Plunder
This is rich. British churches are finding that metal thieves are stripping their lead roofs and selling the metal to fulfill demand in India and China:
In some cases, clergy members and parishioners discover roof thefts only once rain pours into the building, damaging cherished items like carved wooden screens and ancient organs… [A churchwarden] has put special paint on the drainpipes to make them slippery to would-be climbers [and] has marked the roof with SmartWater, a kind of indelible ink that can be used to identify stolen property…
Lead’s price on global markets has rocketed sevenfold in the last six years, largely because of rising demand from industrializing countries like China and India. Centuries ago, its malleability made it a popular building material; now it is sought mainly for use in batteries… and backup power systems… It is also used to make bullets and shot, cables and paints. [Link]
For centuries, of course, the British gouged gems from temple to tomb, laid claim on egg-sized rubies and sapphires from Indian mines, stole priceless statues from Indian museums. They denuded the subcontinent of raw natural resources and shipped them to be finished in England. Now the cycle has reversed, and sites the British hold sacred are again being stripped by privateers for raw materials in great need overseas.
Copper pipes are being stolen from abandoned houses and structures under construction. Copper wire is being stolen in both India and the U.S. India is buying rice from Vietnam, contributing to a regional shortage. The rapacious needs of a growing industrial power once again turns others into sources of raw materials. Only they aren’t colonies this time, and the exchange is gentler: currency, not guns.
on Tuesday, April 8th, 2008, 8:24 pm in Economics, History, Religion › 
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turnabout is fair play.
yo great irony catch dude! i read the article and didn’t even connect that.
Pure hilarity. Best that we call a waaaahmbulance now!
Oh, I dunno. Two wrongs don’t make a right, and, hopefully, we human beings learn from our past mistakes. We rarely seem to, but one can ‘hope and change and hope and change’ and all that. I ‘hope’ there is no serious damage to these lovely old structures. And yes, it was disgusting of the British to gauge the lovely old palaces and temples that they did in India, but I don’t see how this atones for past injustices. It’s just a bunch of criminals making money, right?
Still, who am I to argue with the great human need for, er, turnabout?
I can’t really see how anyone should gloat about an old church in a small village in England being ransacked by vile thiefs.
I don’t think anyone is gloating, but this is a “teachable moment”. Brit plunder continues to be glorified and this illustrates what it’s like to have your past stolen. That being said I do hope that these people are caught and Sothebys is compelled not to traffick in stolen Indian goods. No matter though, Mittal’s grand kids are going to trick out their Bentley (soon to be wholely owned subsidiary of Tirupur Underwear & Terry Cloth Towel) hover craft with the crown jewels
Tsk tsk…. why doe these people complain? All that these thieves are doing is reduce the white man’s burden that Kipling wrote so movingly about. After all, it doesn’t get much heavier than lead :-).
Brits were only doing what previous Indian rulers have been doing. In most cases the british were given gems and riches as bribes by Indian kings.
Interesting irony. Although I prefer Jaguar/Land Rover method… make them our employees.
BTW: has anyone been contacted by Jaguar/Land Rover? Apparently they are targeting
Indian households.
I’m not going to say it’s right. But I’m not going to say what happened for hundreds of years in India was right either.