[SA Chris]

In a future life I look forward to the discussions by future-Andy and future-Spider Monkey on what the historical impacts were of earthlings colonising planet B-78234.

I've seen Starship Troopers. It doesn't go well.

[petejh]

And it is much more than the fact it is still within living memory. There remain many extremely direct and unbroken ties between Britain's imperial and slaving history and many still extant institutions: across the economy; our systems of government and governance; the traditions and cultures that supposedly bind us; much of our built environment; the structure of land ownership; even our popular culture - let alone the wealth still enjoyed by many individuals and families. The British empire isn't dead, it lives on in these unbroken links. So long as they remain unbroken the issue remains relevant (I suppose this is now in partial answer to Pete).

Oh I'm very aware of the colonial legacies surrounding me, I'm Welsh for one thing. But other than having that chip on my shoulder, I think I have quite a keen awareness of injustice and a low opinion of institutional authority. As I said in the thing about the Royals, I have a low opinion of the power of wealth because so often it's originally been stolen, or inherited and not earned.

 I've always had an awareness and been curious about the back-story regards land ownership in Britain and how certain business wealth was originally accumulated. I've looked into the origins of various companies that sprung up based around the imports coming into Liverpool, Bristol and Glasgow for e.g. and the streets, buildings and institutions likewise. I only have to look around North Wales at the slate quarries and Penrhyn Castle to see recent examples of colonial practice and patterns of wealth-building and land ownership where there's been a power-imbalance between 'outsider' and indigenous.

I don't feel I need the 'shocking' education because I'm curious enough to know about much of it already. I'm more interested in the philosophical foundations and practicalities of how people think about that stuff today. You're probably correct that much of population need educating on how deep-rooted empire is in the foundations of wealth and power in Britain, but part of me wonders if it would do more harm than the good it might do.. hard thing to come to terms with your worldview being destroyed rightly or wrongly.

[Will Hunt]

I don't disagree with anything that Andy has said, but I'm uncomfortable with how any curiosity broader than British colonial history is shut down as an attempt to minimise or mitigate our own country's wrongdoing. It is surely possible to recognise the extent of Britain's colonial history and how this impacts on societies today while also wondering about what other countries and cultures have done in the past.

[Johnny Brown]

Surely that statement applies to every human culture on the planet, including a few “un contacted” tribes, busy raiding neighbouring villages.

Slight tangent here, but I've been reading a good book recently  - The Dawn of Everything - that takes issue with this Hobbesian view of prehistory. It's only recently that we've had the evidence to really challenge these sort of long-held presumptions, but evidence is steadily building that a lot, possibly most, of prehistorical societies were not nasty or brutish, and even that a lot of early towns managed to maintain hunter-gatherer egalitarianism into surprisingly big farming societies.

No surprises that if you want to make a tribe misbehave a quick way is to have a hierarchical expansionist civilisation appear nearby. History is above all written by the literate, and there are few records where the observer wasn't part of something bigger affecting the observed.

Pete, you sound like you might enjoy Who Owns England... has relevance to Wales and Scotland too. 

An FT reporter, working through a standard set of questions, once asked the Duke of Westminster what advice he’d give to young entrepreneurs keen to emulate his success.

“Make sure they have an ancestor who was a very close friend of William the Conqueror,” he replied.

[petejh]

Surely that statement applies to every human culture on the planet, including a few “un contacted” tribes, busy raiding neighbouring villages.

Slight tangent here, but I've been reading a good book recently  - The Dawn of Everything - that takes issue with this Hobbesian view of prehistory. It's only recently that we've had the evidence to really challenge these sort of long-held presumptions, but evidence is steadily building that a lot, possibly most, of prehistorical societies were not nasty or brutish, and even that a lot of early towns managed to maintain hunter-gatherer egalitarianism into surprisingly big farming societies.

No surprises that if you want to make a tribe misbehave a quick way is to have a hierarchical expansionist civilisation appear nearby. History is above all written by the literate, and there are few records where the observer wasn't part of something bigger affecting the observed.

Hmm... try asking Homo Neanderthals and the 5 or 6 other species of hominid around at the same time as us how nasty and brutish or egalitarian Homo Sapiens were... except you won't find any as our species killed them all.


It looks an interesting book but I fear if I read it it might tip my already slightly anarchistic leanings over the edge and I'd be shooting burning arrows into the Duke of Westminster's house next weekend.

[Will Hunt]

Slight tangent here, but I've been reading a good book recently  - The Dawn of Everything - that takes issue with this Hobbesian view of prehistory. It's only recently that we've had the evidence to really challenge these sort of long-held presumptions, but evidence is steadily building that a lot, possibly most, of prehistorical societies were not nasty or brutish, and even that a lot of early towns managed to maintain hunter-gatherer egalitarianism into surprisingly big farming societies.

Wasn't Hobbes talking about something more primitive than that? Humans with no society or social codes: the state of nature? A prehistoric society is still a society.

[spidermonkey09]

I don't disagree with anything that Andy has said, but I'm uncomfortable with how any curiosity broader than British colonial history is shut down as an attempt to minimise or mitigate our own country's wrongdoing. It is surely possible to recognise the extent of Britain's colonial history and how this impacts on societies today while also wondering about what other countries and cultures have done in the past.

I don't think thats whats happening here, but clearly the impression has been given. I think it is surely context dependent. It depends on whether 'wondering about what other countries and cultures have done in the past' indicates curiosity about human nature and the violence that is inherent to human societies or is a transparent attempt at deflection. So much of the time the wondering is not in good faith, among historians as well as the public.

Another example of this in history is in genocide studies. Its really common, when discussing basically any modern, 20th century genocide, for responses to basically revert to 'well, it wasn't as bad as the Holocaust was it?' For a surprising amount of people, mass killings basically don't count unless they approach the numbers and scale of the Holocaust. I think we can all agree that research of the Rwandan genocide, Cambodia, Armenia and numerous others is debased by doing this. As much as anything else its incredibly disrespectful to the victims and people of those countries, and indeed to Jews and Holocaust victims as well. It amounts to a really grim hierarchy of atrocity where nobody wins except those who are using it to try and deny the genocides ever happened, which is surprisingly common.

The principle is exactly the same with imperial history. We can acknowledge that imperialism and empire building has been a phenomenon throughout much of human history without deflecting from a particular avenue of interest or research. Obviously the British Empire wasn't the only empire that committed atrocities but that isn't really the point I don't think, which is more that Britain has made a particularly poor effort at engaging with its past. Part of the reason for the lack of progress (although as Wellsy says I do think its improving) is because too often discussions of British colonial massacres are met with some version of 'it wasn't as bad as what the Belgians did in the Congo though' or even just 'stop talking Britain down.'

[Will Hunt]

Agreed.
This prompted me to flick back and see why we were talking about this! The conversation seems to have drifted into general chat about British colonialism, though it's interesting to note that Dan's original post, where he asserts that all of our national woes are fallout of colonialism, naturally invites comparison with other post-empire powers in order to test the hypothesis. For what it's worth, I'd say that a vision of a glorious British Empire is partly responsible for the British exceptionalism that contributed towards Brexit, but it's clearly not the only cause. I'd argue that the second world war is more present in people's minds when thinking about the national identity - it was certainly the case when I was growing up in the 90s and early 00s that the "national identity" still felt dominated by WWII and it's aftermath.

I had a moment of realisation over my morning coffee today. All of our national woes are payback for colonisation and Empire. Bear with me on this. Our place in the world was forged by the blood and toil of our exploited slaves and then fuelled by the plundered resources of the globe. We've never accepted or reconciled ourselves to these facts; our Empire somehow was good for those it subjugated, we abolished slavery (only after profiting handsomely from it mind) and now as a result have a distorted view of ourselves which forms the basis of British exceptionalism. That left us susceptible to Euroscepticism and tied to a vision of the past which enabled the continuation of an anachronistic and twisted legacy of Monarchy and Nobility (unelected House of Lords is fine whilst "unelected EU bureaucrats" are an anathema).

TL:DR You reap what you sow.

[Oldmanmatt]

Can't dispute any of what Andy has said, and maybe because it is so close to home, but I am interested as to why British colonisation is seen as carrying more "weight" than any other European country?

Dutch, French, Spanish, Portuguese and German Empires were also pretty huge, and (arguably) had similar impact.

I'm not saying this is what you're doing Chris, but "but there were other empires" often turns into whataboutery. In any case, the British Empire was much larger and more long lasting than any other European empire of the modern era.

Ultimately, however, it is for France, Belgium, Germany, Italy, and even Denmark to come to their own reckonings with their imperial and colonial histories (and none of them are doing a brililant job). I'm most concerned about the British empire simply because I'm a British citizen (and to add weight to that, a historian of Britain to boot).

I’m not sure I’m wholeheartedly on board with this sentiment. Looking at “The British Empire” we are concerned about it because it existed (just) within living memory. What do mean “reckonings with their Imperial histories”, really? The formation of that Empire oft involved the conquest of other, then existing, Empires, both large and small. The Zulu Empire (for Chris) for example. Those Empires were only different in scale, I don’t think the Nguni of the day thought highly of Shaka’s almost genocide of their peoples.
This isn’t meant as an apologist argument, nor support for the colonial concept, however the sentiment you express seems to require considering history between narrowly define points, or (possibly worse) that Western, global, Empire builders should be held to a higher standard than more “native” varieties. Humans are humans. Whilst I think we all agree the concept of conquest and colonialism is abhorrent, it hasn’t gone away. I mean, what would you call the entire USA, except an imposed colonial Empire, oppressing the indigenous population? The Russian Federation? PRC? Etc etc etc. What, ultimately, defines a Nation anyway? Or it’s peoples? Who, exactly, is British and who isn’t? GB, is an Empire, isn’t it? Not just England’s dominance of Wale and Scotland either; start a few decades before Englaland (sic) was a thing and you’re looking at Wessex conquering Mercia, East Anglia, Northumbria et al. All the while ignoring the Saxon’s origins and conquest of Britain…
So, whilst there are, certainly, obvious “reparations” to be made, for recent history, such as sending back artefacts to their lands of origin (often, ironically, monuments exalting earlier Conquerers); what do you mean by “reckonings with Imperial histories”. Surely that statement applies to every human culture on the planet, including a few “un contacted” tribes, busy raiding neighbouring villages.

Sorry Matt, but this is pretty much pure whataboutery. As I said above, I am fundamentally more concerned about Britain's imperial history than any other simply because I'm British. For most of my life I have enjoyed the rights and responsibilities of a British citizen. It has been British society and economy that has afforded me whatever opportunities I've enjoyed. It is the British political system in which I have participated. I may or may not think France or Belgium or wherever need a reckoning with these aspects of their history (and I do) but in the end that is up to those nations.

By a reckoning I simply mean a coming to terms with the realities of empire, a reframing of empire so it is no longer understood as a source of pride and greatness, an acknowledgement of empire's continuing legacies. Empire is normalised. We need to be shocked by what it did. That has not happened and until it does I believe Britain remains hobbled by it.

And it is much more than the fact it is still within living memory. There remain many extremely direct and unbroken ties between Britain's imperial and slaving history and many still extant institutions: across the economy; our systems of government and governance; the traditions and cultures that supposedly bind us; much of our built environment; the structure of land ownership; even our popular culture - let alone the wealth still enjoyed by many individuals and families. The British empire isn't dead, it lives on in these unbroken links. So long as they remain unbroken the issue remains relevant (I suppose this is now in partial answer to Pete).

To Steve R, I actually really regret using the word evil as I've always shunned it as an essentially theological concept that I don't recognize. So I kind of take that back. I know this is not the point you were making, but broadening things out, it is often said we shouldn't pass moral judgement on the past. I disagree. All history is written from a position and contains a form of judgement, whether explicit or not.

No, you can’t pull the whataboutery card. That’s exactly why the liberals are struggling to win over a substantial portion of the population. Mine is a very valid point and it is an important point to address. Pulling the WA card is simply dodging a difficult question (or series of) and academics and intellectuals seem to think it demolishes any argument. Unfortunately Joe Bloggs esq. see’s it for what it is and disengages.

Also, who is this “Britain” that isn’t engaging with it’s colonial past? We’re a pretty diverse bunch, possible more so now than ever.
The vast majority of the British population descend from people who did not even have the Franchise until the early 20th C. Many who lived under pretty dire conditions too. This isn’t “Whataboutery” it’s pointing out that those responsible, for the last few hundred years of Western Colonialism, were a very select group of ultra wealthy aristocrats. The “ruling class” if you will.
Yes, they still have undue influence over our institutions (and media).

[andy popp]

Oh I'm very aware of the colonial legacies surrounding me .. hard thing to come to terms with your worldview being destroyed rightly or wrongly.

Yes, sorry, I've got a bit preachy today, I know, but these are issues I'm passionate about. As to your last point, for sure, absolutely.

[andy popp]

Mine is a very valid point and it is an important point to address.

But you threw so much into that post I had no idea what the point was.

[Wellsy]

Can't dispute any of what Andy has said, and maybe because it is so close to home, but I am interested as to why British colonisation is seen as carrying more "weight" than any other European country?

Dutch, French, Spanish, Portuguese and German Empires were also pretty huge, and (arguably) had similar impact.

I'm not saying this is what you're doing Chris, but "but there were other empires" often turns into whataboutery. In any case, the British Empire was much larger and more long lasting than any other European empire of the modern era.

Ultimately, however, it is for France, Belgium, Germany, Italy, and even Denmark to come to their own reckonings with their imperial and colonial histories (and none of them are doing a brililant job). I'm most concerned about the British empire simply because I'm a British citizen (and to add weight to that, a historian of Britain to boot).

I’m not sure I’m wholeheartedly on board with this sentiment. Looking at “The British Empire” we are concerned about it because it existed (just) within living memory. What do mean “reckonings with their Imperial histories”, really? The formation of that Empire oft involved the conquest of other, then existing, Empires, both large and small. The Zulu Empire (for Chris) for example. Those Empires were only different in scale, I don’t think the Nguni of the day thought highly of Shaka’s almost genocide of their peoples.
This isn’t meant as an apologist argument, nor support for the colonial concept, however the sentiment you express seems to require considering history between narrowly define points, or (possibly worse) that Western, global, Empire builders should be held to a higher standard than more “native” varieties. Humans are humans. Whilst I think we all agree the concept of conquest and colonialism is abhorrent, it hasn’t gone away. I mean, what would you call the entire USA, except an imposed colonial Empire, oppressing the indigenous population? The Russian Federation? PRC? Etc etc etc. What, ultimately, defines a Nation anyway? Or it’s peoples? Who, exactly, is British and who isn’t? GB, is an Empire, isn’t it? Not just England’s dominance of Wale and Scotland either; start a few decades before Englaland (sic) was a thing and you’re looking at Wessex conquering Mercia, East Anglia, Northumbria et al. All the while ignoring the Saxon’s origins and conquest of Britain…
So, whilst there are, certainly, obvious “reparations” to be made, for recent history, such as sending back artefacts to their lands of origin (often, ironically, monuments exalting earlier Conquerers); what do you mean by “reckonings with Imperial histories”. Surely that statement applies to every human culture on the planet, including a few “un contacted” tribes, busy raiding neighbouring villages.

Sorry Matt, but this is pretty much pure whataboutery. As I said above, I am fundamentally more concerned about Britain's imperial history than any other simply because I'm British. For most of my life I have enjoyed the rights and responsibilities of a British citizen. It has been British society and economy that has afforded me whatever opportunities I've enjoyed. It is the British political system in which I have participated. I may or may not think France or Belgium or wherever need a reckoning with these aspects of their history (and I do) but in the end that is up to those nations.

By a reckoning I simply mean a coming to terms with the realities of empire, a reframing of empire so it is no longer understood as a source of pride and greatness, an acknowledgement of empire's continuing legacies. Empire is normalised. We need to be shocked by what it did. That has not happened and until it does I believe Britain remains hobbled by it.

And it is much more than the fact it is still within living memory. There remain many extremely direct and unbroken ties between Britain's imperial and slaving history and many still extant institutions: across the economy; our systems of government and governance; the traditions and cultures that supposedly bind us; much of our built environment; the structure of land ownership; even our popular culture - let alone the wealth still enjoyed by many individuals and families. The British empire isn't dead, it lives on in these unbroken links. So long as they remain unbroken the issue remains relevant (I suppose this is now in partial answer to Pete).

To Steve R, I actually really regret using the word evil as I've always shunned it as an essentially theological concept that I don't recognize. So I kind of take that back. I know this is not the point you were making, but broadening things out, it is often said we shouldn't pass moral judgement on the past. I disagree. All history is written from a position and contains a form of judgement, whether explicit or not.

No, you can’t pull the whataboutery card. That’s exactly why the liberals are struggling to win over a substantial portion of the population. Mine is a very valid point and it is an important point to address. Pulling the WA card is simply dodging a difficult question (or series of) and academics and intellectuals seem to think it demolishes any argument. Unfortunately Joe Bloggs esq. see’s it for what it is and disengages.

Also, who is this “Britain” that isn’t engaging with it’s colonial past? We’re a pretty diverse bunch, possible more so now than ever.
The vast majority of the British population descend from people who did not even have the Franchise until the early 20th C. Many who lived under pretty dire conditions too. This isn’t “Whataboutery” it’s pointing out that those responsible, for the last few hundred years of Western Colonialism, were a very select group of ultra wealthy aristocrats. The “ruling class” if you will.
Yes, they still have undue influence over our institutions (and media).

I would say that whether ones argument resonates with the ordinary "man in the street" is not really relevant to whether the argument is right. Saying "what about all those other Empires" is literally whataboutism. The litany of human crimes is long, but the crimes of the British Empire need analysing, accepting and given sombre thought by British people far more than they are.

There are a lot of people who would take the more popular and easily swallowed line that the Empire was a good thing or at least no worse than anything else, many of them are in gov, but that doesn't make them right.

That the Empire is deeply related to our systems of class is very true. That said we've just had weeks of lauding our biggest symbol of class (who 100% benefited from the Empire) and so clearly this is still a big problem.

[Wellsy]

Like the argument "but other people have done bad things" is obviously absurd when it comes to individual crimes and grievances, and human nature is no defence there either. If I overenthusiastically hurl a pad so hard that it lands on and kills Shark, I don't get to say "lots of people have killed others" or "it's in my nature, as a human, to hurl pads around." One is judged by one's crimes, and Britain in the past did create a massive empire built on violent race based imperialism.

Now we today didn't do that (although a few people who tortured dissidents in 50s Kenya are probably still around etc) but at the same time if we want to hold up our nation and institutions as laudable, we need to deal with the history as well, and that history is unquestionably awful at times. Yes, so do the Belgians, but I'm not Belgian and that's for them to do. It's not about whether it was a uniquely awful evil, it's about whether the history of one's culture, nation etc is being examined and engaged with in an honest and open way, working with those who have and still do suffer from the consequences of that history.

[Oldmanmatt]

Mine is a very valid point and it is an important point to address.

But you threw so much into that post I had no idea what the point was.

🤣 to be fair to me, that was rather my point.

If I try to ponder the issue, it just becomes apparent that both the pervasive, tendrils and branches, of the current influence and the vast, intertwined, root network of the tree of Imperial History, is pretty damn complex.
When you start to then add in the symbiotic ecosystem, both in the root structure and branches; that all link in to the forest that is humanity, it all gets a bit ineffable.

I do think certain points, events, atrocities and actions, can be identified, addressed and there I see scope for reparations, at least hypothetically. However, lumping vast swathes of various nations in together, as somehow holding corporate responsibility, is a bit rich. So, not “Britain”, for instance, but you could legitimately look at (say) the British Royal Family and their wealth etc.
Frankly, though, isn’t that family, actually the principle Royal Family of most of Europe? Cannot a great deal of modern Imperialism (say, 17th-20th century) and a couple of world wars, be laid at the feet of that family? Rather than the populace of their fiefdoms?

[petejh]

One is judged by one's crimes, and Britain in the past did create a massive empire built on violent race based imperialism.

The 'relativism' point has been well debated, but just to point out that many of the people involved at the time wouldn't have believed they were committing any crimes. AFAIK they weren't according to the laws of the time. Obviously there were transgressions of the laws (as the laws were then) just as now and some people with genuinely malicious intent, just as now. But I don't think the empire and colonising was seen at the time as a mass crime against humanity.

It comes across as judging with hindsight sometimes with this stuff. They did what they did but you're no more moral then they were, you just have different societal parameters to live by, but which you mostly had no involvement at all in creating.

[Wellsy]

One is judged by one's crimes, and Britain in the past did create a massive empire built on violent race based imperialism.

The 'relativism' point has been well debated, but just to point out that many of the people involved at the time wouldn't have believed they were committing any crimes. AFAIK they weren't according to the laws of the time. Obviously there were transgressions of the laws (as the laws were then) just as now and some people with genuinely malicious intent, just as now. But I don't think the empire and colonising was seen at the time as a mass crime against humanity.

It comes across as judging with hindsight sometimes with this stuff. They did what they did but you're no more moral then they were, you just have different societal parameters to live by, but which you mostly had no involvement at all in creating.

I would disagree with that. I'll give two examples at both ends of the Empire (in time and space);

1) The East India Company and their behavior in India is famous now for its cruelty, its exploitation and it's brutality, i am sure I dont need to go into it. Was that considered acceptable at the time? Well Edmund Burke MP (the father of Conservatism) gave an absolutely excoriating speech in the Commons in the late 1700s where he said that the EIC was a stain on the nation's history. He was by no means alone in the Commons or the papers for his criticism of their methods and actions. The company was actually forced to wind up at one stage due to public and political opinion, and descriptions of their behaviour drew criticism from the church, house of commons and ordinary citizens regularly

2) the Mau Mau "rebellion" (rebelling against imperial colonialists). The treatment of the rebels in terms of torture, rape, murder, ethnic cleansing was so hideous it drew comparisons with the Belsen concentration camp by officials at the time. British soldiers and colonial officials in the 50s would strap people to chairs, mutilate and torture them to death, and then dump the bodies in the bush. The British news presented the screening process for this kind of thing as like a trip to the school headmaster's study for kindly but firm guidance. The Attorney General of Kenya told the governor that the situation in the camps was like that of Nazi Germany, they needed to keep it under wraps and "sin quietly"

I could give many more examples. They knew it was wrong. Ordinary British people at the time knew it was wrong, and were often critical or lied to because officials knew that what they were doinh was unacceptable. This idea that it was just considered normal and okay is not true, and not a defence if it was. And how many people know what British soldiers did to Kenyan people while Elizabeth was on the throne? Vanishingly few.

[Wellsy]

I notice that the news has talked about how the Queen during her reign saw the decolonisation of Africa, how lovely and grateful they must have been those colonial subjects, but entirely neglected to mention that the government in her name was complicit in thousands of Africans being tortured to death at the same time. But of course that would be a bit rude in a time of our national mourning, to talk about what actually happened rather than our bollocks fairy tale version of events.

[petejh]

I think you’ve misunderstood my point.

Those are examples of crimes (which I was aware of) that are obviously crimes even in the context of the time and which we can all easily identify.

But it isn’t just those events people are talking about when they discuss empire. And it wasn’t what I was talking about although those events were definitely a part of the whole colonial project. What I meant was the whole project of empire and colonising is now held to be a crime by some people by their present day morals. Parts obviously were, but large parts weren’t by the standards of the day.

A bit like labelling the whole of the Vietnam War as one big crime (some think so!) because many criminal atrocities such as My Lai would have been committed, many we’ll never hear about. But most of the people involved wouldn’t have been committing atrocities and wouldn’t have been breaking any laws as they understood the law. Ditto empires, except the notion of human rights was far weaker in the 1700s.
In short Law isn’t a universal construct, it’s relative to time and place.

[seankenny]

I never knew about Amritsar until I was a Masters student at the earliest!

 

That is quite some indictment of the British education system and our wider culture.

I went to Jallianwalla Bagh twenty years ago. Although I've not studied history past GCSE I'm definitely a South Asia-phile so knew the history, and was expecting to have to show some contrition - it's a public garden in India and Indians love to (a) talk to strangers and (b) talk about politics so I was prepared. But... totally unnecessarily! Obviously people mentioned what had happened but when they discovered I was British everyone I spoke to was all "oooh very nice country". I was surprised.

Via my partner I've been part of a Sri Lankan family for years and years now and the perspective of people at the other end of the colonial experience is perhaps interesting. Even my oldest living relative was still very small before independence, so the time of the British is more of a folk memory than anything. I've talked about Sri Lankan history and politics a fair amount with my partner and mother in law, both of whom were educated there - only up to GCSE in my partner's case - and very little weight is given to that period beyond "you guys stole all our stuff". The British were there but they were also remote. My mother in law grew up in the "big house" of the village, her dad had grown up in the very end of the British period and was definitely modern minded, he spoke English and had been a mechanic - this was very much the kind of new learning bought by the empire. He ended up running a small bus company so he travelled all over the island, but I never get the sense that he really had much to do with the imperial administration. If houses got flooded out in the monsoon it was the responsibility of my mother in law's family to take in the homeless - the "suddas" did nothing. A grisly and unprovoked murder took place in the village and the perpetrator was taken away to be tried and imprisoned by the British magistrate but the presence of the white man is very much peripheral to the story of the killing, at least the way I heard it.

What is absolutely uppermost in people's view of themselves and their country is the experience of the last forty years, primarily the civil war with the Tamil Tigers and particularly the period of near anarchy when it turned into a three way conflict between the government, the Tigers and a rural Maoist guerilla group. How the war ended, the regular outbreaks of Sinhala nationalism, the new violence against the Muslims, the current crisis, these are a huge deal, whereas the empire is reduced to "your lot were bad, the Dutch were worse, and the Portuguese were monsters!" Everyone talks about Premadasa, Chandrika and Gota (modern leaders) but I couldn't tell you who was involved in the struggle for freedom against the British because it's just not a thing.

So it's totally different to India where the the effects of Partition are still felt and public images of Gandhi are still common. In Sri Lanka the urgency and violence of modern politics and conflict seem to have obliterated much memory of the colonial period, and no one revives them because they are just not that relevant to the current problems. I saw a similar thing - at least on the surface - in Bangladesh, which is just full of public memorials and commemorations of the independence heroes of 1971, when the country took its modern form, again a very bloody episode (and one which involved everyone's grandparents). This is not to say there isn't resentment against the British in Sri Lanka but it doesn't seem to have the importance the colonial period holds in India. I sometimes think there is a tendency to believe that if only colonialism hadn't happened, that India would just have become a developed and rich country, which just strikes me as an attempt by Indian elites to paper over their own failures. While I agree that colonialism was terrible for the colonised people's countries, I don't think it's true to say that British wealth is entirely because "we stole it all" and had only that wealth remained where it was, India would now be enjoying a very high standard of living*. Partly because that seems to underplay the awesome productive power of modernity, but also I am just not convinced that South Asia had quite the institutions necessary to make that leap. A society with a huge pool of cheap labour doesn't strike me as an ideal environment in which to develop labour saving machines.

But... I think this makes a great story and is well worth fanning when annoying smart arses like Amartya Sen come along and point out that you're probably better off being poor in Bangladesh or even Nepal than you are in India. I guess this is the point where the experience of the colonised meets the experience of the colonisers - both of us are vicitims of contemporary politics which wants to shape things for the ends of the powerful, rather than trying to come to an honest reckoning of what happened and why. So we get this kind of hysteria in which acknowledgement of slave owning wealth becomes felt as a personal attack by people who really enjoy classical interiors. And because knowledge of the colonial period isn't well known even by British elites (as per the original comment above) we get blindsided when that history comes back to bite us, as we see just this week with Hindutva inspired violence in Leicester.





* I am open to seeing alternatives with some actual numbers and econometric analyses in them. Having a read around this subject has been on my to-do list of a while but life has gotten in the way.

[spidermonkey09]

That is quite some indictment of the British education system and our wider culture.

Don't disagree; all I did in History at school was the Nazis and Tudors in rotation! There was a bit of Russian Revolution thrown in there too. I didn't get interested in imperial/British history until quite recently so didn't pick the modules at university that would have led me in that direction; I was much, much more interested in modern European and Middle Eastern history then. Completely agree re culture though.

[Oldmanmatt]

I have a friend, who shares my name. We met by Googling our names, only to each find the other at the top of the search list (in those days, I actually showed up on google).
We’re polar opposite’s and not simply because he’s Aussie. He’s a cartoonist and Christian minister. Great principles, went up against his church for LGBT rights and got got kicked out for it. A better bloke than me for sure. Great comfort during my wife’s illness too. Anyway, he just posted this on FB and it seemed quite apropos.
“A Chat With Matt
Part 2 - I'm a Racist.

I visited my mum on the weekend. She is ageing and forgets many things now. Our conversations repeat themselves frequently.

This week, the death of the Queen was the topic of conversation.

Mum was genuinely upset about her death.

As were a number of my friends and colleagues. They are mourning a head of State who they admired and loved.

I’m not a monarchist at all. In my mind, the Queen was simply a nice old lady who has always been there, but had no real impact on my day to day life.

Some of my republican friends have expressed their respect for her reign.

But in the last ten days or so, something has taken me by surprise.

And I’m ashamed by it.

In my nature based work with Forest Therapy Victoria and Nature Play 4 Kids, I work with a diverse cross section of the community, including some from the Indigenous community.

The response from them to the Queen’s death has been quite different.

Some have celebrated.

Some have been glad.

Some have seen it as an opportunity to highlight the oppression their people have endured at the hands of the British Empire.

And the response within me was to get angry.

I was angry at Indigenous people for using the death of an elderly woman for their own ends.

And then, I felt the shame.

My white privilege had blinded me.

I’ve thought for a long time we should change the date of Australia Day, or make it a day of mourning. But I have been blind to SO MUCH that the British Empire symbolises for our Indigenous people.

The slaughter of communities.

The stealing of children.

The extinguishing of culture and blood lines.

We’ve expected Indigenous athletes to stand on a podium as our flag, with a prominent Union Jack, is raised before them.

We’ve expected Indigenous students to perform when a Royal person has visited.

Even now, political leaders have said now is not the time for Indigenous people to raise these issue. More silence.

So why wouldn’t we expect there to be a groundswell of feeling from First Nations people?

Why wouldn’t we expect prominent Indigenous leaders and media people to be expressing their rage?

And why would I get angry when they did?

Because, whether I like it or not, I’m still racist.

There is no point making excuses or calling it something else.

Because it’s not.

Part of me would simply prefer they say nothing because it makes me feel uncomfortable.

I’m a privileged white male whose entire lifestyle has been built on the oppression of others. I live on Wurundjeri land, not far from the birthplace of William Barak. There are songlines and others sites of Indigenous significance that I pass every day. The only reason I know these things is that I went looking. The information was hard to find. Like it’s not really important to know. Like it doesn’t matter.

For me, the death of the Queen has highlighted something about myself that I don’t like.

A white life that extinguishes black.

And I am yet to really grasp how I could ever come close to making it right.”

Matt Glover (the other one).

Which has nudged me a bit further to Andy’s pov.

[teestub]

Those are examples of crimes (which I was aware of) that are obviously crimes even in the context of the time and which we can all easily identify.

But it isn’t just those events people are talking about when they discuss empire. And it wasn’t what I was talking about although those events were definitely a part of the whole colonial project. What I meant was the whole project of empire and colonising is now held to be a crime by some people by their present day morals. Parts obviously were, but large parts weren’t by the standards of the day.

I’m interested in the legality at the time of rolling into other sovereign nations, planting a flag and declaring them part of the empire, I assume the new colony would have seen this as a crime even if England didn’t? Is the justification for this at the time covered in the book mentioned up thread? Must have been some pretty decent mental gymnastics going on.

[Fultonius]

I never knew about Amritsar until I was a Masters student at the earliest!

 

That is quite some indictment of the British education system and our wider culture.

I went to Jallianwalla Bagh twenty years ago. Although I've not studied history past GCSE I'm definitely a South Asia-phile so knew the history, and was expecting to have to show some contrition - it's a public garden in India and Indians love to (a) talk to strangers and (b) talk about politics so I was prepared. But... totally unnecessarily! Obviously people mentioned what had happened but when they discovered I was British everyone I spoke to was all "oooh very nice country". I was surprised.

Via my partner I've been part of a Sri Lankan family for years and years now and the perspective of people at the other end of the colonial experience is perhaps interesting. Even my oldest living relative was still very small before independence, so the time of the British is more of a folk memory than anything. I've talked about Sri Lankan history and politics a fair amount with my partner and mother in law, both of whom were educated there - only up to GCSE in my partner's case - and very little weight is given to that period beyond "you guys stole all our stuff". The British were there but they were also remote. My mother in law grew up in the "big house" of the village, her dad had grown up in the very end of the British period and was definitely modern minded, he spoke English and had been a mechanic - this was very much the kind of new learning bought by the empire. He ended up running a small bus company so he travelled all over the island, but I never get the sense that he really had much to do with the imperial administration. If houses got flooded out in the monsoon it was the responsibility of my mother in law's family to take in the homeless - the "suddas" did nothing. A grisly and unprovoked murder took place in the village and the perpetrator was taken away to be tried and imprisoned by the British magistrate but the presence of the white man is very much peripheral to the story of the killing, at least the way I heard it.

What is absolutely uppermost in people's view of themselves and their country is the experience of the last forty years, primarily the civil war with the Tamil Tigers and particularly the period of near anarchy when it turned into a three way conflict between the government, the Tigers and a rural Maoist guerilla group. How the war ended, the regular outbreaks of Sinhala nationalism, the new violence against the Muslims, the current crisis, these are a huge deal, whereas the empire is reduced to "your lot were bad, the Dutch were worse, and the Portuguese were monsters!" Everyone talks about Premadasa, Chandrika and Gota (modern leaders) but I couldn't tell you who was involved in the struggle for freedom against the British because it's just not a thing.

So it's totally different to India where the the effects of Partition are still felt and public images of Gandhi are still common. In Sri Lanka the urgency and violence of modern politics and conflict seem to have obliterated much memory of the colonial period, and no one revives them because they are just not that relevant to the current problems. I saw a similar thing - at least on the surface - in Bangladesh, which is just full of public memorials and commemorations of the independence heroes of 1971, when the country took its modern form, again a very bloody episode (and one which involved everyone's grandparents). This is not to say there isn't resentment against the British in Sri Lanka but it doesn't seem to have the importance the colonial period holds in India. I sometimes think there is a tendency to believe that if only colonialism hadn't happened, that India would just have become a developed and rich country, which just strikes me as an attempt by Indian elites to paper over their own failures. While I agree that colonialism was terrible for the colonised people's countries, I don't think it's true to say that British wealth is entirely because "we stole it all" and had only that wealth remained where it was, India would now be enjoying a very high standard of living*. Partly because that seems to underplay the awesome productive power of modernity, but also I am just not convinced that South Asia had quite the institutions necessary to make that leap. A society with a huge pool of cheap labour doesn't strike me as an ideal environment in which to develop labour saving machines.

But... I think this makes a great story and is well worth fanning when annoying smart arses like Amartya Sen come along and point out that you're probably better off being poor in Bangladesh or even Nepal than you are in India. I guess this is the point where the experience of the colonised meets the experience of the colonisers - both of us are vicitims of contemporary politics which wants to shape things for the ends of the powerful, rather than trying to come to an honest reckoning of what happened and why. So we get this kind of hysteria in which acknowledgement of slave owning wealth becomes felt as a personal attack by people who really enjoy classical interiors. And because knowledge of the colonial period isn't well known even by British elites (as per the original comment above) we get blindsided when that history comes back to bite us, as we see just this week with Hindutva inspired violence in Leicester.





* I am open to seeing alternatives with some actual numbers and econometric analyses in them. Having a read around this subject has been on my to-do list of a while but life has gotten in the way.

Sitting on the sidelines on this one, as I have more to learn than contribute. Just wanted to say it's good to see you string 5 paragraphs together Sean - must be a sign of some improvement!

I'm just back from Canada and my climbing partner had just finished "Barkskins" which is an epic novel covering multiple generations of colonialism in Canada, from the early settlers right through to present day, tracking the lives of various offspring and first nations peoples, with a strong theme of logging, plunder, climate destruction - all under the lens of the time - land improvement, civilisation, progress.  Interesting that the Scots were portrayed as ransacking and barbarous, cut-throat even. I knew that there was some level of the "oppressed becoming the oppressor", I understand many of the early Scottish colonists were victims of the clearances (also not taught in history...).

Without dragging the debate down too much to settle a point (which may or may not be valid...) but is it fair to call it "British" exceptionalism?  I know Glasgow was the second city of the Empire and all that, but I don't think Scotland is quite sucked under the same spell of English exceptionalism as Scotland is. Gavin Esler puts in much better than me in his book, How Britain Ends, but I do feel this is an English affliction that gave rise to Brexit - mainly through lacking a clear sense of national identity, not being reconciled with these issues of lost empire and not having robust local/regional democracy.

Ok....jumped from the sidelines there. I'll scurry back off to the bench now. Continue....

[petejh]

Those are examples of crimes (which I was aware of) that are obviously crimes even in the context of the time and which we can all easily identify.

But it isn’t just those events people are talking about when they discuss empire. And it wasn’t what I was talking about although those events were definitely a part of the whole colonial project. What I meant was the whole project of empire and colonising is now held to be a crime by some people by their present day morals. Parts obviously were, but large parts weren’t by the standards of the day.

I’m interested in the legality at the time of rolling into other sovereign nations, planting a flag and declaring them part of the empire, I assume the new colony would have seen this as a crime even if England didn’t? Is the justification for this at the time covered in the book mentioned up thread? Must have been some pretty decent mental gymnastics going on.

Here’s some reading around the topic, from here:https://privycouncilpapers.exeter.ac.uk/contexts/law-and-the-british-empire/.

Law has always been central to British self-perception. The heritage of a balanced constitution, the rule of law, and the ‘rights of free-born Englishmen’ has been as important to the historical formation of British identity as language, Protestant religion, and perceived differences with enemies, rivals or subordinated populations. Unsurprisingly, law played an equally central role in imperial governance as well as in the justification of imperial rule. This role is still being evaluated by scholars, who continue to diverge widely in their opinions. These are not simplistic arguments highlighting or denying the blessings of English law – scholars argue over whether English law was indeed capable of being transported, and if not, what kind of laws came to be applied in the colonies. Scholars have also debated the motivations and visions underlying imperial legislation, the social effect of the laws as applied, and the role of colonial populations themselves in shaping these laws and their effects.

In what historians call the ‘second British empire’ – centred on Africa and Australasia – law was supposed to be Britain’s particular boon to previously benighted societies. By prohibiting the murder and mutilation of women and children, the freeing of the enslaved, the ending of arbitrary rule by despotic rulers, and the introduction of property rights and the incentives to free productive labour – Britain would bring such places to civilisation. In fact, that Britain would do so justified their rule over foreign people and the postponement of democracy while colonised people were prepared for that political privilege. Scholars however have demonstrated that reformism with relation to social evils such as ‘Suttee’ or the burning of Hindu widows with their husband’s corpses in India, or cliterodectomy in East Africa, British statesmen and legislators were cautious and more concerned with avoiding allegations of cultural aggression than with the experience of women themselves. Also, in all these cases, because legal reform came packaged as a much broader civilisational and political claim, its more specific aims could be challenged and frustrated by those resisting the broader and invalid assertions of cultural superiority and the necessity of undemocratic rule. Thus, Indian defenders of child marriage and Kenyan defenders of cliterodectomy could both assert that British efforts at legal prohibition were based not on self-evident universal principles, but on cultural prejudice and political domination. Of course, such arguments were equally guilty of privileging certain specific political and social visions, many of which are ethically questionable. What is undeniable is that historically, it has been impossible to separate imperial law from imperial politics.

[seankenny]

Sitting on the sidelines on this one, as I have more to learn than contribute. Just wanted to say it's good to see you string 5 paragraphs together Sean - must be a sign of some improvement!

Thanks so much for noticing! Yes I’m definitely better than I was six months ago. Those five paragraphs were definitely one of my main tasks of the day but I just couldn’t have got it together before.