Curry, A Gift of Brutal Imperialism

Any sensible modern person detests conquest, rape, subjucation, slavery, etc. How we humans have advanced! Praise jesus. For 95% of human history, no people ever conceived that such actions were wrong, or that there existed any way to behave other than "might is right."

Every civilization has practiced these horrible actions... and overcome them. Here's a book about Indian cuisine, which today depends on chilis, tomatoes, potatoes, and other items taken by honky Brits from the American Indians and brought to Indian Indians. Those nasty Brits where sure horrible! Where did they learn to be so wicked? Perhaps from waves of conquering, raping, subjugating, enslaving brutes like the Normans, Vikings, and Romans. Where did those nasty Brits learn to build perminant structures and metal working? From those conquering Roman brutes. How about sea-faring and ship-building? From those conquering Viking brutes. Their germanic, unified language? Imposed by the Normans. (Imagine, stripped of their various mother toungues!)

Some historians declare that the people of the british isle lacked civilization prior to having it imposed on them horrificly by the Romans. Before getting around to conquering the American Indians and the Indian Indians, various generations of brits spent their time conquering each other... in the most brutal fashion. A fashion rather indestinguishable from that by which other civilizations formed: the Azteks and others in the Americas, the Egyptians, Ethiopians, the Persians, Zulus, Chinese, Mongols, Japanese -- indeed every where we find civilization. If any of you guys work with, or otherwise know, any Chinese people, mention to them US internment and nuclear bombing of Japanese in the 1940s. Here's what one of my Chinese co-workers had to say onn the subject: "I hate them. They stole their language from us. I better not say anything else. But I hate them. I really do. They are just awful." But of course no more awful than the ancient Chinese civilizations that so bloodily unified the dozen or so provinces to form the first dynasty. Or more awful than the Chinese Mongols who so bloodily conquered India, Afghanistan, and easter Europe. Or more awful than the Chinese communists, and the millions of Chinese that they killed.

I didn't realize any of this back when I was a leftist. I thought all the world's problems resulted from the actions of an evil white super race, and everybody else represented eternal, helpless victims who would in the absense of white folks live in blissful prosperity. Now I see that there exists no super nor inferior races. All have enslaved and been enslaved. There exist only righteous and wrong actions, not righteous and wrong people. Tracing genetic lineages finds any group at various periods sometimes righteous, sometimes wrong, sometimes stronger, sometimes weaker, and at all times capable of righteousness, wrongness, strength, and weakness. Some Black African slaves in 1700 were themselves evil, raping slave holders prior to their capture by a rival group, and found themselves owned by the white descendants of slaves owned and raped by Roman conquerers.

Here's to Indian food. Too bad so many Brits, American Indians, and Indian Indians had to get killed, raped, and enslaved to produce it. How lucky we are to live as we do now.