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Did Britain Wreck The World?

Certainly seems that way. More than half a century after Britannia ceased to rule the waves, the hot spots of sectarian conflicts it left behind continue to smolder and flare up around the world. Here is a list of some of the major political powder kegs in erstwhile British colonies. 

India-Pakistan conflict 

SRI LANKA
During their 150-year rule, the British favored Tamils and other minority ethnic groups over the majority Sinhalese. After 1947's national elections, the Sinhalese tried to reverse the discrimination, culminating in a quarter-century-long civil war.

INDIA/PAKISTAN
When the Brits arrived, the Subcontinent was a patchwork of princely states. When they left centuries later, they divvied it up by religion, prompting mass migration and perhaps a million deaths. Kashmir, which had a Hindu leader and a Muslim majority, has been contested ever since.

IRAQ
Border disputes and ethnic tensions have been rife since 1920, when the British forged modern-day Iraq out of three Ottoman states: Baghdad, Basra, and Mosul. The Brits decamped after a 1958 revolution, but their hellish handiwork lives on.

SUDAN
A British-Egyptian alliance ruled North and South Sudan separately until 1946, when the Brits abruptly changed their minds and decided the two should merge. The north was economically and politically favored over the south, and civil war has been on and off ever since.

ISRAEL/PALESTINE
As anti-Semitism gained ground in Europe, an influx of Jews complicated land claims, but the Brits—in charge of this former Ottoman territory starting in 1921—flip-flopped on the declaration of Israel as the Jewish homeland and proposed partition, which was rejected by both sides. In 1948 they cut their losses and left it up to the United Nations. Today, a solution is as far off as ever.

SOMALIA
Fashioned in 1960 from a British protectorate and an Italian colony, Somalia has been divided against itself ever since. In the 1990s, after decades of civil strife, the government collapsed and the two neighbors declared autonomy.

NIGERIA
The West African nation was once two distinct states—officially joined in 1914, but administered by the British separately until independence in 1960. Here, the British favored the south, setting the stage for decades of strife.

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6 responses to “Did Britain Wreck The World?”

  1. Sujatha

    While Britain is most certainly not lily-white in its ruling and administering of the colonies, I find the Newsweek list and descriptions of ‘hotspots’ to be far too simplistic. Is it written for an 8th grade audience or by a couple of 8th graders, looking at the too-pat assertions?
    Consider: Would India have emerged as a monolithic entity from a patchwork of princely states if it hadn’t been for a common enemy in the British government?
    Arguably, to me, it seems more likely Jawaharlal Nehru’s deep attachment to Kashmir played a role in hindering a quicker solution to the handling of the Kashmir region.

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  2. Ruchira

    Yeah, the historical summaries are pretty sophomoric. But the troublesome list and the dirty British hand print are undeniable.
    Speaking of India, Pakistan and the partition, did you see this report about a book that Jaswant Singh, the former Indian foreign minister has written? Singh discusses the roles of leaders like Nehru, Jinnah, Gandhi, Patel et al in bringing about the Indian partition. The BJP has now expelled him from the party for praising Jinnah too much.

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  3. Joe

    This feels incredibly cherry-picked. Much too much so to support a thesis that the British wrecked the world.
    Belgium did a number on the Congo! At least as bad as any one of those Britain examples, I would think. The Spanish destroyed civilizations in Central/South America, nearly all of which is still a mess today. The Dutch in South Africa (can we blame apartheid on them?) and southeast Asia — they were also at the front of the African slave trade. The US can take some blame currently on Iraq and Israel/Palestine, to say the least, as well as Pakistan. Look at what Russia did. China and Japan have unsavory colonial and conquering pasts (and, especially with regard to China, present) as well, although this isn’t taught in history courses in this country.

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  4. Ruchira

    Thank you, Joe for completing the list. I think that last page article in Newsweek is a tongue-in-cheek take on world history. There are of course, many, many villains. Some of them are now the current natives of the same regions that were blighted by the Europeans. What irks me though is the holier-than-thou attitude of Europe when it lectures the world about human rights and decency as if butter never melted in their mouths. Churchill for example, is much lionized in the west. He is considered a particularly obnoxious villain in most former British colonies. Soldiers from India, Pakistan (then part of united India) and Nepal were widely used by Britain both in WWI and II. Eleanor Roosevelt by the way, was troubled by Churchill’s double standards. He was very concerned about the plight of Jews in Nazi Germany but completely dismissive of oppression in European colonies in Asia and Africa.

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  5. D

    Speaking of Belgium, I was in a guided tour at Brussels last year, and was treated to half an hour of sickening praise of the great Builder Leopold II, whose great works were lamentably being brusselised away by bureaucrats. Nowhere was the word ‘Congo’ even mentioned. None of the Europeans in our pretty liberal group (a mixture of Italians, Germans, French and Belgians) seemed particularly incensed by these encomiums. It was like listening to an earnest discourse on quality of Third Reich roads.
    I agree that the relative “badness” British imperialism should be gauged in comparison to that of other powers.
    Places with thriving institutions, political stability and rapid modernizing tendencies probably tended to be less susceptible to imperial influence, lack of which strengths might well persist after the lifting of foreign rule.

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  6. Term papers

    Interesting to read That When the Brits arrived, the Subcontinent was a patchwork of princely states. When they left centuries later, they divvied it up by religion, prompting mass migration and perhaps a million deaths. Kashmir, which had a Hindu leader and a Muslim majority, has been contested ever since.

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