End of Empire (1985), chapter 13: The Rider and the Horse

End of Empire chronicled the last days of British rule around the globe, through the remarkably candid reminiscences of both colonizers and the colonized.
The series, a Granada Television production, uses old newsreel film and interviews with former British and colonial officials.

[@5kehhn]

Trade: colonialists for dictators.

[@FRANKTHRING1]

This episode contains some of the best examples of hypocrisy anywhere on youtube; Dr Banda was dictator of Malawi for over 30 years, torturing and killing many thousands of political prisoners and stealing $320 million. Kaunda was rather more benign but still clung to power for over 20 years. Their "cheek" here in criticising poor old Britain fifty years ago must be watched with these things borne in mind.

[@humanforfreedom9583]

Banda was still a million times better than the communist mass murderer mugabe who massacred matebeles and whites and was put in power by the british who didnt want an independent rhodesia under ian smith because it had a great economy which they wanted destroyed which is why they put mugabe in to do the job of destruction and mass murder.

[@calowned]

"poor old Britain" ... is this satire?

[@maxbrown8665]

A friend who'd known people who'd either visited or lived in Zambia referred to 'K K' Kaunda as a 'Bl..ktifier'.

[@DogeickBateman]

@@calowned You have a problem with the callout of African dictators?

[@calowned]

@@DogeickBateman Your comment is nonsensical.

[@ChannelTENthousandBC]

Thank you Kaunda, you our eternal leader of Zambia

[@csifresno8302]

That’s funny how the colonial minister was just like “we were going to help Nysalanad, but we kinda just forgot ab it ”

[@robertwilliams1182]

Despite British colonialism & their departure, the African government's are just as bad & use their people just as much...like Zimbabwe. Their people are poorer now than ever.

[@luciusveritas9870]

Wow.. out of the time of classy tv "Stay with us for the Valkyrie". Oh how the mighty have fallen.

[@desmondwade5839]

pro trick: you can watch movies at flixzone. Been using it for watching loads of movies lately.

[@alvaroazariah6116]

@Desmond Wade Yup, I've been using Flixzone} for months myself =)

[@Prince_J_kankhwali]

This is important for any Malawian to know where we are coming from

[@MFvanBylandt]

10:56 Is that a photo of Portugese prime minister Salazar in the background?

[@ForestWalker22]

I think so. Mozambique, a bordering country of Federation, was a Portuguese colony. Maybe Roy Welensky had a good relation with Salazar.

[@Iguazu65]

This is an excellent series. I have learned a lot more than what I knew. The politics behind to commonly known story is hugely educational. In many ways, the better choices and approaches were always frustrated by money, egos and scramble to retain and take power. Every country should decide its future. The problem with colonial is that once the profit is removed they don’t want to carry the cost and leave a mess behind them that nearly always results in wars and/or dictatorships.

[@AAAA-gp3vk]

I see the horrible things the British empire did bit but have to say Zimbabwe is worse off today and so are most of former bristish colonies such as Pakistan

[@franciscomunoz2222]

The English. French, Dutch, and Americans bombed open zChina and made millions into opium addicts. And China is a millennial, sophisticated civilization. It took them 200 years to recover, going through the insanities of Mao. What would we expect with peoples as vulnerable as these.

[@HandleGF]

"When the British Empire sinks beneath the waves of history only two monuments will be left standing - the game of association football and the expression f*ck off." - Richard Turnbull (in Aden) in 1967

[@vernedavis5856]

wow

[@NoahBodze]

What’s it like to be inferior to what you dislike?

[@HandleGF]

@@NoahBodze learn to spell gigolo, mate. Fick cant.

[@philipsudron]

As a small child in Aden I remember hearing the word 'imshee' from time to time.

[@Exposing_Mark_Niemczyk]

4:11 Watch this several times and tell me if you can imagine a more awkward and unwieldy form of colonial government.

[@baboon9er]

Yes it was doomed to failure.

[@MatthewMcVeagh]

jvaa cvaa Apart from anything else it's a bizarre shape, with those bits of Mozambique and Congo sticking into it... Zambia still is like that.

[@ayoconnell]

Ryan Wulfsohn to

[@zombyboy666]

jvaa cvaa I

[@BipoIarbear]

Its shape was purely due to German Dutch and French colonies too, it had to be done , even tho they didn’t know about ww2 stuff like these colonies were an accidental victory in effect

[@mikebellis5713]

Banda lives in the UK while agitating for independence from the colonial masters 🤣. But he did get Malawi operating despite being a tyrant, treating Malawi like his farm.

[@alzir86]

Why there is no sound on End of Empire videos

[@catholicmilitantUSA]

What a happy ending. Dr Banda stays in power for 30 years and accumulates 230 million dollars. So much for British liberal democracy.

[@paddy864]

I don't think what he was running was a British liberal democracy.

[@tempestvideos9834]

"If you give people something for nothing they don't really appreciate it" - Sir Roy Welensky

[@davidchunkyonion]

This series is fabulous.

[@rileykernaghan]

My favourite part of this fascinating series is how after the big bad British leave poverty is eliminated, ethnic and religious strife becomes a thing of the past and transparent democracy free of corruption becomes the norm now that the once benighted colonies have their freedom......

[@gregforrester4851]

The pommie are ruthless look at the history maybe not as bad as the Belgians though.

[@nwandarsa]

Everybody has seen how well their demands have worked out

[@rameshbhattacharjee4374]

Every Empire Rises And Fall

[@TheGunrunn3r]

The only places where Empire survived in any form (tradition and royalty-envy), was where the colonizers exterminated the natives to the extent that they were the majority. Americas, New Zealand, Australia. It is simply a historical fact that no minority had ever subjugated a majority indefinitely. I think the ones who succeeded the best were the Huns' subjugation of parts of China. That is, until the Chinese turned those Mongols into Chinese. The really ironic thing is how Europe is now being colonized. Interesting times ahead.

[@ephraimduke]

"The only places where Empire survived in any form (tradition and royalty-envy), was where the colonizers exterminated the natives to the extent that they were the majority. " Except for the United States.

[@marshalerts4148]

perci 88, any more info on that?

[@TheLocalLt]

@@B-26354 America also protected the native peoples against each other’s aggression, both inside and outside America’s (expanding) borders. People forget General Custer was defending several native tribes against another

[@maxbrown8665]

Canada?

[@rogertayler8924]

They invented business.

[@chokkan7]

The elitist approach that the British took in Kenya (restricting access to only those Brits with connections) left them vulnerable. Had they allowed poor whites to come into the country and settle, it would have given them a middle class with skin in the game who would have expanded their power base. As it was, they left themselves at the mercy of the numerical superiority of the indigenous peoples. BTW, I couldn't help but wonder at the two black speakers who opened the documentary by vilifying Europeans by means of their European education, even as they were dressed in European clothes and affected European postures while speaking a European language...I do believe I detected a note of envy. If the theory that by simply replacing the Europeans, the natives could just step into the shoes of the former masters and be in every way their equals should mean that most former colonies by now should be on a par with European states in economics, education, etc. Is there any evidence which would support that? Crickets....all I can hear is crickets....

[@brayo144]

chokkan7 the colonial system was an elitist system designed to benefit the few at the expense of the many. The irony is that the African leaders who stepped into the shoes of the colonial master's actually did a much better job than the Europeans themselves in preserving and enhancing that elitism! The African elites left many of their people in poverty and kept all the wealth for themselves just as the Europeans had done.

[@chokkan7]

I'd like to say, without trying to put too fine a point on it, that if you'd condescend to consider what you've written here, as well as it's ramifications, by your own words, it's clear that even though the British colonial system was, like all bureaucracies, pyramidal in structure (are you able to cite an example of a major country where this does not currently apply?), the locals still enjoyed a higher standard of income than they would have without benefit of British management and entrepreneurial expertise, whereas in the current situation, which the locals themselves opted for via revolution and due to purely racial considerations, such is no longer the case, and they have in most cases been reduced to peons in servitude to what amounts to tribal strongmen. I'm sure you'd be inclined to explain exactly how that continues to be the exclusive fault of the British...again, crickets...

[@zeddeka]

Jesus Christ. What century are you from? You sound like a serious but case. Empire is morally wrong, no matter who is in charge.

[@chokkan7]

@@zeddeka , I have to smile whenever I see the young, in all their wisdom, judge past history through the lens of modern morality. Were I to deign to respond, I'd posit that seldom has history tipped its hat to any form of morality (other than the one which it found most convenient, much like the woke faction today), but rather advanced its own interests as best it could. Within that framework, feel free to offer rebuttal...

[@TheLocalLt]

@@zeddeka how is empire morally wrong when it is the ways of human civilization? Conquest is continually going on. Azerbaijan just did some conquering, getting back lands that had been conquered by Armenia 30 years ago, all of which was a result of being conquered 70 years earlier by Communist Russia and incorporated into the Soviet Union (an “anti-imperialist” empire, to use the fraudulent communist line). Is America not an empire? How about Saudi Arabia? Or even modern fascist Russia? Britain and France may have declared their empires “over” but they still have colonies all over the world supporting their power, some of which support their militaries. Japan tried to go by just that name, and calls itself the “State of Japan” these days, but has regained significant offshore possessions and of course has an emperor. Heck America has proposed buying the defacto colony of Danish Greenland from its controlling power, the kingdom of Denmark, thanks to outsized influence in the entity by a newer expanding communist “anti-imperialist” empire, the People’s republic of China.

[@ephraimduke]

2:36 "we waz kangz" 😂

[@mikebellis5713]

You bang on about "white settlers". My wife is 4th generation Rhodesian/Zimbabwean. Is she a white settler? Her ancestors arrived in South Africa in the early 1700s.

[@ayodejiolowokere1076]

Yes.

[@jimholloway615]

The programme is very clear that there was an ongoing project of encouraging White immigration into both Northern and Southern Rhodesia. Although some Whites had been there for generations, in 1960 many were indeed recent settlers.

[@T8RZTOTZ]

And this is why we want the Nigers in America to go back to Africa

[@T8RZTOTZ]

Have fun eating dirt cookies and being broke

[@angusewanmacdougall839]

Long Live Rhodesia 🤗 . Rhodie's Never Die 🤗.... Born in Wankie , raised in Byo , Matabeleland ...... Greetings from New Zealand 🇳🇿 🤗

[@uzoma1541]

Lol

[@jimholloway615]

Long live Zim

[@MrTipperX]

The British Empire. Pity they couldn't just keep their noses out of other people's business. Same goes for the French, Spanish, Belgians and all other would be oppressors.

[@kenford4550]

Mundia Kamau. SMFH No one ask them to come and destroy Africans way of life

[@motorcop505]

Damien McGrath You obviously haven't traveled to many former colonies! Most are total shitholes.

[@kenford4550]

motorcop505. And you wonder why

[@johnson2joy]

@@motorcop505 There is gold in shit and the smell of shit is like perfume to those seeking wealth, by any means necessary!

[@paddy864]

@@kenford4550 No wondering about it, Tribalism, Corruption, nepotism, Incompetence, Big Man syndrome, undeveloped civil society, ignorance, superstition and usually, Marxist economics introduced by someone who couldn't run a corner-shop but has a degree from the London Shool of Economics.

[@abbush2921]

Typical British setup.