I'm proud of my country and what we have achieved etc. However, I'm realistic enough to accept we've taken advantage of a lot of the countries & peoples we 'visited', to achieve that. But that was in a different era, and we are making amends for that.
I never claimed we didn't take advantage, to do so would be incredibly disingenuous. My complaint is that the bad points of our history are given far greater weight than the good points.
There are many countries and peoples who have conquered others during human history yet we, The British (and other white Europeans - I'm thinking America and South Africa) are not allowed to forget our colonialist past.
Just as we are not allowed to forget our part in the slave trade. Whilst the critics demanding reparations for our part in it conveniently forget we played a huge part in the abolition of slavery, it is still alive and well in the middle east and Africa and it's a practice that has gone on through out history, affecting nearly every country at some point in it's past.
Even some of our greatest minds are now being criticised (the names that spring to mind right now are Rudyard Kipling - racist, Einstein - racist, Shakespeare - racist).
Where do we draw the line? Do we continue to delve into the darkest corners of our history to find little nuggets of dirt that none of us would be proud of today? Dirt that is ultimately used to negate past achievements by painting the achievers as some kind of sub-human monster that despised another race for example?
It is possible to teach both the good and the bad, we just appear to be choosing to focus on the bad. As a consequence, pride in this country is in my opinion at an all time low because all the youngsters hear about is how bad we've been. How we were the bully of the world.