this post was submitted on 27 May 2026
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Memes

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[–] PanArab@lemmy.ml 68 points 4 weeks ago (1 children)

Forced the Chinese into opium addiction.

Gave Palestine to the Zionists.

[–] JackFrostNCola@aussie.zone 31 points 4 weeks ago

Destabilised multiple countries and regions around the world for spice and goods trade.

[–] Saymaz@lemmygrad.ml 46 points 4 weeks ago

Libs coping in the comments.

[–] harambe69@lemmy.dbzer0.com 43 points 4 weeks ago (2 children)

Few famines before british rule, dozens during, and none after.

Hmmm....

Must've been the climate!

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[–] LemmyBruceLeeMarvin@lemmy.ml 35 points 4 weeks ago (9 children)
[–] anotherspinelessdem@lemmy.ml 23 points 4 weeks ago

Boot connoisseur at the very least

[–] Zombie@feddit.uk 20 points 4 weeks ago (1 children)
[–] Objection@lemmy.ml 29 points 4 weeks ago

Put it this way: I don't think PJ is a fed, but I think the fact that he's the feds aren't paying him is wage theft.

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[–] CheeseNoodle@lemmy.world 29 points 4 weeks ago (1 children)

The populations of Ireland and Scotland still haven't recovered from what happened to them.

[–] jobbies@lemmy.zip 28 points 4 weeks ago (6 children)

Scotland has forgotten that we had the famine too. That and the clearences lead to thousands of Highlanders migrating to Glasgow. Today the West of Scotland has some of the most deprived areas in Europe.

Ireland understands and has confronted its generational trauma. We swept ours under the rug and the consequences are stark.

Ireland, Scotland, Wales and the north of England were getting fucked by the aristocracy long before the empire.

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[–] Weydemeyer@lemmy.ml 26 points 4 weeks ago* (last edited 4 weeks ago) (2 children)

I think the “exported food during a famine” part deserves some examination. Because doing this in itself may or may not be justified.

For the Soviet Union, I have heard this as an anti-communist talking point for both the famine that occurred during the civil war in the 20s and the famine of the early 30s. In both cases the Soviet Union was totally justified in exporting food during a famine. Why? Because having food in itself doesn’t necessarily solve a famine. You need inputs (like fertilizer) and capital (like farming equipment). For the Soviet Union, agriculture was essentially still pre-modern. They were seriously lacking both in both famines. The decision to export was not “let’s make some side cash by starving our people”. Rather it was recognizing that selling X units of food today would yield X+Y units in the future by using the proceeds to improve your agricultural situation. Food was swapped for inputs and capital. It’s an incredibly difficult decision to make, but it’s the rational one and in the end saves more lives.

But the British in Ireland in the late 1848? That was just allowing the invisible hand of the free market to do its thing. Produce sold for more in England so they shipped it off, because England was significantly richer than Ireland. You can say the famine wasn’t the intentional result of the British government perhaps, but you can’t say it’s not the expected and natural outcome of free market capitalism.

And then the British in Bengal? I’m not quite as familiar I’ll admit but IIRC that was just the Brits needing more food for themselves so they took it from India, consequences for Indians be damned.

[–] Mokopa@lemmy.world 27 points 4 weeks ago (2 children)

England was richer than Ireland? That implies Irish people had some level of choice... Ireland was a colony of the British empire and as such were responsible for it's citizens and the Irish people had no say in where the crops were sold to. Irish people, by and large, couldn't afford those crops anyway and so relied the potatoes they grew. When that failed for consecutive harvests, they starved because the landowners continued to sell the other food sources abroad rather than helping. The invisible hand of the market has little or nothing to do with it because they could never have bought the crops anyway, it was just greed and cruelty.

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[–] razen@lemmy.world 20 points 4 weeks ago (3 children)

And they still think they were civilising people. There is a reason with West is associated with hypocrites. Atleast teach your population that colonisation was wrong no matter how you look at it.

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[–] AngryRedHerring@lemmy.world 18 points 4 weeks ago

See, right off the bat I'm like "wow, I didn't know the Russians did the same thing as the British with the potato famine"

[–] InternationalHermit@lemmy.today 16 points 4 weeks ago

The borat movie scene where he explains why it’s better to be a dictatorship drives this point home better.

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