the british concentration camps (1 Viewer)

[Poppo]

People usually think that the concentration camps were invented by the nazi....Actually, thay were invented by the british during "the second boer war"( 1899-1902).

Great Britain lost the first boer war, and the peasants of the free boer republic of "Nataal" and " Orange" resisted against the huge british army defending their lands with braveness. Gold and diamonds were a very good reason to attack again these boer republics....And this time, The UK used the heavy manners to break the boer resistance: they invented the concentration camps,they put women, old people and children in awful concentration conditions, thousand of them died for sickness, lack of food and lack of medical care...The resistance was broken in this way. Even general Sherman didn' t use so cruel ways during his" march to the sea" some years before...

 

[Mitch]

Poppo...

I think you will find that although the british used them in the campaign you mention they were indeed actually originated in Cuba in 1896-97 under the spanish Reconcentrado policy. while some 28,000 people died in these internment camps set up through diesese etc its a little disambiguous to say that the US did not use such cruel methods. The US of the top of my head indeed did use methods that were seen as inhumane and cruel in the civil war at Andersville prison and, in their treatment of individuals in the so called indian wars.

Your post summises that the brits made the framework for the nazi's to follow and, that is historically innacurate. All countries in that period who were, I suppose, the super powers of today used methods that could be seen as nasty but, at that time were acceptable in the overall picture of the task that was set to the countries involved. You have to take the entire picture into consideration and not just drag out a single snippet and try to make a historical and emotive discussion like this
Mitch

People usually think that the concentration camps were invented by the nazi....Actually, thay were invented by the british during "the second boer war"( 1899-1902).

Great Britain lost the first boer war, and the peasants of the free boer republic of "Nataal" and " Orange" resisted against the huge british army defending their lands with braveness. Gold and diamonds were a very good reason to attack again these boer republics....And this time, The UK used the heavy manners to break the boer resistance: they invented the concentration camps,they put women, old people and children in awful concentration conditions, thousand of them died for sickness, lack of food and lack of medical care...The resistance was broken in this way. Even general Sherman didn' t use so cruel ways during his" march to the sea" some years before...

 

[jazzeum]

All the imperialist powers of that time were guilty of practices that are not acceptable. For example, in the Philippines, the US used water boarding. There is no holier than thou among countries seeming to dominate and rule third world countries.

 

[Isandlwana]

People usually think that the concentration camps were invented by the nazi....Actually, thay were invented by the british during "the second boer war"( 1899-1902).

Great Britain lost the first boer war, and the peasants of the free boer republic of "Nataal" and " Orange" resisted against the huge british army defending their lands with braveness. Gold and diamonds were a very good reason to attack again these boer republics....And this time, The UK used the heavy manners to break the boer resistance: they invented the concentration camps,they put women, old people and children in awful concentration conditions, thousand of them died for sickness, lack of food and lack of medical care...The resistance was broken in this way. Even general Sherman didn' t use so cruel ways during his" march to the sea" some years before...

Welcome to the wikipedia generation of historical scholars.

Lest we forget Italy's use of same said camps in Libya.

 

[damian]

The common denominator is human sin and evil. The British crushed the Boers and virtually wiped them out in those camps. Ironically fifty years later the descendents of those Boer victims used the camps to justify their own inhumanity to their fellow South Africans and called it apartheid. I doubt if any country here has a completely clean sheet in terms of man's inhumanity to man.

 

[Rob]

The common denominator is human sin and evil. The British crushed the Boers and virtually wiped them out in those camps. Ironically fifty years later the descendents of those Boer victims used the camps to justify their own inhumanity to their fellow South Africans and called it apartheid. I doubt if any country here has a completely clean sheet in terms of man's inhumanity to man.

Excellent post mate, spot on.

Rob

 

[TomB]

People usually think that the concentration camps were invented by the nazi....Actually, thay were invented by the british during "the second boer war"( 1899-1902).

Great Britain lost the first boer war, and the peasants of the free boer republic of "Nataal" and " Orange" resisted against the huge british army defending their lands with braveness. Gold and diamonds were a very good reason to attack again these boer republics....And this time, The UK used the heavy manners to break the boer resistance: they invented the concentration camps,they put women, old people and children in awful concentration conditions, thousand of them died for sickness, lack of food and lack of medical care...The resistance was broken in this way. Even general Sherman didn' t use so cruel ways during his" march to the sea" some years before...[/QUOTE
The Brits used them during the boer conflict...my memory is very hazy on this but the Brits used the idea of the concentration camp in a different manner during the Malaya Emergency from about 1948 to approx 1957....They fenced off a lot of Malay villages to prevent the communists terrorist ( CT's) from obtaining supplies....People were checked in and out etc...the US tried a similar idea in Vietnam but it did not work as the Viet Cong were a much more professional force than the rag tag CT's ....TomB

 

[Poppo]

Welcome to the wikipedia generation of historical scholars.

Lest we forget Italy's use of same said camps in Libya.

Italy( Mussolini) also used gas attack against rebel villages....I am the first to accuse my country, I see history in an objective way...

 

[Rob]

Italy( Mussolini) also used gas attack against rebel villages....I am the first to accuse my country, I see history in an objective way...

As has been said Poppo, in the miserable history of outrage against humanity there are few countries with clean hands.

Rob

 

[Isandlwana]

I can only ascertain that the original post is designed to highlight the barbarism administered to civilians by an invading force.

However, rather than focus on my country in highlighting what for some can be an unpalatable subject, why not begin reading something of the Second Sino-Japanese War. Read what Japan did, and begin to understand why China still very much fear the wrath of Japan, even to this day.

As an adjunct but entirely separate from the original post; for those clamouring for more Japanese Pacific figures, perhaps it may be pertinent to take a moment to think about what it is to ask someone from China to paint figures depicting Japan's Imperial Army. Would you think it acceptable to expect someone from Tel Aviv to paint Nazi's?

 

[Fitzgibbon]

I can only ascertain that the original post is designed to highlight the barbarism administered to civilians by an invading force.

However, rather than focus on my country in highlighting what for some can be an unpalatable subject, why not begin reading something of the Second Sino-Japanese War. Read what Japan did, and begin to understand why China still very much fear the wrath of Japan, even to this day.

As an adjunct but entirely separate from the original post; for those clamouring for more Japanese Pacific figures, perhaps it may be pertinent to take a moment to think about what it is to ask someone from China to paint figures depicting Japan's Imperial Army. Would you think it acceptable to expect someone from Tel Aviv to paint Nazi's?

A very interesting and sensitive extension of what is truly a tangled subject :salute:: - coming from a country whose politicians are still fixated on building camps and referring to them as solutions (and who still like to regurgitate the 'Lest we forget' slogan), I am sure that the subject (and the hypocrisy) has not been over-discussed; in fact, given the *** abandon with which the error is repeated, I'd say we have barely scratched the scratch - we are still to get to grips with just what the word 'error' means on such a scale. I don't think that sin and evil cut the mustard as most have become immune to such tepid responses ('tell someone who cares' is all-too-often the accepted response) - 'fatally-flawed policy' is a more appropriate descriptor.

 

[Jack]

I think it is a rather dangerous exercise to label some history as 'objective' and dismiss other versions as 'subjective'. That is quite a different consideration than discussing truth and lies. It is impossible to write history that is truly objective. We are all subject to the forces that have shaped us - whether it be race, gender, class, upbringing, temperament. It is impossible to truly step back and somehow cleanse ourselves of all of the influences that make us who we are and then write in a vacuum. Aim for objectivity, but it is like aiming for perfection. Look at how often the members of the forum have prefaced an opinion with "As an...(Australian, Englishman, American, teacher, ex soldier, Catholic, Atheist, son of a soldier...) Even the use of IMO is a friendly enough attempt to recognise the inherent bias of any view expressed.

Greatest writer in history - Shakespeare
How many Chinese writers have I read - none

Would I have joined the SS - of course not. I am a moral, decent person
Have you grown up in a chaotic political situation that drove you to extremes - No

What is the best form of government - democracy
What systems have I had direct contact with - one

Who is the friendliest TS manufacturer - Andy
How many TS manufactureres have I met - 1


Everything we say, do and think expresses a bias...IMO.

Jack

 

[Fitzgibbon]

... Aim for objectivity, but it is like aiming for perfection.


What is the best form of government - democracy
What systems have I had direct contact with - one

Everything we say, do and think expresses a bias...IMO.

Jack

Heartily agree...and pardon me for picking just one bit from your post. This has perplexed me for quite some time, and even a major in Politics refused to shift the question. Democracy is widely touted as though it actually existed in toto beyond mere theory...however...even in those countries that espouse the model, it's defining characteristics are not met. Furthermore, the lack has slipped below the radar and become acceptable. Whereas once it could have been said that democracy was aspirational and a works-in-progress, the theory of the slow-boiled frog has prevailed to the point where we just emptily claim the state of democracy without testing to ensure veracity. The only remaining aspirational freedom is that of the market, which idea has become the despot...and so the question...Is it better to pretend that we are freely engaging in democracy than to have to confront the possibility that it may never be achievable? (The greatest...Shakespeare...posed this question in the Merchant; it began: "To be or not to be..." with reference to the nobility of mind and suffering). It seems appropriate here because we collectively model a history of the many who gave up their lives for an ideal that, in spite of the price, has not been achieved.

 

[jules118]

People usually think that the concentration camps were invented by the nazi....Actually, thay were invented by the british during "the second boer war"( 1899-1902).

Great Britain lost the first boer war, and the peasants of the free boer republic of "Nataal" and " Orange" resisted against the huge british army defending their lands with braveness. Gold and diamonds were a very good reason to attack again these boer republics....And this time, The UK used the heavy manners to break the boer resistance: they invented the concentration camps,they put women, old people and children in awful concentration conditions, thousand of them died for sickness, lack of food and lack of medical care...The resistance was broken in this way. Even general Sherman didn' t use so cruel ways during his" march to the sea" some years before...

I'm only quoting the original post to give context/background to my family's experience, but as subsequent posters have pointed out, many nations have done similar and continue to do so.

Anyway... I'm originally from South Africa and my great great grand parents on my mother's side were Boers. Great great grandfather was in one of the kommandos and whilst he was away my great great grandmother and the rest of the family was put into a concentration camp by the Brits. Think that my great great grandfather was eventually captured and sent to St Helena. I don't know enough about our family history to know exactly what transpired but suffice to say that to this day a lingering resentment of the British remains on her side of the family... as it does with many Afrikaaners. Memory lives on, but is prone to distortion and over time can become the fertile soil of 'history'/facts/myth in which to plant the seeds of hate.

Interestingly, on my father's side of the family, my other great great grandfather moved from Australia to South Africa in 1901 or 1902 and I often wonder if he was involved with one of the Australian contingents who went there to fight for the British. Something I really should do more research on one day.

Anyway, not really relevant, just a personal anecdote.

jules

 

[Jack]

It seems appropriate here because we collectively model a history of the many who gave up their lives for an ideal that, in spite of the price, has not been achieved.[/QUOTE]

I think that the much claimed 'in defence of democracy' is an attempt to cover wholesale tragedy in the venner of higher purpose. WW2 might not have been a war fought for democratic values (the participation of the USSR being a case in point) but it was a war fought against a belief system that personified the darkness of man's heart (I love the references to literature!). So it would seem that, at least sometimes, what we fight for is a murky, confused and contested notion. Yet just as clearly, what we fight against is sometimes a much less confusing idea and less likely to create division. Australian history is littered with examples of a questionable choice of friends, but our enemies have been chosen with greater care. It might not have always been our fight, but perhaps only in the Boer War were we aligned against a just cause.

Democracy is flawed, 'but what else is there to do' (have you read the second part of that line in Lord of the Flies?)

 

[Jack]

A very interesting and sensitive extension of what is truly a tangled subject :salute:: - coming from a country whose politicians are still fixated on building camps and referring to them as solutions (and who still like to regurgitate the 'Lest we forget' slogan), I am sure that the subject (and the hypocrisy) has not been over-discussed; in fact, given the *** abandon with which the error is repeated, I'd say we have barely scratched the scratch - we are still to get to grips with just what the word 'error' means on such a scale. I don't think that sin and evil cut the mustard as most have become immune to such tepid responses ('tell someone who cares' is all-too-often the accepted response) - 'fatally-flawed policy' is a more appropriate descriptor.

Come to the dark side with me and vote conservative. You know you want to!

 

[TomNT]

Come to the dark side with me and vote conservative. You know you want to!

You work on Bob Jack and i'll concentrate on converting Waynepoo ok...:rolleyes2:

Tom

 

[waynepoo]

Come to the dark side with me and vote conservative. You know you want to!

Noooooo!!!!......now that is going too far, let's keep things black and white it's much easier for the proletariat like myself.....{sm3}{sm4}
Wayne.