Is Britain to blame for many of the world's problems?

[pmaitra]

I would agree that much of the world's problems are caused by Islam. More so than British or any European colonialism. If you look at most of the conflict in Africa, it is Christians vs Islam. Look at the ME, it is Jews vs Islam or Sunni vs Shia Islam, South Asia being Hindu vs Islam, and the GWOT is the Western world vs Wahhabi Islam. The militant nature of that religion just isn't compatible with the modern world. It either has to adapt or become irrelevant because the world just isn't going to put up with jihad anymore.

Look at the emboldened part. That is an oxymoron. Here's why:

• Wahhabi Islam is championed by Saudi Arabia.
• Saudi Arabia is an ally of the US in particular and West in general.
• Fanatic, and often Wahhabi Islam is also championed by significant and powerful sections within Pakistan, including the government establishment, army and ISI.
• Pakistan is also a US ally.
• Many of the recent Western invasions has been on relatively liberal (from the religious point of view) Muslim countries, for example Iraq and Libya.

The real reason for all the conflicts is probably elsewhere.

 

[Nonynon]

I blame the British Empire for whats going on around here. If they wouldn't have given the Palestinian land to some small loyal tribe (AKA Jordan), the conflict would have been a lot shorter; would they not have stopped Israel from conquering the West bank, Golan highs and Gaza after we won our war of independence the conflict would have been a lot less stressed because there would be no occupation or a huge Arab minority in Israel; would they not have kissed Arab ass while they occupied Israel and promised the Arabs that they give them all the land, the Arab hops of destroying Israel that inspired almost all of the wars would have decreased dramatically; would they not have constantly supported Jordan, Iraq and all the rest of the Arabs, we might have finished this conflict in our first war in an overwhelming victory; would they not have constantly led the Western anti Zionist propaganda machine, a lot of wars might have been spared by not having a hostile, terrorist supporting Western public opinion. Hell, Britain didn't even bomb the Nazi destruction chambers in WW2, something that could have saved hundreds of thousands of Jews from the holocaust with little military cost.

The sad part is Britain hadn't changed, its still an enemy of Israel in many ways. In fact, there is no other country in Europe with as much antisemitic attacks as Britain. Then there is the overwhelming Israel hating British public opinion, Israel demonization on the British media (mainly BBC) and the constant Israel bashing British foreign policy. I'm aware this conflict would have happened with or without Britain's involvement but Britain did everything in order to make it worst. How many lives did Britain take by doing all this? And for what? Cheaper Arab oil prices? Makes me sick.

France, Belgium and all the others have developed this feeling that makes they sorry for their crimes in their colonies and that makes them constantly help them (like the French involvement in the Ivory coast), unlike Britain.
Glad Australia and Canada are nowhere close to what Britain is doing in that sense.

 

[Armand2REP]

Look at the emboldened part. That is an oxymoron. Here's why:

• Wahhabi Islam is championed by Saudi Arabia.
• Saudi Arabia is an ally of the US in particular and West in general.
• Fanatic, and often Wahhabi Islam is also championed by significant and powerful sections within Pakistan, including the government establishment, army and ISI.
• Pakistan is also a US ally.
• Many of the recent Western invasions has been on relatively liberal (from the religious point of view) Muslim countries, for example Iraq and Libya.

The real reason for all the conflicts is probably elsewhere.

The Saudi regime is in its own crackdown on Wahhabis. Pakistan is in its own battle. You only highlight one of five different areas I listed.

The one common factor to most of the world's conflicts is ISLAM.

 

[pmaitra]

The Saudi regime is in its own crackdown on Wahhabis. Pakistan is in its own battle. You only highlight one of five different areas I listed.

The one common factor to most of the world's conflicts is ISLAM.

Yes, I highlighted only one portion of your argument because that is what I do not agree with.

We have differences in opinion here:

• You say Saudi Arabia is fighting against Wahhabism, I say Saudi Arabia is promoting Wahhabism.
• You say Pakistan is fighitng its own battle, I say Pakistan is breeding and feeding these very people that they would like the West to believe they are fighting.

I think you will never see the point. It is not your fault, it is the fault of Western thinking. Being highly materialistic, occidentals believe that money can do anything and everything. That is why the US has been funding Pakistan and giving them aid for decades when it is a no-brainer that Pakistan's biggest export is terrorism. Of course, as long as we have people in Western governments who are willing to believe that certain countries are trying hard to contain terrorism and extremism, then countries like Pakistan will continue to take the West on a wild goose chase, keep extorting money, keep exporting terrorism and keep claiming to be the victim.

 

[The Messiah]

Huh? In the 1946 elections, the Muslim League won 425 of the 496 Muslim seats. That was 89.2% of the Islamic vote. Lucky for India, only 28 members of the Muslim League joined the India Assembly.

They didn't want to be part of India in the first place.

They partitioned India to give like minded people like minded states. I can't imagine how messed up India would be if it still held those populations. So many are still under the poverty line, it would probably have broken up into a hundred pieces by now if it had to deal with that kind of division.

1. Many were reserved seats only for muslims.

2. The four Indian Provinces which were to constitute Pakistan, the Muslim League could not secure absolute majority in any of the states.

3. In 1937, elections to the provincial legislatures were held for the first time. The Congress did well in the elections, winning an absolute majority in five out of eleven provinces and forming governments in seven of them. It did badly in the constituencies reserved for Muslims, but the Muslim League also fared poorly, polling only 4.4 per cent of the total Muslim vote cast in this election. The League failed to win a single seat in the North West Frontier Province (NWFP) and could capture only two out of 84 reserved constituencies in the Punjab and three out of 33 in Sind.

In the United Provinces, the Muslim League wanted to form a joint government with the Congress. The Congress had won an absolute majority in the province, so it rejected the offer. Some scholars argue that this rejection convinced the League that if India remained united, then Muslims would find it difficult to gain political power because they would remain a minority. The League assumed, of course, that only a Muslim party could represent Muslim interests, and that the Congress was essentially a Hindu party. But Jinnah's insistence that the League be recognised as the "sole spokesman" of Muslims could convince few at the time. Though popular in the United Provinces, Bombay and Madras, social support for the League was still fairly weak in three of the provinces from which Pakistan was to be carved out just ten years later – Bengal, the NWFP and the Punjab. Even in Sind it failed to form a government.

And India has stood for thousands of years and would continue to do so if it was partitioned or not. Infact the west would have been worse off if pakistan wasn't created. The soviets would have gotten afghanistan and the yanks couldn't have done anything about it except invade India and risk drawing the soviets into it.

 

[Armand2REP]

Muslims voted for the Muslim League by 89.2% in 1946. The ML platform was partition... Only 28 out of 498 members joined India...the Muslims wanted to be partitioned. Not rocket science.

 

[The Messiah]

You dont know the ground realities of India so you cannot comprehend.

By your same logic now Indians deliberately vote for corrupt uneducated politicians even after knowing they are thieves ?

If muslims wanted to be partitioned then why did so many stay behind in India ? people dont vote on agendas here like they do in frace.

 

[Armand2REP]

You dont know the ground realities of India so you cannot comprehend.

By your same logic now Indians deliberately vote for corrupt uneducated politicians even after knowing they are thieves ?

Mayawati is living proof.

If muslims wanted to be partitioned then why did so many stay behind in India ? people dont vote on agendas here like they do in frace.

Why did so many millions leave India? After seeing what happened to the ones before, it was wiser to stay home than risk death like hundreds of thousands.

 

[shuvo@y2k10]

well islam and christanity are outside religions which have been brought to indian subcontinent by foreign invaders who resorted to loot and plunder india's wealth,killed and raped thousands and enforces their religion on us.people belonging to these religion never had or will have any moral right to divide the sacred land of india.the partition was a joint venture of islam and christianity and will alwways remain as the greatest sin to humanity by all of us indians.

 

[AOE]

Armand2REP is correct about islam playing a role in the largest amount of conflicts. This is undeniable, and much more historically prevalent than British colonialism.

@nonynon, I somewhat agree with you also, and much respect and solidarity to those Israelis who suffered during the Six Day War, and the war that followed independence. Britain did capitulate a lot over the dividing up of the area, especially since Winston Churchill was attacked numerous times on his way from Egypt to the region. If you ever listen to muslim extremists or many Palestine supporters, usually they say the same criticism only in reverse; so I'm impartial to this kind of argument. The level of capitulation or support for the Arabs was minimal in comparison to the regimes supported by the Soviet Union, especially those run by Gamal Abdel Nasser, Saddam Hussein, and Hafiz al-Assad.

The anti-semitism in Europe, particularly in England; you know I don't condone it. We get a lot of Brits immigrating here and I've caught a few making remarks about Israel that I've had to correct them on, and I'm also glad most Canadians and Australians are layed back and don't buy into this kind of bullshit either, so thanks for the heads up.

 

[Nonynon]

The reason Pali supporters say the same about Britain is because Britain wasn't too nice to them either. They gave the Pali land to a small Bedouin and therefore forced the to either fight us Israelis or lose the newly formed Pali nationality in return for a Jordanian and Egyptian one. When Israel's war of independence started and the 'Palestine mandate' was in a civil war, the British were already in retreat after it was decided that the British are to leave their 'Palestine mandate', so as they deported themselves they tried to delay the war until they were all out. They did that by assisting the defenders whenever any side started an offensive and that was almost always the Arab ones because the Jewish offensives only started after the British all left.
On the other hand, while Britain ruled their 'Palestine mandate' they made anti Jewish laws (like outlawing selling any land to a Jew), promised to give the land to an democratic Arab country, supported all the Arab armies (especially Jordan) and support the Arabs in all the UN votes (like forcing India to vote against Israel's independence). This aside the fact that if Britain would have opened up the 'Palestine mandate' to Jewish immigration in the years Jews needed to get away from Nazi Europe but had no country that agreed to take us in, millions could have been saved.
Its also worth mentioning that in the British 'Palestine mandate' there was extremely little and you can say no Arab anti British movements, all the war to kick the British out was done by the Jewish militias.
Palis just like to make the world see them as victims that need to be compensated so they say Britain was pro Jewish and to decrease the credits the Jewish militias got for kicking the British out.
As for Egypt, Britain still held Egypt and the Suez as a colony so no wonder some Egyptians were angry and that eventually led Britain and Egypt to clash in 1956 when Egypt nationalized the Suez.

 

[sandeepdg]

Britain is certainly not to blame for all of the world's problems but it is certainly one of the problems. Most of problems plaguing the developing world are related to religious issues be it Africa, West Asia or South Asia. But leaving aside other regions, what the Britishers did to India is not pardonable, even though they may boast of giving us modern railways, education system, telegraph, administrative services, they also systematically massacred millions of innocent people, looted billions of dollars worth of our wealth, demolished our indigenous industry, and the India which was known as the "Golden Bird" since the pre-medieval ages, was transformed into a poor and helpless nation. But that was in the past, and we will rise again to take our rightful place as one of the greatest civilizations that the world ever had.

 

[AOE]

@nonynon: Many Pali supporters are mad because Israel got ANY land to call home, lol, although you are right about the rest. The Suez Crisis of 1956 also included Israeli and French forces, and was condemned by Eisenhower at the time; although he admitted that doing so was a mistake.

 

[civfanatic]

I would agree that much of the world's problems are caused by Islam. More so than British or any European colonialism. If you look at most of the conflict in Africa, it is Christians vs Islam. Look at the ME, it is Jews vs Islam or Sunni vs Shia Islam, South Asia being Hindu vs Islam, and the GWOT is the Western world vs Wahhabi Islam. The militant nature of that religion just isn't compatible with the modern world. It either has to adapt or become irrelevant because the world just isn't going to put up with jihad anymore.

No use solely blaming Islam. Other religions, especially Christianity, have caused just as much suffering, if not more.

Going to the topic of India, why is it that Islamic fundamentalism has become widespread in Pakistan, but not in India? There was certainly not the same level of Islamic fundamentalism in 1947 that there is today.

I blame Britain for allowing the creation of Pakistan in the first place, thus directly contributing to the problem of Islamic fundamentalism that exists today.

 

[Armand2REP]

No use solely blaming Islam. Other religions, especially Christianity, have caused just as much suffering, if not more.

Christianity causes more suffering? Really?!? The biggest cited example of Christian barbarity are the Crusades, and it was a million dead over 200 years. That is like 5000 dead per year on both sides. Muslim conflicts kills tens of thousands every year. Hell, the Muslim conquest of India killed 13 million people. The Crusades don't even come close to that. Oh, second mentioned is always the Spanish Inquisition... 32k... please. Wars and suffering declared in the name of Christ pale in comparison to those in the name of Allah.

 

[civfanatic]

Christianity causes more suffering? Really?!? The biggest cited example of Christian barbarity are the Crusades, and it was a million dead over 200 years. That is like 5000 dead per year on both sides. Muslim conflicts kills tens of thousands every year. Hell, the Muslim conquest of India killed 13 million people. The Crusades don't even come close to that. Oh, second mentioned is always the Spanish Inquisition... 32k... please. Wars and suffering declared in the name of Christ pale in comparison to those in the name of Allah.

The entire Western Hemisphere was ethnically cleansed by Christians.

 

[AOE]

The Spanish Inquisition claimed something a long the lines of 300,000 peoples lives, according to Rudolph Rummel, and a further 100,000 for the Witch Hunts. This doesn't include the 12-14 million native Americans killed during colonialism by christians, and add this on top of 17 million Africans killed by colonialism in Africa. Then there is of course 20th century European fascism, which was almost entirely christian backed, and cost the lives of over 20 million people. What about the Thirty Years War, sectarian violence in North Ireland, the Yugoslav Wars, the Rwandan genocide, Robert Mugabe (he's a catholic), the Lords Resistance army in Uganda, and the Peasants War?

I know that islam is responsible for a considerable amount of killings in the last 1400 years, but so is christianity.

 

[Armand2REP]

The entire Western Hemisphere was ethnically cleansed by Christians.

The Western Hemisphere was ethnically cleansed by disease... not the fault of a religion.

 

[Armand2REP]

The Spanish Inquisition claimed something a long the lines of 300,000 peoples lives, according to Rudolph Rummel, and a further 100,000 for the Witch Hunts. This doesn't include the 12-14 million native Americans killed during colonialism by christians, and add this on top of 17 million Africans killed by colonialism in Africa. Then there is of course 20th century European fascism, which was almost entirely christian backed, and cost the lives of over 20 million people. What about the Thirty Years War, sectarian violence in North Ireland, the Yugoslav Wars, the Rwandan genocide, Robert Mugabe (he's a catholic), the Lords Resistance army in Uganda, and the Peasants War?

The accepted number for the Inquisition is 32,000 and witch hunts we will never know. Disease killed off the native Americans and colonising Africa didn't have much to do with religion but imperialism. Facism and Christianity... please. We are talking about barbarity committed in the name of religion. Ireland, Yugoslavia, Rwanda... what does that have to do with religion? People were fighting for control. None of them made it a holy war. Secular conflicts don't make it in the name of religion.

I know that islam is responsible for a considerable amount of killings in the last 1400 years, but so is christianity.

Islam makes everything a jihad so all wars to them are holy wars. Christianity don't do that so the wars aren't in the name of a religion.

 

[sandeepdg]

Islam makes everything a jihad so all wars to them are holy wars. Christianity don't do that so the wars aren't in the name of a religion.

Well, from what I know, Christianity is also orthodox, as Christians just like Muslims believe in only one god, i.e. theirs own, Jesus or Allah, they don't recognize any other version of God or have respect for other religions. On the contrary, Hinduism and Buddhism are much more accomodating, we know that there is only one god, but is known by different names, like Allah, Jesus, Brahma, Vishnu, Mahesh, Guru Nanak and Buddha. We respect God in all forms and religions.