Just how many holocausts did England take part in?

Right i will start of by saying i am of irish decent. Does anyone here know about just how many people the english have killed over the years. I can name two selected attempts at genocide. The irish famine in the 19th century is one.

The Irish catastrophe

The Great Famine in Ireland began as a natural catastrophe of extraordinary magnitude, but its effects were severely worsened by the actions and inactions of the Whig government, headed by Lord John Russell in the crucial years from 1846 to 1852.

There was a very widespread belief among members of the British upper and middle classes that the famine was a divine judgment-an act of Providence-against the kind of Irish agrarian regime that was believed to have given rise to the famine.

The Irish Famine from bbc page(british propaganda)

The Great Irish Famine in HTML format
interpreting the irish famine 1846 1850

I am not sure i should use a bbc page to give details on the irish famine, but the irish give the number closer to 1.4 million. Just what part did the english play in this, and why on earth did so many die, on the doorstep of the most powerful country in the world at the time.

Heres a nice clip, with some images and fields of athenry thats associated with the famine, and the times

The Irish potato famine was not simply a natural disaster. It was a product of social causes. Under British rule, Irish Catholics were prohibited from entering the professions or even purchasing land. Instead, many rented small plots of land from absentee British Protestant landlords. Half of all landholdings were less than 5 acres in 1845.

Irish peasants subsisted on a diet consisting largely of potatoes, since a farmer could grow triple the amount of potatoes as grain on the same plot of land. A single acre of potatoes could support a family for a year. About half of Ireland's population depended on potatoes for subsistence.

The inadequacy of relief efforts by the British Government worsened the horrors of the potato famine. Initially, England believed that the free market would end the famine. In 1846, in a victory for advocates of free trade, Britain repealed the Corn Laws, which protected domestic grain producers from foreign competition. The repeal of the Corn Laws failed to end the crisis since the Irish lacked sufficient money to purchase foreign grain.
html here

Thats one, now i read in an english paper that the english may have slaughtered millions in india.

India's secret history

A controversial new history of the Indian Mutiny, which broke out 150 years ago and is acknowledged to have been the greatest challenge to any European power in the 19th century, claims that the British pursued a murderous decade-long campaign to wipe out millions of people who dared rise up against them.

Charles Dickens: "I wish I were commander-in-chief in India ... I should proclaim to them that I considered my holding that appointment by the leave of God, to mean that I should do my utmost to exterminate the race."

'A holocaust, one where millions disappeared...'

So i was surprised to find this this morning, because being irish i was only interested in the irish one, and what the english did over there. Just how many holocausts did the uk, take part in and how many nations, and how many millions died to get the english empire to its full strengh.

google pages on irish famine

So anyone with views on these, and how many others where britain is assocaited with genocides, of more than a million deaths, in a race where the english tried to over come.

[edit on 8/24/2007 by andy1033]

You telling me that no one has any comment on these forgotten attempted genocides.

I as an Englishman take your comments on board. We and to some extent still are ruthless sons of a bitches, but the authorities seem to have a knack of not covering up but deflecting this part of British history.

It's there for everyone to see if you take a peek in a history of Britain book, but in the mainstream media and commentary it is generally overlooked as the distant past. We wonder why the Irish hated/hate us so much!

The U.S could take a leaf out of our book in deflecting people away from the truth of their murderous campaigns today.

I am assuming the americans will take a leave out of your book, when in years to come, history is written by the winners.

When the english slag of other countries, i was schooled in england and i never learned one word of these things, just what others did. Then the media claims that others like putin use propaganda, in schools to cover there countries past.

Yep, but i was wondering if there were more countries that claimed that with wnglish help, a million or more of there people died for the reason of occupation. Does anyone know of any other country, i was just wondering, and thought english history may make a good topic of debate.

Originally posted by Peruvianmonk
I as an Englishman take your comments on board. We and to some extent still are ruthless sons of a bitches, but the authorities seem to have a knack of not covering up but deflecting this part of British history.

I remember a few years ago, talking to someone who went to the first gulf war as a english soldier. I asked him what he thought of the english going into iraq to take the place over, and he replied.

"The english have a right to do what they want because they are english".

[edit on 8/24/2007 by andy1033]

Originally posted by Peruvianmonk
I as an Englishman take your comments on board. We and to some extent still are ruthless sons of a bitches, but the authorities seem to have a knack of not covering up but deflecting this part of British history.

It's there for everyone to see if you take a peek in a history of Britain book, but in the mainstream media and commentary it is generally overlooked as the distant past. We wonder why the Irish hated/hate us so much!

The U.S could take a leaf out of our book in deflecting people away from the truth of their murderous campaigns today.

What i do find interesting is the fact that these two events, happened around the same time, in the 19th century.

Of course propaganda is used in my country, it's just alot more sly and harder to recognise it on the BBC say compared to Fox news in America, luckily we do have a pretty free press and do get less right wing biased # than the Americans.

I would say take a look at any country we occupied during our empire years and you will find a genocide to a greater or lesser extent. Why would we be taught to hate ourselves by being told our true recent history?

I'm not defending it in the slightest but you can see how it works.

SA,India, Afghanistan, Egypt, you name it we've done it. In fact i believe we created the concentration camp. We were awful. But the empire is still reguarded by many people as a great and glorious thing. Hey it's the reason i'm living here relatively wealthy and care free in comparison with the rest of the world.

Oh yeh we let the Jews have Palastine as well.

[edit on 24-8-2007 by Peruvianmonk]

Peruvianmonk- At least you accept your countries past. Concentration camps, were supposed to be used by your country in the 19th century so long before the nazis.

How do you think that no focus gets put on these things, in the modern society. Do people just not care enough anymore, and are willing to get into this new world order stuff, so we can all live together.

[edit on 8/24/2007 by andy1033]

I don't know i suppose people just aren't that interested in the past too much. Too interested in what Pete Doherty or the Spice girls are doing!

Sad sad times.,

A nice English bashing session going on here! Can you please give information on a country which is perfect and doesn't have a dark side? Of course not.

Yes i'm English and proud to be- it seems to me many Irish have a case of sour grapes with England, same as Scotland and many Welsh.. I guess it's easy for many to bind together to fight a common enemy!

[edit on 24-8-2007 by Knights]

Can we have a little distinction here?

It was not the English in its entirety that inflicted these holocausts on other nations but our rulers and ruling classes, and later in the age of empire our permanent civil service and military classes - much the same thing only mulitplied and with less land.

While we consider the domination of the Irish by those that ruled England remember that these very same rulers conquered the English first.

Though a constitutional Monarchy, we are still a monarchy. Only our prime Minister is...ahem..democratically elected. We have not liberated ourselves from our ruler. It is the Permanent Civil Service that ran the British Empire, that has run it ever since. The system is corrupt and based on self-interest at the highest level. Is now, was then and for all the years in between. Personally I'd sack the lot of them and start again.

The Russell family line goes back to Francis Drake. Our first Pirate/Privateer/Profiteer. It is no longer an hereditary peerage, which is unfortunate given that the current now Earl. Russell is an active supporter of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (also the Grandson of Bertrand Russell so the moral stock shows significant improvement).

Most of us have been conquered at one time or another, if we're going to point fingers I don't think it should be at each other.

While were at it, I don't think anyone mentioned the Boer's and the British invention of the Concentration Camp. Such noble memories....

Originally posted by andy1033
Right i will start of by saying i am of irish decent. Does anyone here know about just how many people the english have killed over the years. I can name two selected attempts at genocide. The irish famine in the 19th century is one.

Thats one, now i read in an english paper that the english may have slaughtered millions in india.

Er English? Check your history books - I think you'll find in both cases it was Great Britain. Way single out one region?

Actually, a better example might have been the treatment of the Highlanders post 1745. A people who also suffered greatly in the potato famine and were forcibly transported to the other side of the world....

But use of the word 'holocaust' is wholly disingenuous. And while we're at it, what about the Romans and their treatment of the Iceni?

Not really sure what the point of this thread is other than to stir up racial hatred?

I find this kind of shocking in a way. I've just left school and I was never taught about Britain being inovolved in any kind of holocaust.

[edit on 2-9-2007 by Zombie Porn]

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[edit on 2/9/2007 by Mirthful Me]

I just watched the youtube link you put up , its just an IRA glory video.

[edit on 2-9-2007 by The_Coo]

Originally posted by andy1033
Right i will start of by saying i am of irish decent.

Right, that, coupled with the title, tells us all we really need to know.

Yes, in the past... thats THE PAST, the rulers... thats RULERS of Britain... thats BRITAIN, NOT England, have done some pretty atrocious things around the globe.

Today's English are NOT responsible for the things some toffs did back in centuries past. To say we are is frankly idiotic, and likely to be a comment made out of simple ignorant bigotry.

And while we're on the subject of sly propoganda this whole thread seems to be an example manifest.

So while we're knocking the English (even though it was a British Empire with plenty of Scots, Welsh....and Irish along for the ride) can anyone find one colonial superpower that didn't commit atrocities in it's time. Our colonial past had it's bad points and it's good points too. Simplistic little snatches of revisionist history don't really adress these things in a satisfactory way.

Incidentally the Irish premeire kepy the Republice of Ireland neutral in WW2 and sent condolonces to Germany on the death of Hitler. Ironic if they were the victims of genocide. Are all Irish people Nazi sympathisers?

And I was taught about the Irish potatoe famine at an English school.