@izzythepush,
izzythepush wrote:
Foofie wrote:Empty rhetoric, in my opinion. Similar to Germany admitting that the Holocaust (aka, The Final Solution) was wrong to do. I do not believe many German nationals today have any "remorse," nor "shame" for that atrocity. Why?
Because, with the exception of some very old men and women, they didn't do anything. Why should someone feel shame for something one of their ancestors may or may not have done? You can remember the past and respect the victims without going round in sackcloth and ashes all the time. Punishing the offspring down to the 7th generation is so backwards. What's important is to focus on the present. Germany is a very peaceful nation, and does not pose the slightest threat to any other nation's sovereignty, unlike some of those who like to wag fingers and pontificate.
You are correct, in my opinion, up to a point. We don't punish later generations, even though that was the lesson to be learned by good Catholics for the "rejection of Christ" by guess who.
Anyway, in my opinion, your saying that Britain has come to terms with their colonial past is backwards, even though that is the common parlance promulgated. Meaning, it is not for the perpetrator to come to terms with anything, except one's conscience, and that might be of little "ethical" value if the "victim" has not come to terms with any forgiveness.
I believe there are families, often in Israel, or the U.S., that lost grandparents, etc. in the Holocaust. Believe me, many in those families have not forgiven Germany for the Holocaust, since those newreels of naked women being herded into the gas chambers is just too disgusting to forgive the country that accepted that paradigm for eliminating a "problem."
And, you can be assured that there are Irish-Americans that have no love for the British, since family members recounted what transpired for centuries at the hands of the British. They needed no documentation, since their oral tradition came in handy.
So, the victims of colonial excesses do not care if Britain "came to terms" with their past. That might only mean that the verbosity of the British might be able to convince themselves that all's well that ends well.
And, similarly, many Jews just want to avoid anything German. Meaning many Jews take a European vacation that could include Britain, Scandanavia, Holland, France, Spain, but not Germany. They just wouldn't even feel comfortable hearing the language being spoken. The message being, they had a chance to be civilized, and they missed that chance in the quest to rectify the Versailles Treaty, in the way of metaphor.
