borderpolice
Well-known member
IdleRich said:Surely WW1 was about more than British Imperialism?
it was essentially about imperialism, not all of which was british. that's fairly obvious.
IdleRich said:Surely WW1 was about more than British Imperialism?
borderpolice said:no, but statistically, the majority didn't have a particular problem with colonial exploitation. many were only too happy to exploit the benefits in a variety of ways..
borderpolice said:the "Sanitary Conditions of the Labouring Population of" the colonies was probably not even worth studying.
bassnation said:being trapped in poverty and having no say in politics is a kind of slavery in itself.
bassnation said:are you really telling me they had the choice to walk away if they didn't like it?
bassnation said:i find the view that the british working class are all uniformly racist to be highly offensive, not to mention inaccurate.
matt b said:why are you assuming they had any sort of say in the matter? can i blame you directly for the invasion of iraq?
borderpolice said:i agree with that. my point is and has been: the working classes have no t done much against racism, in the UK and elsewhere.
borderpolice said:i agree with that. my point is and has been: the working classes have no t done much against racism, in the UK and elsewhere.
john eden said:Aside of course from all the work by the communist party, as detailed in books like Joe Jacobs' Out of the Ghetto, which tells the story of anti-fascism and internationalism in east end working class communities.
Presumably you have either read this and discounted it, or are simply mouthing off about things you know nothing about?
"It was essentially about imperialism, not all of which was british. that's fairly obvious."
borderpolice said:I have not read this book, in fact i have never heard about it before.
but i know the history of marxism and communism quite well. as much as I appreciate the internationalism of this part of the political spectrum, it has to be said that (1) this internationalism was imposed from above, i.e. from the middle class thinkers who invented marxism. lenin for example thought the russian proletariat were chauvinistic to the core and needed reeducation. (2) the rise of fascism is inseparable from the disasterous russian revolution and in particular its degeneration into stalinism.
john eden said:What is the class composition of people who have, day to day, confronted and challenged racism? It's not liberal do-gooding middle class students/social workers/politicians, is it?
IdleRich said:My point is that you can hardly say Suffragettes were supporting Imperialism by stopping action during WW1.
john eden said:and furthermore it seems to me that it has nothing whatsoever to do with the working class 100 years ago in the east end.
borderpolice said:now that slavery and imperialsm are no longer acceptable politics in the UK, it's easy to be against it.
borderpolice said:the british empire no longer exists. it was lost on the battlefield in two world wars. it was not the british working class that caused this loss.
borderpolice said:the british empire no longer exists. it was lost on the battlefield in two world wars. it was not the british working class that caused this loss.
borderpolice said:now that slavery and imperialsm are no longer acceptable politics in the UK, it's easy to be against it.
john eden said:Ah - so we have the German working class to thank for it!
bassnation said:and conversly, its easy for you to judge those people without understanding anything about the realities of their lives.
borderpolice said:yes. unfortunately, they didnt replace it with something better (at least in the second war). which confirms my point: working class and racism are easy bedfellows.
if you are down you are only too likely to kick somebody else.
borderpolice said:having lived in some of the poorest third workd countries, i believe to have
a sound grasp in the reproduction of oppression.