But apart from some fun spats, things were mostly fine. We sang our songs, we sold our wares, some of us were rich, some of us were poor, some of us tried to sneakily recruit each other, good times. AND THEN THE FUCKING BRITISH SHOWED UP.
Replies
That last sentence applies to too many places.
jul 4, 2025, 6:25 am • 3 0 • view
Thank you for sharing your beautiful and fascinating history. 🕊️🖖🏽
jul 4, 2025, 4:49 am • 22 0 • view
Yes and it counts.
jul 4, 2025, 11:39 am • 1 0 • view
Ugh the British lol
jul 4, 2025, 12:52 pm • 1 0 • view
Loved reading this! Thanks for sharing!
jul 4, 2025, 2:19 pm • 0 0 • view
Omg, tysm for this. Dad’s side is from Kenya & Tanzania (African 1st) & though he’s Hindu, his best friend of 70+ yrs is Ismaili as are most of his childhood friends. Mom’s is Sikh Panjabi & everyone got out w/the UK on 1 side & US on the other. Mixed & in the diaspora, I ended up w/a white guy.
jul 7, 2025, 4:34 am • 2 0 • view
It is really hard being British and wanting so hard to defend peoples but knowing its our fault they need defending. Its why the Irish are so pro-Palestine and why our govt are being so over the top trying to prosecute them. Somehow the Brits ruin everything...
jul 4, 2025, 9:49 am • 37 1 • view
If it's any consolation, the current UK government doesn't seem to be capable of anything, let alone colonization.
jul 4, 2025, 1:29 pm • 0 0 • view
The British were not the only European colonialists. Let’s not forget the Belgians, French or Germans. They were, however the most successful. If tribalism were not the curse of our species you’d not need to defend anyone
jul 4, 2025, 12:33 pm • 3 0 • view
::Spain has entered the chat::
jul 11, 2025, 2:34 am • 0 0 • view
Did I say they were? Am I Belgian? Why are you assuming that my relevant comment on a specific subject means I know nothing outside of that specific subject? Don't mansplain. It just makes you look like a dick.
jul 4, 2025, 1:14 pm • 2 0 • view
I don’t. I’m sorry if I came off sounding that way. Just been wondering how come the Europeans were the way they were. That’s all.
jul 4, 2025, 1:55 pm • 0 0 • view
It's every empire ever. Empires are a bad idea for everyone involved except the rich and power-mad. Before the Internet people credited them with spreading cool stuff as well, but now they're obsolete.
jul 7, 2025, 4:47 pm • 1 0 • view
True, but you do have great writers.
jul 4, 2025, 11:13 am • 1 0 • view
Paul Scott, “The Jewel in the Crown.”
jul 4, 2025, 11:28 am • 0 0 • view
Ah yes, “Seriously? …He never changes. …It’s always the same with this guy.” youtu.be/ARSNaSeT9hw?...
jul 5, 2025, 6:06 am • 1 0 • view
*cringes*
jul 4, 2025, 9:16 pm • 0 0 • view
Thank you.
jul 4, 2025, 6:39 pm • 0 0 • view
The most perfectly situated readmore i have ever encountered
jul 4, 2025, 3:08 pm • 9 0 • view
A professor of mine once said, “Show a 20th century war anywhere in the world and I’ll show you a border drawn by the British”
jul 4, 2025, 8:17 am • 38 5 • view
Oh no I hate this cameo
jul 4, 2025, 10:38 pm • 0 0 • view
A genetic study using Oxford Nanopore sequencers would likely produce a very interesting map.
jul 4, 2025, 12:58 pm • 3 0 • view
Thanks for giving me a cultural lesson! AND THEN THE FUCKING BRITISH SHOWED UP - now that’s a Jeopardy category.
jul 6, 2025, 10:47 pm • 6 0 • view
never a good thing -___-
jul 6, 2025, 12:59 am • 0 0 • view
You know things are going to get bad when The British Showed Up comes into a story.
jul 4, 2025, 2:20 pm • 1 0 • view
The first 850 years are the worst
jul 4, 2025, 3:52 pm • 0 0 • view
“and then the fucking British showed up” love common themes 🥲🫠
jul 5, 2025, 12:44 pm • 2 0 • view
Honestly I was expecting this. Somewhere in half of all nations' histories, the British show up and do a big Empire all over the carpets.
jul 4, 2025, 8:39 am • 19 0 • view
jul 4, 2025, 11:34 am • 5 0 • view
Nicely put
jul 4, 2025, 4:51 pm • 0 0 • view
Speaking as a native of the UK - can concur that we screwed up a lot of places.
jul 4, 2025, 4:49 am • 13 0 • view
As another UK resident, I say British rulers and governments have done a lot worse than "screw up" the world. But the word "we" is problematic. The powerful did let some 'spoils' of the rigged global economy trickle down to ordinary 'brits', and indoctrinated them too think this was ok. Now
jul 4, 2025, 7:01 am • 1 0 • view
"Not all British people?" Really?
jul 4, 2025, 7:23 am • 0 0 • view
That's not the point I am trying to make. Alongside doing our best to oppose the current British government's support for Israel, and acknowledge the awful colonial past, we have to look out for the changing layers of oppression and where they continue to arise. Watch the rich, and the corporations.
jul 4, 2025, 10:14 am • 1 0 • view
it's our job to re-educate ourselves, and speak out against what our government is doing. It's not that I disagree with you Jay, but I think that the mindset of the wealthy and powerful need to be challenged everywhere.
jul 4, 2025, 7:01 am • 4 0 • view
I know not every descendent of colonialist oppressors has the same wealth as this family, but former BBC reporter @lauratrevelyan.bsky.social and her family are something of a model, correcting via reparations (etc.) some of the harms their family did. Just imagine if the royal family did the same.
jul 4, 2025, 4:38 pm • 1 0 • view
Ain't enough time in the world.
jul 4, 2025, 11:41 am • 1 0 • view
As someone who lives in a place where the British showed up and still haven't fucked off this is the best post I have ever read in the entire history of social media. Thank you.
jul 5, 2025, 11:18 am • 5 0 • view
So - you'd identify as an African American? 🤔
jul 5, 2025, 2:42 pm • 0 0 • view
@skyview.social unroll
jul 4, 2025, 6:07 pm • 0 0 • view
One of my South Asian friends uses the collective noun "WHITE OPPRESSORS" so that we Americans of pallor don't feel left out of the imperialist guilt 🇺🇸 I'm just saying, you could be more inclusive 😉
jul 4, 2025, 11:30 am • 31 1 • view
Thank you for the history lesson! It is always a good thing to be more informed. ❤️
jul 4, 2025, 11:27 am • 14 0 • view
Thank you for sharing this. 😊😊
jul 4, 2025, 12:45 pm • 1 0 • view
There we were, hauling human cargo back and forth across the Atlantic. AND THEN THE FUCKING BRITISH SHOWED UP.
jul 4, 2025, 10:43 pm • 7 0 • view
>be britain >second largest participant in the transatlantic slave trade >after centuries of protests finally decide slave trading is bad >realize ending the slave trade is a great excuse to capture ships >200 years later people on the internet make opposing the slave trade our entire legacy >mfw :D
jul 5, 2025, 12:37 am • 0 0 • view
Yes, I did intend to represent that single event as the entire legacy of Great Britain, and never intended to point out only that history is complicated and no side is incapable of either right or wrong. The Middle Passage was arguably the worst part of slavery. The naval power needed to end it
jul 5, 2025, 3:47 am • 0 0 • view
would have been unfeasible without Great Britain. Nations and people who did wrong can do right instead. A slave trader can become an abolitionist. He can write a song about the moment he changed his mind: “Amazing grace! How sweet the sound, that saved a wretch like me!”
jul 5, 2025, 3:47 am • 2 2 • view
The Mughal incursion into India resulted in the death of millions of Hindus. AND THEN THE FUCKING BRITISH SHOWED UP.
jul 4, 2025, 11:17 pm • 0 0 • view
Would love a fucking source showing that the Mughal incursion killed more people than the British incursion, let alone millions
jul 5, 2025, 12:42 am • 0 0 • view
I apologize: you must have been under the impression that wars of conquest and mass murder only started with the British.
jul 5, 2025, 1:01 am • 0 0 • view
I am under no such impression, no empire has ever risen without massive violence, but I'm not even aware of any data suggesting millions of people died in the British conquest of India. A million is a big number, very few pre-modern wars reached such a death toll.
jul 5, 2025, 3:22 am • 0 0 • view
I honestly can’t attest to the veracity of the numbers; sources differ. Not suggesting that the Brits should be excused for their colonial evils - just remarking that Mother India has suffered worse in her long history.
jul 5, 2025, 3:50 am • 0 0 • view
I'm sure sources do differ, but these pages are not legitimate sources. The British Empire very much WAS the worst (demonstrable) thing India suffered, because the Brits didn't just kill people in conquests (which we have no reason to believe were any more or less deadly than earlier conquests),
jul 5, 2025, 4:06 am • 0 0 • view
they also completely rebuilt India's economy around the production and extraction of raw materials. An estimated 36 million people died in manmade famines as a result of the British redirecting farm labor towards cash crops like indigo, cotton, and sugar instead of food, and refusing
jul 5, 2025, 4:06 am • 0 0 • view
to provide famine relief lest it cut into profits. There's no such thing as a good empire, but at least the ones that came before Britain were based IN India, rather than just sucking her dry to enrich a far off country.
jul 5, 2025, 4:06 am • 0 0 • view
Islam entered India and never left. At least the Brits went home!
jul 5, 2025, 4:11 am • 0 0 • view
Here’s a few “fucking sources.” The argument is only about just how many millions were killed.
jul 5, 2025, 12:54 am • 1 0 • view
Thank you for the list of sources, with these I can confirm you have no clue what you're talking about, since none of these cite any actual historians giving real data about the Mughals. Most of the numbers are either uncited or cited to Hindutva revisionists who pulled their own numbers from their
jul 5, 2025, 3:39 am • 0 0 • view
asses, the few actual historians cited are all from the early 20th century and only make very general claims that conquests were violent (no shit) rather than anything specific about how many people the Mughals killed, most of these pages are about Muslims in general rather than Mughals,
jul 5, 2025, 3:39 am • 0 0 • view
and one of these pages gives a figure of 400 million deaths (over 3 times the entire estimated population of the Mughal Empire at its founding btw) in "Massacres during Mughal Invasion" with a date range of 1000-1525... which is entirely before the founding of the Mughal Empire.
jul 5, 2025, 3:39 am • 0 0 • view
So as expected, no real sources, just people pulling numbers out of their asses for the gullible to parrot online
jul 5, 2025, 3:39 am • 0 0 • view
You did see the quotes from the actual participants? Babur wrote in his memoirs: “For the sake of Islam I became a wanderer, I battled infidels and Hindus, I determined to become a martyr Thank God I became a Killer of Non-Muslims!” That’s 16th century, not 20th.
jul 5, 2025, 4:00 am • 0 0 • view
Once again, I'm not arguing that these rulers were swell guys, but a quote from a religious conqueror taking pride in killing people in the name of his religion does not validate claims that he killed millions of people, let alone hundreds of millions more than the population of his empire.
jul 5, 2025, 4:11 am • 0 0 • view
True - and I appreciate that it’s hard to prove a negative; but I don’t feel that you’ve refuted the claims made by simply saying “it’s not true.”
jul 5, 2025, 4:12 am • 1 0 • view
That's fair, the fact is there aren't any actual numbers on this subject that I could present as a counterpoint; most historical conflicts don't have death estimates. However, there's no good reason to suspect that the various Muslim conquests were more deadly than British or other conquests.
jul 5, 2025, 5:14 am • 0 0 • view
Fair enough - lumping the Mughals in with all the other waves of Islamic incursion was probably not accurate - although the Hindus themselves probably didn’t see the finer distinctions.
jul 5, 2025, 3:52 am • 1 0 • view
Now look what you did.
jul 5, 2025, 3:56 am • 1 0 • view
kulveersamra.wordpress.com/2017/02/02/t...
jul 5, 2025, 12:53 am • 0 0 • view
politicsofindia.quora.com/The-biggest-...
jul 5, 2025, 12:51 am • 0 0 • view
ijemh.com/issue_dcp/Re...
jul 5, 2025, 12:51 am • 0 0 • view
kailaasa.org/persecution/
jul 5, 2025, 12:50 am • 0 0 • view
Originally, I read about it in Will Durant’s “Our Oriental Heritage.” I believe there was one “hunting trip” that resulted in 600,000 casualties - one incident among many.
jul 5, 2025, 12:48 am • 0 0 • view
www.sikhnet.com/news/islamic...
jul 5, 2025, 12:45 am • 0 0 • view
What didn’t the New York Times not get? Did they not understand that people can be from places their ancestors weren’t? Like they think we’re all a mix of Navajo/Powhatan/Chippewa right now, just like the Brothers Grimm and King Arthur before us?
jul 4, 2025, 10:25 pm • 7 0 • view
Rashid ad-Din Sinan? The Old Man of the Mountain. Is he yours? Hash-hashin. A very renowned figure.
jul 4, 2025, 12:23 pm • 1 0 • view
I was wondering if someone would mention this. Though I haven't specialized in the area that Babai knows, I did look into the Assassins a while ago...yes, they were a branch of Ismaili Islam. The Mongols wiped 'em out. Caliphs of neighboring powers respected them up to that point...(1)
jul 4, 2025, 2:34 pm • 1 0 • view
... having the ability to send dagger-men into an enemy's castle can get you plenty of respect, or at least a healthy fear.
jul 4, 2025, 2:35 pm • 2 0 • view
So the modernized version of this principle is John Wick
jul 5, 2025, 5:20 am • 0 0 • view
Kind of... The difference (besides John Wick being a fictional character) is that Wick survives his missions, so far. Hassan I-Sabbah's assassins went on theirs not expecting to. Infiltrating a caliph's admin & then killing him is a good way to get killed in turn.
jul 6, 2025, 6:19 am • 2 0 • view
I don't think Wick expects to survive, he just ends up surviving and is forced to continue his mission, because the more bad guys he eliminates, the better. You don't go on those missions while planning your future or something, this is "...or die trying". Your existence is incompatible with theirs.
jul 6, 2025, 9:11 am • 1 0 • view
🤣🤣🤣 don’t forget the hashish from which the word assassin arises. As in the “hashashin” per Tales of the Dervish I believe by the great Idries Shah
jul 4, 2025, 4:27 pm • 0 0 • view
If "hashish" is weed and a tiny bit of that can turn me into a genius of intuition, that was quite some performance enhancement... Now I'm interested in what berserkers used.
jul 5, 2025, 5:23 am • 0 0 • view
Probably datura?
jul 5, 2025, 12:21 pm • 1 0 • view
The story, which may be a legend goes “the old man drugged them and they awoke in a garden w beautiful women and food. When they fell asleep they were carried to their rooms. When they awoke the old man recounted their “dreams” so he earned their undying commitment”
jul 4, 2025, 4:31 pm • 0 0 • view
I've heard the story, yes...it is almost certainly a legend. The Assassins were highly disciplined, because they had to be. Going on an undercover mission that ends in killing a target (& probably ensuring one's own death right after that) requires traits most stoners don't possess.
jul 6, 2025, 6:13 am • 1 0 • view
Yeah because strong belief was the great propellant. They were very disciplined and well trained
jul 6, 2025, 12:21 pm • 1 0 • view
Very true...that's one factor that hasn't changed, even with the onset of modernity & today's tech.
jul 7, 2025, 2:26 am • 0 0 • view
AND THEN THE FUCKING BRITISH SHOWED UP. Yep applies to my country as well.
jul 4, 2025, 4:47 am • 46 0 • view
Not all fucking British.
jul 4, 2025, 2:03 pm • 0 0 • view
Just the upper class rich ones. Who screwed over their own poorer citizens just as much as they screwed over other countries. Hang on...the US is about to find out exactly what this feels like 😬
jul 4, 2025, 2:20 pm • 2 0 • view
amen to that en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Con...
jul 4, 2025, 3:27 pm • 1 0 • view
jul 4, 2025, 5:02 am • 14 0 • view
The Brits were TERRIBLE, here when they were colonizing Canada. At one point they spread small pox virus in "gifts" they gave indigenous people here. Nice (NOT!) Colonization was all about exploiting labour in different countries. Resource extraction continues today.
jul 4, 2025, 6:38 pm • 7 0 • view
When colonizing other countries becomes too hard, the rich turn to greater exploitation of people in their own vicinity. That's what's going on now. Slowly pushing us down so the few can reap big riches. Then speedily. Greedy misers want to stay rich.
jul 4, 2025, 7:20 pm • 5 0 • view
So many stories take a terrible turn when this happens.
jul 4, 2025, 6:40 am • 4 0 • view
Thanks for the history lesson. This first person insider view of history is hard to come by in most other forums. The truth is that most of us are the same race: Mongrel.
jul 5, 2025, 5:12 pm • 3 0 • view
And becoming more so. If you want to set certain people off, remind them that in the not so distant future, we’ll all be kind of an average tan color.
jul 6, 2025, 2:29 pm • 0 0 • view
If you're ever struggling to connect with someone from a different culture, just shit-talk the British. Or English. Either way, there's a good chance they agree for a reason of their own.
jul 4, 2025, 8:56 pm • 13 0 • view
No thanks. That's disgusting to me. I'd rather not find common cause in hating the contemporary Brits/English.
jul 5, 2025, 2:28 am • 0 0 • view
I'm British. Trust me, we deserve it.
jul 5, 2025, 8:54 am • 1 0 • view
I disagree and I don't want to do it. I dislike what the colonialists did, I don't dislike the Brits/English. I do despise the racists, but that's a general dislike of racists everywhere.
jul 6, 2025, 12:14 am • 1 0 • view
Agreed!
jul 10, 2025, 3:02 pm • 1 0 • view
Just the government, not the people
jul 5, 2025, 2:56 am • 0 0 • view
As a British Tolkien fan with an Irish surname, I very much appreciate that!
jul 6, 2025, 10:55 am • 1 0 • view
You're welcome.
jul 6, 2025, 5:06 pm • 0 0 • view
That’s hilarious and so true!
jul 4, 2025, 5:44 pm • 4 0 • view
I’m of British descent and my husband of Irish descent loves to remind me of this constantly 😏
jul 4, 2025, 6:17 pm • 5 0 • view
The Irish are like that 🤭
jul 4, 2025, 6:53 pm • 3 0 • view
Who is the final character?
jul 6, 2025, 2:24 pm • 0 0 • view
Sauron's boss, Morgoth. The source of all evil. (Named him in the alt.)
jul 6, 2025, 5:10 pm • 1 0 • view
My apologies
jul 6, 2025, 5:11 pm • 1 0 • view
Not at all.
jul 6, 2025, 5:12 pm • 0 0 • view
Statues of her all over the place too
jul 4, 2025, 4:50 pm • 0 0 • view
Statues. Fousands of em.
jul 4, 2025, 6:50 pm • 0 0 • view
Independence from Britain is the most common holiday in the world.
jul 4, 2025, 4:32 pm • 11 0 • view
Scotland is hoping to leave the U.K. very soon 👍🏴
jul 4, 2025, 5:01 pm • 4 0 • view
I think so many cultures globally can relate to "AND THEN THE FUCKING BRITISH SHOWED UP!"
jul 4, 2025, 12:37 pm • 15 1 • view
Sadly. The damage we did is unimaginable
jul 4, 2025, 4:48 pm • 0 0 • view
Imperial Britannia was another country that believed its own bullshit. And look at them now.
jul 4, 2025, 6:24 am • 2 0 • view
And *not* coincidentally the British showed up in Gujarat (1608) at almost the EXACT same time they showed up in Jamestown (1607).
jul 4, 2025, 5:07 pm • 7 0 • view
I was waiting for THAT.
jul 4, 2025, 11:23 am • 1 0 • view
The British ruined the world.
jul 4, 2025, 1:54 pm • 1 0 • view
You should design a t-shirt and sell it to raise money for genocide victims worldwide with the words AND THEN THE FUCKING BRITISH SHOWED UP
jul 4, 2025, 3:16 am • 737 29 • view
I'd buy one.
jul 4, 2025, 6:53 am • 0 0 • view
take my money
jul 4, 2025, 3:34 am • 0 0 • view
It would sell well in Ireland too 😂
jul 4, 2025, 11:53 am • 0 0 • view
I’m English by birth and I’d wear it.
jul 4, 2025, 4:54 am • 1 0 • view
Probably easier to just say AND THEN THE FUCKING WHITE MAN SHOWED UP
jul 4, 2025, 11:55 am • 2 0 • view
I’d buy one
jul 4, 2025, 1:41 pm • 0 0 • view
To be fair, large numbers of ‘Ugandan Asians’ who were kicked out by Amin in the 1970s were given refugee status in Britain.
jul 4, 2025, 3:19 pm • 0 0 • view
I’d buy it.
jul 4, 2025, 8:23 am • 1 0 • view
Nobody expects the british inquisition!
jul 5, 2025, 9:10 am • 1 0 • view
They were involved in so much stuff. So much of the current issues can be traced back to British and/or US interference.
jul 4, 2025, 6:10 pm • 0 0 • view
Reminds me of a bit by the Irish comedian Dara o’ Briain: every tourist attraction in Ireland has a tour guide going through its history, and there’s always a bit where they say “and then the English came and ruined it!”
jul 4, 2025, 11:46 am • 0 0 • view
Followed by ‘And then the Irish burned it down’.
jul 4, 2025, 3:20 pm • 1 0 • view
Portugal, Spain and the Netherlands were much the same during colonisation, if not more brutal. Maybe its AND THEN THE FUCKING EUROPEANS SHOWED UP
jul 4, 2025, 3:25 am • 148 1 • view
Seems fair, because that’ll then pick up the Germans (Namibia) and Belgians (Congo) not to mention Italy (Ethiopia).
jul 4, 2025, 6:48 am • 3 0 • view
Don’t forget the Belgians!
jul 4, 2025, 9:13 pm • 1 0 • view
And the French!
jul 4, 2025, 3:26 am • 38 0 • view
MAN FUCK FRANCE. ALL MY HOMIES HATE FRANCE (i am algerian i’m allowed!)
jul 4, 2025, 4:05 am • 75 0 • view
AND THEN THE USA SHOWED UP! (Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan, etc...)
jul 4, 2025, 4:47 am • 74 0 • view
I forgot to add FUCKING
jul 4, 2025, 4:50 am • 50 0 • view
The most important part!
jul 4, 2025, 5:02 am • 47 0 • view
Hey, don’t forget the fucking Belgians! They showed up too, unfortunately… 😱
jul 4, 2025, 4:09 pm • 13 0 • view
The fucking Belgians were so awful they got a telling off from all the the other fucking Europeans for giving colonialism a bad name.
jul 4, 2025, 6:00 pm • 21 0 • view
We're also not letting the Dutch off the hook.
jul 4, 2025, 6:09 pm • 6 0 • view
😂
jul 4, 2025, 7:53 pm • 1 0 • view
But we exist because AND THEN THE FUCKING BRITISH SHOWED UP! LOL We could be classed as just a sect of the FUCKING BRITISH on a global historical scale.
jul 4, 2025, 12:42 pm • 1 0 • view
But before that, the FUCKING BRITISH & OTHER EUROPEANS SHOWED UP in N & S America & pulled off slaughters.
jul 4, 2025, 1:32 pm • 1 0 • view
AND THEN THE FUCKING WHITE PEOPLE SHOWED UP would cover a lot of sins tbf
jul 4, 2025, 12:49 pm • 4 1 • view
This great film is educational for non-Algerians www.youtube.com/watch?v=gzuF...
jul 4, 2025, 7:56 pm • 3 0 • view
Also allowed when you're French, as I am (in part).
jul 4, 2025, 8:13 am • 1 0 • view
And the Belgians.
jul 4, 2025, 3:20 pm • 1 0 • view
We can have one for each day of the week BRITISH - MONDAY BELGIAN - TUESDAY FRENCH - WEDNESDAY PORTUGUESE- THURSDAY SPANISH- FRIDAY DUTCH - SATURDAY TAKING NOMINEES FOR SUNDAY
jul 4, 2025, 3:30 am • 17 1 • view
Italians?
jul 4, 2025, 6:54 am • 2 0 • view
Surely the US needs its own day
jul 4, 2025, 3:31 am • 8 0 • view
I thought so too but wanted to leave it open for any others. Like, East and Southeast Asians might want to chime in.
jul 4, 2025, 3:33 am • 4 0 • view
so many get a lot of slack just because they’re not european. viz. the mongols in this very story…
jul 5, 2025, 6:12 am • 0 0 • view
Where's the US? We could be every day of the week. 🙄
jul 4, 2025, 4:24 pm • 0 0 • view
Germany actually did genocide in Africa, kind of like a Holocaust pre-game. So definitely a strong candidate for Sunday.
jul 4, 2025, 3:51 am • 6 0 • view
Germany vs Italy redux (pun intended)
jul 4, 2025, 7:59 am • 1 0 • view
SUNDAY - AND THEN THE CHRISTIANS SHOWED UP
jul 5, 2025, 8:10 am • 1 0 • view
Us, we, vikings... We can take sunday...
jul 4, 2025, 7:45 am • 0 0 • view
For Sundays we can just say "missionaries"
jul 4, 2025, 1:42 pm • 3 0 • view
And the Belgians and Germans!
jul 4, 2025, 5:14 am • 2 0 • view
And the Belgians!
jul 4, 2025, 5:05 am • 1 0 • view
Don't forget Belgium. Also, Germany of course.
jul 4, 2025, 8:47 pm • 1 0 • view
yep.. I always say the current mass migrations to Europe are colonialism's chickens coming home to roost.... 😏
jul 5, 2025, 1:13 am • 2 0 • view
I would buy that right now.
jul 4, 2025, 4:03 am • 0 0 • view
I’d buy one!!
jul 4, 2025, 5:18 am • 0 0 • view
That would be primo! The second best is "Britain is responsible for more independence days than any other country."
jul 4, 2025, 3:45 am • 8 0 • view
Absolutely. Sorry.
jul 4, 2025, 10:38 am • 0 0 • view
jul 4, 2025, 11:43 am • 0 0 • view
It's not *always* a bad thing though. www.nam.ac.uk/explore/libe...
jul 4, 2025, 2:08 pm • 1 0 • view
I love that's where it decided to collapse the thread, because that's never a good cliff hanger in any story
jul 4, 2025, 5:55 am • 0 0 • view
Ireland joins the chat….
jul 4, 2025, 9:39 am • 6 0 • view
Thanks for announcing us! I was so busy laughing my head off my thumbs couldn’t type straight.
jul 6, 2025, 10:03 am • 0 0 • view
😁
jul 6, 2025, 4:56 pm • 0 0 • view
Then everything changed when the British showed up.
jul 5, 2025, 1:17 am • 2 0 • view
People are brave, creative, and resilient. He's made from some very tough ancestry.
jul 4, 2025, 4:13 am • 30 0 • view
Yeah. No backing down there.
jul 4, 2025, 11:29 am • 1 0 • view
A people who understand what is happening really well.
jul 4, 2025, 5:36 am • 6 0 • view
Maybe amend this to the English turned up?
jul 13, 2025, 9:47 am • 0 0 • view
I was reading through this very interesting thread, and in the back of my head a voice was going 'it's going to be the fault of the British' because if there is one thing I've learned about history, and especially diasporas, it's that 95% of the time we Brits are to blame.
jul 4, 2025, 9:23 pm • 16 0 • view
Irish people concur
jul 4, 2025, 11:23 pm • 1 0 • view
And before anyone asks the rest of the time it was the French, Dutch and Belgians at fault.
jul 4, 2025, 9:24 pm • 11 0 • view
Don't forget about the Germans...
jul 4, 2025, 10:37 pm • 5 0 • view
Wild how nobody has even mentioned Spain yet
jul 11, 2025, 2:39 am • 0 0 • view
Thank you so much for sharing this in painstaking detail! I’m really grateful to understand more about your community’s history and experiences. I wish nothing but health and happiness for you and your whole family. America should be the place where that’s guaranteed for everyone
jul 4, 2025, 2:44 pm • 4 0 • view
jul 5, 2025, 12:17 pm • 0 0 • view
This one skeet is like the cliff notes version of the last 400 years of history for like 2/3 of the planet.
jul 4, 2025, 4:02 am • 103 2 • view
For my family... THEN THE FUCKING PORTUGUESE SHOWED UP AND THEN THE FUCKING BRITISH SHOWED UP
jul 7, 2025, 10:33 am • 4 0 • view
For Jamaicans it's the fucking Spanish first and they got their asses kicked, so then the fucking British. For the Haitians it's "and then the fucking French showed up, the Jamaicans helped us to kick them out, and then the French billed us for a century because we kicked their asses".
jul 7, 2025, 3:36 pm • 3 0 • view
Religion showed up too… Crusades and worse
jul 4, 2025, 5:02 am • 4 0 • view
Religion was not the reason but a tool used wrongly by power hungry men.
jul 4, 2025, 6:25 am • 7 0 • view
Quite like the republicans in power in the USA now, their “Christianity” is an abomination to what Christianity is about.
jul 4, 2025, 6:26 am • 16 0 • view
Christianity, like all religions, is a means of controlling, thought, knowledge, wealth, business & the masses, especially women.
jul 4, 2025, 12:41 pm • 0 0 • view
That’s sadly how it’s been used, but it has nothing to do with the teachings of Jesus or even what the first christians practiced and taught. It actually begun by setting women free from many forms of patriarchy and empowering them.
jul 4, 2025, 1:01 pm • 3 0 • view
Christianity is just another retelling of male-originated myths & fables from every religion around at the time. Study other religions & you will find the same stories.
jul 4, 2025, 1:37 pm • 0 0 • view
Oh I have, this wasnt about that. I’ve studied Tibetan buddhism quite extensively and am pretty informed on all major religions. The point of the post was that what are called religious wars are usually a consequence of religion being misused for power, and also often consequences of colonialism.
jul 4, 2025, 5:00 pm • 3 0 • view
Sure. But organized religion is inherently wrong because it requires belief over knowledge.
jul 4, 2025, 6:12 pm • 1 0 • view
Have you ever read 'Fields of Blood' by Karen Armstrong? I think you might like it .
jul 4, 2025, 7:04 am • 1 0 • view
Will read it, thanks for the suggestion!
jul 4, 2025, 9:38 am • 1 0 • view
I was treated like royalty on my trips to South Yemen just because I was British. They took me to see generators and other infrastructure installed by the Victorians. Hardworking, generous people. But the society is pre-Biblical.
jul 4, 2025, 10:25 pm • 1 0 • view
"THEN THE FUCKING BRITISH SHOWED UP" should really be a series of history books or documentaries explaining how they just messed up the whole damn world.🥴
jul 4, 2025, 4:27 am • 125 6 • view
A companion series to “Stuff the British Stole” really.
jul 4, 2025, 5:45 am • 31 1 • view
A perfect opportunity to link to James Acaster youtu.be/x73PkUvArJY?...
jul 4, 2025, 7:07 am • 31 1 • view
But Britain had an original stock of people and THEN THE VIKINGS TURNED UP, and the ROMANS TURNED UP. The last invasion was THE NORMANS, and they still own most of the land and power and continue to colonialise from this base. Ironic that the poor old ancient Britons get the global blame.
jul 4, 2025, 6:38 am • 2 0 • view
Fine if you want to get pedantic it was not the ancient Britons but that's from where the term BRITISH is derived so if you want to be more specific THEN THE POST 1066 ENGLISH TURNED UP.
jul 4, 2025, 11:58 am • 4 0 • view
Whataboutry at its best.
jul 4, 2025, 7:55 am • 1 0 • view
Great thread. It’s very cool to me because after much effort and research my family history is basically “Some illiterate Scotch/ Irish Hillbillies wandered out of the Appalachians in the late 1800s and got jobs in factories.”
jul 4, 2025, 1:06 pm • 13 0 • view
You might enjoy this book. It fills in a lot of history I was unaware of that may connect to your family and a lot of families who emigrated to America. No offense intended in the title. Says more about the ones who throw around insults than the people they target with insults.
jul 4, 2025, 7:41 pm • 3 0 • view
Or mines.
jul 4, 2025, 4:46 pm • 3 0 • view
I have heard the Ba-Damp! through the text somehow.
jul 5, 2025, 4:55 am • 0 0 • view
"AND THEN THE FUCKING BRITISH SHOWED UP" Thanks for sharing this fascinating thread. Reading here in Ireland, certain points struck a chord.
jul 4, 2025, 1:00 pm • 7 0 • view
Also here in Aotearoa New Zealand....
jul 4, 2025, 8:19 pm • 3 0 • view
Oh, shit. I think I know how this goes from here. It’s never good.
aug 1, 2025, 8:39 pm • 0 0 • view
As someone who is a *direct* descendant of AND THEN THE FUCKING BRITISH SHOWED UP... I feel like we can rename whole history courses that. Possibly whole degrees. Several for North America/Oceania, a few for the Caribbean, oodles for South Asia and a ton for Africa...
jul 4, 2025, 6:21 am • 29 0 • view
Yeah. Maybe expand it to “Europeans showed up” to include some of the other screw ups and exploitations of Spain and to a lesser extent Dutch, Portuguese, and French.
jul 4, 2025, 7:10 am • 0 0 • view
I feel like that dilutes the impact each had, though. (And, let's be real, the Brits left an outsized impact in language, alone.) The only other colonial power that left that huge of a linguistic impact is Spain.
jul 4, 2025, 7:31 am • 0 0 • view
I kind of feel as if the Welsh would point out that it’s more the English than the British, given the English ran roughshod over them first.
jul 4, 2025, 8:30 am • 1 0 • view
ENTIRELY VALID.
jul 5, 2025, 12:59 am • 1 0 • view
Ireland since 1170
jul 4, 2025, 7:45 am • 17 0 • view
Oh, that's a PhD. You and the Welsh and the Scots
jul 5, 2025, 12:59 am • 0 0 • view
I did a series of university courses about peace and what are believed to be wars between religious groups across history around the world. Practically every single one of them turned out to be caused by colonialism and the way the colonialists created animosities and divided power when they left.
jul 4, 2025, 6:30 am • 8 0 • view
It's the ominous turning point of far too many countries history.
jul 4, 2025, 10:44 am • 1 0 • view
Master class.
jul 4, 2025, 1:12 pm • 8 0 • view
Thank you for a well written and very educational read. We need more of these personalized history lessons.
jul 4, 2025, 2:47 pm • 17 1 • view
And still, we have politicians saying we should celebrate the positive side of empire. As far as I can see that amounts to trains, a civil service, cricket and a culture of subjugating and murdering. So it boils down to “I’m really sorry that my ancestors did all that stuff, but - cricket - yeah!1/2
jul 4, 2025, 4:45 pm • 5 0 • view
The focus on trains is sold to people as easier transportation, but they are used to make the rich richer by selling goods to a wider population. And then to transport people involuntarily. That's planes and even shipping containers now.
jul 4, 2025, 7:23 pm • 0 0 • view
Some days I’m remind of how shit we were to a whole lot of people around the world and we’re being told we should be proud of it. We were awful, and we’ve rewritten our collective memory so we can say we were a force for good. 2/2
jul 4, 2025, 4:45 pm • 4 0 • view
Same thing with America. We were the original anti-Brits, now we're re-writing our own history.
jul 4, 2025, 5:25 pm • 3 0 • view
I probably can’t use the “fucking” part, but I’d love to use this in my world history class next year to describe several points in history
jul 4, 2025, 2:29 pm • 2 1 • view
Sorry about that, some of us just wanted to stay home singing songs and arguing about books but there's always some idiot. Anyway, back to your thread...
jul 4, 2025, 5:25 am • 64 0 • view
All I want in life!
jul 4, 2025, 5:26 am • 39 0 • view
I was a child in the Belgian Congo! We bought supplies from a Gujarati store keeper! Mr Patel. A Sweet kind man. Your story of diaspora is fascinating! 👏
jul 10, 2025, 3:06 pm • 1 0 • view
Seek the Light of the Creator in all whom you encounter today! You will see each person differently, allowing love to flow! We are each here for a reason! ❤️👏
jul 10, 2025, 3:03 pm • 0 0 • view
I'm cringing as I read on.............
jul 4, 2025, 4:16 am • 1 0 • view
📌
jul 4, 2025, 4:38 pm • 0 0 • view
This is where it always goes south.
jul 4, 2025, 4:57 pm • 1 0 • view
Wonderful thread. Thank you.
jul 5, 2025, 12:19 am • 11 0 • view
Now, European elites had benefited immensely from this handy thing called antisemitism, which did an amazing job of keeping peasants in line by giving them a highly visible group of outsiders to blame for everything. So they went around recreating this in all their colonies.
jul 3, 2025, 11:43 pm • 2,025 124 • view
Jesus. This penny just dropped for me. UGH.
jul 4, 2025, 5:51 am • 3 0 • view
Great thread! I knew a little of this history on account of having an Ismaili friend but you make it so clear and engaging. Thank you!
jul 4, 2025, 3:36 am • 5 0 • view
"They" always need someone to blame. (Look at Trump)
jul 4, 2025, 6:39 pm • 0 0 • view
The British hated the Irish -1st, that’s how they cut their teeth. Then antisemitism started under King John (to steal money from the merchants. He thought they were charging him too much interest on his lending fees.) He expropriated they villages.
jul 4, 2025, 1:58 pm • 5 0 • view
Remind me what a Dhimmi is again and how that Pact of Umar fits with this idea?
jul 5, 2025, 2:11 am • 0 0 • view
Thank you, Sophia, for sharing your history. Best thing I'll read today.
jul 4, 2025, 3:11 pm • 2 0 • view
In Rwanda the highly visible scapegoat minorities were the Tutsis. In much of North Africa but particularly Algeria they were, well, Jews. In India they were Muslims. Suddenly things got really, really bad for Muslims in India.
jul 3, 2025, 11:44 pm • 1,854 73 • view
I was reading When Victims Become Killers by, well, Mamdani and that is a pretty simplistic view of what happened in Rwanda.
jul 4, 2025, 3:26 pm • 0 0 • view
Pretty sure European colonizers took a class concept (Tutsi-Hutu) and turned it into an ethnic one (which was awful and laid the foundations for ethnic violence) but it involved politically and socially elevating the Tutsi as a supposedly superior race, rather than a scapegoat.
jul 4, 2025, 12:32 pm • 3 0 • view
So what exactly were the Delhi Sultanate and the Mughal Empire and the smaller Muslim emirates and Sultanates? Book clubs? Muslims were not scapegoats, they were proto-conquistadors who despised the wife-burning pagans of Hindustan and made them their hewers of wood and drawers of water.
jul 5, 2025, 2:10 am • 0 0 • view
The British didn't do this in Rwanda; it was the Belgians. And they didn't scapegoat the Tutsis, they made them a privileged minority that later was resented by the scapegoated majority.
jul 5, 2025, 1:56 am • 0 0 • view
The leader of the Ismailis, having gone through this once already, were like “guys this is not gonna go well, you should go to Africa, where you will have jobs.” Ismailis mostly listened, and Ithna’asheri mostly followed because again: we are basically the same people.
jul 3, 2025, 11:46 pm • 1,780 59 • view
Thank you so much for this thread, it is extremely interesting! Rhymes with the story of the Jewish Sephardim, who largely got out of Spain/France into Persia and stayed there for a few hundred years (but mine went to Canada)
jul 4, 2025, 5:19 pm • 8 2 • view
I do wonder how many oppressed groups of nerds who like to argue about books there have been! I SUPER want to know if there was or is a similar group in China, it seems like there would be
jul 4, 2025, 5:19 pm • 5 0 • view
So you end up with a giant diaspora in Kenya, Tanzania, and Uganda. Now! Regardless of where we came from, in Lahore we identified as from Lahore, in Gujarat we identified as from Gujarat. In East Africa we were a bit more insular, somewhat because racism and somewhat because religion.
jul 3, 2025, 11:49 pm • 1,849 71 • view
Especially Tanzania, where the Khoja developed the best recipes.
jul 4, 2025, 3:37 am • 5 0 • view
As a Tanzanian khoja I wish I could triple-like this comment
jul 4, 2025, 3:44 am • 9 0 • view
❤️
jul 4, 2025, 4:08 am • 1 0 • view
This is fascinating. I mentioned seeing a lot of Indian-looking people in Tz back in the day but I had no idea about the history! bsky.app/profile/df1....
jul 4, 2025, 11:05 am • 2 0 • view
And then we lived there for several hundred years, and when the Partition happened and Gujarat slaughtered most of its Muslims (including many relatives of the Gujaratis in East Africa), we were… real glad to not be there.
jul 3, 2025, 11:50 pm • 1,810 55 • view
Your thread is not only fascinating but incredibly well written. I'd love to see every history book updated in your style of writing. 👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻
jul 4, 2025, 5:10 am • 3 0 • view
Thank you!
jul 4, 2025, 5:10 am • 2 0 • view
yes, *this* is the essay the nyt should be running...
jul 4, 2025, 6:32 am • 3 0 • view
British colonization of Uganda only started in the late 1800s so I think several centuries is a bit on the high end...
jul 4, 2025, 4:04 am • 1 0 • view
Yes if I knew how big this thread was going to get I would have been more exact with my numbers! More accurate: we were trading with East Africans for 2000 years, had a small diaspora since at least the 1600s (which is where I got mixed up), then a much bigger wave of migration under British rule.
jul 4, 2025, 4:13 am • 5 0 • view
What a remarkable bit of narration. Thank you, this was the most interesting thing I learned today. Also, you can really write!
jul 4, 2025, 4:53 am • 0 0 • view
"we were… real glad to not be there." That's how I feel living in Canada 🇨🇦 today and not TrumpLand. But it's easy to be fearful here too with a madman in charge in USA where there are no checks and balances in their form of "democracy".
jul 4, 2025, 6:44 pm • 0 0 • view
Thank you all so much for the kind comments on this thread, they’re a delight to read. One correction: there has been a Gujarati diaspora in East Africa for at least 400-500 years (some estimate 2000+), but the big migration wave was in the 1800s. So “several hundred years” was sloppy phrasing 💜
jul 4, 2025, 4:42 am • 89 5 • view
As someone who lived in Uganda for a bit in the early 2000s, I was aware of the Idi Amin history (and enjoyed some amazing Indian food that I assumed was from people who had returned since). I was unaware of much of the prior history. Any good books you’d recommend to learn more?
jul 4, 2025, 6:33 am • 0 0 • view
Amazing! Thank you for this story.
jul 4, 2025, 5:07 am • 2 0 • view
An amazing thread. Kudos to you. 8500 'liked' the first post but 1700 were still around for the rest. Well done. So many great leaders said "You know a lot about a person or country by how they treat minorities and the vulnerable" Trudeau I wanted a 'kinder, gentler society" A work in progress
jul 4, 2025, 6:50 pm • 0 0 • view
Fascinating! Thanks for sharing. My takeaway is probably dumb - they stayed until they were forced to leave. Hard to tell what’s the point of no return. Don’t want to overreact and lose everything we worked for. Also don’t want to under react and lose our lives.
jul 4, 2025, 12:05 pm • 0 0 • view
However! HOWEVER!!! Remember the thing? I said? About how having a highly visible minority to target is great for oppressors? Yeah so guess who Uganda decides to target.
jul 3, 2025, 11:50 pm • 1,909 61 • view
Uganda had a leader named Idi Amin, a war-mongering corrupt asshole who Eric Adams apparently finds fascinating, and he decided it would be real fun to kick every Asian out of Uganda. Including my stepdad and Zohran’s dad.
jul 3, 2025, 11:51 pm • 2,323 153 • view
I remember it well, we had a lad start in my class who's family had been kicked out of Uganda by Amin in 1974, I was 12/13 at the time. They had been given British passports and at the time the right of abode in the UK.
jul 4, 2025, 8:06 pm • 0 0 • view
Was that the same guy who decided he named the cricket roster
jul 4, 2025, 7:43 pm • 0 0 • view
Oh, God, Idi Amin? I am so sorry.
jul 4, 2025, 3:38 am • 1 0 • view
Did Eric Adams get interested in him before or after Zohran running against him?
jul 4, 2025, 10:24 pm • 0 0 • view
Eric Adam’s might be fascinated because Idi Amin was Trumpily amazing at trolling. When Britain was in financial trouble in the 1970s Idi Amin offered PM Ted Heath part of his salary and told Heath and then the Queen that the Ugandan people had gathered a planeload of vegetables for them.
jul 4, 2025, 2:51 pm • 0 0 • view
...this is interesting...the influx of Asians were as a result of the British taking over India (aka "colonization)...Amin (who was basically put into power by the Israeli government) sought to reclaim economic power by deporting non-Ugandans... en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Idi_Ami...
jul 4, 2025, 5:52 am • 0 0 • view
And we all know how it ended. It's a complicated issue but when you begin to scapegoat a section of the society like he did, tyranny will follow.
jul 4, 2025, 2:17 pm • 1 0 • view
...unfortunately some oppressed groups adopt the ways of the oppressor and may build upon their former oppressor's cruelty...refer to the Scots/Irish that "escaped" the English to come to America...
jul 4, 2025, 2:33 pm • 0 0 • view
Amin was worse than corrupt, he was another genocidaire.
jul 4, 2025, 2:14 pm • 3 0 • view
You'd think that Idi Amin's monstrous governance would make people hesitant to say he's right, but, inhumane treatment of humans has never stopped people from repeatedly repeating "But Hitler had a point!"
jul 4, 2025, 10:13 pm • 1 0 • view
As someone who has had many interactions with SouthEast Asians with Ugandan connections, I am concerned some points are inaccurately represented or unstated, despite having a significant bearing on the eventual turmoil which impacted the Asian-descent communities in Uganda.
jul 4, 2025, 5:48 am • 2 0 • view
British colonialism was already loathed in Africa generally, with the specificities of Uganda’s setup particularly grating. Most British colonies in Africa could only see One dividing line; that which separated the indigenous population from the White colonial oppressors. Not Uganda though..
jul 4, 2025, 5:48 am • 2 0 • view
Uganda saw the callous British ‘buffer’ themselves from the indigenous angst USING a middle tier of Asians. When the Brits saw the game was up for them, the ones loyal to the Crown headed off. This left the Asian community exposed; Idi Amin is on record having asked that those who wish to remain..
jul 4, 2025, 5:48 am • 2 0 • view
They spent a while in refugee camps but eventually most of them were resettled. The Ismailis mostly wound up in Canada, because the leader of the Ismailis was friends with Trudeau the former. Sometimes nepotism gives tax cuts to billionaires and sometimes it resettles refugees!
jul 3, 2025, 11:54 pm • 2,466 90 • view
One of my favorite books is the Book of Contemplation and one of my favorite stories from the Book is when ibn Munqidh is like "and then one day I woke up and my dad and uncles were battling the assassins/Ismailis in the halls of our castle" so when I say this is all gripping and fascinating. . .
jul 4, 2025, 4:55 am • 1 0 • view
Thanks for the insights Sophia
jul 4, 2025, 4:15 am • 2 0 • view
Would that now be Trudeau the First since they're now both former?
jul 7, 2025, 3:43 pm • 0 0 • view
Since the American Revolution, where the Rebels used the Irish, the Western political elite both centrist and right sought to create politically useful diasporas and voting blocs. (Thanks for sharing such a fascinating history)
jul 4, 2025, 12:26 pm • 1 0 • view
Shout-out to my Canadian-Ismaili homies At my first job, one was my boss - great guy
jul 4, 2025, 5:35 am • 6 0 • view
I like Ismailis. You seem heterodox. I’m going a good 40 years back so my memory is rusty. Myself, I’m a Mulla Nasruddin fan.
jul 4, 2025, 12:28 pm • 1 0 • view
Love it. But alas Canada still does give way too many tax breaks to the ultra-wealthy.
jul 4, 2025, 6:46 pm • 1 0 • view
I remember the Ugandan refugees.
jul 5, 2025, 1:26 am • 0 0 • view
Yeah, he was friends with PET!
jul 5, 2025, 1:58 am • 0 0 • view
Trudeau the former was a much better man than his son.
jul 4, 2025, 7:16 pm • 0 0 • view
Hey, thank you for this - I drive by the Delegation of the Ismaili Imamat every day on my way to work, and I understood that Ismailis and Canada have very good relations due to Pierre Trudeau in some way doing them a solid, but I never knew the history of it.
jul 4, 2025, 5:54 am • 3 0 • view
The Aga Khan Foundation is pretty visible here in Ottawa, and has been an absolute positive to our civic life, so it's lovely to learn a little more about our intersecting worlds. Again - thank you!
jul 4, 2025, 5:54 am • 6 0 • view
On the whole, the Gujarati African diaspora is wealthy, well-educated, and pretty obsessed with integration and respectability politics on account of all the trauma. We’re also very tight-knit, which is helpful because we also have a lot of poverty and refugees.
jul 3, 2025, 11:58 pm • 2,244 66 • view
Thank you for sharing this. It’s interesting for a geographer that likes social history & migration.
jul 4, 2025, 1:14 pm • 1 0 • view
Threads like this are so enlightening. Thank you very much for sharing this.
jul 4, 2025, 3:16 am • 22 0 • view
Thank you for taking the time! You are an excellent storyteller. I learned a lot tonight.
jul 4, 2025, 3:25 am • 50 0 • view
What a walk through the centuries! Thank you!
jul 4, 2025, 4:02 am • 3 0 • view
Thanks for posting. Very interesting!
jul 4, 2025, 4:39 am • 1 0 • view
Thank you! This is fascinating. Where are the places where many of the Gujarati African diaspora live now?
jul 4, 2025, 3:20 am • 4 0 • view
This was very informative and fascinating! Thank you for sharing!
jul 4, 2025, 4:02 am • 3 0 • view
Thank you. That is a great explanation. I knew the British were involved somehow, because we're involved in any mess that doesn't involve the French or the Spanish (and quite a few that do). But not the full story. Much appreciated!
jul 4, 2025, 4:09 am • 23 0 • view
Thank you for posting this. Brilliant and incredibly informative.
jul 4, 2025, 3:15 am • 30 0 • view
Every Gujarati African I have ever met identifies as African first, and probably Indian second but possibly not Indian at all. Indians certainly consider us African, to a point where more traditional Indians will not intermarry with us, even if they are ethnically and religiously identical.
jul 4, 2025, 12:12 am • 4,324 380 • view
This was a fascinating thread and well written, about the kind of thing I love to learn! Thank you. I'll follow you in case (cough) you ever (cough) feel like telling more (cough) of the story.
jul 4, 2025, 9:37 am • 1 0 • view
Absolutely fascinating. Thank you so much - I'm a little less ignorant now. 😎
jul 4, 2025, 3:26 am • 13 0 • view
Thank you, so interesting. You mentioned Farsi. I’m wondering what you consider to be your mother tongue, and whether you use a dialect that’s distinct to your community.
jul 4, 2025, 3:31 am • 4 0 • view
Apocryphal story about why Canadian officials decided on initial numbers of Ismailis to welcome. 😁 policyoptions.irpp.org/magazines/ma... And no that wasn’t the final number who came to Canada…but that story is famous in Canada, changed us as a country and all of our refugee/immigration system
jul 4, 2025, 3:27 pm • 2 0 • view
A very familiar name. Apparently my birth country (USSR) supported him and helped him seize and keep power. Don't remember why. Then glasnost happened, archives were unsealed, turns out my country had been propping up a leader who ATE PEOPLE
jul 4, 2025, 7:49 pm • 0 0 • view
yep.... Idi Amin's expulsion was horrible.. Idi Amin was a nutter, a psycho (Trump would have liked him.. 😏) I remember seeing a movie that included the expulsion.. Mississippi Masala, maybe? directed by Mira Nair, Mamdami's mother, as was Monsoon Wedding, The Namesake.. other great movies..
jul 5, 2025, 1:06 am • 2 0 • view
The Namesake is a great novel, by the way....
jul 5, 2025, 1:15 am • 0 0 • view
Gujarat, the state and its auxiliaries, did not slaughtered most of the Muslims living there when the partition happened. No organized attempt at such nor a toll significant enough to require the use of "slaughter"
jul 4, 2025, 7:55 pm • 2 0 • view
The two big riots were later. Barbaric but nowhere near close enough to culling what would've been 4.5 million Gujarati Muslims at the time
jul 4, 2025, 7:55 pm • 2 0 • view
Gujarat slaughtered most of its Muslims? Where did you come up with that misinformation?
jul 4, 2025, 3:21 pm • 1 0 • view
Very true. Good Post! #JaiHo is an Indian term, greeting, encouragement to stay positive and win. #India #Hindu open.spotify.com/track/4yhXVN...
jul 7, 2025, 9:26 am • 1 0 • view
in India it's still the Muslims.... especially now with Hindutva ruling India... the level of hatred they feel towards Muslins is off hhe charts.... (they also hate all non-Hindus....)
jul 5, 2025, 12:54 am • 0 0 • view
I so understand this... "AND THEN THE FUCKING BRITISH SHOWED UP."
jul 4, 2025, 1:17 pm • 11 0 • view
Have a conversation with an Irish… They were the first experiment in 1169. It’s an ice cold peace.
jul 4, 2025, 2:17 pm • 6 0 • view
This is what I was referring to.
jul 4, 2025, 6:48 pm • 1 0 • view
You’re thread is amazing. They really are just intolerable. I hope you saw Kneecap the biopic and listen to their music. Gandhi was an attorney in South Africa before returning to India. His experiences of the atrocities the British regime committed in South Africa were appalling, before Apartheid
jul 4, 2025, 6:58 pm • 3 0 • view
go raibh maith agat And that's just SA. You might be interested in reading about Roger Casement's investigation into the rubber plantations of South America & the Congo. I am familiar with that movie, but I have not seen it yet. The name is brilliant. It's actually on my movies to watch list. ✌️
jul 4, 2025, 7:09 pm • 0 0 • view
I lived in Mexico, I’ve travelled all over South America. The empirical sh1tshow in LÁTAM never ends. Che Guevara wasn’t the bad guy BTW. The United Fruit Company (Chiquita Banana and the guy who murdered him CIA Felix Rodriguez was the monster)
jul 4, 2025, 7:47 pm • 3 0 • view
Late stage Che got a little lost but he wasn’t the problem. Imperialism was.
jul 4, 2025, 7:47 pm • 2 0 • view
🎯
jul 4, 2025, 7:52 pm • 0 0 • view
🎯
jul 4, 2025, 7:51 pm • 0 0 • view
The white European men raped and pillaged the world and here we are now.
jul 4, 2025, 2:54 pm • 3 0 • view
The British Empire has been the largest in world history. 172 of 191 countries in the United Nations.
jul 4, 2025, 4:38 pm • 1 0 • view
God they ruin everything.
jul 4, 2025, 3:55 am • 21 0 • view
Except fish and chips.
jul 4, 2025, 2:25 pm • 1 0 • view
To be fair, those are probably originally Jewish
jul 4, 2025, 3:43 pm • 4 0 • view
TIL! Jews from Spain and Portugal problem brought the fried fish. Neat.
jul 4, 2025, 3:52 pm • 4 0 • view
Probably .. not problem .. ugh.
jul 4, 2025, 4:15 pm • 4 0 • view
Thank you for the history lesson a the British showed up tells it all!
jul 4, 2025, 3:53 pm • 2 0 • view
Thank you do very much for this history lesson!
jul 5, 2025, 3:26 pm • 1 0 • view
As someone who is British... Yeah. Yeah, that tracks. No one, despite whatever Murdock's rags claim, has fucked up Britain more than the British (the Romans don't count cos it wasn't Britain back then). Not even the Germans did the up-fuckening, and they BOMBED US.
jul 4, 2025, 7:48 am • 12 0 • view
But that's another story entirely. Let's not wander off into revenge and Dresden, and so forth. Pick it up on August 15,1947.
jul 4, 2025, 11:39 am • 1 0 • view
"AND THEN THE FUCKING BRITISH SHOWED UP" accounts for a startlingly high percentage of historic disasters 😔
jul 4, 2025, 12:46 pm • 335 17 • view
Having Irish, Welsh, Scottish and French ancestry, im pretty sure thats my family motto
jul 4, 2025, 12:57 pm • 3 0 • view
The sun never sets on the British empire… mostly because god doesn’t trust the English in the dark
jul 4, 2025, 4:52 pm • 2 0 • view
This made me laugh more than was reasonable 🤣
jul 4, 2025, 5:47 pm • 1 0 • view
It needs to be the title of a book on colonial history.
jul 4, 2025, 12:51 pm • 73 0 • view
guardianbookshop.com/52-times-bri... even better
jul 4, 2025, 3:18 pm • 1 0 • view
Someone pointed out "AND THEN THE USA SHOWED UP" would also cover a lot, & like they're not wrong BUT arguably the USA is kind of our fault so 😬 awkward.
jul 4, 2025, 12:53 pm • 51 1 • view
You're selling the sequel book. Hollywood will thank you (but they would like to rework the title).
jul 4, 2025, 4:57 pm • 6 0 • view
However you forget that the British government was who the American revolution was fighting against
jul 4, 2025, 1:47 pm • 5 0 • view
Do t forget how much the French imperialists helped with your freedom just to muck with us Brits, and that we weren't the only nation trying to impose our beliefs worldwide... French, Belgian, Dutch, German, Spanish, Portuguese, a bit of Russian and dashbof Ottoman... We've all done despicable
jul 4, 2025, 2:13 pm • 12 1 • view
things and still haven't learned from what we did.. And part of all our nations want to go back to when things were 'great' forgetting it STILL was only great for 1% of the population then and now... All this history where we learnt nothing...
jul 4, 2025, 2:16 pm • 9 0 • view
Part of why I hate the "Great" in Great Britain. It only means it's the biggest island but people keep interpreting it as meaning it's brilliant - leads to arrogance, chips on shoulders and lack of reflection on the bad parts of Empire history.
jul 4, 2025, 2:24 pm • 10 0 • view
A chip on a shoulder is a chip not eaten.
jul 4, 2025, 2:26 pm • 10 1 • view
A waste of a perfectly good chip.
jul 4, 2025, 3:01 pm • 7 0 • view
Depends on what kind of chip you are talking about
jul 4, 2025, 3:25 pm • 2 0 • view
I mean we were literally a large chunk of the people who colonised the continent & murdered the indigenous people, though. I don't think taxing them so hard without giving them representation that they started a war is much of a defence.
jul 4, 2025, 5:40 pm • 0 0 • view
Am British. Can confirm.
jul 4, 2025, 2:08 pm • 1 0 • view
In Ireland we have the contemporary phrase "the brits are at it again"... Because they usually are...
jul 4, 2025, 2:15 pm • 1 0 • view
We really are 😔
jul 4, 2025, 5:47 pm • 1 0 • view
Uh, yeah, just look at Palestine 🙄
jul 4, 2025, 5:16 pm • 1 0 • view
INDEED. One could suggest that showing up, fucking the locals over, then dividing the land in two so we can look on & tut about how "can't they just get along" a British leitmotif. Palestine (& the ottoman empire as a whole), India/Pakistan, Ireland/NI, Cyprus... off the top of my head 😬😬😬
jul 4, 2025, 5:47 pm • 1 0 • view
Of course the fire nation attacked, ugh
jul 4, 2025, 9:05 am • 5 0 • view
Well worth the read!
jul 4, 2025, 6:17 pm • 0 0 • view
😬
jul 4, 2025, 2:22 pm • 0 0 • view
As a Brit, I always think of this sketch whenever colonialism is, rightly, brought up.
jul 4, 2025, 4:29 am • 7 1 • view
Appreciate the information 🇺🇸
jul 4, 2025, 2:54 pm • 0 0 • view
AND THEN THE FUCKING BRITISH SHOWED UP Wild how often the goofy times in a cultures history are preceded by those words.
jul 4, 2025, 4:57 pm • 56 1 • view
And soon it will be AND THEN TRUMP SHOWED UP.
jul 4, 2025, 7:31 pm • 14 1 • view
Yup!
jul 10, 2025, 3:03 pm • 0 0 • view
I was wondering when we would appear... Never ones to miss a good opportunity to screw people for some profit...
jul 4, 2025, 7:20 am • 3 0 • view
Thanks for sharing this, Sophia
jul 6, 2025, 2:30 pm • 0 0 • view