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Originally Posted by ianch99
Agreed but surely you can see the danger in starting to mitigate the colonising process. You run the risk of ending up with the position that we were the better choice of oppressor because we were "nicer". Of course there were countries who were worse than us in certain parts of the world. Belgium's record, for example, in the Congo was atrocious. Understanding of history should focus on what was wrong so we can prevent it repeating. It should not focus on who was the better invader.
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Also agreed. However the problem with academia in that respect is that as you climb the academic ladder to your PhD and beyond you inevitably focus on narrower and narrower areas of study. With a PhD in particular you have to choose an area in which you can make an original contribution. So someone, somewhere, is going to end up asking questions which, taken in isolation, seem to be interested only in establishing who was the better invader. Their freedom to do that should be respected, and so should the results of their research. It is the responsibility of those engaged in the discipline as a whole to see that the end result isn't a distorted view of history and to challenge those who misuse research to push unsavoury modern political agendas.