The British Empire ending in 1997 is a relativist historical argument.

Dom said:

Alternate title: The British Empire didn't end in 1997 just because we are living in contemporary times.

I am of the opinion that the British Empire, as well as other colonial empires, are still colonial empires today and that saying the British Empire ended with the handover of Hong Kong in 1997, or the Portuguese Empire ending in 1999 with the handover of Macau, is a relativist historical statement, equivalent to Francis Fukuyama calling the 21st century the "End of History" and given that countries like France and the UK still hold a significant chunk of overseas islands around the world, including claims on Antarctica for god's sake. A hundred years or two hundred years from now, I can almost guarantee you that the dates for the colonial empires will be revised, if not expanded, once the 21st century, our century, stops being contemporary or modern.

Colonialism has not ended just because it was the destiny of Gen Zers to be born in a post-colonial, post-Cold War globalized age. Modernity never ends, it just creates new characters to replace old and dead ones (Gen Zers and Millennials replacing Silent Generation and GI Generation, the cycle continues).

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I think there's some truth to this, but there are many powerful interests in the world today who are hellbent on forcing globalism and a one world government on the human race.

The British Empire ended in 1947 with the independence of India and Pakistan. These two territories (along with Bangladesh as the successor state to East Pakistan) comprised an Empire. The other overseas territories rule by Britain at the time, whilst theoretically comprising a lot of land and population, were deemed as colonies run by the Colonial Office. It was not until 1957 when the Gold Coast was granted independence to become Ghana that the `wind of change' finally reached Africa.

It should be noted that a great deal of concern was expressed among British colonial administrators and other influential people at the time that `the African' was not `developed' enough to understand democracy, the rule of law and how to govern themselves. This was nothing other than covert racism from a body of British opinion that did not want to change their world view. They were labelled as imperialists which was a polite label but we can all see what they were really about.

There is now a clutter of small territories around the globe which some argue constitute a British Empire but they are residues from a larger past. Some have significance and value, many don't. Even the return of Hong Kong to China when the enforced lease on Kowloon ran out in 1997 was long anticipated.

Colonies below a certain size(both land and population) were mostly exempt from decolonization and being considered colonies. Decolonization was framed as giving conquered people self determination and wasn't targeting small empty places settled by colonists who either didn't have a native population or where it was small enough to be assimiliated or killed. Having overseas holdings didn't strictly end ruling conquered peoples from overseas did.


While the cutoff for what constitutes an empire is arbitary France has a much stronger case than the British. Frances remaining holdings have 10 times as many people as the UKs and have nearly 7 times as much land. If we exclude French Guiana which has most of Frances oversea territory) France still has over twice as much land. Without Hong Kong no British overseas holdings even have 100,000 people(except the Channel Islands), the French have 7 such territories(which all greatly exceed that total). The French holdings are also more spread out around the globe whereas most British colonies are part of two clusters in the Atlantic. As a result the French have a "Blue Water Navy" and the British do not.

As stated before where to draw the line on what is or isn't a "colony" is arbitrary and Hong Kong being the end of the British Empire is either a flexible fact or not a fact at all. But it's reasonable to consider Hong Kong the last European colonial holding over that line(France has 1 colony with more people than Macau). While physically tiny Hong Kongs population is about 2.5 times larger than Frances whole current colonial empire and would be one of the worlds 100 most populous countries if it was independent. Most of Frances colonies and 5 of Britains have more people than the worlds smallest country but that's a very low bar(11,000 people) and the worlds smallest countries are outliers more than they are statistical benchmarks for what constitutes a country. Hong Kong being the end of the British Empire is arbitrary but I wouldn't call it a lie.

With traditional land empires pre colonization it's worth noting the term empire was not used so literally. An empire is a large civilization that controls an impressive amount of territory beyond it's original extent but does that mean a declining empire remains an empire if it maintains 1 foreign holding? Like colony that's an arbitrary definition as opposed to a label given to any civilization with a single overseas holding. With continous land empires where your normal borders end and where expansion beings is even more up in the air but putting that aside a country is not considered an empire by slightly inching beyond that line.

In a practical sense I see people in many colonies being more subjugated today by corporations under the illusion of them having democracy and self determination than they were under traditional conquerors. However this is not one people subjugating another so much as multi national corporations so it is different in form. So while this is a continuation of colonized peoples subjugation it's not a continuation of any previously existing empire. This is also not exclusive to former colonies. While I do not think decolonization will be viewed as the end of foreign subjugation of various places by future generations it will not be viewed as the same thing because better or worse it isn't.

Emperor of Wurttemburg 43 said:

As a result the French have a "Blue Water Navy" and the British do not.

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I think you need to defend or correct this really odd statement. There are reason why the British are part of the Five Power Defence Arrangement and a lack of blue water navy is not one of them. There are reasons the British are still able to hold and defend the Falklands deep in the South Atlantic and lack of a blue water navy is not one of them. There is a reason the Royal Navy operates not one but two large carriers and multiple replenishment at sea vessels in the Royal Navy Auxiliary which latter capability most would consider crucial to having a blue water navy.

RandomRodent said:

I think you need to defend or correct this really odd statement. There are reason why the British are part of the Five Power Defence Arrangement and a lack of blue water navy is not one of them. There are reasons the British are still able to hold and defend the Falklands deep in the South Atlantic and lack of a blue water navy is not one of them. There is a reason the Royal Navy operates not one but two large carriers and multiple replenishment at sea vessels in the Royal Navy Auxiliary which latter capability most would consider crucial to having a blue water navy.

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Well the Falklands Islands is part of one of the aformentioned patches of colonies. Most of Britains holdings are in the Atlantic. That is the point.

The RNs carriers are not nuclear and need to refuel. Replenishment vehicles are nice but these are still limitations that the French do not have that's all.

Emperor of Wurttemburg 43 said:

Well the Falklands Islands is part of one of the aformentioned patches of colonies. Most of Britains holdings are in the Atlantic. That is the point.

The RNs carriers are not nuclear and need to refuel. Replenishment vehicles are nice but these are still limitations that the French do not have that's all.

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Yet the Royal Navy has both the capacity to refuel its carriers anywhere in the oceans of the world and well, rather more importantly, carriers plural. The British have redundancy. In fact the non-nuclear nature of the British carrier is a conscious strategic decision, much approved of by many of our alliance partners (in multiple alliances) as they are intended to be able to dock in any large enough port worldwide. Many nations have bans on nuclear powered vessels so the British carrier force fill an important niche. It complements the carrier forces of the US and France but has equal effective range and the ability to go show the flag where they cannot go.

I have no problem with describing the Marine Nationale as a blue water navy as it has the capacity to supply its non-nuclear assets overseas but to argue the British do not have such a capacity and worse to argue it based on a misunderstanding of the political considerations of carrier operations is...questionable.

british empire got done with the suez crisis, when the american amigo essentially delivered the coup de grace.

yeah, malvinas are still there along some other territories, but that's not remotely enough to make it an empire per se.

regards.

Well, saying the British Empire still exists is kinda like saying the Roman Empire came back because the Vatican has been officially recognized as a sovereign state in 1929.

Dom said:

Alternate title: The British Empire didn't end in 1997 just because we are living in the Contemporary Era.

I am of the opinion that the British Empire, as well as other colonial empires, are still colonial empires today and that saying the British Empire ended with the handover of Hong Kong in 1997, or the Portuguese Empire ending in 1999 with the handover of Macau, is a relativist historical statement, equivalent to Francis Fukuyama calling the 21st century the "End of History" and given that countries like France and the UK still hold a significant chunk of overseas islands around the world, including claims on Antarctica for god's sake. A hundred years or two hundred years from now, I can almost guarantee you that the dates for the colonial empires will be revised, if not expanded, once the 21st century, our century, stops being contemporary or modern.

Colonialism has not ended just because it was the destiny of Gen Zers to be born in a post-colonial, post-Cold War globalized age. Modernity never ends, it just creates new characters to replace old and dead ones (Gen Zers and Millennials replacing Silent Generation and GI Generation, the cycle of human reproduction repeats itself).

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Multi National corporations are not under the control of the British goverment . The British Empire has been slowly downsizing sizing since it gave up it's colonies starting with Canada and pretty much done with colonies by the early 1960s with a few minor hold outs. All empires have periods of growth sometime slowly sometimes quickly then a more or less rapid decline. The British Empire is not an exception to the rule. Also the concept of multi national corporations controlling a nation is certainly up for debate.
Leftyhunter

Naomasa298 said:

Where did he say they were?

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Who else would be taking over control of former colonies once freed as the OO implied?
Leftyhunter