More Observations On The British Empire

Some time ago, responding to the avant Brit socialist line that its Colonial period was unforgivably sinful, I wrote a post on Britain's Colonial past, pointing out:

British Colonialism was Britain's gift to the world. A sizable chunk, if not the majority of the most prosperous and free countries in the world today have emerged from Britain's colonial empire . . . Indeed, as I pointed out in a post below, the U.S. not only adopted most of Britain's legal, governmental and bureaucratic systems, but the Bill of Rights itself is in large measure an amalgam of the rights of British Protestants at the time of our nation's founding. Our debt to Britain is deep and lasting. . . .

The Brits . . . brought a host of benefits to the nations they colonized, from education to the English language, from trade to capitalism, from government bureaucracy and democracy to the British legal system. . . .

David Cameron, Britain's new PM is now preparing to visit India, once the jewel of Britain's colonial possessions, and announced that he is doing so "with a spirit of humility." Nirpal Dhaliwal, the son of Indian immigrants to Britain, writing in the Daily Mail, has pointed out that Cameron does not need to be apologetic to India, as the gifts of Britain from the Colonial Period now form the basis for India's rapid growth and evolution:

Many have interpreted David Cameron's statement that he is visiting India in a 'spirit of humility' as a shame-faced apology for Britain's imperial rule there. But Indians require no apology for Empire and seek none, and nor do Britons need to feel especially guilty for it.

India is the world's second-largest growing economy, producing more English-speaking graduates than the rest of the world combined.
The use of English is the most enduring and profitable legacy of the Raj; without it, the boom in Indian call-centre and software industries could not have happened. . . .

Just as Empire opened the doors of modernity to India, a good relationship between Britain and India will be a mark of how prominent both countries are in the modern world.

All that is best about India - its tolerance, freedom and engagement with the world - has flourished due to the structures and ideas it inherited from British rule.

Despite the often callous profiteering of Empire, the modern Indian state simply would not exist without it. . . .

The attitudes of British intelligentsia towards the Colonial period is deeply distorted by the lens of Marxism and multiculturalism. The reality is that the British Colonial period has proven one of history's most positive influences.

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Russia Invades Georgia

This is a dangerous situation. CNN is reporting that Russia, which has never given up its imperealist designs on the old Soviet states, has now invaded Geogia.
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This from CNN:

Russian and Georgian troops fought Friday over the disputed Caucasus region of South Ossetia as world powers implored the two nations to end the violence.

News reports documented fierce clashes between Georgian and Russian forces -- engagements that caused deaths, property damage, and population displacement in South Ossetia, a pro-Russian autonomous region of Georgia.

Much of the fighting was in and around the South Ossetian capital, Tskhinvali, where black smoke from fire wafts overhead, Interfax news agency reported.

One U.S. State Department official involved in the diplomacy called the conflict a "very dangerous situation" and said diplomatic moves are afoot around the globe to stop the flare-up.

Georgia -- located on the Black Sea coast between Russia and Turkey --appealed for diplomatic intervention, but stressed it was not asking for military assistance.

Georgia's president said: "All day today, they've been bombing Georgia from numerous warplanes and specifically targeting (the) civilian population, and we have scores of wounded and dead among (the) civilian population all around the country," President Mikhail Saakashvili told CNN in an exclusive interview.

"This is the worst nightmare one can encounter," he said.

. . . About 150 Russian armored vehicles have entered South Ossetia, Saakashvili said, and Georgian forces had shot down two Russian aircraft.

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, quoted by the Russian news agency Interfax, said Russians had died because of Georgia military operations in South Ossetia.

Russia "will not allow the deaths of our compatriots to go unpunished" and "those guilty will receive due punishment," he said. "My duty as Russian president is to safeguard the lives and dignity of Russian citizens, wherever they are. This is what is behind the logic of the steps we are undertaking now."

South Ossetia, with a population of about 70,000 people, declared independence from Georgia in the early 1990s, but it was not internationally recognized. Many ethnic Ossetians feel close to Russia and have Russian passports and use its currency.

Russia's Defense Ministry said it sent "reinforcements" to South Ossetia to help the Russian peacekeepers already stationed there.

Interfax news agency quoted the Georgian Foreign Ministry as saying strikes by Russian aircraft killed and wounded personnel at a Georgian airbase, and that Russian planes have been bombing Georgian territory throughout the day. Georgian officials also report four Russian aircraft shot down.

. . . Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov told his counterparts in the United States and Germany and the European Union's foreign policy chief that Georgia was the aggressor and should immediately withdraw its troops from South Ossetia.

. . . By early evening Friday, Georgian Cabinet minister said the country's forces have taken control of the South Ossetian capital of Tskhinvali, Interfax reported.

The Novosti news agency, citing the South Ossetian government, said Georgian tanks and infantry attacked Tskhinvali and "a large part of the city has been destroyed. Over 15 civilians have been killed, several buildings are on fire in the city center, and the local parliament building has burned down."

. . . Violence has been mounting in the region in recent days, with sporadic clashes between Georgian forces and South Ossetian separatists.

Georgian troops launched new attacks in South Ossetia late Thursday after a top government official said a unilateral cease-fire offer was met with separatist artillery fire.

Alexander Lomaia, the secretary of Georgia's National Security Council, said Georgian troops responded proportionately to separatist mortar and artillery attacks on two villages -- attacks he said followed the cease-fire and call for negotiations by Saakashvili.

Russia said a Georgian attack on a military barracks left a number of Russian peacekeepers dead.

Russian peacekeepers are in South Ossetia under a 1992 agreement by Russian, Georgian, and South Ossetian authorities to maintain what has been a fragile peace. The mixed peacekeeping force also includes Georgian and South Ossetian troops.

Saakashvili said the Russian invasion of South Ossetia was pre-planned.

"These troops that are in Georgia now -- they didn't come unexpectedly," the president told CNN. "They had been amassing at the border for the last few months. They claimed they were staging exercises there and as soon as a suitable pretext was found, they moved in."

Read the entire article. And there is this assessment from Chris Borgen at Opinio Juris:

The separatist conflicts in the Georgian regions of South Ossetia and Abkhazia have often been termed “frozen conflicts,” along with other long-standing separatist crises in Moldova and Azerbaijan (and some would add Kosovo). There are many reasons why these conflict have been seemingly intractable. Factors ranging from Russian assistance to the separatists (especially in the Georgian and Moldovan cases), a sense of ethnic difference (justified or not), historical grievances, and factions that seek to derail negotiated solutions are problems in all of these conflicts.

Georgia , however has been in the unenviable position of having two distinct separatist regions: one in Abkhazia and the other in South Ossetia. Russia has taken an increasingly interventionist stance on the situation in Georgia, especially since Kosovo’s declaration of independence. I have heard many experts express concern that, of the frozen conflicts, one (or both) of the Georgian conflicts were at greatest risk of becoming real wars. In part, this is because Russia is most easily able to exert direct influence as both regions border Russia and Russia can easily roll in the tanks, as it has done today.

This crisis points out an interesting divergeance between how Russia talks about international law and how the EU and US do, as I’ve written about here. In short, when it comes to the frozen conflicts the EU and the U.S. focus on the international norms concerning sovereignty, territorial integrity, and that self-determination does not lead to a right of secession. Russia, however, tends to focus on norms concerning minority rights and the ability of states to defend the interests of “co-nationals.” Seemingly in an attempt to fortify the “co-nationals” argument, Russia has been recently providing passports to just about anyone in Abkhazia or South Ossetia who asked for one. Russia then argues that these people–who had until then lived their lives in Georgia–are best understood as Russian citizens. This “passportization” policy has been widely criticized. This argument based on minority rights and the protection of co-nationals seems to be at the heart of Russia’s explanations of its invasion of Georgia. . . .

Read the entire post. Russia is playing a dangerous game. It appears that they are using their support of Iran as an ace in the hole to tie down the U.S. and, after NATO refused Georgia's entry over the Bush's dissent, are now seeking to make their play to reestablish a bit of their empire.

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A Grasp of History

Brits At Their Best posts today on how little the British seem to understand their own history. One firm conclusion to which I have come, after a lifetime of studying history, is that the single most beneficial and positive force of the past millenium was Britain. If one looks at the most democratic, free and prosperous nations on this earth, they virtually all arise out of the British empire. The U.S. Bill of Rights is precious little more than a rote cataloguing of the rights of free Englishmen in 1776. And the last major Supreme Court decision turned on a legal theory, habeas corpus, that was one of those rights, originating out of the Magna Carta in 1215 A.D. Over the course of history, countless millions of people on every continent have taken up arms to defend these ideals gifted to the world by Britain.

Britain's history is a history of which the British should feel intensely proud. Yet it is a history of which few in Britain of today seem to grasp. And because of that, they are on the precipice of jettisoning it.
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Brits At Their Best has an exceptional post, "An almost unfathomable ignorance of history," whose central points I could not agree with more. Indeed, as I have written before, in the post Change & The Cessation Of British History, the tragedy of the new millenium may well turn out to be the cessation of the British ideals and all it has brought to the world. Marxist theory that fully animates the British left has distored and demonized British history within Britain in itself. This in turn has allowed the left to jettison traditional anglo-saxon ideals and values and, in what can only be called a coup, the Labour government to transfer Britain's sovereignty to the anti-democratic and anti-capitalist EU. It is a tragedy of epic proportions. Here is a bit of the exceptional post at Brits At Their Best:

. . . In his book Empire, Niall Ferguson points out that the British brought interesting and valuable gifts to their empire, including -

The English language
Property rights
Scottish and English banking practices
Common law
Team sports
The limited or 'night watchman' state (and low rates of taxation)
Representative assemblies and
The idea of liberty.

Ferguson quickly adds -

I do not mean to claim that all British imperialists were liberals - far from it. But what is very striking about the history of the Empire is that whenever the British were behaving despotically, there was almost always a liberal critique of that behaviour from within British society. Indeed, so powerful and consistent was this tendency to judge Britain's imperial conduct by the yardstick of liberty that it gave the British Empire something of a self-liquidating character . .[and that] sets it apart from its continental European rivals. . .

Quite a few people around the world continue to appreciate these British gifts.

Despite losing an empire and living on ration cards for years, the British people pulled themselves together and with hard work, global trade and the ideas of a limited state, common law and liberty created the fourth-largest economy in the world with safety nets for the poor and indisposed. They made London the financial capital of the world.

India, relying on those same gifts and the ingenuity of her people, is becoming an enormous economic success.

Today the British political class is scurrying to Brussels to give away our independence, common law, limited 'night watchman' state, representative assembly, a considerable fraction of our personal income and London's prosperity in order to trade with an empire that has high trade tariffs, and is dominated by countries whose previous empires were always despotic and which have today created an undemocratic suprastate. The political class expects us to believe that if we don't submit to the European empire we won't have anyone to trade with. . . .

Read the entire post. There is an old expression, 'he who does not know history is doomed to repeat it.' That refers to repeating mistakes. The current scenario playing out in Britain is a variant, and involves dispensing with all that was good and right. He who does not know their history is doomed to throw it away. As goes Britain, so goes the largest historical repository of classical Western values, and so goes America's most important historical ally.

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