Yes, my Dutch Boer cousin Noel Diepraam (who was married to my British
grandmonther's niece) was particularly bitter about the results of the
Anglo-Boer wars - he claimed that if it hadn't been for the British, there
never would have been an union of the southern African territories and a
government leaving out the non-whites never would have been formed, and
apartheid never would have become formalised.  Not sure I agree with that but
I thought it was very interesting that a SA citizen of Dutch-Boer descent
should voice such opinions even as late as 1975 when they visited us in
Washington DC.

Wikipedia has got articles about the British Empire.  A good place to start:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Empire

I suspect (and I could be wrong about this) that when the Americans won the
Revolutionary War and the Victorian Age in the middle of the 1800s, the
British tightened their grip and things became more brutal.  The Victorian
Age, I believe, saw the British with a much stronger sense of the superiority
of alll things British and so started trying to impose this mindset on their
colonies.


Kat

`
On Monday 25 July 2005 2:21 am, Magenta Raine wrote:
> Thanks to netflix, i am getting to know a director named Mira Nair
> wonderful, thoughtful films, last time it was about a boy in India who
> caught stealing, and he goes to prison, and has a tragic life. This time
> it's more fun, though reflects a system that was when kings ruled india.
> It's called the kama sutra, defintely r rated. quite possibly the first
> time in film you actually see hair on a woman's private parts. but that's
> about all you see. Intriguing.  it's more about the relationships very
> complex relationships than about the sex.
>
> Kat, all you need to do is look at south africa to know exactly how awful
> the british were in decades past.