Empire

The great experiment. Give over your country to a vast multi-cultural experiment.
Listening to a debate on the legacy of Empire one is immediately struck by the diversity of the people. If one were to equate them by ethnicity they were united in damming the pomposity of the host nation and its claim to have offered much to the nations conquered.
Sitting at home as a 'Pom', listening to how bad we have been, particularly when judged by today's standards of PC, one finds it hard not to ask the question "why do you stay amongst us". Of course the reply is that "this is my country as much as it is yours" and we have to understand that with this piece of paper entitling nationality, even a Martian would get the vote.
Audiences are assembled, contrived even, with the aim to pass a message to us, the dumb viewer and the issue of race and ethnicity is a minefield these days and with such a rainbow nation and we hold opinion at our peril.
The Empire was a trade mission on a grand scale. Conquering nations to exploit them for raw materials, setting up the infrastructure to efficiently ensure the business was carried out, modernisation of roads and particularly railways, the erection of ports and storage buildings and above all, the encampment of a class of people to rule, the civil service, and the military to lend a hand when necessary.
The immersion of, shall we call them, British standards, meant that 'centuries old' customs like the burning of wives when the patriarch died, eventually became a no no, as did some of the more extreme practices in countries where patriarchal power was cruel and obsessive. The slave trade was stopped and the Caste System modified.
Listening to the well fed multicultural audience decrying the rigid largely patriarchal structure of the Victorian era, (led of course by a woman), one saw the frustration and deep resentment of history, their history, their resentment bubbling to the surface, something they carry around with them each day as they walk the streets of London or Manchester, bemoaning their past but not willing to return and lend a hand at restoration.
There were no aboriginal's, no maori's, no relatives of the convict colony only people of colour who for what ever reason saw themselves particularly disadvantaged by their past, incensed by the history of oppression and distortion which the rule of Empire had brought.
Even today 50/60 years on, with the nations in Africa, The Caribbean and even India, still languishing in so many ways, it seems easier to blame Empire and specifically the English for the demise "in the land of their fathers".