The relevance of European and American conceptions of history

[Chesterton]

No, He won't.

But the act of finding out more about the people that one is praying for is, I think, a useful spiritual exercise.



And you still can't find Syria on a map? I find that extremely puzzling. Or were you making some elaborate joke?



I wouldn't swear to exact accuracy, but yes. Damascus is on every "Map of the Holy Land" I've seen since childhood. To the best of my knowledge, it hasn't moved.



I'm sure I don't (unless it's Aleppo).



I'm so confused as to your position that, no, I can't.

(Oi, why didn't I think of this sooner?)

You're a racist! That's right. I believe the examples you used were Syria and Nigeria. Very conspicuous that you didn't mention, say, England or Sweden. If you think we need to know where certain ethnic types are it's obviously because you think we should keep tabs on them, right? You don't trust them, you think they must be up to something.

There, I used the r-word so that means I win the argument. And now that you're a racist, I, armed with a deadly array of social media, will proceed to unleash the internet hounds on you. You'll lose your job, your life will be ruined, you'll be a pariah in your community and will have to move and live out your unhappy days on some remote, desolate island, likely surrounded by harsh, barren desert and strange, deadly animals seeking to do you in on a daily basis while you sustain yourself on leftover brewer's yeast.

EDIT: Oh, I just noticed. Well there are other islands. Or so I'm told. Never had much use for maps.

 

[Tom 1]

(Oi, why didn't I think of this sooner?)

You're a racist! That's right. I believe the examples you used were Syria and Nigeria. Very conspicuous that you didn't mention, say, England or Sweden. If you think we need to know where certain ethnic types are it's obviously because you think we should keep tabs on them, right? You don't trust them, you think they must be up to something.

There, I used the r-word so that means I win the argument. And now that you're a racist, I, armed with a deadly array of social media, will proceed to unleash the internet hounds on you. You'll lose your job, your life will be ruined, you'll be a pariah in your community and will have to move and live out your unhappy days on some remote, desolate island, likely surrounded by harsh, barren desert and strange, deadly animals seeking to do you in on a daily basis while you sustain yourself on leftover brewer's yeast.

EDIT: Oh, I just noticed. Well there are other islands. Or so I'm told. Never had much use for maps.

I’m sorry to say this Chesterton but you may be a spacist, casting judgement on so-called ‘countries’ based on their relative locations .

 

[agapelove]

Don't be an apologist for evil.

That is quite literally what you are doing, spreading lies that the Mau Mau were savages that deserved to be interned in camps and the British were doing some huge favor to the Kenyans by slaughtering them. I’m going to assume you didn’t read any of the sources I provided that outline the atrocities first committed by the British that triggered the Mau Mau uprising. The internment camps was the response by British parliament, set up by British parliament, and then later covered up by British parliament. So yes Churchill played a part in orchestrating them.

 

[agapelove]

Well there it is...that's exactly the kind of totalitarian thinking that leads to conflicts getting started in the first place.

Just to be clear Radagast attacked my moral credibility first. If anyone is starting conflict it’s not me.

 

[agapelove]

There is a world of difference between a facility quite literally set up to kill people more efficiently and in greater numbers and a brutal and badly run temporary containment facility.

Don’t be an apologist for evil.

 

[Chesterton]

I mean more that the narrative is presented as heroic or good. Homesteaders carving lives from the prairies, cowboys herding cattle across the continent, etc. In my own country, you can't celebrate Voortrekkers building farms in vacant land or you are racist, as they were 'stealing land'. Colonisation must be presented as a complete evil; otherwise it is taken akin to if a German said something nice about Nazis, such as they built good roads and were efficient.

We had a whole controversy in which an opposition politician said Colonisation wasn't completely bad because it built modern infrastructure and brought western medicine, and everyone freaked out. She was called racist, burnt in effigy, forced to resign from leadership positions, etc.

I know in some small towns they do have festivals celebrating their past, and it's not a problem. Obviously I can't speak for everywhere, but the romance of the past is well defended in my city. I was once at a downtown pub with some friends when one of them (perhaps slightly inebriated) made some joke to the effect that the Alamo defenders were foolish because it was a suicide mission. Around us people's heads turned, and some strangers gently chided him "you shouldn't talk that way". We have Fiesta, which is a huge, nearly month long festival to celebrate the Alamo and Texas history. It's mostly drinking and partying, but there are also serious and solemn ceremonies and observances.

Nationwide, no it's not nearly so bad as you describe in SA. The narrative can generally be presented as heroic and good, as can specific people and events. Although as I write this they are working overtime pulling down statues of people who've made their villian list. So I don't know about the near future. Things are moving fast.

But it's hard to say for sure about anything, because they're always looking for some new thing to be offended by, and who knows what it will be. You can't reason it out beforehand, because it won't be based on reason. And their psychology is unpredictable, as with animals. You might walk into a cage full of tigers one day, and they ignore you. Walk into the same cage the next day, and they tear you apart.

The universities are a different story. I don't how aware you are of it, but many prominent schools have become utter hotbeds of insanity. On many campuses, speakers with a narrative anywhere to the right of absolute left are prohibited from speaking, either because the administration is idealogically opposed to them, or because the mob (the student body, often aided by outside forces such as Antifa) will threaten the "heckler's veto" which presents too costly a security concern in terms of potential property damage and violence to people. And the thing I find grotesque is that these people think "might makes right" is a laudable ideal. When they prohibit a speaker from coming, or ruin the event when he or she does come, they say "Yay! We won!" as if they're proud of themselves, as if you could settle a philosophical disagreement with a boxing match. Really, the word for it is "fascistic".

 

[Quid est Veritas?]

spreading lies that the Mau Mau were savages that deserved to be interned in camps and the British were doing some huge favor to the Kenyans by slaughtering them.

Where on earth did I do this? I merely pointed out that Churchill did not orchestrate any violence against them, and is on record only calling for restraint and rule of law.

I take it though, that you have never spoken to any older generation Kenyans? A pity.

I’m going to assume you didn’t read any of the sources I provided that outline the atrocities first committed by the British that triggered the Mau Mau uprising.

I am well aware of the history of British East Africa, thank you. Nothing excuses savagery. The only victims in the Mau Mau uprising were the civilians, mostly Kenyans but a few settlers, brutalised therein. Certainly not the Mau Mau, who deserve honorary mention with the Nazis or the Khmer Rouge, though I assume you would consider the latter 'victims' too, due to Colonialism and Western power politics in Cambodia.

Their suppression was necessary, though the British deserve no plaudits for the way they went about it. There were no heroes in the Mau Mau uprising, only suffering and death.

The internment camps was the response by British parliament, set up by British parliament, and then later covered up by British parliament. So yes Churchill played a part in orchestrating them.

This is clutching at straws at best. By that logic, every British citizen that voted for an MP orchestrated it.

As far as I am concerned, your stated goal of not whitewashing history sounds decidedly hollow. You are selling a myth, trying to present some of the most evil men in history as 'victims', when really what it was was a Jacquerie against both the colonial government and the better off Kenyans. You could excuse the liquidation of the Kulaks on the same type of grounds. Your bias is quite plain, and frankly abhorrent to me. This is akin to a Skinhead saying the Jews had it coming to them, only from a different stripe of politics. I would urge you to re-evaluate. To re-iterate, don't be an apologist for evil. Decrying the excesses of colonial regimes does not require excusing or minimising the excesses of independance movements. This is the exact type of reading of history we should be avoiding.

I bid your leave, as I have no intention of continuing this discussion. It has left too much of a sour taste already.

 

[Radagast]

The Mau Mau killed other Kenyans who were siding with British rule.

Wrong. That was not who they targeted.

I’m going to assume you didn’t read any of the sources I provided

We don't believe your biased sources.

The Mau Mau were not an independence movement; their horrific atrocities were almost entirely directed at other black Kenyans.

This is why, after independence, the Kenyan government itself banned the Mau Mau until 2003.

There is no justification whatsoever for glorifying the Mau Mau.

 

[Radagast]

(Oi, why didn't I think of this sooner?)

You're a racist! That's right. I believe the examples you used were Syria and Nigeria.

You think you're being funny, but you're not. People will react to your post without realising that it's sarcasm.

And the examples of Syria and Nigeria weren't mine; they were the two countries highlighted in the news story I referred to.

 

[agapelove]

There is no justification whatsoever for glorifying the Mau Mau.

How is me pointing out that the uprising was caused by colonialism and British rule considered "glorifying the Mau Mau"? If you're going to use a straw man argument at least make it a little less obvious.

 

[Radagast]

How is me pointing out that the uprising was caused by colonialism and British rule

It wasn't.

 

[agapelove]

It wasn't.

I think you have absolutely no clue what you're talking about.

The Mau Mau Uprising | South African History Online.
The Mau Mau uprising began in 1952 as a reaction to inequalities and injustices in British-controlled Kenya. The response of the colonial administration was a fierce crackdown on the rebels, resulting in many deaths.

 

[Radagast]

I think you have absolutely no clue what you're talking about.

The Mau Mau Uprising | South African History Online.
The Mau Mau uprising began in 1952 as a reaction to inequalities and injustices in British-controlled Kenya. The response of the colonial administration was a fierce crackdown on the rebels, resulting in many deaths.

Your biased sources mean nothing to me. Like other people on this thread, I am fully aware of what the Mau Mau was really about.

Reflect on the fact that between independence (1963) and 2003 the Kenyan government itself banned the Mau Mau. Countries don't do this with heroic independence fighters.

 

[agapelove]

I bid your leave, as I have no intention of continuing this discussion. It has left too much of a sour taste already.

Sorry if it bothers you that I don't love Winston Churchill as much as you do.

 

[agapelove]

Your biased sources mean nothing to me. Like other people on this thread, I am fully aware of what the Mau Mau was really about.

Close your eyes any harder and you might go blind! That source is from an official history archive for South Africa. Why don't you find me a source that tells me the Mau Mau were formed for some other reason? I will wait.

 

[Radagast]

Close your eyes any harder and you might go blind! That source is from an official history archive for South Africa.

... and consequently filters Kenyan events though the lens of their own experience.

 

[agapelove]

... and consequently filters Kenyan events though the lens of their own experience.

Which is exactly why I challenged you to find a less "bias" source that could say they were formed for some reason other than fighting colonial rule.

 

[Tom 1]

Don’t be an apologist for evil.

Lol, explaining reality is not apologetics.

 

[Tom 1]

Just to be clear Radagast attacked my moral credibility first. If anyone is starting conflict it’s not me.

Agape there is a tremendous difference between arguing the details of an issue and taking an absolutist stance which denies all attempts at reality testing. Absolutism is evil, it is at the heart of all of humanity’s most destructive impulses. Whatever part of the political spectrum it comes from the whole those people/that person are so bad they should be (fill in the blank) is always the same thing, a misguided belief in one’s own supreme goodness and the evil of the other, based on warped and superficial understandings of history - and untested notions about one’s own goodness. There is the occasional Stalin or Pol Pot etc who is so destructive they can only be got rid of (but not forgotten, which is a mistake) but if you lump everyone together who when in a position of power during a period of conflict did some dubious things there would be virtually no-one un-tarred, if anyone at all. Even Ghandi had racist notions, as Quid pointed out, and his movement led to a dreadful bloodbath and the division of a nation. Is that what he should be remembered for? Whenever there is conflict in the world, terrible things happen, and conflict is very often spurred by someone getting the idea that the world and everyone in it can be divided up in an absolute way, with the aggressor being ‘right’ in their own mind because it is just ‘obvious’ that their thinking is the best, however that gets dressed up for propaganda purposes.

 

[Tom 1]

How is me pointing out that the uprising was caused by colonialism and British rule considered "glorifying the Mau Mau"? If you're going to use a straw man argument at least make it a little less obvious.

Every conflict that has ever happened was caused by something someone else did, at least in the eyes of the aggressors. People have been fighting over resources since the year dot, if British colonialism is 'evil' then the entire human race is. The convenient selective memory employed behind this kind of idea is a pretty feeble basis for an argument, if you are going to argue that any civilisation that invades and takes over others is evil then there aren't any left that might be considered good. Like it or not, what you are describing is human behaviour. The good, as far as it goes, is when the civilisations with the least bad track record get into and maintain power. As far as I am concerned, a world dominated by the model of Western democracy, flawed as it is, is better than any of the alternatives. Paraphrasing Churchill, who didn't live under any illusions, it's the worst form of government, apart from all the others. You need to see the bigger reality here - people, people everywhere, in the whole world, have been doing horrible things to other groups of people (and sometimes to their own people) for millennia. So far, the only thing that manages to keep a lid on that is when lots of people are ruled under a relatively benevolent system (i.e. marginally less destructive than the others). It is simply impossible to have that kind of scenario for any period of time without conflict arising within it.