[filleduchaos]

> I’m curious if you consider “betrayal” the appropriate term for all conquests, or just Western conquests.

I would consider any conquest that involved the breaking of a centuries-long cordial relationship to be a betrayal, yes. What exactly is your point?

> Did the Seljuk Turks betray the Byzantines when they conquered Anatolia? Or had Romans previously betrayed the Seclucids, who had previously betrayed the various other people who occupied the area

> The British were themselves the product of multiple waves of conquest and colonization from the Paleolithic through the Iberian migrations, the Celts, Anglo-Saxons, Vikings, and Normans up until 1066 and beyond.

No offence to you personally, but this particular brand of intellectual dishonesty - discussing the British empire as though it is far-flung history and not very recent indeed - is quite annoying. The conquests you bring up were a thousand years ago, two thousand in the case of the Roman-Seleucid war. On the other hand the expedition that subjugated the Benin Kingdom was in 1897, and it (as part of the country now called Nigeria) did not gain its independence from Britain until 1960. My father was born under colonial rule, for crying out loud, and I'm not even thirty yet. People don't make a habit of jumping into discussions of the German invasion of France in WW2 with anecdotes on Charlemagne's conquest of Bavaria - why on earth do they think it's okay to do when talking about the colonial era?

[lordgroff]

Eastern European here who wonders how the Ottoman rule was a thousand years ago. The Ottoman colonization lasted some 500 years for us and ended in late 19th and early 20th centuries, depending. Btw, I agree with your general point that colonization is pretty much always a net negative.

[filleduchaos]

If you perhaps look at my comment again you will notice that I said the conquests, not the period of colonisation. The point, which might have been easy to miss, was that getting up and invading another nation in the Middle Ages is a rather different proposition from getting up and invading one close to the turn of the 20th.

[Veen]

I can't help but think you rely on Whiggish assumptions about history. Invasions in the Middle Ages and today seem different if you think we have progressed beyond our ancestors, that to act against that supposed progress is to betray it.

In fact, we're cognitively identical to the Medieval and Roman people. We have different ethical frameworks in the 21st century, but human nature doesn't change so fast. The British in the 19th Century were driven by the same underlying factors as the Romans 2000 years ago and Russia, China, and (arguably) the US today. We can certainly condemn it and trumpet our moral outrage, but that doesn't help us to understand or avoid it.

[Veen]

I agree that recent colonizations are more relevant politically and morally to the present day. But I do think we have to see Western colonialism as part of a universal behavior exhibited by human societies. We should make an effort to understand the history in its full complexity.

My motivation is not to minimize the abhorrent behavior of the British during that period, but to ensure that we don't make it out to be something uniquely evil that cannot be repeated in the future.

(And I do think it is important to see WWII in its historical context: the formation of the Holy Roman Empire, the rise of Prussian dominance, the Treaty of Versailles, etc. To do so doesn't minimize the responsibility of Germany in the 30s and 40s, but it does help us to understand the complexities behind the simplifying narratives of all sides.)

[filleduchaos]

We do see World War 2 in its historical context, and we manage to discuss them all the time without making absolutely sure to work in "well we should all be grateful to the Nazis for the advances in science and technology that they drove, let us consider Both Sides" at every opportunity.

We are simply asking you to extend the same intellectual grace when discussing and teaching about colonialism, which by-the-by was going on at the same time as the world wars.

[Veen]

The "let's consider both sides" approach is part of the problem. I don't want to consider the partisan or ideologically motivated narratives of both sides — at least not in isolation — because they are equally likely to be false. Instead I want to understand what actually happened, its causes and consequences, and how it relates to other historical events.

It is an unfortunate reality that the victims of colonialism have no more of a monopoly on the truth than the perpetrators.