If it wasn’t for colonialism, we’d still be headhunters

Woke war over Borneo bishop’s praise for empire that Church PR boss quoted in speech on history

AN Anglican PR chief defended himself last night after he claimed there were ‘some good things about colonialism’.

Gavin Drake also controversially told the Church of England’s General Synod that the UK’s history means it ‘carries with it a power that other areas do not’.

And he quoted a former bishop in Borneo who told him the Church should ‘stop apologising’ as ‘if it wasn’t for colonialism, we’d still be headhunters’.

Mr Drake is communications director for the Anglican communion, one of the largest Christian communities in the world with more than 70million members from over 165 countries.

His comments prompted criticism on Twitter and a member of the Church of England who was watching the debate said: ‘I was astonished to hear those words coming out of his mouth.

‘I had to play it back to make sure that a middle-aged white man in a linen suit had really just said “colonialism had its plus points” which, given his role, is quite extraordinary.’

Mr Drake yesterday said he was trying to make the point that the British Empire is a part of England’s history and gives it ‘additional influence and soft power in other parts of the world.’

He added: ‘I stand by things I said – but I don’t stand by other people’s interpretations of it. When I say there are some good things about colonialism, probably a better way of putting it is that history can be put to good effect.

‘I’m not a defender of colonialism at all. Bishop Bolly [the Borneo bishop he quoted] was entitled to his view.’

His initial comments came during a debate at the General Synod about proposals to give Anglican leaders from churches around the world greater power in choosing the future Archbishop of Canterbury.

Some critics argued this could be seen as ‘colonial’ or may appear to elevate the role of the Archbishop internationally. In the debate, Mr Drake, a former director of communications for the Church of England’s Diocese of Lichfield, said: ‘A former bishop of Kuching on the north-west corner of Borneo told me he wished the Church of England would stop apologising for colonialism.

He said if it wasn’t for colonialism, we’d still be headhunters. There are some good things about colonialism as well as bad things.’ His comments received support yesterday from Nigel Biggar – a regius professor of moral and pastoral theology at Oxford University and author of Colonialism: A Moral Reckoning. He said: ‘There was a very highly competent cadre of government officials imbued with a high level of knowledge of how to run a country. British colonies were, more or less, expertly run.’

Professor Biggar caused controversy in 2017 when his article, headlined ‘Don’t feel guilty about our colonial history’, received a backlash from students and fellow academics because it highlighted some positive aspects of Britain’s colonial past.

Yesterday he claimed: ‘British colonialism was not essentially racist, exploitative, or oppressive and it spent itself in defeating the murderously racist empires of Nazi Germany and imperial Japan.’

Mr Drake last night said his remarks had been made ‘perhaps clumsily... in my hastily half-written speech which was half-delivered online while dosed up on drugs fighting Covid’.

‘Astonishing comments’