Those who will speak up for our colonial history
THERE has been a rush to condemn the academic who ignited controversy in an article for The Times headlined: “Don’t feel guilty about our colonial history.”
Nigel Biggar, Regius Professor of theology at Oxford, thinks the British Empire should be reappraised. He says in essence that it wasn’t all bad and actually did some good.
Fifty-eight fellow academics united to pour opprobrium on his head. In an open letter they called him “simple minded”. Oxford students piled in too, accusing him of “whitewashing” British colonialism.
I wondered if anyone would have the guts to come to the beleaguered professor’s defence. These days angels fear to tread in rows over sacred cows, in this case the default setting that the British Empire was an example of undiluted evil, greed and oppression.
So it’s interesting that of all people a leading race relations campaigner should speak up for Biggar. Trevor Phillips had no hesitation in publicly defending the man. He made it clear he has no reason to make a case for colonialism, his childhood was spent under a brutally-enforced state of emergency in British Guiana, with members of his family banged up for sedition.
But Phillips went on to say this: “We should constantly reappraise [colonialism’s] consequences, one of which is today’s multi-ethnic Britain. It may be that the 58 Oxford academics would prefer to inhabit the largely mono-ethnic, pre-Windrush Britain, a population mix somewhat preserved in their own university [OUCH!] but it is a fact that we are only here because you were there.”
Irish author Mary Kenny joined in, citing the empire’s Catholic missionaries who tried to stop foot-binding in 1900s China, and the Church of Scotland’s attempt to end female genital mutilation in Africa during the 1920s (which, when Jomo Kenyatta became Kenya’s first postcolonial president, he denounced as “imperialist meddling”).
This is not a subject for levity but I can’t help thinking of the Monty Python sketch where British revolutionaries labouring under Caesar’s yoke rhetorically demand: “What have the Romans ever done for us?” only to find themselves muttering: “Well… roads, obviously… sanitation… fresh water system… irrigation… wine… but apart from that?” etc.
Yes, we were subjugated and colonised by Rome. But what would we make of the intellect of someone today who insisted Roman rule was unqualifiedly a wicked thing?
Quite.
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