What is the most shameful episode in British history?

Question

Slave trade, imperialism, Iraq war, Irish famine and 'The Troubles' etc etc?

Answer 1

Losing those 13 colonies in america, then losing it again in 1812.
On paper the British had more wealth, power, ships, soldiers, the whole bit. and to top it off America saved the Uk from the Kasier in world war one and from Hitler in WWII.

Answer 2

The one that resonates most deeply in the area where I'm from is the killings on Blood Sunday in Derry. That unarmed Civil Rights marchers would be gunned down in the street by what was supposed to be their army has meant a generation and more of people from this background can never trust the British establishment. This was the incident that ignited 25 years of violent reaction against British interest in Northern Ireland more than any other. The recent Public Enquiry goes some way to healing that festering wound.

I would say that living in the past with a lot of post-colonial guilt isn't very healthy though. We shouldn't forget these things but also try not to become chained to them.

Answer 3

When we judge history we do it from today's standards so it's never done without bias. The slave trade was wrong but we can't find fault with the British because they weren't alone in this activity and it's still going on today. Imperialism, again, they weren't alone and what would you call the American Capitalist methods of spreading American ideas and values? The Iraq? Have you actually studied history? There has always been war and some of the excuses and results are horrifying. Irish Famine? Dafur, Somalia, Ethiopia and any one of a dozen other places. "The Troubles"? If you look at the history of Youkosavia (spelling) you will find that people have been killing their neighbors there for over 1200 years. It's not British history, it's human history. No one nation or group of people is responsible. Hatred, arrogance and lack of empathy cause our problems and perpetuate them.

Answer 4

There's a lot to choose from as we all know how power corrupts. Although the mistreatment of the Irish and Indian populations is more recent, I would have to say that those lengthy episodes pale next to England's treatment of China during the Opium wars. Basically England blockaded the ports of China and became the biggest drug dealer on the planet, wilfully destroying another culture that they saw as less than human. For cash.

"....Today it seems incredible, but not that long ago a liberal and presumably "progressive" nation forced a weaker one to accept the importation of opium at the point of a sword. Tea grown on Chinese plantations was already a staple of the British diet in the 1830s. Frequently, British merchants paid for the tea with the profits gleaned from massive smuggling of opium into Chinese ports. Opium, first imported into China by Arab traders during the Middle Ages, had cut a devastatingly wide swath through Chinese society, with a large percentage of the army and the bureaucracy addicted. When the Chinese government attempted to prohibit both the use and the smuggling of the drug, Britain launched two wars between 1839 and 1860 to force open Chinese ports. "

Answer 5

The Slave Trade, plus the Battle of the Somme.
The British lost so many men it was not funny. over 20,000 men are killed and more than 50,000 injured. It was throwing the flower of Britain into the Machine Guns.

Answer 6

Electing Margaret Thatcher as Prime Minister

Answer 7

Handing over East Europeans to the Soviets after WW2

Answer 8

All countries have had many. One of the British ones took place during the boor war in South Africa. They put 1000's of women and children in the world's first concentration camps. Over 1/2 died of starvation and sickness.

Answer 9

You truly bypass over the point of it. He become telling them the position he become going, and that he 'would properly be a even as' skill 'do not waste your power to go back and search for me' - he become sacraficing himself for the crew. How solid would it not were if he kept on making use of their aspects even although he knew he become going to die, in a egocentric way? they could no longer have performed better than make him live on a short even as longer besides - on the price of all of them. What ought to Scott have performed? Demanded that he stay and die interior some days later? In such severe circumstances persons often times should be sacraficed that others would live on - and in the journey that they do it of their own will then solid for them.

Answer 10

Probably the opium war- even many British politicians publicly denounced it as shameful, but I should point out that the positive things we gave the world such as liberal democracy and free market economics outweigh the bad things.

Answer 11

The invasion of Iraq. As well has wreaking ongoing carnage for no purpose whatsoever, it has set a very dangerous precedent of pre-emptive invasion. This is a state of affairs we may all live to regret.