Colonial casualties AN OUTSIDERS VIEW Ken Fuller 08/24/2010

Colonial casualties

AN OUTSIDERS VIEW Ken Fuller 08/24/2010 A few weeks ago, this outsider became involved in an ill-tempered argument with a fellow expatriate Brit over the body-count in the Philippines during the Philippine-American War and World War II. His claim was that more Filipinos had died in the former event than in the latter. As appalling as Filipino losses were during the process of US colonization, however, he was wrong, for while some 600,000 are reckoned to have died during that conflict, most estimates of Filipino deaths due to the Japanese occupation come up with a figure of one million. It was not until some time after our argument that I worked out why my opponent had reacted so intemperately when I disputed his claim. Early on, he had made an equally questionable assertion — that “we” (i.e. the British Empire) had never behaved as atrociously as the Americans had in their conquest of these islands — and I, never happy to be included in this particular “we,” had told him that I would reserve my position. The look he gave me then was that of the military officer who detects the first sign of insubordination (and maybe even “treason”) in a subordinate whose “loyalty” he has hitherto taken for granted. Well, we never got to argue about the iniquities inflicted by Britain on its colonies, but it does seem a subject that should receive an airing, if only because there have been various attempts in the past 15 or 20 years to rewrite history and paint the colonial experience in glowing colors. For example, A BBC series and book from 2007 entitled The Story of India manages to completely ignore the various holocausts visited upon that country between the years 1757 and 1947 when, according to one estimate, the subcontinent suffered no less than 1.8 billion “excess deaths.”... MORE Source:  The Daily Tribune URL: http://www.tribuneonline.org/commentary/20100824com5.html

COMMENTARY EDITORIAL Time to lead by example FRONTLINE Special treatment sought FEATURE Historic Manila seeks to tempt tourists NO HOLDS BARRED Just desserts AN OUTSIDERS VIEW Colonial casualties focus US looks to Iraq strategy for Afghanistan FEATURE France honors ‘lost and found’ US WWII fighter pilot