this post was submitted on 11 Apr 2025

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Dining across the divide: ‘He has a very rosy view of empire and colonialism’ (www.theguardian.com)

submitted 1 year ago by SleafordMod@feddit.uk to c/uk_politics@feddit.uk

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I thought this was interesting, seeing the views of a young adult who supports Reform. The article is about him having a date with a Green-voting young woman.

What are your thoughts about the growth of Reform, especially among young adults?

Having said that though, it looks like Reform's voting base still skews older. If you look at YouGov's most recent data here (as of the time of me writing this) you can see the following:

15% of 18-24 year-olds support Reform
20% of 25-49 year-olds support Reform
26% of 50-64 year-olds support Reform
29% of 65+ year-olds support Reform

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[–] FelixCress@lemmy.world 21 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (2 children)

Voting record Reform in the last election.

Oh, a fascists supporter

Nathan The British empire was fantastic for us. I can see the good and the bad in it, but I’m not going to slap my own side, am I? We stopped a lot of low-level tribal conflicts that were going on in Africa.

... and an idiot

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[–] HumanPenguin@feddit.uk 9 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (2 children)

… and an idiot

Well nearly 100 years of movies etc failing to show the truth about pre colonial Africa.

Its hardly a surprise he dose not even recognise we raised multiple African city States to the ground.

Add the likes of pit rivers influence on our early british museums etc. There is still a strong belief that the west found undeveloped savages rather then complex multicultural settlements throughout pre colonial Africa.

As a society we still do not make any effort to portray the truth about Africa pre colonisation. Hardly a surprise young brits grow up dumb to reality.

That said. Some how thinking Europe was a bastion of peace and goodwill to all nations in the 17 and 1800s. While the Africans were constantly at war.

Yeah thats real idiotic with no excuse.

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[–] titaniumarmor@lemmy.world 7 points 1 year ago (1 child)

The word you want is “razed” (instead of “raised”).

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[–] HumanPenguin@feddit.uk -2 points 1 year ago (3 children)

Sorry nope.

Only if you are American. And as I'm in the UK talking about our history. I'll stick with UK English

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[–] jonquark@mastodon.org.uk 6 points 1 year ago (1 child)

@HumanPenguin @titaniumarmor I don't think that's a difference between UK and US English. I think you meant razed too (a fellow Brit).

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[–] HumanPenguin@feddit.uk -1 points 1 year ago (1 child)

Nope if you look up using rated is a modern term adapted from US English. It is common in younger Internet raised populations. But those of us in our 50s never use razed.

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[–] jonquark@mastodon.org.uk 4 points 1 year ago

@HumanPenguin I did check before I commented and I'm the same generation as you. There is a difference between raise (to lift) and raze (to destroy)

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[–] crapwittyname@lemm.ee 5 points 1 year ago (1 child)

Nope. Raze is the correct spelling in British English

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[–] HumanPenguin@feddit.uk -1 points 1 year ago (1 child)

Raise to the ground is the spelling used with that term in UK english.

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[–] crapwittyname@lemm.ee 3 points 1 year ago

It isn't, though. The word raze comes from the French, raser (shave) where the word raise comes from old Norse ræran (to rear). Both have been in use with separate meanings since middle English (1100s) and here is an example of the usage with Z from 1669:

Earths..which the..salt in the water razeth off from several rocks.

~W. Simpson, Hydrologia Chymica 361

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[–] fondue@lemmy.world 3 points 1 year ago

US English also uses raze. Raise a barn to build it. Raze a barn to destroy it.

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[–] Mrkawfee@feddit.uk 5 points 1 year ago (3 children)

UK history is dishonest and delusional. It does us no favours.

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[–] HumanPenguin@feddit.uk 3 points 1 year ago

Agreed. Not sure anyone else's is much better. Africa mainly because Europe destroyed it. But all nations tend to tell themselves a rosy picture of their past.

Africa unfortunatly dose not have the media industry to tell what truth they can find.

But if you know any. Id Love to read any good fiction based on their history especially west Africa. That is after all how the west built our own biased stories.

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[–] Hossenfeffer@feddit.uk 3 points 1 year ago

I learned history in Scotland. There was no sugar-coating the evils of the 'English' colonial machine.

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[–] scratchee@feddit.uk 1 point 1 year ago

Definitely depends on who teaches history, my history teacher was far from the best, but they didn’t gloss over the darker parts of our history, and certainly never justified the empire as anything more than a power grab by a nation that took because it could.

It’s certainly dangerous to have too rosy a view of our past, but I don’t think our history is exactly a secret.

That said, we do have a skewed view of the good and bad actions in our history, but I’m less convinced that’s a serious problem, it might even be beneficial, if framed correctly (ie we can’t hide when we’re sampling a rare good moment amongst a sea of horror).

To use an example from another nations history to avoid bias, statistically speaking it wouldn’t be justified for Germany to teach about Schindler, he was one unusual individual and not representative at all. But it seems critical that they do teach about him, because he represents the hope of a better nation buried within the darkness, they need stories like that to show that the making things better is always possible.

Maybe it’s important to teach both the overall horror of our past (to discourage fools thinking the empire was a good thing), and also focus on the rare moments when good came through nonetheless, because those are the moments we need to continue creating, and burying them under cynicism (even accurate cynicism) helps nobody?

Or maybe I’m overthinking it.

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[–] echodot@feddit.uk 4 points 1 year ago*

He's a reform voter being uninformed, self assured, and completely unreasonable is presupposed.

If any of their voters actually bothered to look into the things they claim to care about they would realize that Reform offer zero solutions to any of them, either because the thing they care so much about turns out not really to matter, or because the issue is infinitely more complicated than Nigel Farage is prepared to admit.

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