Quote:
Originally Posted by prometheus
Maybe your comparsion isn't too good. Turks oppressed the peoples in SE Europe they had conquered, forced them to pay jizya (a tax on every non-Muslim), but didn't try to force their language. The English, on the contrary, forced their language upon the Irish, especially during the 19th century.
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And on the Maltese in the most manipulative of manners as well, in the same time period. That is referred to as the Imperialist policy of
"deitalianisation" and
"anglicisation" of Malta which was started after the creation of the Italian unitary state. The Italian language was being gradually removed and was removed as an official language in the 1930s with the convenient pretext of fascism, however truth is that that goal was aimed at since around the 1880s and this is all on official British documents.
We're still victims of such cultural infamy, but our elite do not dare move a finger to rectify such a historico-cultural injustice. When Dott. Scerri, president of the
Partit Nazzjonalista publically asked Queen Elizabeth II for an official apology for certain historical Imperialist misdeeds, the current prime minister and party leader not only didn't support him but he had the guile to state that that is neither the government's nor the party's position. One more reason why I'm not voting for a party dominated by centre-left Christian Democrats who are barely Christian in most cases, and in many others are only a veneer of democracy.
I sympathise with the Irish, I know my people's history and I know what the English were capable of for their
Rule Brittania oppression, infamy and racist drivel. Once their was
"the Empire on which the sun never set" now there is (so to speak) what I term
"the gloriously defunct empire". Many peoples of the world can say
"good riddance...".