My other issue is the portrayal of the US as a fellow British colony and possible ally. I have a very hard time accepting parallels between the US Revolution and the Indian independence movement. I don't know that much about the Indian independence movement, but I feel it is not particularly flattering to draw parallels between it and a revolution that started mostly for the purpose of financial benefit and the protection of rich white guys' profits and property. I am, of course, heavily influenced by Conquest and Octavian Nothing in this reading, but that is why I have a problem with the image of the US as a potentially safer space for Indians. I also hate that Vidya's protests that the US didn't treat American Indians well (understatement!) and kept slaves, and that they were countered in a sentence or two with "No country is perfect. And they emancipated the slaves!"
Oy. Rose-colored glasses, to say the very least; it always is a bit frustrating and discrediting when people attempt to draw parallels between the independence movement of a people from a colonizing power and the secession movement of a sector of a colonizing power from the rest of the colonizing power, which is basically what the American Revolution was anyway.
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Thu, Mar. 12th, 2009 11:27 pm (UTC)My other issue is the portrayal of the US as a fellow British colony and possible ally. I have a very hard time accepting parallels between the US Revolution and the Indian independence movement. I don't know that much about the Indian independence movement, but I feel it is not particularly flattering to draw parallels between it and a revolution that started mostly for the purpose of financial benefit and the protection of rich white guys' profits and property. I am, of course, heavily influenced by Conquest and Octavian Nothing in this reading, but that is why I have a problem with the image of the US as a potentially safer space for Indians. I also hate that Vidya's protests that the US didn't treat American Indians well (understatement!) and kept slaves, and that they were countered in a sentence or two with "No country is perfect. And they emancipated the slaves!"
Oy. Rose-colored glasses, to say the very least; it always is a bit frustrating and discrediting when people attempt to draw parallels between the independence movement of a people from a colonizing power and the secession movement of a sector of a colonizing power from the rest of the colonizing power, which is basically what the American Revolution was anyway.