Skip to main content

joel-kelly
18th February 2016

We should be neither proud nor regretful of the British Empire

In the 21st century there is no reason to attach pride or shame to an Empire that had nothing to do with us, instead we should be objective about our past
Categories:
TLDR

A recent YouGov poll found that 59% per cent of British people felt a sense of ‘pride’ in our colonial past. Of course, we should be willing to give those respondents who were ‘proud’ the benefit of the doubt, and assume ignorance rather than malice. If they knew more about the various crimes against humanity committed by our forefathers, we should assume they would think differently of it. However, the unsung heroes of this poll are not those who were apparently “ashamed” of the empire, but those admirable fence-sitters who answered “don’t know” in lieu of “neither”—this was the most sensible of the 3 answers provided.

Let us not forget that the imperial venture was not undertaken by most Britons. Even during the height of the empire in 1922, the great majority of the Isles residents did not feel the benefit of being citizens of the state, which subjected more foreign territory and peoples to its rule than any other state had before. Britain had some of the worst slums in Europe, and the actual cost of the empire in terms of the national budget shafted the average tax payer. At the height of the British Raj, there were never any more than 1,000 imperial administrators, overseen by a Cabinet minister who was always a man of either the old aristocracy or the new bourgeoisie. These well-to-do males did not represent anything approaching the general populace. Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe), did not play an active role in the lives of most of its working class population, who were the majority.

On the subject of Cecil Rhodes, I largely sympathise with the failed effort to remove his statue from Oriel College. Those who have claimed that this was an attempt to purge our history should calm down.  The book burnings are not here yet, nor are they inevitable. We can learn the history in an objective non-judgmental sense, or even acknowledges Rhodes’ other achievements, while still accepting that it is not exactly accommodating to have a statue that celebrates a racist visible in a prominent position of a major university. Those students who campaigned for its removal were not trying to purge history, they were merely responding in an understandable way to what they know of history. Furthermore, decisions on what objects should be allowed in the space of a university should be somewhat in the hands of the student body. This, of course, extends to the alumni.

In reviewing his place in our national past, we should not forget that his ideology—and his activities—belonged to a radically different time. Maybe not so long ago in terms of time, but in terms of difference, it really was another age. Although many Britons, maybe even the majority, were racists during Rhodes’ lifetime. The beliefs and practices of Social Darwinism—which justified the empire—were held by a pseudo-intellectual clique who, in general, had as much disdain for their own domestic social underlings as they did for members of other races. The power system of the imperial age was also capable of violently and—by our standards—immorally subjecting these domestic inferiors. Take, for example, the St. Peter’s Square Massacre (1819), the violent suppression of aspirant members of the lower orders, which occurred just down the road from this university.

Churchill’s political career is also pertinent. Certainly, he is a man who should be recognised for his achievements and is rightly memorialised in stone. However, he championed the subjection of India long after it had become in any sense worthwhile. As Home Secretary, he oversaw the brutal military campaign against Irish nationalists. As late as 1930, Churchill was advocating a return to the property franchise. A property franchise and gender-based franchise kept large swathes of the population unable to participate in the election of the government which oversaw the empire. This paled in comparison to the severity of imperial subjection, but stemmed from the same elitism, and was perpetrated by an interconnected system of suppression.

The empire’s legacy in the modern world is a difficult one to evaluate. It is hard to argue that the export of Parliamentary democracy and formal education was a bad thing. It is equally difficult to argue that such benefits outweighed the myriad evils, such as slavery, oppression, and racial segregation. The point here is not that those who are directly descended from active imperial participants should feel regretful for the Empire. The point is that such practices belong to a past that had a radically different approach to race and geopolitics, as alien from our own time as was the life of a 1930s Indian Prince to that of a Jarrow dockworker. As such, it is nonsensical to express ‘pride,’ as the only way you can rightly be proud of something is if you participated in the achievement. Many cannot even conceive it, let alone bring themselves to undertake such a thing. The same is true of ‘shame.’ The sins of our fathers are not genetically present in ourselves. Such a belief belongs to people who believe that the original sin counts as actual historical fact. Britain should actively try to right the lingering wrongs of imperialism, but it is better that we do this out of pure human decency. It would be awfully self-serving to do it out of guilt, with penance at the front of our minds. Those who wish to be objective, honest, and sensible when asked such a question as ‘Is the British Empire something to be proud or ashamed of?’ have only have one logical answer. ‘Neither.’


More Coverage

Crashing pres and judging the drinking culture at different student accommodations

On a mission to discover which student accommodation hosts the best pres, I crashed some flats to find out the answer

Community strength is the best thing about university. Long-live my house share!

As I stare out a library window, well and truly into dissertation season but thinking about my St Patrick’s Day plans, I’m reminded of how lucky I feel to live in a tight-knit student community.

Main library musings – rant column #1

Edition #1 of the Opinion section’s rant column: Dive in for some good old fruitless grumbling about issues the Opinion editors think plague student life

Is marrying a foreigner now exclusively a privilege of the rich?

As the government desperately tries to cling to power they’ve announced yet another crackdown on immigration. Infuriating changes to family and skilled worker visas are set to take effect in April and they’re going to make marrying a foreigner a privilege of the rich