United Kingdom

Soph0571

(9,685 posts) Sat Aug 14, 2021, 08:07 AM Aug 2021

Next level dissonance. I have no words, except I do.

Empire was altruistic? Are you kidding me? The generational trauma, harm and scars that the Empire has caused across the world is countless. The genocides, the slavery, the stealing of resources and people, the othering of people in their own frigging countries. I know we are currently living through a time when post Brexit English nationalism is trying to impose their own version of English exceptionalism on the rest of us, but this really takes the biscuit. We went out and enslaved huge swathes of the world to help them?… this is so hugely insulting to those nations who still struggle today to recover from the ordeals inflicted on them by Empire. When will this horror surrounding us ever end?

Altruistic my arse...

3 replies

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Next level dissonance. I have no words, except I do. (Original Post) Soph0571 Aug 2021 OP

I think Rudyard Kipling expressed this "altruistic" attitude best... Glorfindel Aug 2021 #1

Thank you for the reminder. quaint Aug 2021 #2

Would it be possible to post the link to that tweet? ShazzieB Aug 2021 #3

Glorfindel

(10,006 posts)

1. I think Rudyard Kipling expressed this "altruistic" attitude best...

Reply to Soph0571 (Original post)

Sat Aug 14, 2021, 08:21 AM

Aug 2021

Exhorting the United States to colonize the territories it had wrested from Spain during the Spanish-American War: "Your new-caught sullen peoples, half devil and half child." I guess he didn't consider the Spanish to be "white men."

The White Man's Burden

TAKE up the White Man's burden -
Send forth the best ye breed -
Go bind your sons to exile
To serve your captives' need;
To wait in heavy harness
On fluttered folk and wild -
Your new-caught sullen peoples,
Half devil and half child.

Take up the White Man's burden -
In patience to abide
To veil the threat of terror
And check the show of pride;
By open speech and simple,
An hundred times made plain,
To seek another's profit,
And work another's gain.

Take up the White Man's burden -
The savage wars of peace -
Fill full the mouth of famine
And bid the sickness cease;
And when your goal is nearest
The end for others sought,
Watch Sloth and heathen Folly
Bring all your hopes to nought.

Take up the White Man's burden -
No tawdry rule of kings,
But toil of serf and sweeper -
The tale of common things.
The ports ye shall not enter,
The roads ye shall not tread,
Go make them with your living,
And mark them with your dead !

Take up the White Man's burden -
And reap his old reward,
The blame of those ye better,
The hate of those ye guard -
The cry of hosts ye humour
(Ah slowly !) towards the light:-
"Why brought ye us from bondage,
"Our loved Egyptian night ?"

Take up the White Man's burden -
Ye dare not stoop to less -
Nor call too loud on Freedom
To cloak your weariness;
By all ye cry or whisper,
By all ye leave or do,
The silent sullen peoples
Shall weigh your Gods and you.

Take up the White Man's burden -
Have done with childish days -
The lightly proffered laurel,
The easy, ungrudged praise.
Comes now, to search your manhood
Through all the thankless years,
Cold-edged with dear-bought wisdom,
The judgement of your peers.