Empires 2

 History lessons are never easily learnt . They are easily forgotten, though - by the rulers, usually. The ruled and the colonised  never forget. Not that easily.   

As a post colonial ( l was born in an independent India ) I was never really taught the dark history of colonialism. Not in school, anyway.  School children are sheltered from gory details. And gory, the details really are. Horrifyingly so !  Millions slaughtered . MIllions starved, With a few millions starved  in the middle of the 20th century.  

 I only came to know some of the gory details much later,when i heard terms like' Post Colonialism' bantered around in the Art World. What i asked myself was the colonialism that we were the post end of.?

I am  a part of the 'different generation'  Hague talks about. I do not see Britain in a different light , a warmer light.The cold cruel light of colonialism is the light i still see my world under.  The light that even now, glows cruel and harsh, highlighting the continued colonialism of Empires 2 .  The empires that continue to slaughter millions around the world as they seek a new colonialism. Neo colonialism.  Just a continued colonialism. The baton was just passed on.  To Empire 2 

The Foreign Secretary, 51, believes that the Olympics should be the launchpad for Britain’s global expansion and should also mark the end of our post-empire apologetic relations.

“I think we should just relax. It’s a long time ago, the retreat from empire. You know the Winds of Change speech (in which Harold Macmillan acknowledged the yearning for independence in the colonies) was in 1960 before I was born and I’m the Foreign Secretary. It’s a different generation. Britain is seen in a different light.

“We have to get out of this post-colonial guilt. Be confident in ourselves. The lessons we should take from the admitted need for austerity, saving money, is that we actually need to be more ambitious, not less.”

While Hague’s new embassies are opening in the emerging economies of China, India and Brazil, he is firm that “ the world still relies a lot on American leadership”.

“For the United Kingdom, it is the indispensable relationship,” he says.

http://www.standard.co.uk/news/politics/william-hague-i-came-back-to-be-the-foreign-secretarythats-what-im-doing-8099138.html

The Follies of the Late 19^th Century Pax Britannica

The final errors of British imperial leaders are particularly instructive for our predicament today. In both cases power in excess of defense needs led to more and more unjust, and frequently counter-productive, expansions of influence. My account in the following paragraphs is one-sidedly negative, ignoring positive achievements abroad in the areas of health and education. But the consolidation of British power led to the impoverishment abroad of previously wealthy countries like India, and also of British workers at home.⁶

The world is not condemned to repeat this tragedy under the Pax Americana. Global interdependence and above all communications have greatly improved. We possess the knowledge, the abilities, and the incentives to understand historical processes more skillfully than before. Above all it is increasingly evident to a global minority that American hypermilitarism, in the name of security, is becoming – much like British hypermilitarism in the 19^th century -- a threat to everyone’s security, including America’s, by inducing and increasingly seeking wider and wider wars.

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article32315.htm

    The post Mutiny slaughter of millions - in revenge for the "Mutiny" is not  forgotten.  Lucknow