[Leica] Nathan's PAD 21/4/2017: morning walk in Copenhagen

[Douglas Barry]

Yes, Jayanand, there's a lot of keruffle about Shashi Tharoor's new book 
"Inglorious Empire: What the British did to India" which apparently 
shows that the British invasion and occupation of India did not exactly 
buff the jewel in the crown, but rather gave it famine, massacre, and 
both codification and enhancement of religious differences with a 
consequential rise in hate. Economically, Britain's rule took India's 
percentile share of global GDP down from 23% to 3% while Britain's rose 
from 1.8% to 9%. The book is on my list.

Over here in Ireland where, in 1845 under British rule and despite heavy 
food production and exports at the same time, we saw profound famine, a 
million deaths and heavy emigration. So we Irish would tend to echo 
India's condemnation of the British "gift of stability" to the various 
peoples it decided to endow.

Of course, nowadays, any of us EU pro-remainers have to laugh at the 
unseemly rush of Theresa May's Brexit Britain to restart trade with the 
echoes of lost empire - starting with India. It was amusing to see 
Modi's visa demand in response. However, that won't wash with little 
Englanders, horrified by the dewhitification of their cities, who stuck 
their fingers into the wrong hole, and voted Brexit to stop the flow of 
immigrants from the EU. Of course, these were mainly white immigrants :-)

BTW, that book list is a long one, I have little time, and being a 
political wonk, with the current compulsively fascinating mess, time is 
ever shorter.

Douglas
PS on Churchill, one of my cousins is married to his second cousin, so 
I'm precluded from condemnation :-)

On 22/04/2017 14:32, Jayanand Govindaraj wrote:
> Nice shots, but the "Great Man" was also a racist wretch, much worse than
> anyone in the USA today. After all, he callously engineered the greatest
> genocide yet known, in the league of Stalin or Mao, diverting food and
> medicines meant for the starving millions to his own troops. Because it
> happened in the Third World, it is convenient to walk around with eyes wide
> shut:
>
> https://yourstory.com/2014/08/bengal-famine-genocide/
>
> Cheers
> Jayanand
>
> On Sat, Apr 22, 2017 at 11:34 AM, Nathan Wajsman <photo at frozenlight.eu>
> wrote:
>
>> Yesterday was the 16th anniversary of my mother’s death, and as usual, I
>> am in Copenhagen for  a few days at this time. My sister also has come from
>> Poland, so that we could visit our mother’s grave together yesterday,
>> fulfilling a promise made to each other 16 years ago. But it is not all
>> about gloom and remembrance. I am also spending time with friends and
>> enjoying this great city.
>> So yesterday morning I went for a long walk in Langeline, the park which
>> houses the Little Mermaid, and adjacent 19th military installations known
>> as Kastellet; those fortifications were never used in war, and today they
>> form part of a great green oasis close to the centre of Copenhagen. Four
>> images from my walk.
>>
>> A morning commute that is guaranteed to give a good start to the day:
>> http://www.greatpix.eu/All/Picture-A-Day/i-dTtjxfT/A
>>
>> Fortification turned into jogging trail:
>> http://www.greatpix.eu/All/Picture-A-Day/i-C9HVJv6/A
>>
>> Next to Kastellet is Churchill Park, a place where Denmark honours its
>> fallen during World War II and expresses its gratitude to the country and
>> the leader that liberated us in 1945. This is a memorial to Danish soldiers
>> killed during the war, both in Denmark and in Allied service:
>> http://www.greatpix.eu/All/Picture-A-Day/i-wcsBLpP/A
>>
>> And here is a quiet corner of Churchill Park, with a buste of the great
>> man, erected in 1955 for the 10th anniversary of Denmark’s liberation:
>> http://www.greatpix.eu/All/Picture-A-Day/i-7dNrTsw/A
>>
>> Much more to come.
>>
>> Cheers,
>> Nathan
>>
>> Nathan Wajsman
>> Alicante, Spain
>> http://www.frozenlight.eu <http://www.frozenlight.eu/>
>> http:// <http://www.greatpix.eu/>www.greatpix.eu
>> PICTURE OF THE WEEK: http://www.fotocycle.dk/paws <
>> http://www.fotocycle.dk/paws>Blog: http://nathansmusings.wordpress.com/ <
>> http://nathansmusings.wordpress.com/>
>> Cycling: http://www.crazyguyonabike.com/belgiangator <
>> http://www.crazyguyonabike.com/belgiangator>
>> YNWA
>>
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