Damned ungrateful bastards! Don't they realise we're bringing civilisation to them?
You can't expect a savage to understand the benefits of Empire, Sah.
They should thank us! After all, we built them a church … What more do they want? And all we're taking in return is their land, their cattle, their oil, their gold and diamonds and minerals, their forests, their children and their lives. It's for their own good.
Yes, Sah! Without the Empire to protect them they'd be independent and free. God help us what a terrible world that would be.
They're still coming, Ponsonby. I'm down to my last bullet.
Me too, Sah! I'll shoot you if you'll shoot me.
It's the civilised thing to do. One day they'll build a statue to honour our heroic last stand.
On the count of three, Sah …
One …
Two …
7 comments:
Oh Dive, this is good.
I read a pdf that listed all the people who lived in the Hampton Court Grace and Favour apartments from the 1700s to the 1950s. Yes, I did. Most of them were widows of war veterans. Such dumb wars (I know, it's a repetitive term). There were a lot of Ponsonbys.
We are the masters of dumb war, Petrea. The British Empire was the greatest and most disgusting orgy of exploitation, greed and cruelty the world has ever known and we deserve to suffer for it.
This nauseous pair of Ponsonbys sit on the Mall in plain sight of our mad and grumpy queen (German) and her racist consort (Greek … something else to rub our proud English noses in our own mess).
Across the street, however, sits the newly unveiled statue of a true hero, Senior Lieutenant Yuri Alexseyevich Gagarin. The last two statues unveiled in London have been of Nelson Mandela and Yuri Gagarin. Perhaps we are learning a lesson at last.
Don't worry, Dive, we're taking up you fallen mantle of stupid wars.
They'll great us as their liberators! Hey, why are they shooting at us? We barely bombed their country back to stone age - they weren't that far from it to begin with.
I'm looking at this morning's debt news and thinking about the trillions that are wasted on pointless wars and a bloated ad unnecessary military.
Sigh …
I had almost forgotten that promise—They'll greet us as liberators. What a terrible lie.
So, this story? Is it really the story behind this monument? Do you stand in front of the thing and "smoke a Cuban cigar" in protest? Know what I mean?
I like your photo title: "Imperialist statuary". The sun never sets on the British Empire...
Unfortunately, as Vanda noted, we colonists seem to be taking up the "cause". Such a vast waste. Sometimes I wonder if we ever learn from our past debacles.
This is actually the Royal Marines' Monument on The Mall, Robyn. But yes, it does highlight the Marines' shameful past when we sent them to other peoples' countries to kill them so that we could take all their stuff.
The Marines these days do a pretty decent job but that's probably because we've no Empire left to exploit.
I only ever smoked one Cuban cigar and that was in front of Dubya. Now you have a decent man in the White House I've no need to protest.
Ms.M. we never learn. The best book on that particular subject was written by an American: Barbara Tuchman's "The March of Folly." Well worth a read.
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