post a Reply to This Message ] |
| [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> Subject: I never said he was a nice kinda guy | |
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Author: Owain (UK) [ Edit | View ] |
Date Posted: 16:28:00 11/26/04 Fri Now I think your missunderstanding what I am trying to say. I know Britain was in the words of a politician whose name I cannot remember "the greatest empire of good the world had ever known". I am only questioning the meaning of the word Imperialism and defending my admiration for Leopold. Timur was a very nasty chap. He liked to build mountains of heads for one thing. But he never lost a battle in his life and for that I admire him. Thats not to say I am applauding mountain building with heads. My History teacher said "Hitler was a political genious" to say so does not mean my teacher is a nazi. Napoleon is admired for his military skill by many people, these people dont neccesarily like the idea pof europe being united under a an upstart despot. And with Leopold I merely admire his political skill, its not like I wish to use him as a role model for how I shall live my life. I am aware of what he did in the congo (Thomas Pakenhams book, monstous in size, is very detailed) and I am also aware of the British Empires good deeds, including the abolition of slavery (something made even more noble when you consider how much money we were making out of it and how much we would have made when Empire was even larger later in the century). "Yes, he got into the Congo and established a Belgian presence there thus preventing a more civilised power fron establishing its rule over the Congo - but in what way was that a good thing?" Didnt say it was a good thing, nothing he did was good as such. But I dont admire him as a philanthropist (as people at first believed him to be), but as a very clever man. [ Post a Reply to This Message ] |
| [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> Subject: Owain: | |
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Author: Ed Harris (Venezia) [ Edit | View ] |
Date Posted: 14:40:33 11/26/04 Fri Go to Muscat. There is a plaque in the grounds of the old British residency where the flagpole used to be. It describes how run-away slaves from all over the Middle East, East Africa and beyond would risk everything to get to Muscat, through the town, to the British residency, and throw their arms around the flag-pole, knowing that they would be brought before the Governor and set free, and that those who captured and sold them would be punished, if possible, in whatsoever country they lived. If you can tell me that any other Empire in history has been worthy of such a plaque, then I will accept your point. [ Post a Reply to This Message ] |
| [> [> [> [> [> [> [> Subject: and the typing errors in the above too! | |
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Author: Paddy (Scotland) [ Edit | View ] |
Date Posted: 11:14:48 11/26/04 Fri Sorry, I will be more careful in future. When I read spelling mistakes I feel it lowers the quality of the debate. :0) [ Post a Reply to This Message ] |
| [> [> [> [> [> Subject: What what what? | |
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Author: Ed Harris (Venezia) [ Edit | View ] |
Date Posted: 23:22:18 11/25/04 Thu Leopold of the Belgians supported and encouraged what was going on in the Congo. I'm not entirely sure how anyone can admire him, unless one imagines that African people are human forms of plastic cutlery: use them, and then throw them away when they break. No person is anything of the kind, and a failure to recognise this, such as that of Leopold III, is the sign of rather evil derangment. There is a distinction between mere empire-building and imperialism. The latter is not merely the acquisition of territory, but the expansion of its usefulness through improvements. It all goes back to Locke and that passage in his Second Treatise on Government where he contrasts Spanish imperialism in America with British imperialism. The Spaniards, he argues, do not really 'own' their empire, since their claim is based on landing on it, putting a flag on it, digging something out of it and then buggering off. The British, on the other hand, had real claim to property over their acquired territories because they took them out of the state in which they found them and, through their labour, improved them. In short, empire-building is just an activity; imperialism is a political philosophy. It may now be discredited, but it had real thought and real goals, not just some phallic imperative to own more stuff. In this context, Paddy is right to say that very few nations which had empires were actually imperialist. [ Post a Reply to This Message ] |
| [> [> [> [> [> [> Subject: Spanish/British | |
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Author: Owain (UK) [ Edit | View ] |
Date Posted: 08:47:25 11/26/04 Fri "The Spaniards, he argues, do not really 'own' their empire, since their claim is based on landing on it, putting a flag on it, digging something out of it and then buggering off. The British, on the other hand, had real claim to property over their acquired territories because they took them out of the state in which they found them and, through their labour, improved them." I believe this merely shows the superiority of British Imperialism. [ Post a Reply to This Message ] |
| [> [> [> [> [> [> Subject: Okay, we can agree to differ: because to me it shows that the Spaniards weren't imperialists but conquerors! | |
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Author: Ed Harris (Venezia) [ Edit | View ] |
Date Posted: 14:07:39 11/26/04 Fri [ Post a Reply to This Message ] |
| [> [> [> [> [> [> [> Subject: conflicting definitions | |
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Author: Owain (UK) [ Edit | View ] |
Date Posted: 14:33:02 11/26/04 Fri "the practice by which powerful nations or peoples seek to extend and maintain control or influence over weaker nations or peoples" "national policy of conquest of other regions or peoples for the purpose of extending political and economic control and of exploiting the resources of other regions or people" "any instance of aggressive extension of authority" "Control of other countries by a dominant nation " These are just some of the many definitions I found on google of the word Imperialism that support my view. On the other hand I found one that supports your ideas: "The drive toward the creation and expansion of a colonial empire and, once established, its perpetuation. (de Blij & Muller, 1996) Infrastructure. The foundations of a society: urban centers, transport networks, communications, energy, distribution systems, farms, factories, mines and such facilities as schools, hospitals, postal services, and police and armed forces." [ Post a Reply to This Message ] |
| [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> Subject: Hm. | |
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Author: Ed Harris (Venezia) [ Edit | View ] |
Date Posted: 14:42:20 11/26/04 Fri I won't be convinced. Imperialism was an ethos, not a set of actions. I don't care if even the OED contradicts me: in this context, I know better! [ Post a Reply to This Message ] |
| [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> Subject: too specific | |
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Author: Owain (UK) [ Edit | View ] |
Date Posted: 16:30:08 11/26/04 Fri I think your looking for something to specific in the meaning of imperialism. When words are too specific we have to invent new words. [ Post a Reply to This Message ] |