Best Colonia Empires/Powers

For their colonial behaviour between 1490 and 1918, which country was best?

  • Britain

    Votes: 31 33.0%
  • France

    Votes: 4 4.3%
  • Spain

    Votes: 3 3.2%
  • Portugal

    Votes: 5 5.3%
  • Belgium

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Netherlands

    Votes: 2 2.1%
  • Germany

    Votes: 7 7.4%
  • Japan

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Austria

    Votes: 8 8.5%
  • Russia

    Votes: 2 2.1%
  • United States

    Votes: 16 17.0%
  • Italy

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Ottomans

    Votes: 10 10.6%
  • Other

    Votes: 6 6.4%

  • Total voters
    94
  • Poll closed .
People in the early 20th century had an early 20th century worldview in which colonialism was okay, among other things bizarre and horrible to us now, in a more civilised age. They were appalled by the Boer War because the system practiced on native peoples for a long, long time was, in a mild, watered down, kid-gloves version, happening to white people.

Whereas if we think in modern terms, the Boer War is a high point as "invading people for no good reason and taking their land" goes. Our policies often involved less "concentration camps" and more "shoot 'em dead".

The reason the Boer War was considered so bad by contemporaries was because the British were fighting White people in an aggressive manner, despite the fact that the combat was relatively "civilized". If the Boers had been Zulus, the British could have virtually exterminated them with little comment from Europe.

As far as atrocities go, everything bad the British did in the entire course of the Boer War didn't equal even one exploratory expedition sent to Africa, which usually accounted for thousands of Blacks slaughtered and countless more starving due to having their lands ravaged, not to mention the death-marching of forced porters across Africa.
 
The reason the Boer War was considered so bad by contemporaries was because the British were fighting White people in an aggressive manner, despite the fact that the combat was relatively "civilized". If the Boers had been Zulus, the British could have virtually exterminated them with little comment from Europe.

As far as atrocities go, everything bad the British did in the entire course of the Boer War didn't equal even one exploratory expedition sent to Africa, which usually accounted for thousands of Blacks slaughtered and countless more starving due to having their lands ravaged, not to mention the death-marching of forced porters across Africa.

I do agree with you that what made the Boer War be considered controversial even at the time was the it was atrocities (of a relatively 'mild' sort) against white people and that worse atrocities that occurred against non-white people were ignored.

What I was just meaning was that I can understand how it was so controversial at the time and that if I was living back then I would probably have the same views. I mean, a certain degree of hypocrisy tends to present in most people's views about foreign policy. I mean just look at how the modern left/liberals tend to view Western atrocities against Non-Westerners as more appaling than Non-West VS Non-West atrocities (and I would have to admit that I, as a left-winger, tend to occassionally be guilty of this too). So for instance, apartheid-era South Africa would be more heavily criticised for killing 100 people, than Idi-Amin's Uganda would be for killing 10 000 people.

Of course this example is rather than opposite to what you are saying, but it shows that foreign policy is one of the areas of politics where people tend to have the most unobjective and incomprehensible sets of beliefs, that are often not particularly amenable to reason.
 
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