Over the last five to ten years, factious arguments about the British empire, about toppling the monuments that mark it, about making reparations for it, and about how to teach it in schools, have swept through our public discourse. This is a relatively new thing. We didn’t used to talk about the British empire so much and when we did, it was in a more positive and nostalgic light. Today there is a daily drip, drip, drip of the wrongs of empire.
In this episode of the Behind the Scenes at the Museum podcast, Tiffany is joined by ethicist Nigel Biggar, the author of Colonialism: A Moral Reckoning, and the anti-imperialist historian James Heartfield, author of Britain's Empires: A History - 1600-2020, for a discussion about the rights and wrongs of empire - and to ask why has the turn to the past has occurred.
Biggar aims to set the record straight on empire, to defend it, and to show why not every critique is right. Heartfield is an anti-imperialist who has long condemned empire, but finds himself surprised and disquieted to have won the argument.
They examine what the empire was and its different iterations; ask whether it was racist and to what extent violence was integral. (In this part, their reference is Caroline Elkin’s superb Legacy of Violence: A History of the British Empire). They reflect on the role of history and whether is can or should be moral, and finally - this is a longer episode than usual - discuss why the turn towards the worst of the past, and seeking reparations, is not as radical as it first appears.