Massacres, famines and uprisings — an often neglected side of the British Empire
After learning about the Amritsar massacre in 1919, I was really shocked and angry about David Cameron’s attitude towards this event. It made me wonder how the British people perceive Britain’s role during the time of the Empire, so I did a little research and found a recent article on the Independent’s website. (January 2016: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/british-people-are-proud-of-colonialism-and-the-british-empire-poll-finds-a6821206.html) The article is a reaction to a poll that indicates that most of the British are proud of the British Empire and its colonialism or do not have an opinion about it at all.
For me, this is extremely surprising. Sure, the Empire brought economic development and progress but also a lot of terror and death. How can it be that people do not take this into account? How can the positive sides overshadow the negative ones? How can they not know about or forget all of this:
I didn’t know about these “atrocities” myself, nevertheless, I think that, as the article points out, British children should learn in school about these sides of the British Empire as well as the positive ones. It is necessary to know some facts about the history of your country, good and bad, to really grow up and form an opinion. Maybe then, the polls would show other results…
The currency of the two articles definitely shows that the topic is still worth discussing and that British politicians and people should not forget about the “not so glorious” side of the Empire.
