#worclip

[stirringwinds]

worclip replied to your post: anonymous asked:actually if you t...

It wouldn’t have mattered if the PHL was still a Spanish colony, because Japan needed raw materials from all over. PHL had the rotten luck of being both a U.S. commonwealth and geographically in the way of the natural resources of Indonesia.

Yep, I think Japan also hit your country because of the US base there. 

I think the biggest irony of this entire thing is that yeah, the Empire of Japan's propaganda that it was an anti-colonial liberator, and wanted to create a benevolent Asian brotherhood was complete bullshit (as we were meant to be expendable slave labour of sorts to enrich Tokyo)...

But Japan's role in WW2 helped to thoroughly exhaust our old colonial masters, as did Germany, by bankrupting and severely damaging them back home. And the fact that we realised they were totally useless at protecting us and how futile it is to not be in control of your own destiny? Nationalist movements and post-war decolonisation. In an unintentional, warped, perverse way, it's two 20th century empires who probably did a lot to help destroy imperialism.  

[stirringwinds]

I don't like this "pining" too! In general, the fandom tends to ramp up the colony-colonial master dynamics, but there's this tendency to ignore the dark undertones of this type of relationship that in the end gives me the creeps about how the characters are portrayed in favor of putting to the fore an idealized "familial" relationship. Sometimes it works, but plenty of times, it doesn't for me. I'm all for historical AUs, but not when it skews the historicity of the basis of the relationship.

Same thing here. I mean I enjoy seeing some fluffy stuff too and I don’t think everything NEEDS to be “dark” (There was this incredibly hilarious comic about Hong Kong giving England trouble) but when the art or writing is meant to be quite historical and to explore the attitudes of the period I find it a bit creepy if the colony-colonial master dynamic is portrayed as this totally warm, familial thing that is entirely positive.

It feels so inaccurate for me personally- also there was a very real thing called British paternalism where the British Empire saw itself as exporting the “light” of civilisation to the rest of us and saw its imperialism as more enlightened and kind than all the other European empires. That was a way for it to justify its imperialism. It is true the British treated some of their colonies better and did cultivate a class of educated locals- BUT- seriously, if you actually dared to challenge British rule they’d show no mercy and could be as brutal as the French or Spanish. So…portraying the entire thing as a nice familial relationship seems like replicating a fucked up colonial idea about how colonialism was justified to “civilise” us and it’s whitewashing history if it’s meant to be a historical fic/comic.

I enjoy using APH to explore real history but I think we need to all exercise some discretion? There was a comic I saw about post-independence India saying he was proud to be the “jewel of the crown” of the British empire and i was just, “hahaha…no” because unlike Hong Kong (which saw British rule as protection from the excesses of Mao’s China), there were lots of Indian anti-colonial rebellions and resentment against British rule.

[stephadoo]

worclip replied to your post:I don’t know if it’s my internet or Tumblr or a...

Maybe your image size or gif is too large? They’ll show up as error if the images are larger than 10MB, and if a gif is over 1MB and more than 500px wide

Nope, it's not that. Trust me, I learned that lesson a while ago! But I was lurking in the tags and it seems I'm not the only one having problems so I think it might just be Tumblr that's not working right now.