by Simon Lemieux, Head of History and Politics
Among its findings are that the slave trade and directly
related trades such as the West Indian sugar trade were only a relatively small
part of the UK economy, sugar for example constituting 2.5% of the national
income for much of the 18th century. Slave ships equally made up just
3.5% of total tonnage. Another key conclusion is that industrialisation was
well underway before the peak of the slave trade – 1792 being the busiest
single year. This is not to disassociate or whitewash the British Empire from
slavery. For a start, there were the investment returns delivered to
bondholders, not least royalty (James I, for starters) who invested in the
Royal Africa Company. There is a significant and telling conclusion in the
article: ‘The European idea of freedom had first been consistent
with slavery in the Americas but later brought about its abolition.’ We would
do well to celebrate and elevate even higher, those courageous British abolitionists
in the late 18th and early 19th century, an impressive
coalition of politicians, churchmen and former slaves who ‘fought the
establishment’ and eventually prevailed. Britain ended the slave trade in 1807
and abolished slavery in the Empire in 1833 admittedly with hefty compensation
packages for the ex-slave owners paid for by the Exchequer. I think the likes
of John Newton, William Wilberforce and Olaudah Equiano would take the knee in
2020. Why does all this matter? Because
we need a proper perspective on the complex nature of the relationship between
slavery, empire, and the British economy. They did indeed do many things
differently, and often wrongly through a 21st century lens, ‘back
then’. Yet perhaps not so differently. We can see modern parallels in the
Fairtrade movement advocating an economic system based on fair wages for
producers, and popular movements which set out to educate, adopt a slogan, ‘Am
I not a man and a brother’. Yes, ‘taking the knee’ goes back well before 2020
as a symbolic gesture of solidarity, anger, activism and poignancy.
I'll admit it, I (probably like the vast majority of folk) was blindsided by COVID-19 and by the strange eerie
life in which we now found ourselves. I’ll admit it, I was somewhat blindsided
by just how bad Trump has handled it, though with hindsight I shouldn’t have
been. I was less surprised by our own PM’s blustering and faffing, though
dithering rather than intentional division was the root cause, I suspect, of the
delays, mixed messages and the rest. Cummings was an appalling sideshow along
with the rest of those who ‘should have known better’ who broke the spirit/laws
during the toughest phase of lockdown.
I was even more
blindsided, if I’m honest, by the reactions to the death of George Floyd, the
outpouring of support for BLM, the virtue signalling, the mass protests, the
courage and the stupidity of demonstrators and counter-demonstrators (more courage than stupidity, I should add). Is it summer madness, is it the spark
that has set the tinderbox to the dry lumber of systemic racism, social
inequality and deep societal divides? Is it the repressed anger of those, in
the UK at least, who still feel angry, nay damn angry, about Brexit and its
aftermath? Is it that different generations view it so differently? Do my
generation feel secure and smug having lived through an era of largely free
education, relatively secure employment and affordable house prices. We also
feel, again complacently(?) that toleration has come on leaps and bounds ‘in
our lifetimes’. Overt discrimination has all but disappeared from the
formalities of life lived above the surface.
In sum, is this as much a conflict between generations as much as it is
about race, class and economics? In part, probably yes. Can we make links
between our current state and a wider ennui in society, or will it all pass?
History both gives us guidance, freedom and warnings. In short, how should
those who purport to have insights into the past try and make sense of all this
mess? Allow me to offer three ways forward.
Above all, we need truth, historical facts and as broad a
context and perspective as possible. We need to know that our heroes (and even
here I fear we are sleepwalking into the realm of sectarian heroes) were women
and men with flaws and weaknesses. What matters is the sum balance of their
contribution to nation and cause. An unrepentant slave-owner, cruel even by the
standards of his own day, is not morally redeemed by philanthropy. In the same
way, in the modern age, a family that made much of its fortune through the
aggressive sale of addictive opioids and underplays its addictive risks, is not
sanctified by generous benefactions to charitable causes.[i]
In fact, the parallels seem apt. Opioid addiction has killed thousands
of Americans, ravaged families and disproportionately affected the poorest
and most vulnerable, profiting the few. Slavery is not a unique crime; it
points, or should I say screams out, to the exploitation of the many for the
benefit of the few. It is just perhaps, the most blatant and debased form of
human greed and profit at any price.
But to return to the whole truth, we need to be properly
informed about our heroes as well as our victims. On balance, we are right, I
believe, to elevate Churchill; he deserves fully his plinth in Parliament
Square. We should not shy away from the fact that, some social reforms in the
pre-war Liberal governments aside, for much of the time he was ‘on the wrong
side’ in history: Gallipoli, Indian independence, the Bengal Famine and a
pretty undistinguished tenure as a peacetime PM. His own granddaughter, Emma
Soames, phrased it rather well, "He was a powerful, complex man, with
infinitely more good than bad in the ledger of his life."[ii]
But he played a crucial role in the defeat of that most racist of creeds,
Nazism. A Britain led by Lord Halifax or another, might well not have proved so
stubborn and dogged during ‘our darkest hour’.
On ‘the other side’ we should not ignore Gandhi’s racist
comments about Africans, when staying in South Africa at the turn of the
century. He wrote that unlike the African, the Indian had no "war-dances, nor does he drink Kaffir
beer". Nor should we forget the angry denunciation of all whites by a
younger, pre-Hajj pilgrimage Malcolm X, who once advocated black separatism
and fiercely criticised the non-violence approach of Martin Luther King and the
“Farce on Washington. Who heard of angry revolutionists all harmonizing ‘We
Shall Overcome’ … while tripping and swaying along arm-in-arm with the very
people they were supposed to be angrily revolting against?” (iii) Or the serial marital
infidelities of King himself. What was true about Churchill is true about
Gandhi, Malcolm X and King and most others in the plinth pantheon. They were
not perfect, they had character flaws and made mistakes, we need to know about
the whole person, and admire and honour the good. History has a commitment to
the whole truth, and that can often involve finding out inconvenient truths
about those heroes we hold most dear. That does not take away greatness; it
does remind us that none are perfect. I think our history lessons could
probably do more to present fuller portraits of the great and the good, ‘warts
and all’ as Oliver Cromwell said (another controversial and complex figure).
But there is something else we need to bear in mind, and
that is the place of perspective and
context. Understanding the past is to offer a rich resource-base of exemplars,
warnings, and, as the alumni petition rightly quoted back at us: ‘Those who
cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it’, is indeed a mantra in
many a History department. Yet we must balance that with (as L.P. Hartley put it
in The Go-Between) “The past is a foreign country; they do things differently
there.” The word ‘differently’ is key here, we must not judge the past through
the lens of the present. We must learn it accurately, draw from it what is
relevant today (and so much of it is), and archive the rest. To take empires,
fundamentally these are ethically flawed; one nation, race or tribe taking over
another without its consent often through conflict and a rigged economic
system, is wrong and has always been thus. Yet empires litter the historical
landscape; they ignore boundaries of ethnicity, race and religion. Few, if any, end well. Was the British Empire more morally bankrupt than say its contemporary
equivalents? No? Was it all bad – no. Would we do the same again – absolutely
not, and nor could we. When we teach the trade triangle and slavery, the links
with providing a market for industrial products from a newly industrialising
Britain are I hope clearly made. Yet it is not historically or economically
accurate to view the Industrial Revolution, a necessary step in modernisation
and progress but with its attendant human and environmental costs, as totally
dependent on the slave trade. Implicit and complicit yes, but fundamentally
centred around it: no. If you want to explore this topic further, there is an insightful article, ‘The Importance of Slavery and the Slave Trade to
Industrializing Britain’ by Eltis and Engerman, published in 2000 in the
Journal of Economic History (you can read the article here).
History therefore can offer us hope as well as understanding
and context. Things can change, have changed and doubtless will change again.
That is the meta-narrative of the human experience.
There are evil cruelly ironic words, given the unique context,
on the entrances to many concentration and extermination camps such as
Auschwitz-Birkenau, ‘Abeit macht frei’ – ‘work will make you free’. A lie pure
and simple. Yet, history I genuinely believe can be a source of liberation from
the manacles of the past; history can set us free. So, my final theme (and well
done if you have made it this far) is that the future lies in our own hands. We
are not prisoners of the past, we need to understand it accurately, however
uncomfortable it is; we need to appreciate the importance of perspective and
context, and we need to plot our own course. Sloppy, generalised narratives, raw
anger and misdirected acts of wanton vandalism are of less help than positive
actions. And when we start removing/censoring Fawlty Towers, Gone with the
Wind etc, come on: there is such a thing as an Off button in any case, as
they say. Yet there is plenty to do, more than many smugly thought.
One area perhaps above all needs addressing. As Trevor
Philips former chair of the CRE tweeted, when asked about the toppling of the Colston statue and renaming of Gladstone Hall
at Liverpool University , ‘It may do more for #BLM to spend time today
putting some more people in top jobs’. He has a very fair point. I don’t
personally support affirmative action, perhaps I am too much of an old-style
free market liberal for that, but un(?)conscious bias is a real danger. The OP/current
pupil petitioners have a very valid point about the diversity of teaching
staff. I genuinely and desperately hope I have never been guilty of that
whenever I’ve been involved in recruiting staff for the department. I honestly
don’t think I have, but soul-searching is no bad thing. One story that has genuinely
shocked me and made me sit up and realise unconscious bias is alive and well in
places that really should know better, is that of Augustine Tanner-Ihm a
trainee Anglican (Church of England) priest. Augustine, who recently completed
his training at Cranmer Hall, Durham, and has since been applying for curacies
(trainee-vicar posts for those not in the know), received an email reply
from one parish rejecting him “firstly” on the grounds that “the demographic of
the parish is monochrome white working class, where you might feel
uncomfortable”. Augustine lived, trained, and worked almost exclusively in
white working-class communities; he actively applied for the post knowing the
demographic of the parish. And on a personal note, although I’ve never met
Augustine myself, my eldest daughter who has just finished at the same college,
though reading Modern Languages and not training to be a priest, lived down the
corridor from him this year. As a practising
Anglican myself, I am deeply ashamed of such stories being heard in 2020. Arguably,
it is precisely in those environments that are largely monochrome, that most
need variety in their composition and leadership, whilst avoiding the
condescension of tokenism. See more here.
Churches, boardrooms, schools…..
In fairness, and as evidence that genuine progress is being
made at least in some areas, the current Conservative Cabinet has two out of
three of the top jobs below the PM (Home Secretary, Chancellor and Foreign
Secretary) filled by ministers from a BAME background. Again, a reality check
before we rush headlong into the valley of despair, or assume that only the
left, liberal ‘woke’ corner hold all the righteousness cards in this debate. …
So some takeaways:
· * Teach the whole history as far as is possible,
recognising complexities and difficulties, and that inconvenient truths might
be encountered on all sides. A wider range of stories needs to be told, on all
sides
* Be accurate in our facts. There is much
misinformation out. An article in the Guardian covering demonstrations in
London last weekend commented, ‘There were many opinions expressed in Hyde Park
and Trafalgar Square (i.e. both anti-racist and far right) to which one might
take exception. For example, I was told Covid-19 was over. Doug “the Fresh” (a
BLM demonstrator) maintained there was an £80,000 salary gap between black and
white people. And one woman seemed convinced that “the establishment” funded
the BNP so as to maintain racial tensions between the workers.’ (see here). Yes, we need truth and information more
than ever, and a spirit of intellectual openness and rigour to supply that.
· * Remember our heroes often have feet of clay, but
can be heroes none the less.
· * Treat the past on its own terms, but don’t be
constrained by it.
· * Reflect on Matthew Ch 7 v5 ‘You hypocrite!
First, remove the beam out of your own eye, and then you can see clearly to
remove the speck out of your brother’s eye.’ Enough said.
· * Have conversations on the delicate and difficult
topics that are open, broad, honest and based on trust, and are not restricted
by the assumption that you know the outcome from the start or are so obsessed
with being ultra-PC that the ‘tough stuff’ is left under the carpet. The
previously quoted Guardian article concluded, ‘But that’s the beauty of free
speech. You can disagree without any need for thuggishness.’ And we must.
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