Largest and Smartest Empire

When I was a kid, we once went to a town in Algeria to see the dunes and the desert. We’d gone on top of a minaret to see the view of the place and my dad had started taking photos with his camera. A couple of French tourists were also doing the same. Suddenly, a couple of cops came up and were screaming that photography was prohibited. Turned out there was a sign but since it was in Arabic, nobody could read it. When my dad explained that to the cop, he let us off with a warning. But he was harsh with the French tourists.

Much later, I understood that Algeria had been a French colony and unlike India, the Algerian struggle for independence was very violent and brutal. And so, the Algerians’ dislike for the French was extremely high.

That’s in sharp contrast to the British who were both smart as well as willing to forge long term relations with almost all their former colonies. As Seth Godin wrote in his blog:

“Or consider the excellent relationship that the UK has with both the United States and India. In both cases, the wars of independence weren't as nearly brutal or as drawn out as they could have been.”

And it’s not just with the US and India. The British have kept varying degrees of rapport with most of their ex-colonies via the mechanism of the Commonwealth.

The same can’t be said about either France or Spain. Because of the brutality of those 2 countries, neither could form any equivalent of a Commonwealth. The Russians tried to create their own Commonwealth of Independent States with the former constituents of the USSR, but they don’t fool anybody. Most of the former Soviet republics are falling over themselves to join NATO for protection from the Russians.

Not that I support colonialism, but one should give credit to the British for what they’ve done. Not only they did build the largest empire, they even managed to maintain decent to good relationships with so many of their colonies!

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