This was a great one Craig. As an outsider living on this strange island, it is odd to notice how unaware a lot of British people are of their own country's history (yet mention Congo every time I say I am from Belgium)
Thank you, Carole. Yeah, there's a lot of those whataboutisms, pointing to other nations with colonial pasts as a way of saying, "Well, we weren't the only ones, and we weren't the worst." That last bit is, arguably, the most delusional. I don't know how big Belgium's colonial project was, I know about Congo, of course, but the British Empire was huge ("The sun never sets on the British Empire") and lasted quite a long time. So it is weird that British people do deflect like that. There's this notion of the British Empire as being a benign one, or a force for good, and that countries like Belgium or France were just all about killing and enslaving people.
I do think the defensiveness, and lack of awareness, comes out of the way we are taught about British history and Empire. When I was at school, the British history we did learn about was almost exclusively based on old kings and queens. We did get taught about Indian Independence in the last year of High School, that covered the Amritsar Massacre, but you wouldn't come away from it like, "wow, the British Empire was so bad". It was sanitised as a product of an old world, that countries sought dominance over other countries, it was bad, but we've changed now, so we can move on. There's no depth to it.
Do people have a similar attitude in Belgium when confronted with the countries colonial past?
Interesting read. There are many places in the essay that I see mirrored here in the States. Perhaps this is a result of changes taking place in neoliberalism. (At least as I understand the arguments made by Byung-Chul Han.) Perhaps each person needs to decide what being "X" is for themself, and less concerned about the views of others. Maybe, one day, people much smarter than me will figure out a better way.
Thank you for that, glad you liked it. Yes, I think a lot of the issues around identity are a consequence of four or five decades of neoliberalism - the selling off of all public assets, gentrification, and the creation of a more individualistic society. What I think we have seen is the failure of neoliberalism and the impact of a neoliberal, hyper-capitalist form of globalisation that has been engineered through neoliberal policies on communities. I could be wrong, and I know other factors come into play, but I do believe the direction taken by Western governments has been detrimental to people's collective sense of belonging. And though I disagree wholeheartedly with those seeking to establish a Britain, or America, First politics, this sense of loss, betrayal, and of being sold out by our institutions is very real, and is being channelled, at the moment, through national identity.
And I see what you mean. I think we need to find a way living together in solidarity without the herd mentality of nationalism or national attachments.
This was a great one Craig. As an outsider living on this strange island, it is odd to notice how unaware a lot of British people are of their own country's history (yet mention Congo every time I say I am from Belgium)
Thank you, Carole. Yeah, there's a lot of those whataboutisms, pointing to other nations with colonial pasts as a way of saying, "Well, we weren't the only ones, and we weren't the worst." That last bit is, arguably, the most delusional. I don't know how big Belgium's colonial project was, I know about Congo, of course, but the British Empire was huge ("The sun never sets on the British Empire") and lasted quite a long time. So it is weird that British people do deflect like that. There's this notion of the British Empire as being a benign one, or a force for good, and that countries like Belgium or France were just all about killing and enslaving people.
I do think the defensiveness, and lack of awareness, comes out of the way we are taught about British history and Empire. When I was at school, the British history we did learn about was almost exclusively based on old kings and queens. We did get taught about Indian Independence in the last year of High School, that covered the Amritsar Massacre, but you wouldn't come away from it like, "wow, the British Empire was so bad". It was sanitised as a product of an old world, that countries sought dominance over other countries, it was bad, but we've changed now, so we can move on. There's no depth to it.
Do people have a similar attitude in Belgium when confronted with the countries colonial past?
Interesting read. There are many places in the essay that I see mirrored here in the States. Perhaps this is a result of changes taking place in neoliberalism. (At least as I understand the arguments made by Byung-Chul Han.) Perhaps each person needs to decide what being "X" is for themself, and less concerned about the views of others. Maybe, one day, people much smarter than me will figure out a better way.
Thank you for that, glad you liked it. Yes, I think a lot of the issues around identity are a consequence of four or five decades of neoliberalism - the selling off of all public assets, gentrification, and the creation of a more individualistic society. What I think we have seen is the failure of neoliberalism and the impact of a neoliberal, hyper-capitalist form of globalisation that has been engineered through neoliberal policies on communities. I could be wrong, and I know other factors come into play, but I do believe the direction taken by Western governments has been detrimental to people's collective sense of belonging. And though I disagree wholeheartedly with those seeking to establish a Britain, or America, First politics, this sense of loss, betrayal, and of being sold out by our institutions is very real, and is being channelled, at the moment, through national identity.
And I see what you mean. I think we need to find a way living together in solidarity without the herd mentality of nationalism or national attachments.