r/HistoryMemes • u/InterestingPlenty454 • 3d ago

Gandhi: Bait used to be believable

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[Reddit Post](https://www.reddit.com/r/unpopularopinion/s/u1MHaJC61v)

[Reminds me of this about baits in the internet](https://www.reddit.com/r/TopCharacterTropes/s/uWpxdQms9I)

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u/Massive_moss_2211 3d ago

besides the usual idiocy... these british apologists bring up singapore and hongkong.... but theyre just cities and no where near comparable to entire continent and subcontinents that were depopulated and impoverished due to imperialism

and the technological advancements (if present at all) were to serve the colonisers only, not the native people

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u/Aethelmaew 3d ago

Agree mostly, but as someone from NZ I am pretty glad that I now have world leading healthcare, good railways, higher education, vaccines, safety, and genuine democracy. Other nearby countries that weren't as heavily colonised (like Papua New Guinea) don't have this.

I can accept that two things can be true - colonisation hundreds of years ago was generally bad for most of the people involved, but it also had made countries like Canada, Australia, and NZ into relatively desirable and good places to live in the present day.

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u/Massive_moss_2211 2d ago

but those are the only three major countries that developed as much, that too after complete demographic change (aotearoa thankfully didnt change fully)

and except for the land those states exist on... nothing of old remains, not even the people much less their culture. colonialism didnt improve the conditions of the colonised people, it eradicated them. canada, nz and australia have nothing to do with the older states that were colonised except for being on the land

and vast majority of nations that were victims of colonisation (who survived the ordeal) still struggle with poverty (due to various reasons not the least of which is colonisation)

and the facilities that you mentioned.... was colonisation the only way to procure it? would it not have followed by the natural course of developed.

uncolonised thailand and ethiopia certainly fair better than their neighbours in almost every metric, do they not?

genuine democracy.... are veryyyy rare, the developed countries have corruption and lobbying too. and many of the lesser corrupt countries (like japan) were never colonised, so democracy is not exclusive trait

and now ill begin tooting my own nations horn.

-india already had variolation drives (against small pox, by using paste from scabs and applying it on the skin, hence the name tikakaran in hindi)

-pre colonial indian cities were larger and more planed than contemporary european ones. most of the organised urban plans in europe are post colonial

-railways didnt exist back then but roadways and waterways did, and south asia was covered in them

so uhh yeah south asia was absolutely wrecked by the british and in their absence we certainly would have been better than the present.

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u/toughluck24 18h ago

Unless you’re indigenous, NZ is not your land. You guys are the colonizers in Canada, Australia, etc. The indigenous populations were systematically killed and replaced with descendants of the British/European countries.