Winston Churchill- what do you reckon?
- Thread starter Numa_is_the_boyo
- Start date
Where did you actually go to in Nigeria? What location?
It is more likely that you are the one in error here, and that you did not understand the actual meaning or context of what you heard. Nobody in Nigeria talks about current "British plots" against Nigeria. The notion is just absurd. Nigerians generally don't even think about modern Britain or know much about it or its politics and politicians. But quite a large number of people in Nigeria absolutely hate the fact that Nigeria exists as a unified country and they curse the British colonizers (of a century ago) for ever being foolish enough to create a country like Nigeria. In some sense, the existence of Nigeria as a country is a crime against reason, common sense, and history and many Nigerians have already figured that out. Sometimes people with that viewpoint who are politicians, and therefore have a wider platform to voice their opinions, will complain about whatever conspiracies against indigenous rulers and states occurred at the time that colonization occurred, or they will complain that, during the colonial era, the British favored a certain region of the country (usually this is said to be the Northern region) and were actively opposed to the political and economic advancement of this or that other region of the country.
But I await your clarification. Other than referring to the antics of the British at the time of colonization or during the colonial period itself, I have never ever heard any Nigerian mention some British conspiracy having anything to do with Nigeria.
Joined Sep 2012
10,148 Posts | 703+
India
It is an emotion laden topic for most of Indians. The British rule , of course, did a lot of good things in India. I have pointed them out earlier but no problem in pointing out again ! i) English language unified the country,made it a software power, and is great for administering law apart from its use in university level education. ii) The railways opened up the far flung areas to trade and industry. iii ) The scientific mind set was planted by the British. Prior to that superstition, stupidity had gained a stranglehold on what was once a great religion and philosophy. iv )The country was ruled or rather misruled by hundreds of princes who had no interest in enforcing law and order in their petty kingdoms. The British established a powerful rule of law, backed by a strong Judiciary and and administration.
While that was all fine, the rule was politically oppressive and economically exploitative in the extreme. The British lost no chances in exploiting the caste system in the Hindus and fanned the fires of hatred between the Muslims and Hindus.
OK, but basically, the Japanese were never in India save for a minuscule toehold for a very brief time. Secondly and most interestingly, the Japanese would not permit Bose’s army to invade India. How do you think Bose handled that?
You’re correct - no one around here will ever see Joseph Stalin as any kind of hero. We called him our Ally, but he was really a co-belligerent, and a very nasty one at that.
I figured French and Latin can be responded to by Hindi, Malayalam or Arabic. Languages that I can speak in. My French hasn't been used since high school.
Indians really don't spend time talking about british plots in india or anything close to it,you can watch anyone of our independence day programs,there is only pro india,pro indian freedom fighters narrative rather than anti british narrative in it.
heck there is hardly any "evil white man" narrative in india.
and anyway,english is hardly lingua franca in india,10% of people in this country know english,it is language of elites not the common masses,hardly 0.1% of people use english as first language
most common language in india is hindi,you can be in gujarat,maharastra, karnataka,punjab,haryana,delhi,jharkhand,uttar pradesh,bengal,etc i.e. most of states and if you know hindi,you would do just fine,only english then not so much.
portugal emerging as power was not possible,british were able to hold india because of indian soldiers,indian soldiers joined because british did not interfere in local customs that was not the case with portugal.
other powers like netherlands were defeated decisively by native indian rulers.
true that,and yeah we really don't blame everything on british in india,new trend is to blame nehru(first PM) and his family for mis-fortunes of india
we do blame british for miserable condition they us in,and thats a statement of fact rather than anything else.
obviously we have few those who lived by that time,but we do have current people who are apologist of empire,some take a medicore approach of saying that india was colonized because it was "easy and fun" other downright saying crap like "civilizing the natives",etc
britishers are hardly taught about ills colonization brought to people who suffered from it,so when they look at pathetic state of some places like in india,only thing they can come up with is that people here are lazy or uncivilized in the first place,this has been my expierience by talking to various people in the internet(especially europeans),this is purely anecdotal and may be wrong but this was my expierience nonetheless.
Joined Sep 2012
743 Posts | 1+
Las Cruces, NM
Ive heard a lot of both positive and negative things about Churchill, maybe he was good in some aspects and not in others? Personally i think he's a legend, any other opinions? Elaboration appreciated
Churchill is definitely a legend, as you noted. He was a man of tremendous personal courage and doggedness, but he was an inept politician in all matters not related to war. He was a more than competent writer and an amateur historian (like most the people on this site!). He was even a pretty good amateur painter. He was shrewd enough to hew close to the USA before the USA joined the war. He CULTIVATED his alliance with the USA very tenderly.
On the other hand he was a terrible politician. He had pretty much no achievements that weren't born in war/battle. He was so inept at his 2nd time leading the country (in the 50's) that he was summarily booted out. On the topic of military preparations and readiness, he was amazing. On the economy, human rights, etc, he was bad.
I have a lot of respect for Churchill.
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By a country mile the best post I've read on this thread and even on this site for some time!
I would just emphasise how ludicrous it is to take personally events that happened sometimes hundreds of years ago. The politics, standards and morals were often very different from the present day and bad people did bad things. It's history, enjoy the study of it and sometimes learn lessons from it. Don't treat it like a football match or you will learn nothing. Keep an open mind and be as objective as possible and you won't go far wrong.
Joined Oct 2013
5,486 Posts | 491+
Canada
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its not really completely our shortcomings when we started from crap position due to "others" in the first place.
and obviously indians is a very broad term,some "indians" do hold british rule in very high regard for all sort of crappy reason.
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Yeah, I heard it with my own ears, not once but numerous times. I had to “roll my eyes”. Blaming others for one’s problems is pretty common in the world, but after nearly 60 years of independence, it’s also tiresome and untrue.
nigeria became independent in 1960 IIRC,if its india you are talking about,where have you heard people saying something of a "grand conspiracy" all bad about colonialism is more like statement of facts more than anything else.
I have in my possession a few Rupee notes from the 60s. The only thing remarkable about these notes is just this: the “main languages” of India are on this note (in a framed sidebar on the bill), but the primary language on the note is in English. How can that be in a country where “hardly 0.1% of people use english as first language most common language in india is hindi,you can be in gujarat,maharastra, karnataka,punjab,haryana,delhi,jharkhand,uttar pradesh,bengal,etc i.e. most of states and if you know hindi,you would do just fine,only english then not so much?”
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english is language of elites,not common people hindi(atleast in north,east,west and to some extent in south is) is.
as far as that note is considered,that is because nobody reads that,only numbers matter not what's written. BTW in US does everyone read the note before buying or selling?
First, where did you actually go? This is the second time I'm asking. Nigeria is not all the same or similar at all, and the location matters because groups from different areas have had different experiences. What was the actual context of what was being said. If you can't provide the context I can only conclude that you have no idea about what was really being said.
Second, you just don't seem to get it. Nigeria is most likely not supposed to exist as a country. The creation of that country and the multitude of attendant problems this has caused is very much on Britain as a country. How can you even talk about "blaming others for your problems" when Britain is absolutely, totally responsible for creating the country. The country itself is the problem and Britain created it (without consulting anybody there) so yes I would say there's a lot of blame to go in the direction of Britain.
Nice try, zanis. Imagine a dollar bill where the main language on it is Greek. What would that say to you?
if greek was language of elites in america,it would say,well nothing to me except its completely possible
you are confusing lingua franca with with language used in official works.
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Lagos for starters. Then on to a couple of university campuses - not exactly sure where, but everyone was quite nice and, surprisingly to me, Christian. We also visited the Capitol (Abuja?) and met with a few government officials. I have no quarrel with your statements about Nigeria being an “artificial” country created by the British: weren’t most, if not all, African countries (below the Sahara) “created” by European powers who were interested in - wait for it - MONEY that they could extract from those countries?
A couple of the Nigerian architects I met with - one was educated at Patrice Lumumba University in Moscow - first alerted me to the “British plots” against Nigeria. I found this both interesting and quite funny but said nothing at the time. Later, I read similar things in Nigerian newspapers and thought that the blame game was a great “populist” strategy but one that was bound to fail. You can only paper over one’s own inability to develop one’s country for so long.
Probably nearly all sub-Saharan African countries are laid out along lines that served the colonial powers administering them, ignoring tribal divisions and allegiances. The consequences of these artificial borders are still with us to this day. Although it might be a good idea to have a “Map Convention” where these lines are redrawn, there isn’t a snowball’s chance in hell of this ever happening.
Nigeria should be a very wealthy country with all the oil it has in its possession. But, as the example of Venezuela teaches us, oil ain’t everything when public theft of a country’s wealth is more important. I was not impressed by Nigeria. The place gave me the willies. I’m sure Nigerians view this very differently.
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