Thought for the day

[qldfrog]

A lot of colonialism was not as bad as we are now expected to believe but Belgium action in Congo was unspeakable.i do not believed they left any positive there, just an inhumane behaviour still causing grief nowadays

 

[basilio]

A lot of colonialism was not as bad as we are now expected to believe but Belgium action in Congo was unspeakable.i do not believed they left any positive there, just an inhumane behaviour still causing grief nowadays

Interesting comment. True the actions of the Belgium's in the Congo were on the far side of outrageous. You might want to see how the rubber barons worked the Indians in the Amazon before you give them the final prize however.

I don't believe we can somehow whitewash other colonialism as being "not as bad as expected" . Few points

1) Which countries are we talking about ? Which colonial powers ? When ? Where

2) The realities of how people were treated don't come up in the history books written by the colonial powers. Really do you want to tell the world what an animal you were ? Far better to construct a firm but mostly benign fatherly figure of colonialism with only a few bad apples slurring the upright honour of our great men ectera ectera

3) By and large nation states will cast the worst slurs of colonial excesses on "other countries" . Usually that is to take the heat off them and avoid unpleasant reminders of what has happened.

4) The worst excesses of colonialism will be seen as happening "a long time ago". That takes it out of the range of any current regimes AND THEIR DIRECT DESCENDANTS
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I won't suggest this was on the scale of the Belgian Congo but this looks at how the Indians were treated in Brazil.
https://www.survivalinternational.org/news/7541
https://www.sapiens.org/culture/rubber-era-myths/

 

[basilio]

Good article looking at how the atrocities committed in the Belgian Congo are still whitewashed 100 years later.

No one wants to know what happened in their name.
Belgium's genocidal colonial legacy haunts the country’s future

As Belgium confronts the identity crisis of its disillusioned minorities and homegrown terrorism, its genocidal colonial legacy remains tucked away from the public discourse, confined to art, culture and religion

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/...acy-haunts-the-country-s-future-a7984191.html

 

[basilio]

Last piece on "Why was Colonialism a good/bad thing "

The opening paragraphs are confronting but the whole story is well worth reading and far more nuanced. As Qldfrog points out there are many people who will fly the flag for the Colonial Empire.

A Quick Reminder of Why Colonialism Was Bad

Ignoring or downplaying colonial atrocities is the moral equivalent of Holocaust denial…

by Nathan J. Robinson
Perhaps the easiest way to understand why colonialism was so horrific is to imagine it happening in your own country now. It is invaded, conquered, and occupied by a foreign power. Existing governing institutions are dismantled and replaced by absolute rule of the colonizers. A strict hierarchy separates the colonized and the colonizer; you are treated as an inconvenient subhuman who can be abused at will. The colonists commit crimes with impunity against your people. Efforts at resistance are met with brutal reprisal, sometimes massacre. The more vividly and accurately you manage to conjure what this scenario would actually look like, the more horrified you will be by the very idea of colonialism.

https://www.currentaffairs.org/2017/09/a-quick-reminder-of-why-colonialism-was-bad

 

[noirua]

Their being in that situation, what do you expect. Theirs is the offence but allowing it to be is not. The system itself presented it and the law fails to blame itself and its authorisers of so many kinds. Blame they say is in the past, some distant, but the system, it's authorisers and its Institutions continue in blame if not in other ways, to be condemned in the future.

 

[noirua]

A dose of narcissism can be a good thing. It can build your self-esteem and give you joy. You’re less likely to be depressed, lonely, or discouraged. ”Normal narcissists” often are excellent speakers and visionaries. That may be why they also tend to earn bigger salaries in the corporate world.

WebMD

 

[noirua]

I am always here tending my flock, verily. Not for their respect but for my service to all. Sitting here with my collection hat. Not handing it around in expectation.

 

[noirua]

As we get older we become more like ourselves, caricatures of ourselves that is.

 

[noirua]

 

[qldfrog]

A looser is a dreamer who persists in his mistakes

 

[noirua]

A looser is a dreamer who persists in his mistakes

Nelson Mandela was a loser who kept on losing, dreamt and won with the final toss. Mind you, others did most of the fighting whilst he was dreaming.

 

[qldfrog]

True, and for most of the losers you will never hear from them as they stay defeated

Nelson Mandela was a loser who kept on losing, dreamt and won with the final toss. Mind you, others did most of the fighting whilst he was dreaming.

 

[explod]

Nelson Mandela was a loser who kept on losing, dreamt and won with the final toss. Mind you, others did most of the fighting whilst he was dreaming.

Have you read the biography "Long Walk to Freedom". I have and you are very very wrong.

 

[qldfrog]

Before to jump to usual conclusion Explod, my own comment was generic and a fact of life, and to be honest most "losers" do not do much persistance, J D Peterson has some interesting view on that subject, if you dare to read someone not PC

 

[explod]

Before to jump to usual conclusion Explod, my own comment was generic and a fact of life, and to be honest most "losers" do not do much persistance, J D Peterson has some interesting view on that subject, if you dare to read someone not PC

Those children under the hands of the peodaphile priests felt themselves as losers and is why so many committed suicide, their own fathers belted them when they began to try and tell.

Unless you have been in their shoes and circumstances you cannot refer to people as bludgers or losers.

 

[qldfrog]

If you know them you can, there are not always good excuses.
**** happens, some people have enormous handicap, luck does count and there is no fairness in nature, but some people are losers definitively but i agree you cancan judge that by walking past in the street.
Wrong company, wrong attitude social economic background can contribute but some people rise from adversity while other sink under the same circumstances.
These kids who committed suicide could probably have been saved by a proper psychiatric help

 

[basilio]

If you know them you can, there are not always good excuses.
**** happens, some people have enormous handicap, luck does count and there is no fairness in nature, but some people are losers definitively but i agree you cancan judge that by walking past in the street.
Wrong company, wrong attitude social economic background can contribute but some people rise from adversity while other sink under the same circumstances.
These kids who committed suicide could probably have been saved by a proper psychiatric help

Perhaps we should have recognized and STOPPED the abuse of children by religious and other orgs rather than having an ambulance at the bottom of the cliff.

It's true not every person who was abused turns into a social disaster. That is much the same situation as not all rape victims end up with serious social problems or all people who were interred in Concentration camps end up seriously affected.. But experience tells us many do.

I suggest the question is how we attempt to ensure the initial trauma doesn't happen, or is quickly stopped. Make sense ?
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One of the most compelling social work stories I read in the past was an analysis of the lives of people who had suffered extreme poverty and degradation as children during the depression years. One of the consequences off this degradation was the destruction of their humanity. They really were soulless people.

Twenty years later in the 50's these people had children and almost all of them were dreadful parents as a result of their upbringing. They created a new generation of unloved, undisciplined children. Quite terrifying.

 

[basilio]

Broken Rites has been the principal organisation in examining the sexual abuse of Catholic religious. It began in 1993.
The stories they tell are horrific.
http://www.brokenrites.org.au/drupal/taxonomy/term/1044

 

[noirua]

Among the most evil people in concentration camps were Jews themselves, driving their fellow people to the gas chambers and often in a brutal manner. Many fearing for themselves will join with the devil incarnate. However the devil throws them, when they have finished the work, into the gas chambers also.

 

[qldfrog]

And from a first hand survivor, as a kidk i remember him telling how the ones he really felt so sorry were the russian women sent to the camp who were brutally gang raped repeatedly by the fellow prisoners, not the guards or their delegates
Man can be evil