Deckard wrote:You can believe what you like, I've been there and the sub-continent is very happy with a good deal of the traditions inherited from the British Raj.
They were both probably glad to be rid of each other in '47 but the nexus was never broken. Britain was and I think still is, the first choice for Pakistani and Indian immigrants because of the familiarity, ie; it's a natural selection.
I got the impression that if they were to be exploited, at least they got the biggest and the best with Britain, and they were able to profit from it in many ways as well.
As French was once the language of the English court and governing elite the Pakistan elite adopt some of the trappings of the old colonial power, English is still used in business and spoken by many of the educated. But get away from the Lahore or Islamabad into the hinterland and there is little that endears the populous to the former colonial power and few understand let alone speak English.
Dave Wooley
Don't underestimate the powerful influence of the British system of laws. It is one of England's most enduring gifts to the world.
Even a place like the American Colonies, whose antipathy toward England included a proposal for German as the national language, did not hesitate to embrace and maintain the existing system of common laws.
If an unfriendly power had attempted to impose on America the mediocre educational performance that exists today, we might well have viewed it as an act of war.
Werner wrote:Don't underestimate the powerful influence of the British system of laws. It is one of England's most enduring gifts to the world.
Even a place like the American Colonies, whose antipathy toward England included a proposal for German as the national language, did not hesitate to embrace and maintain the existing system of common laws.
The word "gift" has an undeserved smug connotation. Let's say no nation outside of Britain has ever elected to adopt the English legal system by choice.
Deckard wrote:
They were both probably glad to be rid of each other in '47 but the nexus was never broken. Britain was and I think still is, the first choice for Pakistani and Indian immigrants because of the familiarity, ie; it's a natural selection.
There is by default less culture barrier between any former colony and its former colonial power. Therefore you might find that whenever migration from one to the other is possible, the former colonial power always has a high probability of being the prefer destination of emigration from the former colony. Hardly does that mean the taken of colonialism itself would be treasured in the former colonies, or that the former colonial power really is really more esteemed than others in the former colony.
I think it is because we've become so insanely smug in our delusion about how highly the world thinks of us that we've been so wanton in squandering our reputation abroad. We squander our reserve of goodwill as if the reserve was vastly larger than it actually was.
Let's just say that evidence suggests that there is very much less negotiability in either the particularly American, or Generally Anglo-Saxon "gifts" to the world than Anglo-Saxons in their moments of exuberance would like to think.
British Common Law would seem to be the rule in places that matter, anyway.
If an unfriendly power had attempted to impose on America the mediocre educational performance that exists today, we might well have viewed it as an act of war.
Werner wrote:British Common Law would seem to be the rule in places that matter, anyway.
Perhaps it is another sign of lunatic smugness to think almost all of Europe, Russia, Japan, much of middleeast and Africa China matters less than the countries highlighted in blue.
BTW, the current state of much of the blue territory in Africa is so abysmal, and any legal system that might be said to exist there so nonfunctional, that it is altogether unclear whether these countries would continue to use this system if they ever get their act together and become someone that matters.
hallo prehaps im being smug but why dont u sign or join ??????? instead of being a guest then u can debate what u like but well know whos posting. just a thought youy may like to consider
VENTIS SECUNDIS {hoods motto with favouring winds}
Mr. Guest in this section is almost always Chuck (of Sacramento, Ca).
Last edited by Werner on Fri Nov 16, 2007 6:44 pm, edited 1 time in total.
If an unfriendly power had attempted to impose on America the mediocre educational performance that exists today, we might well have viewed it as an act of war.
The British Empire was not altruistic by intent but expansionist by design as all Empires are. Expand or implode. There is no doubting the fact that much of this huge land mass was governed applying many of the principles and methods of the Empire of Rome and like Rome you could earn your citizenship and it is a fact that large numbers in the Empire had a paradoxical affinity to the "mother country� even those which were culturally quite different. The sub -continent was the Imperial jewel in the crown but the colonial rulers acted like lord and masters. The Empire was ruthless in its treatment of decent. The Indian Mutiny and Boar war are but two examples.
As with the fall of Rome some remnants of Empire will linger on. Whether the law givers and legacy of language will remain in 200 years time is a mute question. After all the legacy of Rome remains 1500 years later but to say the former colonial states either in Africa, Asia or else were have some kind of affinity to the mother country is a much over worked and perhaps rose tinted view of the legacy of Britain�s imperial past.
Dave Wooley
Empires never are altruistic. However an empire that is ruthlessly honest in accessing the stock of good will it has abroad, other people's view of itself, and the exact area of convergence (and divergence) between its own interests and those of others, tends to do better than those which cover its own eyes with beautiful painting of the world in which every one looks up to it and think in terms of school book ideologies.
hallo prehaps im being smug but why dont u sign or join ??????? instead of being a guest then u can debate what u like but well know whos posting. just a thought youy may like to consider