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Originally Posted by Toy Soldier
I do like the argument that certain countries would be better off if they'd just stuck with the Empire and gone with it...
A large majority of the poorest countries in the world are post-colonial. Would they be better if if they were still colonies? Maybe, marginally, but the obvious truth is that the BEST scenario for those countries, would be if we had never sailed up to their doorsteps in the first place.
The colonies stripped various countries of their resources, their lifestyle, their cultural identity and their ability to sustain themselves. Then the empire ended and they were simply left in that state. Colonialism created a global imbalance that is not only far from over, the knock-on effect is still massive.
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But don't forget the positives.Think of all that heroin and cardamom we'd have missed out on without the empire.Plus the Indians wouldn't have discovered the pleasures of gin and tonic or maybe we wouldn't have or both.