Skip to main content

Posts

Showing posts with the label “Bengal famine”

UK: The Telegraph Facebook Page (5)

The Telegraph: Clive must not fall. The arch-imperialist deserves his place in Whitehall Ned Ma Clive, Havelock, Gordon, Churchill and many more must fall. John Money Ned Ma  why?? John Burton Ned Ma  Then you must fall. Or leave if you haven't already Ned Ma John Money Like in many other countries, there are things omitted from the school curriculum on purpose. Let's start with Clive / Clive of India. He was a colonial figure. If you are a supporter of the British empire then the discussion will end soon. While celebrated for his military successes in establishing British dominance, Robert Clive is also criticized for amassing a vast personal fortune through corruption and for policies that led to the Bengal famine of 1770, which resulted in the deaths of millions. Horace Walpole, Whig politician and author, said of the “sovereigns of Bengal”: “They starved millions in India by monopolies and plunder, and almost raised a famine at home by the luxury occasioned by their opulen...

The Kremlin’s Lying Machine vs. Britain’s Lying Machine

“We should contest and expose the Kremlin’s lying. But to suggest that the public assault on truth is new, or peculiarly Russian, is also disinformation .  Just as the Kremlin requires a campaign of disinformation to justify its imperial aggression in Ukraine, the  British empire  also needed a system of comprehensive lies.” Good. But I expected to also read about the contemporary lying machine not just the empire one.

Winston Churchill, Imperial Monstrosity

I don’t like Tariq Ali, but the topic is one of my favourites. In his Preface, Tariq Ali makes clear that he does not support toppling Churchill’s statues wherever they stand—but rather, a deeper battle on the field of historiography, against a consensus that “appears hegemonic but remains vulnerable.” This is the context in which  Winston Churchill: His Times, His Crimes  is written—and in which, if I’m any judge at all, it succeeds admirably. Timidity of a ‘radical’. What about opposing all statues, be it of Churchill, Thatcher, Lenin or Chavez? A review of Winston Churchill: His Times, His Crimes