Posted: Jun 24, 2021 10:17 am
From an Irish, and I'm sure from other ex-colonialist perspectives, yeah, history, as taught by Britain, is quite biased and distorted. They parade their conquests like triumphs while down-playing the suffering. I've spoken to a number of British people who didn't know anything about what went down in Ireland until after school (don't know if this has changed) when they read it themselves, and even some of the comments from Brexiters on Northern Ireland exemplify a massive display of ignorance.
And it's not just Britain, many colonialists do this, the US being a great example right now, and Australia. They'll hand-wave or simply put their head in the sand with regards their colonialist past. Or, and it's hard to describe how insulting this is to some coloniaists, in some cases they'll even try argue that they did some bad shit but in the end they brought civilization so the good outweighs the bad.
Nevermind Ireland at the time England took over was known for great scholarship, or that India was one of the largest econmomies in the World who used to mock the dirty English who didn't bathe much.
And I'm not saying this isn't something everyone does. In Ireland's history classes the people involved in uprising are unapologetically described as "freedom fighters", something I'm sure some British people might argue about, and the Catholic Church is given great prominence and their crimes are downplayed (like British kids and the colonies, I didn't know the half of what they did until I read it myself after school). It's just, have some perspective.
And it's not just Britain, many colonialists do this, the US being a great example right now, and Australia. They'll hand-wave or simply put their head in the sand with regards their colonialist past. Or, and it's hard to describe how insulting this is to some coloniaists, in some cases they'll even try argue that they did some bad shit but in the end they brought civilization so the good outweighs the bad.
Nevermind Ireland at the time England took over was known for great scholarship, or that India was one of the largest econmomies in the World who used to mock the dirty English who didn't bathe much.
And I'm not saying this isn't something everyone does. In Ireland's history classes the people involved in uprising are unapologetically described as "freedom fighters", something I'm sure some British people might argue about, and the Catholic Church is given great prominence and their crimes are downplayed (like British kids and the colonies, I didn't know the half of what they did until I read it myself after school). It's just, have some perspective.