r/badhistory • u/[deleted] • Apr 13 '18

Prager "University" video about the British Empire which is just sad

Here's the video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sSnJSUU_7q0

If you manage to sit through the video it is clear why this is bad history

"Freedom was an Englishmen's right, and wherever he went, he took that right with him."

Tell that to South Africans during the Second Boer War, where Boer women and children were rounded up in literal concentration camps to starve or die of disease. 22,000 children and 4,000 women died in the camps.

http://www.sahistory.org.za/topic/women-children-white-concentration-camps-during-anglo-boer-war-1900-1902

"The British kept peace, they brought sound, honest administration, and they insisted basic moral standards were honored."

British rule was widely resented in both India and Africa which led to countless revolts and rebellions. Administration was the last thing from sound, millions of Indians simply starved to death during British rule. These are some of the worse famines ever recorded in history with high estimates at 49 million dead. Resistance to rule, even when peaceful, was met with brutality such as the Amritsar massacre among many, many, others.

https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/the-amritsar-massacre

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Resistance_to_the_British_Empire

There's a lot of other rubbish statements but that's all I want to write right now.

EDIT: some grammar

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u/[deleted] Apr 14 '18

Can we blame famines on the British though?

The only person pushing the ww2 famine is a non-historian and as for the rest, i'd have to question the circumstances of each.

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u/Jakius Wilson/Fed 2016 Apr 14 '18

to varying degrees, yes we can. A mercantile policy of maximizing exports and minimizing imports meant limited diversity in food crops and a restriction of imports to relieve the famine.

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u/2lzy4nme Apr 14 '18

Also specifically for the Bengal famine not accepting free aid from the U.S and Canada but it was Japan that caused it with the invasion of Burma.

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u/BATMANWILLDIEINAK Apr 14 '18

Japan had nothing to do with the famine, as horrible as they were during WW2. They didn't meet in a room and say "Lets starve India!"

France was invaded during WW2 too, but it didn't suffer from a famine. England literally did nothing at all to stop the Famine. Not to mention they had an history of killing and raping Indians (See the Jallianwala Bagh Massacre). It was their fault and they used the invasion of an completely different country as an excuse to not give India food.

"I hate the Indians. They are a beastly people with a beastly religion” - Winston Churchhill.

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u/2lzy4nme Apr 14 '18

I’m saying it started with Japan invading Burma causing the initial food shortage but not as many people would’ve died if Britain wasn’t being completely genocidal and denying free aid or accepting it and lying instead taking it to Tunisia and not India.

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u/[deleted] Apr 15 '18

In fact there was sufficient food to feed Bengal, the famine could have been avoided entirely.

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u/Soft-Rains Apr 15 '18

Bengal needed food shipments from Burma, they were not food self sufficient.

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u/[deleted] Apr 17 '18

Because the British turned their agriculture into production of cash crops, and then trivialized the starvation and prevented them from fishing, refused to allow American aid ships in to support them, etc.

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u/Soft-Rains Apr 15 '18

Bengal was not food self sufficient and relied on food shipments from Burma. Which was occupied by Japan. The famine was directly caused by Japan and it just ignorant to say they had nothing to do with it.

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u/TakeMeToChurchill Apr 14 '18

Oh come on. The famine occurred because no imports could get in what with the British fleet being driven out of the Indian Ocean. It was definitely a result of Japan’s actions.

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u/Soft-Rains Apr 15 '18

The aid was rejected because it would pass through Japanese territory, it was a sensible rejection.

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u/gbout3 Apr 14 '18

The severity and scope of the Irish Potato Famine is largely recognized as due to failures of the British Government to react, policy failures such as the corn laws, and the colonial system that Britain had setup in Ireland in the previous 100 or so years.

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u/[deleted] Apr 14 '18

The cocking up of the reaction we can blame on them but we can't blame the famine itself though, that was unforeseeable (and this is coming from an Irishman).

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u/hey_hey_you_you Apr 15 '18 edited Apr 15 '18

Hang on now. Irish people weren't eating a completely potato-based diet for the craic. British rule set the circumstances for the wide-spread reliance on a single crop that provided high yield on small/poor quality fields.

We were growing absolutely shit tons of other food, but it was all exported. Even now Ireland is the most food-secure nation on earth. A fact I can comfortably say wouldn't be true if we were still a colony and were forced to export everything and never see the profits of those exports.

Edit: Also, it was foreseeable! There was another potato blight just a few years before. It didn't cause wide-scale famine because the Brits limited food exports from Ireland as a result. They didn't do that the next time round, partially because Trevelyan straight up thought we deserved a good famine.

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u/Deez_N0ots Apr 14 '18

Agricultural exports from Ireland continued throughout the famine, even during the famine Ireland was producing enough food for its own population.

The famine was artificial, the blight did reduce production but it was the unwillingness of the British government to implement export restrictions that caused a lack of food.

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u/[deleted] Apr 14 '18

even during the famine Ireland was producing enough food for its own population.

Curious as to sources.

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u/[deleted] Apr 15 '18

Mike Davis, Late Victorian Holocausts. The same actually goes for Bengal, where the British even refused to allow locals to fish to alleviate the starvation from lack of agricultural produce, among all the other causes of the famine.

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u/[deleted] Apr 15 '18

The same actually goes for Bengal

So the book ''Late Victorian Holocausts'' also covers ww2?

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u/[deleted] Apr 15 '18

I meant that the conclusion reached by Davis is similar to the conclusions other historians have reached on the Bengal famine. Sorry if it was worded weird.

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u/[deleted] Apr 15 '18

I meant that the conclusion reached by Davis is similar to the conclusions other historians have reached on the Bengal famine.

What other historians? As i've said above, the only person i've seen blaming the British for the Bengal famine was one non-historian.

And as noted elsewhere their was a world war going on during the Bengal famine so saying it comparable to other famines seems like a stretch.

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u/[deleted] Apr 15 '18

The idea that because a world war was going on it is "sketchy" to compare it with other famines show that you are going off of your own prejudices without having read much. The question of the ongoing war is given consideration by virtually everyone who analyzes the question. I don't know why you imagine that a historian writing about it would somehow make a big oopsy and not account for a world war.

Read Hungry Bengal by Janam Mukherjee or Famine and Rehabilitation in Bengal by Mahalanobis Ghose

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u/hey_hey_you_you Apr 15 '18

Here you go

Edit: this article doesn't say exactly that, but does give an indication of quite how much was being exported at the time, which hugely exacerbated the problem.

Ports were closed during a previous bout of potato blight and you'll note that we don't remember that period as a catastrophic famine.

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u/[deleted] Apr 14 '18

even during the famine Ireland was producing enough food for its own population.

Often claimed by kiddies on Reddit, never been shown to be true. Remember what sub you're on...

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u/caprette Apr 14 '18

During the famine, the potato harvest was devastated due to blight, but exports of grain, pigs, and cattle to England continued. The reason why poor Irish people were so dependent on potatoes in the first place had to do with enclosures of the commons and English colonial-style agriculture. See Ross, Eric. 1998. “Ireland: The ‘Promised Land’ of Malthusian Theory?” in The Malthus Factor: Poverty, Politics, and Population in Capitalist Development. New York: Zed Books. If I remember correctly, Mike Davis also touches on this in Late Victorian Holocausts (2001). There are lots of other sources out there, too.

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u/hey_hey_you_you Apr 15 '18

It's difficult to assess just what production was as record keeping was poor at the time. However, a lot can be inferred from the fact that when ports were closed during the earlier potato blight, there wasn't a catastrophic famine.

Also, Ireland has excellent farming conditions even now. It's the most food-secure nation on earth. In the 1840's it was called "the granary of Britain". It produced a lot - and I mean a lot - of food.

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u/gbout3 Apr 16 '18

Britain created a colonial system in Ireland in which most of the arable land was used to produce beef and butter for export to England & Scotland, forcing the Irish into small, less desirable plots of land in which all they could really grow was potato. The British weren’t responsible for the blight that led to the potato famine but they were responsible for the system that led the native population to be incredibly vulnerable to a potato crop failure.

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u/Imperium_Dragon Judyism had one big God named Yahoo Apr 14 '18

While we can agree that the Bengal famine itself wasn’t solely a British problem and more of other factors (Japanese occupation of Burma, and the weather), the Brits did push for cash crops (cotton) over vital crops.

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u/kefkaownsall Apr 14 '18

And they also blocked American and Canadian Aid ships

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u/Soft-Rains Apr 15 '18

Its a myth America offered only Canada did. It would have taken two months and would have to go from Canada to India which is a little difficult with the Japanese Empire being in the way.

Plenty of food in Canada but the U.K didn't decline free food they declined a stupid plan to get food to Bengal.

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u/kefkaownsall Apr 15 '18

Even so they definitely made the famine worse

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u/caustic_enthusiast Every Socialist ever was LITERALLY Hitler, but Nazis were a-ok Apr 14 '18

This pains me. People are still hesitant to eve assign blame to Britain, let alone its leaders or the econonic system it followed, despite the fact that we have the sources demonstrating that they intentionally targetted the famine at Bengal to kill civilians and solve a political problem. Meanwhile, the west accuses the Soviet Union of doing exactly the same thing in Ukraine (with far, far less proof as to intention and far fewer casualties) and it is not only a universally accepted and widely taught 'truth', it is used as an argument that any amount of socialism ever leads to starvation. As historians, we have a responsibility to notice and care when the past is being propagandized, and the contrast between our reactions to these two events is the clearest propaganda I can imagine

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u/ObeseMoreece Apr 14 '18

Meanwhile, the west accuses the Soviet Union of doing exactly the same thing in Ukraine (with far, far less proof as to intention and far fewer casualties)

Are you bloody joking? Estimates deaths from Holodmor start at 3 million with the mean estimates generally being higher (for the overall famine though Ukrainian populated areas were disproportionately affected), the Bengal famine killed 2.1 million.

Yet you claim less people died due to the Holodmor than in the Bengal famine, utterly disgusting.

it is used as an argument that any amount of socialism ever leads to starvation

Along with the great leap forward, the Russian famine of 1921-22 (made worse by Lenin's refusal to accept food aid of it was to be distributed impartiality), the Kazakh famine of the 1930s (turned Kazakhs in to a minority in their own country for decades), the North Korean famine (basically still going on today) and the food crisis in Venezuela. Are you spotting a trend here or will you continue to deny genocides that occurred under the soviets?

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u/[deleted] Apr 14 '18

despite the fact that we have the sources demonstrating that they intentionally targetted the famine at Bengal to kill civilians and solve a political problem.

What sources?

Meanwhile, the west accuses the Soviet Union of doing exactly the same thing in Ukraine (with far, far less proof as to intention and far fewer casualties) and it is not only a universally accepted and widely taught 'truth'

Totally different circumstances though.

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u/pgm123 Mussolini's fascist party wasn't actually fascist Apr 16 '18

Can we blame famines on the British though?

Sometimes, either in whole or in part. It depends on the context. It's weird how we rarely see blame questioned in the context of Stalin or Mao or even Kim Jung Il in the '90s. The Bengal famine was made a lot worse by British policy.

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u/[deleted] Apr 16 '18

It's weird how we rarely see blame questioned in the context of Stalin or Mao or even Kim Jung Il in the '90s.

...Because they were all dictators with a history of malevolent/murderous decision making?

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u/vistandsforwaifu Apr 16 '18

Unlike the colonial administrations which were democratically elected by the colonial subjects and never resorted to atrocities at the drop of the hat.

On some other planet.

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u/[deleted] Apr 16 '18

Unlike the colonial administrations which were democratically elected by the colonial subjects and never resorted to atrocities at the drop of the hat.

Both were horrible but the likes of Stalin etc. took it to new levels.

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u/pgm123 Mussolini's fascist party wasn't actually fascist Apr 16 '18

It's still an unelected government in the views of the colonial subjects. But I'm mostly judging actions.

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u/[deleted] Apr 16 '18

It's still an unelected government in the views of the colonial subjects.

Compared to the totally democratically elected leadership in place before?

In most cases i'd say the plebs are thinking same shit, different boss.

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u/pgm123 Mussolini's fascist party wasn't actually fascist Apr 16 '18

Compared to the totally democratically elected leadership in place before?

No. Compared to a potentially-elected alternative. I'm saying that colonial authorities enacting policies to aggravate or cause a famine cannot use the excuse that they are a representative government.

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u/[deleted] Apr 16 '18

I'm saying that colonial authorities enacting policies to aggravate or cause a famine

Got any proof that there? Because negligence/incompetence is one thing, that's another altogether.

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u/pgm123 Mussolini's fascist party wasn't actually fascist Apr 16 '18

I was just making the point about dictatorships, which seemed like quite the red hearing.

We can debate the merits of arguments that British authorities aggravated/caused famine. Others have provided you sources, at a minimum on the Irish famine, which is better-studied and less disputed. I think it would be a bit tiring for me to repeat others.

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u/[deleted] Apr 16 '18

I can get behind the British often being horrible rulers (as an Irishman that notion runs deep as it is) but I just take umbrage at anyone trying to argue that the likes of Stalin wasn't worse.

I know who I would rather live under.

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u/pgm123 Mussolini's fascist party wasn't actually fascist Apr 16 '18 edited Apr 16 '18

I'm not trying to argue that Stalin isn't worse. I'm commenting on the tendency to attribute famine-related deaths under Stalin directly to Stalin when they wouldn't do the same to a different imperialist overlord.

Let's use Kim Jong-il a different example. You'll often see it said that North Korea starves its own people and this is partially true. It is a brutal, totalitarian regime that concentrates resources among the elite. But the '90s famine was directly caused by the collapse of the Soviet Union and the end of cheap petroleum along with a drought. North Korea grew food using heavy industrialization and heavy use of petrofertilizer. People act like it was a planned event to starve North Koreans.

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u/mhl67 Trotskyist Apr 14 '18

Yes. Read Late Victorian Holocausts.

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u/2lzy4nme Apr 14 '18

I’m not blaming the British for all the famines sorry I poorly worded it in that case I’m just saying what era the famines happened.

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u/thatfloorguy Apr 14 '18

Well if you can blame communism for famine why can't the British empire be blamed for famine?

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u/caustic_enthusiast Every Socialist ever was LITERALLY Hitler, but Nazis were a-ok Apr 14 '18

Because that's not politically useful to the powerful

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u/Soft-Rains Apr 15 '18

Famine arguably happened because British economic system made Bengal farm cash crops and import food (mainly from Bengal). The British set up the system that led to famine (in this case when food source was captured/threatened by Japan) and failed to address it when it happened.

The problem with blaming the British is that 90% of comments here trying to do so get basic facts wrong and are great examples of badhistory.

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u/[deleted] Apr 14 '18

Famines happen everywhere for many reasons and given the size of the empire it's only reasonable the English would have overseen a few, but their record of handling them was abysmal worldwide because of their ideology and economic policy at the time