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Scanlan shares with Satia the view that liberal apologists for the British Empire were able to lean on the argument of ‘If not us, who?’ — suggesting that Britain was a ‘better’ conqueror than other European powers — and that the abolitionist movement assuaged imperial guilt. At worst, the pro-Empire liberals took the line that Britain’s benevolent rule was saving some of the world’s poor benighted peoples from themselves.
Do such views still linger? Satia cites a survey suggesting that 44 per cent of Britons have a positive view of the Empire — a statistic she obviously finds troubling. But I’m not sure this proves very much. Other surveys show that 20 per cent of people in Britain think the Moon landing was fake and a similar proportion believe Winston Churchill was a fictional character. So historians may be over-egging their own importance if they weigh too heavily the supposed responses of Joe Public to events of the past.
There’s been much work done lately to revise the public’s views of the British Empire, particularly its darker elements. Books are pumped out every year to consider anew various facets of Britain’s imperial narrative. And we’ve recently seen the cruel side of empire addressed in a more practical sense: the removal of statues which appear to represent racist views of the past and the renaming of buildings which commemorated those involved in the slave trade.
I wonder how much this performative ‘justice’ will actually help those who suffer today as a result of the legacies of empire. (I’m thinking of the indigenous peoples of Canada and Australia, who lag well behind others in access to health care and education, to a degree that should shame wealthy nations.) A frock-coated statue being torn from a plinth doesn’t change their situation. Likewise, in academia there is much talk about the importance of ‘decolonising the curriculum’. I strongly suspect that for indigenous groups, the ‘decolonisation’ they want to hear about is one in which they get their land back — not one where some books are added to, or removed from, a reading list.
Each generation of scholars explores the British Empire in different ways, and this ‘monster of time’ is unlikely to be defeated. To paraphrase William Faulkner: the Empire is never dead, it’s not even past.
Because you read about colonial history
Also by Katrina Gulliver
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