Should the Brits give compensation to all the people that suffered under their empire?

Question

Should the Brits give compensation to all the people that suffered under their empire?

Answer 1

yes, they should give british citizenship to all the people from commonwealth countries desiring to live in the uk, as long as they have something positive to contribute to the british society.

Answer 2

There is no point considering that the empire ended long ago...  

Answer 3

No because people forget that it wasn't all suffering.  We bought a lot of positive things to the areas we colonised, and modernized a lot of the world.  Anyway, anyone involved in the empire is now long dead- if we apologise, it'd be like you apologising for an act your Great Great Granddad commited.  We live in a "sorry" culture and the sooner we leave the "sorry" culture the better.  

Answer 4

Apologies, much less compensation are hard to come by. The United States has offered an official apology to the Kingdom of Hawaii for stealing their kingdom. No compensation has been offered.

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I believe that the government has offered apologies to the Japanese-Americans that were unjustly imprisoned and had their land confiscated in WWII.

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The modern day attempt to honor 150 year old treaties with Native American tribes has resulted in the proliferation of casinos.

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There is a text book called the Politics of Official Apologies.

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History is cruel. I don't mean to be simplistic, but there have been a lot of horrible abuse of peoples in the last few centuries. Compensation opens up huge list of unending claims.

Answer 5

Well, if you think about how far the Empire extended, they'd have to give compensation to a good portion of the planet.  I don't think they need to do that.  

I do think they need to cough up the Elgin Marbles and other treasures that should go back to their home countries.  I know Egypt wants its mummies and the Rosetta Stone back.  I think it would be fine if the British Museum had a copy of the Rosetta Stone, for example, but travel is so easy these days (other than being frisked) so it's relatively simple to see artifacts in their country of origin.  I think that's a better way to compensate people--give 'em back their stuff.  Like divorce court, but with really good stuff.

But when I saw the British Museum and the V&A and all did I love it?  Yes!

Answer 6

No, should grandchildren be sent to prison for murders their grandparents commited?

The majority of former British colonies have been positively influenced by the experience anyway. I very much doubt you'll be getting the americans to give the native americans all their land back.

Answer 7

Britain can't even compensate the living people that have to live here and have been robbed dry by Brown and Co.

Answer 8

First of all, many peoples have lived under the rule of foreign governments.  The concept of an empire is not limited to the Age of European Conquest, although the British, French, Spanish, Portuguese, and Americans certainly sought such economic advancement as have the Russians and the Chinese, the Germans, Italians, and Japanese--all within living memory.  If in doubt, ask any citizen of Tibet, Poland, or Georgia.

Similarly, historically, the Chinese and the Japanese oppressed other peoples as did the rulers of the Ottoman Empire, Egypt, Greece, and Rome.  By the time the descendants of the "persecutors" compensated the "oppressed", there probably wouldn't be anyone left.  

Moreover, many people within the British Empire were "oppressed" themselves, but also took a vigorous role in "empire-building". During the Victorian era, ambitious Scots and Irish, for instance, joined the armed forces and foreign service in numbers greater than their percentage of population within the United Kingdom would suggest.  They also immigrated en mass to places like Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and the United States where they and their descendants were able to achieve a much higher standard of living than they would have been able to enjoy until quite recently had they stayed in their ancestral homes.  Many of my ancestors, for example, came from Mull or Skye in Scotland.*  These are quite beautiful places to visit, but the probably didn't furnish the crofters who lived there a very high standard of living.

Moreover, for such a  compensation scheme to truly work, everyone would need to trace his or her ancestry for many generations.  Upon doing so, many of the most vocal individuals claiming that their ancestors were oppressed would also find that their ancestors were most probably of multi-ethnic origin and included both those who inflicted suffering as well as those who suffered.

Finally, political correctness sometimes becomes absurdly ridiculous.

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*For the record, I'm a middle-class Texas school teacher.

Answer 9

I think you mean to Their descendants Yes that would be fair They could also give back the many treasures and artifact they have stolen and plundered too

Answer 10

technically yes, we don't have any money though - so maybe we could apologise nicely...

Answer 11

Hello,

It would be quite a job figuring that one out since many people and countries did ok as well and some of which are worse off today than in Colonial times.

That said, being Irish in my ancestry, my people were little better than n words with white skin to the British and being Catholic, we lost our family stone quarries and had to emigrate to North America.

If there is apologies and money coming from Prime Minister Brown, allow me to be the first in line. I'm sure our family property values have increased astronomically over their in Ireland over the last 150 years!

Cheers,

Michael Kelly

Answer 12

yer it would be nice but there broke a bit like the yanks in iraqa blow it up rape and pilage but with out recourse for the locals