"We should study the British Empire today because its history demonstrates human beings’ fantastic capacity for self-delusion. Noam Chomsky notes that John Stuart Mill, having written powerful tracts on both logic and liberty, was one of the most rational and freedom-loving intellectuals of his day. Yet even Mill, who had worked in the East India Company, was entirely hypocritical when it came to applying his libertarian principles to India, claiming that British rule was “angelic” and lamenting the “obloquy” heaped upon Britain by those who didn’t understand that it tyrannized over Indians for their own good. If even Mill, whose writings were elsewhere filled with humane and thoughtful paeans to human freedom, could justify something so horrendous as the empire, we should all be wary of the possibility that we may be unwittingly siding with an oppressive government or rationalizing indefensible acts.

The excuses for the British Empire, such as the claim that Britain built wonderful railroads and freed the enslaved, are feeble, and writers like Tharoor and Sanghera make short work of them. They are clung to in part because it is difficult to admit that one’s country was on the “wrong side of history” and that what was felt to be an act of charity and benevolence was in fact a terrible crime. I am struck, looking back on Zulu, by how easy it was for me as a child to accept without question the idea that my people must be the heroes of the situation simply because they were the heroes of the film. Was Michael Caine not dashing? Were the British not outnumbered?

The British Empire is dead. The sun finally set on it. Britain’s monarchy is decrepit, and it will never again “rule the waves.” (...) But a large percentage of the British population still believes that there was something good, rather than shameful, about tyrannizing over a huge percentage of the world’s population."

https://www.currentaffairs.org/news/the-imperial-mentality

#Empires #Imperialism #BritishEmpire #Colonialism

#history