Which is larger? Yours, or mine? Australia or the United States of America, that is. With the bushfires in Australia out of control incinerating large swathes of the country a map was produced to visually depict how widespread the fires are. For emphasis the map was overlaid on top of America to give people an idea of the scope of the problem Australia is dealing with. Americans responded with disbelief that Australia was just as large as the USA. People were also in shock over how large an area, measured by size of US states, are currently burning. Responses on social media show how shocked and dumbfounded people were learning this.
Here is the image under discussion.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 08 2020, @08:21AM (14 children)
The two largest tracts of occupied territory left on earth. Last remnants of the British imperialist colonial fuck up
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 08 2020, @08:37AM (1 child)
good to hear that canada was returned to the native americans then. and brazil. and mexico. and chile and argentina. and the other ones (no, I never liked learning stuff by heart, so I don't know all of the countries in the Americas).
(Score: 4, Informative) by Phoenix666 on Wednesday January 08 2020, @01:43PM
Large swathes of Canadian territory effectively remain in native hands today. Large chunks of the BC interior. Lower Alberta from Lethbridge all the way east to Kenora, ON, are heavily native. Regina, Saskatchewan, is full of native influence. The Maritimes, too, are quite dominated by MicMacs and others. Non-native Canadians are clustered in a handful of places like Calgary and Toronto. White Canadians were not the robust, aggressive colonizers Americans were and did not displace the Indians wholesale (or like the Australians, who brutally removed the aborigines). The country today feels a lot more like New Zealand in the detente reached with prior inhabitants.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 08 2020, @08:45AM (11 children)
why do you call it a fuck up?
this tiny little island gathered treasure from all over the world and their language and culture are important almost everywhere.
you can call it racist, violent or evil, but they succeeded in their purpose of improving conditions within the UK, remaining a superpower for at least 70 years after the empire was gone (and they lost the US and Australia even earlier than that).
(Score: 3, Informative) by janrinok on Wednesday January 08 2020, @09:33AM (5 children)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 08 2020, @09:54AM
oh. thank you for the correction. so Australia was only lost ~70 years ago.
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Wednesday January 08 2020, @01:51PM (3 children)
1942? I've read that the disaster at Gallipoli in WWI got the ball rolling for Australian and New Zealand independence, but 20 years is not exactly prompt action.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2) by PartTimeZombie on Wednesday January 08 2020, @11:12PM (2 children)
Not in New Zealand.
They had to throw us bodily out of the Empire, even after they called last orders.
Actually, if the Queen turned up tomorrow and pointed at stuff and said "that's mine" I'm pretty sure we'd give it to her.
(Score: 2) by dry on Thursday January 09 2020, @02:43AM
Yea, but you'd be giving it to the Queen of New Zealand, not the Queen of England.
(Score: 2) by deimtee on Thursday January 09 2020, @03:04AM
Lizzie is still Queen of Australia, it's just that that is a separate job from being Queen of the UK.*
No chance we'll go republic while she's still kicking. Might be a chance after Chuckles takes over.
*and shouldn't that be the UQ at the moment anyway?
If you cough while drinking cheap red wine it really cleans out your sinuses.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 08 2020, @09:54AM (4 children)
Speaking of improving conditions, the Brits even got rid of slavery much earlier than the USA. Ironically many of the US citizens fought for "independence" because they were afraid their slaves would gain their independence if the US remain under British rule.
Politically incorrect but in many cases indigenous rulers would probably have been worse than the British if they had been in power. Gandhi would likely be an unknown corpse if it was one of the Sultans in power ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_massacres_in_India#Pre-colonial_India [wikipedia.org] ). If the Sultans massacre thousands they don't need to appear in Parliament to justify their actions.
Lastly, maybe the other colonial masters were better but it's kinda funny that the British can have the cheek to start something called the "Commonwealth Games" AND many of their ex-colonies actually bother to participate...
(Score: 4, Interesting) by kazzie on Wednesday January 08 2020, @10:26AM (2 children)
You could argue that it was easier for Britain to get rid of slavery, because employing slaves wasn't as key a part of their economy as is was for the United States. (Britain had been a big player in the capture and trade of slaves and their transportation over the Atlantic. It was this practice that was banned in 1807; slavery itself remained legal for another three decades or so.)
There's a certain contrast between the distance between Westminster and the places where slaves worked, and the degree of concern that was shown by anti-slavery campaigners in the UK in the 18th and 19th centuries. Perhaps there was a desire to be seen as benevolent "masters" of their empire?
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Phoenix666 on Wednesday January 08 2020, @01:55PM (1 child)
Well, Britain stood at the most sanitized and profitable apex of the triangle trade. They conveniently ignored the suffering and oppression their standard of living depended on in exactly the same way that modern Europeans, Americans, Japanese, and other first world nations do. How many woke iPhone owners put them down in disgust over the slave and child labor and environmental degradation (elsewhere, far away) that went into producing them? None, that's how many.
It's the same dynamic that every empire has depended on.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by kazzie on Wednesday January 08 2020, @05:23PM
My point is that the British Empire did become disgusted by slavery, but specifically the hell-hole conditions in which slaves were transported across the seas. William Wilberforce and his fellow campaigners were able to get more outrage at this than the mere keeping of slaves.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by kazzie on Wednesday January 08 2020, @10:28AM
Technically they invented the "Empire Games", and later changed its name when they didn't have an empire any more!