the idea that the british empire accepted their decline with grace and peacefully and willingly withdrew from all their colonial territories and took their loss quietly is commonly expressed as fact but it's very much untrue, it's a successful propaganda campaign for them to claim that this is what happened but they were busy committing war crimes throughout their colonial territories long after supposed "independence" & they continued/continue to maintain economic control over these regions and actively killed local movements that wanted economic sovereignty, land reform, nationalization of natural resources much like the united states did/does within their sphere of influence. i say this not to minimize the atrocities the us has committed but to make a point that the uk is also guilty of these crimes up to the present as much as they'd like to pretend this was an era that ended a century ago. british colonial violence isn't something that ended after ww2 it continued throughout the 20th century and still to this day if you look at the actions undertaken by the british military and their mercenaries throughout the former empire
for the past handful of years ive seen people say stuff like "well the british empire accepted their decline with grace and pulled out when they saw the ship sinking so why can't the us do that" and it's important that you understand that the british empire didn't actually do that and neither will their son lol
i know this is shocking to many of you but this is the mainstream belief in the uk + the narrative that is pushed at a state level, in school, by the bbc, etc. and i've heard it expressed by many canadians/americans/australians as well. "they quietly withdrew" is not just a media propaganda thing but a programme the british colonial office undertook to cover up their crimes, see operation legacy
