General Question

basstrom188's avatar

Why is the British Empire considered the most evil of the European empires?

Asked by basstrom188 (3985points) September 15th, 2022

The atrocities committed by the Spanish, Portuguese, French, Dutch, Belgians and Nazi Germany seem to pale into insignificance when compared with the British.

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22 Answers

RedDeerGuy1's avatar

Because they were successful at colonialism. Even to this day, and are still around.

Response moderated (Writing Standards)
janbb's avatar

I think it is just that people’s memories are short and this is the most recent example. The Dutch, French, Spanish and Portuguese all did equally evil things to their colonies.

Caravanfan's avatar

Who said the British Empire was more evil than the Nazis?

janbb's avatar

^^ True

gorillapaws's avatar

Nazi’s fall into a different category IMO. The others mentioned were active in colonization during the mercantile period and beyond. The Nazis were a modern-era fascist political party responsible for the greatest atrocities in human history (thus far).

I know the British were bad, but I remember the French being particularly brutal in the colonization of Vietnam and Indochina peninsula. It’s a big part of why the Vietnam war happened in the first place.

HP's avatar

As RDG states above, the British were the best in the business, with “the sun never sets” as the proof. The proliferation and importance of the language itself in regard to the geographic or demographic significance of the puny island is hint enough on that success.

ragingloli's avatar

Well, they did employ this method of execution:
https://i.redd.it/z8hczh6s9xg81.jpg

RedDeerGuy1's avatar

@ragingloli Vivisection was bad too. No way am I providing a link. The world has lots of sick shit on executing, and torturing people.

WhyNow's avatar

This is a hard question to answer. In terms of sheer evil grisly brutality, combined
with the amount of humans slaughtered and the many nascent city states that
were obliterated off the face the earth, it would be the mongol empire. I realize
they are not European but they deserve the top spot.

In terms of misery that cursed humanity and sheer number of lives extinguished.
The muslims were excellent at civilization erasing also. We are getting closer to
now, to modern times but not closer to being civilized.

Next is communism, starting with the bolshevik revolution to the Holodomor in the
Ukraine to the gulag archipelago… possibly 100 million killed and hundreds of
millions plunged into a fate of living dead. When the russion army was advancing
towards germany in the final months of WW2 the savagery and brutality of the women
being raped reached Stalin who said let them have their fun they just liberated those
people from the nazis.

Next come the Chinese.

Now we could mention the british.

Before I go, I have to give honorable mention to trump! Who’s tweets were so evil
God himself was left crying.

JLeslie's avatar

I don’t know if they are considered that, but you are hearing about it now, because Queen Elizabeth just passed away and quite a few Black Americans and liberals see fit to seize the opportunity to promote that minorities were oppressed, enslaved and killed by the monarchy at various times in history. Minority is not really the best word considering many people were in their own countries.

Anyway, as far as it being a hot topic, it’s for more empathy towards the efforts for equality and to energize the Democrats to vote. Everything is political these days.

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Forever_Free's avatar

Who said that they were considered the most evil of the European empires/
Can you enlighten us?

eyesoreu's avatar

It never has been, not unless you include the desperate ramblings of bemused Germans, oh the irony.

smudges's avatar

I’m with @Forever_Free…who said so??

@ragingloli Is that a cannon? If so, perfect way to go, imo. You wouldn’t feel a thing. Conciousnesswise, one minute you’re thinking, “omg I’m really gonna die!”, the next…nothingness. Excellent way to go.

JLeslie's avatar

My Facebook has plenty of people posting the Queen was an oppressor and other negatives. If you don’t have a lot of Black social media friends you might not be seeing any of it, because That’s who I’m seeing forwarding memes and posting negative commentary about the Queen and the monarchy.

(Not that all Black people feel this way, I’m just saying of the posts I see on Facebook speaking out about this, they are all Black friends of mine.)

Here’s some articles to let you know what some are reading and writing.

https://www.ebony.com/queen-elizabeth-ii-death-how-do-i-mourn-my-oppressor/

From the Washington Post In interviews and social media posts, Black Americans said they respected the queen’s sense of duty and her loyalty to her family, but they also saw in her an embodiment of white supremacy and inequality. Link: https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/09/13/queen-black-americans/

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11204193/amp/Carnegie-Mellon-professor-says-Queen-cult-white-womanhood-responsible-genocide.html

smudges's avatar

@JLeslie Thanks for the articles. I’ve never had any kind of social media account.

JLeslie's avatar

@smudges Except fluther.

smudges's avatar

@JLeslie I did look up information re: social networks and forums. I found opinions saying yes, forums are social media, and no, forums are not social media, and various reasons why or why not, respectively. I don’t care enough to try to find a definitive answer. Personally, I don’t consider forums as social media.

JLeslie's avatar

@jca2 Flashback! Fluther is a combo I think. Not exactly social media, but definitely some elements of it.

Entropy's avatar

I’m not sure I’d agree with that. Especially re: Nazi Germany, or the Spanish. I’m sure in some areas they’re regarded as the worst because they were dominant in those areas. Empires tend to be nasty things. There’s not many that were warm and fuzzy.

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