He was referring to the use of tear gas in order to disperse crowds (rather than using violence)...that section of the memorandum tends not to be quoted (and Britain only used gases in warfare after Germany began using it indiscriminately in WW1).
It is quite bizarre to imply that pre-colonial India was a haven for human rights but that Britain, the country with the most advanced legal system and which had recognised the notion of human rights nearly 900 years earlier, did not.
> It is quite bizarre to imply that pre-colonial India was a haven for human rights but that Britain, the country with the most advanced legal system and which had recognised the notion of human rights nearly 900 years earlier, did not.
Pop quiz: How long did it take the United States to recognize the human rights of those born into slavery?
People are selectively blind about who the human rights apply to all the time, it's nothing new whatsoever.
I think you are demeaning any valid position you may hold by your contortions over Churchill's well-known and repeatedly documented racism and imperialism.
But maybe that's the fashion nowadays among sophisticated thinkers?:
" I want you to think very seriously over this question of poison gas. I would not use it unless it could be shown either that (a) it was life or death for us, or (b) that it would shorten the war by a year.
2. It is absurd to consider morality on this topic when everybody used it in the last war without a word of complaint from the moralists or the Church. On the other hand, in the last war bombing of open cities was regarded as forbidden. Now everybody does it as a matter of course. It is simply a question of fashion changing as she does between long and short skirts for women."*
I'm just an onlooker here, but you have been misunderstanding/misusing the word "infer" in this thread.
So let's put that word aside and focus on understanding what the person above you is trying to communicate.
They made an accusation against Churchill, and you responded with a defense of Britain. This reveals that you misinterpreted their comment. They wish to correct your musunderstanding and make it clear that they were not talking about Britain, only Churchill.
I'm open to being wrong mate, any chance you could correct me rather than just say I don't know? That's kinda super tedious. I even went to a dictionary and asked chatgippity to double check lmao.
1) The context of poisoned gas is now clearly one where the implication is murder, and not the slew of effects from tear gas. Big difference and worth pointing out considering the bar was never 'is an action violent or not'
Yeah, no. Magna Carta wasn't recognition of _human_ rights (we still had literal slaves and also separately serfdom), it was basically a bunch feudal lords insisting that the courts which the King owned personally treat any case against the King himself with the same regards as any other defendant.
Both sides reneged very quickly, leading to one of the many English Civil Wars that UK history lessons completely ignore because it's not as exciting as Cromwell: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Barons%27_War
It's just a question, designed to provoke a response that might be useful.
Border officials the world over are like this. They have broad leeway to assume everyone is a threat, and to provoke, inconvenience, belittle and annoy them until they are satisfied. Obtuse, trollish rudeness is but one tool in the toolbox.
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Responding more generally rather than specifically to your point, if you'll forgive me:
I am inclined to believe that while our British border officials are wholly embarrassing, the situation is no worse than it is in every single western democracy.
Let us all not pretend that border police confiscating the journalists' possessions they don't really have the explicit right to confiscate is particularly unique to any country; it's absolutely not. This is an internationally common thing and it is very much a sign of the times.
I dunno, perhaps the same reason Winston Churchill cared about them.