Thread: If you were British would this BBC report on abuse in Kenya make you ashamed?

Originally Posted by Capulet

You could move to either of those countries, if you really felt that strongly about it. Anything less is complicity through complacency.

Really? So if m.alexander were to petition parliament, form a group demanding answers to the atrocities in Kenya, he is complicit?

Sometimes I think your addiction to a smart answer exceeds your common sense.

How do you feel about your complicity in atrocities committed by Canadians in Gaza, Afghanistan, Iraq? You must have a hide like a rhino to be able to function with your burden of guilt over your complicity (or is it complacency?) over your countries' treatment of Native Americans?

You should move - anything less is complicity through complacency.

Originally Posted by Zootalaws

Really? So if m.alexander were to petition parliament, form a group demanding answers to the atrocities in Kenya, he is complicit?

Well, that certainly doesn't sound like complacency to me, which was my criteria for complicity. If he felt such personal ownership of the problem that he could no longer refer to himself as British without feeling deep shame, he should either do something about it or move. Why would he want to be part of a society he couldn't even bring himself to share the same name with?

Originally Posted by Zootalaws

Sometimes I think your addiction to a smart answer exceeds your common sense.

Bazinga!

Originally Posted by Zootalaws

How do you feel about your complicity in atrocities committed by Canadians in Gaza, Afghanistan, Iraq? You must have a hide like a rhino to be able to function with your burden of guilt over your complicity (or is it complacency?) over your countries' treatment of Native Americans?

You should move - anything less is complicity through complacency.

Wasn't alive or party to any of the major atrocities from the past. I have signed petitions, and advocated for better treatment of Native Americans, and spoken both in support of our military's overall mandate and condemnation of individual events.

Oh Canada, my home and native land. With glowing heart I see thee rise, the true north strong and free; I stand on guard for thee.

There are moments of Canadian history I have been alive for that have no justification, nor would I try. I have never thought my duty as a Canadian was to abandon my country in name or citizenship, but to stay and work for a better future through maintenance of our core values. If I ever got to the point I couldn't admit to anyone I was Canadian, I'd have to consider moving. That was the jist of my comment to m.a:

If he can't stomach the idea of admitting he's British, he doesn't have to be British.

Originally Posted by Capulet

If he can't stomach the idea of admitting he's British, he doesn't have to be British.

My apologies, I realise now that was, in effect, what he had said.

I look at what has happened with our own native people over the last two decades or so and am gladdened that we have taken such steps to right a lot of the wrongs committed over the last 150 years, thanks in no small part to Native American groups from Canada. I doubt if we can ever satisfy everybody, but the efforts made and successes show willing.

The Mau Mau of course behaved like perfect gentlemen - That was then, this is now. What was done in Kenya is as nothing compared to what Africans have done to Africans:

DR Congo
The Gabon
Ethiopia
Sudan
Somalia
Biafra
Rawanda
Angola
Uganda
Zimbabwe

To name but a few; and we can't ignore the fact that the African slave trade still continues just as it did before the Europeans arrived on The Dark Continent - Africans still sell captured peoples to Arab traders.