The Spanish Inquisition? I almost expect it. Hitler? Yeah, he hasn’t been discussed on this board already :rolleyes: Stalin? Some say he has been POTUS for the last 2 years, and it is all we are going to hear until 11/2… America sucks? YAWN!!
But one category in which I am not up to speed is the single most evil episode in British history. I might proffer an example, but considering I am ceaselessly amazed at the depth of knowledge displayed here on the 'dope I dare not, lest I appear (more) foolish. No! What say ye?
I didn’t think this belonged in IMHO since ‘most evil’ is not ultimately a matter of opinion. Hard to pin down? Sure. But we have a variety of developed religious and legal systems, blah blah… Sounds like a debate topic to me.
I didn’t think this belonged in the Pit since my intent is essentially academic. What* really is* the single most evil episode in British history? The one that can defeat its contenders in a debate context?
I’m not expert on British history, but the extermination of the Tasmanians was pretty evil. They were systematically hunted down until none were left; isolated for 10,000 years from the rest of humanity only to be obliterated once found by people who made tobacco pouches out of their skin. Very Nazi-like, except more successful.
I’d go with the whole colonial period from 1583 until 1981. During this period the British massacred people wholesale, robbed their lands, and fomented the turmoil that lasts to this day across Africa and Asia.
If we’re not going to get too abstract like saying British Imperialism in general, I think you’ll have a hard time beating Cromwell’s campaigns in Ireland: Cromwellian conquest of Ireland - Wikipedia
Nobody’s quite sure exactly how many Irish people Cromwell slaughtered or had shipped to the Caribbean as virtual-slaves, but most credible estimates are in the range of a half million, at a time when Ireland’s population was only about 1.5 Million. Some say only custom prevents us from calling it a genocide.
ETA: I typed that before tripolar posted-- I don’t necessarilly disagree with the British Imperialism argument myself.
Ireland was the first British colony. The Provisional IRA finally accepted peace with England 5 years ago. The colonization of Ireland was one very long episode, during which the series of other colonial episodes occured. Even though the colonial status has ended, some of those episodes are ongoing.
I still contend it is all one epidode. I addressed the part about it being extended. The evil part, besides the deaths of 1 million people during the potato famine, was that it was the proof of concept for the remainder of British Colonialism, and the millions more that died as a result.
Given that we can’t quantify evil, and we can’t agree on what an “episode” is, I reckon we’re floundering.
Plus, the OP specifies an episode in British history. Sure, the age of imperialism was thoroughly nasty, and the British were involved in it in quite a big way, but it isn’t a distinctively British phenomenon in the way that the Holocaust, say, was distinctively German.
Well I guess we can’t quantify evil now that I’ve broken the evil meter (sorry Der Trihs, I know you worked hard on that).
Ok, so if we have to break it up into localized chunks, I’ll go with the Potato Famine. The modern estimates are about 1 million dead of starvation and disease. It all happened right in England’s back yard. Not only did the British cause the problem, and fail to aid the sick and starving, they twisted the knife as they stabbed.
The Irish famine history is considerably more complex than as portrayed above. True, the people were starving while food was being exported, but part of that was due to the free market: the landowners (some of whom were Irish), were they to have fed the dying, would have been ruined, creating an economic disaster that could possibly have exacerbated the situation even more. (One reason that “socialist” policies should have been imposed at the time, IMO. The responsibility for which inaction lay at the hands of the British parliament, for sure, though there were some strident and very vocal Brits who attempted to push such aid measures through, but were defeated.) Though the clearances of tenant farmers didn’t help much. Secondly there was a large amount of panic caused by perceived starvation, leading to the abandonment of still-productive settlements. Anyway, we were absolutely dreadful, but I believe it was criminal negligence rather than deliberate genocide.
For sheer evil, I don’t think you can beat the extermination of the Tasmanian aboriginals. Seriously nasty.
You’d get a strong argument from some quarters that the bombing of Dresdenand Hamburgduring WW2 count as “evil” episodes.
This tends to polarise opinion in the UK - many claim that it was a justified tactic of war, others that it was pure civilian slaughter - but objectively it led to the death of 25,000 people (Dresden) and 50,000 people (Hamburg) in the space of a couple of days.
Empire killed more people as a whole, as did the Religious Terrors of Cromwell etc, but as discrete acts these two events arguably killed more people than anything before.
The fact it was during a war clouds things slightly, but you could argue that the Indian mutinies, or Irish supression, were also part of an ongoing conflict.
