Some people are clearly unaware of whom they owe their prosperous existence to - and the death of Queen Elizabeth II has proved to be an opportunity for dimwits from WUS (and the entire left wing community) to peddle more BS on social media about the queen herself and the British Empire (even the image of the jewels is actually false - but I'll leave that for last).
So, as ever, let's be blunt here. If it wasn't for colonization-driven globalization of international trade, there would not only be any Singapore, but most people whining on the internet today (in English, no less) would, at best, be slaving away in the fields or mines, finding a hole to crouch over during a rare break from back-breaking toil.The modern world as we know it today - and all the achievements of civilization - exists chiefly because of international modernization that the age of European exploration and trade have brought to even the farthest corners of the planet. (Not to mention that one has to be a special kind of stupid to post disparaging remarks about the British from - OF ALL THE PLACES - Singapore.)Singapore was founded by the British. It was not conquered by force, but simply bought from Johor and developed into a port competing with the Dutch. Virtually entire population of the city-state has foreign heritage and consists of immigrants from various corners of the world and other parts of Southeast Asia.All of them came to the growing British harbour in search of business opportunities and a better life for themselves and their families, leaving behind places like India or China, among many others.
To see some of them whine about the British Empire - that they quite literally owe their entire current existence to - is pure comedy.You speak English, your legal and political systems have been inherited from the British and before they came there was actually nothing to do here - that's why your (rather recent) ancestors left their god forsaken countries in the first place.I don't even want to bring up the peaceful dissolution of the Empire, which happened under Queen Elizabeth II, with the British ensuring decent governance would continue in the newly formed countries and, in some cases, even helped to get rid of extremist segments in the society who threatened that stability (like communists in Singapore).So, when she is laid to the grave next week, you better think fondly of her.
That's Singapore - what about other countries though? Haven't the British robbed and pillaged them over the centuries? Umm... no.First of all, judging the past by modern standards is fundamentally wrong and ahistorical. Employing force to conquer others was nothing unusual - and not something that Europeans specifically introduced to wherever they went.
What really burns modern whiners is that their ancestors were weak, ignorant losers that they themselves are today.Human history is one of warfare and conquest, and presence of Europeans did nothing to make that worse. The locals had been butchering each other for millennia until Westerners came with far superior knowledge, skills and technology, and imposed their rule over them.
Did Muslims not conquer? Didn't the Hindus? Didn't Srivijayans enslave Africans? Didn't the Chinese butcher the Dzungars, conquer the nomadic tribes of Central Asia and the Tibetans?Who, do you think, put up African slaves on sale in Africa itself? Not Europeans but local, African slavers, who got very rich in the process of capturing members of other tribes to sell them to willing buyers. Heck, the word "slave" itself has its roots in Slav - yes, white Eastern Europeans, who have themselves found to be enslaved over the centuries (women were particularly valued in the Middle Eastern harems).
So, pretty please, spare me your virtue-caterwauling only because your ancestors turned out to have been dumber than their contemporaries in the end.———As with most things, however, while warfare and conquest have been widespread around the world, it was the West - i.a. through the British - that established the new rules-based world order and the concept of national sovereignty. Heck, even the sheer idea of nation states - or nations - was a foreign concept.Until the 20th century there was no such thing as "India", for example.Before the British passed the baton to the locals, it had been a good 300 years of the Mughal rule - Muslim nomads from Central Asia, who were the first to truly attempt to unify the subcontinent.Some of the well-known landmarks of India - the Taj Mahal, Red Fort, mosques, tombs, palaces - were built by them. Should they now be destroyed?Speaking of Mughals, let's return to the jewels in the image - and the most famous Koh-i-Noor, that remains in the British collection. The stone was, indeed, dug out in India - but what of it? Over nearly a millennium of its existence it passed hands between various maharajas, Hindus, Sikhs, Muslim emperors and was acquired after British victory in the Anglo-Sikh war of mid-19th century under a legally binding treaty.
How exactly should it belong to India now, when unified Indian subcontinent as such was a British creation in the first place?The sheer idea of a uniform Indian identity isn't much older than that of a Singaporean one. For most of its history India had been a region divided between many competing, often warring, more or less organized kingdoms and even today is a federation of highly autonomous states - all of which were first brought together under one banner by the British.
What's next? Are entire nations going to start rewriting history because even their capital cities were founded by colonials?Jakarta was originally a 17th century Dutch outpost named Batavia. Kuala Lumpur sprouted out of British tin mining operations, Manila was founded by the Spanish (though earlier settlements may have been established by... Muslims) and Singapore itself is, as I said above, an entirely British creation.Sadly, the ignorance is so widespread that the WUS post became widely popular among people who waste time on the internet indulging their biases instead of educating themselves.
The self-indulgent sense of victimhood is very rewarding as it allows you to instantly feel better about yourself, your heritage, your ancestors and even why your life today isn't as good as you'd like it to be.Grow up - you can't change history, no matter how much you try, but you can still write the future. It's not too late to do a job better at it than your ancestors did.--—PS. Besides Koh-i-Noor and Great Star of Africa (which was dug out in a British mine in South Africa so, again, what claim can anybody else lay to it?) the image itself appears to be completely false, as I did not find any trace of other countries listed there among the official Crown Jewels of the United Kingdom (feel free to correct me, though).
