Nèdeem Elmahjoub's blog

A historian asks: "Should Britain apologise for Amritsar massacre?" (the BBC Viewpoint) That is a dangerous question that might open a floodgate: Should Britain apologize for massacres against those who resisted or rose up against British rule: -the Mau Mau in Kenya) -the Zulu in South Africa -the Mahdists in Sudan -the Arabs in Iraq Should Britain apologize to -the Irish -the Bengalis (the engineered famine) - the Iraqis (1990 to the present) -the Greek resistance -the Palestinians (for her long support of Israel) -the Egyptians (for her long support of Mubarak and El-Sisi) -the Saudis (for her long support of the monarchy) -the Yemenis (for her supply of weapons to the Saudis) -'Third World' countries (for her IMF-backed restructural adjustment programme and its consequnces, debt enslavement, etc) ... I am sure I have missed a few more. The massacre in context

Educating Britain I have just read this book. The following excerpts are no replacement in reading the whole account. Excerpts From John Newsinger’s  The Blood Never Dried, A People’s History of the British Empire

Inglorious Empire -What the British Did to India  By Shashi Tharoor, Penguin 2017 Excerpts, part 3 of 3 "The historian Andrew Roberts rather breathtakingly claimed, given this background, that British rule 'the modernisation, development, protection, agrarian advance, linguistic unification and ultimately the democratisation of the subcontinent'." p. 175 "The construction of the Indian railways is often pointed to by apologists for Empire as one of the ways in which British colonialism benefited the subcontinent, ignoring the obvious fact that many countries also built railways without having to go to the trouble and expense of being colonised to do so... "In its very conception and construction, the Indian railway system was a big colonial scam. British shareholders made absurd amounts of money by investing in the railways, where the government guaranteed returns on capital for 5 per cent net per year, unavailable in any other safe investment."

Grenfell Tower (the residential tower in London, which was destroyed by fire in June 2017, resulting in 71 deaths) is named after Francis Grenfell , a murderer and Marshal who served in committing crimes in Egypt and South Africa and other colonies of the British Empire. One should be proud of tens of names which adorn public places in England!

"The British Empire is nothing to be proud of as far as I'm concerned," says artist and dancer Jonzi D. The dilemma whether to accept a British honour