:00:12. > :00:20.Today on The Big Questions: Should we be proud of the British Empire?
:00:21. > :00:30.Today we are at the Oasis Academy Media City UK in Salford to debate
:00:31. > :00:34.Should we be proud of the British Empire?
:00:35. > :00:43.Welcome, everybody, to The Big Questions.
:00:44. > :00:47.Well, the British Empire once covered 13 million square
:00:48. > :00:49.miles and held sway over 458 million people.
:00:50. > :00:53.It was the largest empire in history.
:00:54. > :00:58.The extent of its territories across all the continents coloured
:00:59. > :01:02.the maps pink and created an empire on which the sun truly never set.
:01:03. > :01:07.But across the 20th century, its power waned.
:01:08. > :01:12.Most of its nearest neighbour, Ireland, fought and won the right
:01:13. > :01:15.The imperial jewel in the crown, India and Pakistan, gained
:01:16. > :01:22.Britain's new impotence was evident over Suez in 1956.
:01:23. > :01:24.And then country after country in Africa, the Caribbean
:01:25. > :01:32.All that is left is the British Commonwealth plus a few windswept
:01:33. > :01:37.Looking back now, was the British Empire something
:01:38. > :01:39.to swell our chests with pride or something
:01:40. > :01:45.We have gathered together entrepreneurs, historians,
:01:46. > :01:46.faith leaders, commentators and activists from
:01:47. > :01:57.across the Commonwealth to debate that question.
:01:58. > :02:00.And you can join in on Twitter or online by logging onto:
:02:01. > :02:01.Follow the link to the online discussion.
:02:02. > :02:04.Plus there will be lots of encouragement and contributions
:02:05. > :02:05.from our very lively and intelligent Salford audience.
:02:06. > :02:08.Should we be proud of the British Empire?
:02:09. > :02:23.Lord Curzon, Viceroy of India, for it was he, who said
:02:24. > :02:26.the empire was a supreme force for good in the world.
:02:27. > :02:39.He says it was the greatest institution the world has ever seen.
:02:40. > :02:42.He says the message is hewn in rock, our work is righteous
:02:43. > :02:45.Of course it didn't endure and the question
:02:46. > :02:49.I think we have to say this is like the curate's
:02:50. > :02:53.We also need to clarify there are two definite models here.
:02:54. > :02:55.Going back to the Greeks and the Romans, and the
:02:56. > :02:57.Greeks, their concept of imperialism was the colony.
:02:58. > :02:59.Your little island is not big enough.
:03:00. > :03:13.So you move and you settle and you become independent.
:03:14. > :03:16.The other model of course, and this is the one that really
:03:17. > :03:18.I suspect is what upsets us, is the other model like Rome,
:03:19. > :03:20.where you become extremely predatory.
:03:21. > :03:22.You attack people and you take their women.
:03:23. > :03:24.You gradually expand and you end up exploiting a weaker nation.
:03:25. > :03:30.And we are a mixture of both, precisely.
:03:31. > :03:33.We have places like Canada and Australia and indeed America,
:03:34. > :03:36.you could say, where in a sense the local population was not
:03:37. > :03:42.Look at the genocide of the Tasmanian people.
:03:43. > :03:45.What we did to the aboriginals and Maoris.
:03:46. > :03:53.Do they not outweigh any good that may have come?
:03:54. > :04:00.The Bengal famine of 1769 to 73 under the aegis of the East India
:04:01. > :04:06.10 million people died because of wilful incompetence.
:04:07. > :04:11.Atrocities in Kenya relatively recently.
:04:12. > :04:18.I think by today's standards we cannot.
:04:19. > :04:25.But nevertheless what we have to do when we look at it,
:04:26. > :04:27.particularly as a historian, we have to set it in
:04:28. > :04:31.If we are talking about British India we have to say
:04:32. > :04:40.what was there before the British came?
:04:41. > :04:42.What was in the world before the British were there
:04:43. > :04:47.Really it is there that we can pick out what to me are straws
:04:48. > :04:50.because my family was very deeply involved in British India.
:04:51. > :04:53.My father was one of the last of the civil service to rule over
:04:54. > :05:01.I saw it in action and I saw in a sense the best of it.
:05:02. > :05:08.Here I saw one man, and my memories are very strong,
:05:09. > :05:10.sitting on the verandah, as it were, dispensing justice.
:05:11. > :05:22.Imparting justice on a model that seemed to work very well.
:05:23. > :05:25.But as I say, that is a good aspect but of course
:05:26. > :05:33.There are and we shall explore both sides of the imperial
:05:34. > :05:38.What Charles says there is interesting.
:05:39. > :05:41.Perhaps we are rather value-led when we look at the past
:05:42. > :05:42.and value-led history is bad history.
:05:43. > :05:44.There were atrocities, appalling things.
:05:45. > :05:47.Well, the good things were also there.
:05:48. > :05:54.Like Charles, I agree it is hard to draw any line.
:05:55. > :05:58.We are organised in the form of debate today so we are encouraged
:05:59. > :06:00.No, listen, you can agree with each other.
:06:01. > :06:03.We are looking for genuine enlightenment.
:06:04. > :06:05.In terms of the good things, I think the infrastructure
:06:06. > :06:08.that was left behind by the British in India, which was built
:06:09. > :06:10.for reasons of exploitation and extraction of resources.
:06:11. > :06:24.One of the by-products, I think, is the infrastructure that was left
:06:25. > :06:26.behind by the empire, which you could say gave
:06:27. > :06:28.India an added benefit in 1947, which propelled us
:06:29. > :06:32.But I see that as a by-product of empire.
:06:33. > :06:36.It isn't as if it was put in place for the good of the people.
:06:37. > :06:40.The railways for instance, which are very often cited as one
:06:41. > :06:43.of the best things that the British left behind, they were there
:06:44. > :06:48.If you look at the way the railways were planned in the 19th century,
:06:49. > :06:50.they were directly connecting the ports to the hinterlands.
:06:51. > :06:57.They were not connecting cities and towns and not connecting people
:06:58. > :07:01.to pilgrimage centres where people would have loved to go.
:07:02. > :07:04.But they were built in a strategic way, functioning
:07:05. > :07:12.When you look back as a British Indian,
:07:13. > :07:32.It was a hugely unequal power structure.
:07:33. > :07:36.A sovereign state went in to invade another sovereign state by virtue
:07:37. > :07:38.of its military might, by virtue of its economic power,
:07:39. > :07:56.Historians have, and some of my colleagues will know,
:07:57. > :07:57.historians have called this the absent-minded empire.
:07:58. > :08:03.People went in knowing what they wanted.
:08:04. > :08:07.It was very well structured, very well organised,
:08:08. > :08:09.otherwise how could a handful of people from millions
:08:10. > :08:13.of miles away construct such an effective system
:08:14. > :08:15.which was the British Empire in India?
:08:16. > :08:23.I am proud of the British Empire and I think if you just look at it
:08:24. > :08:30.In 1897, I think, the year Queen Victoria celebrated her Jubilee,
:08:31. > :08:33.Britain controls about 25% of the world.
:08:34. > :08:36.What a remarkable achievement for these little islands.
:08:37. > :08:39.The fact is that were this an audience of Italians
:08:40. > :08:42.celebrating the Roman Empire or an audience of Spanish,
:08:43. > :08:49.Is there anything you are ashamed of?
:08:50. > :08:57.But you just said, Nicky, if you are going to have revisionist
:08:58. > :09:02.At the time, in the moment, the British Empire achieved
:09:03. > :09:07.And it leaves legacies which bring lots of good.
:09:08. > :09:10.And that needs to be said loud and clear.
:09:11. > :09:13.The revisionist argument, trying to apply our standards
:09:14. > :09:16.of 2016 to things that happened hundreds of years ago,
:09:17. > :09:24.People were horrified at the time about many of these crimes.
:09:25. > :09:26.To give an example, Ireland, half its population either died
:09:27. > :09:31.or fled because of the potato famine in the 19th century.
:09:32. > :09:35.There is a brilliant book by a guy called Mike Davis called
:09:36. > :09:41.It looked at how when tens of millions of Indians were starving
:09:42. > :09:44.to death in the mid-19th century, the British were exporting grain
:09:45. > :09:49.These are crimes of historical proportions and what I am
:09:50. > :09:52.frustrated by in this debate, is that we have so much
:09:53. > :09:54.to be proud of in our history that we don't talk about.
:09:55. > :09:57.Like the people who fought for our rights and freedoms.
:09:58. > :10:00.The people who fought for the right to vote, for the welfare
:10:01. > :10:02.state, against racism, against homophobia, for trade union
:10:03. > :10:06.That is a history we should be proud of, not a history of subjugating
:10:07. > :10:14.Going into other people's countries, taking their resources,
:10:15. > :10:16.subjugating them, very often dehumanising them and very
:10:17. > :10:27.No empire to the best of my knowledge has been ever perfect.
:10:28. > :10:35.There are plenty like the Soviet empire for example that have
:10:36. > :10:38.provided nothing but the genocide of millions of people.
:10:39. > :10:41.I think as empires go the British Empire was generally
:10:42. > :10:50.I think to characterise it in the way that you say,
:10:51. > :10:54.Owen, for example ignoring the fact that were it not for the Royal Navy,
:10:55. > :11:00.I tell you what, I will save you, Charles Allen.
:11:01. > :11:03.Anindita, I spotted a couple of times you wanted to come back in.
:11:04. > :11:06.You are talking about value systems and I think that is absolutely
:11:07. > :11:09.essential sitting in judgment on empire today.
:11:10. > :11:14.Like you said, what was going on then in the late 19th century,
:11:15. > :11:20.in Africa, with the massacres and everything, these
:11:21. > :11:21.are contemporary concerns of those times.
:11:22. > :11:23.This is where we need to make a distinction
:11:24. > :11:26.between the Roman Empire and the British Empire.
:11:27. > :11:28.Post-Enlightenment, given this is the post-humanist period,
:11:29. > :11:32.we are talking of an age of liberalism, of humanism,
:11:33. > :11:39.how could empire be justified even by those contemporary standards?
:11:40. > :11:41.So this is not a 21st century inflection of our values
:11:42. > :11:48.But by contemporary standards this is post-humanism.
:11:49. > :11:51.Charles, you can, and there is a lady right behind you.
:11:52. > :12:01.The values and truth remain true, whether it is the 18th
:12:02. > :12:08.One human should not exploit another human, full stop.
:12:09. > :12:11.Whether it happened in the 18th century or the 19th
:12:12. > :12:28.Charles, isn't empire the default position of history?
:12:29. > :12:30.We are all the legacy of some empire.
:12:31. > :12:35.We had the Roman Empire, Venetian Empire, the Arab Empire.
:12:36. > :12:38.The slave trade in the Islamic Empire and on it goes.
:12:39. > :12:42.Should we be beating ourselves up about this?
:12:43. > :12:44.If you look at history, it is essentially the exploitation
:12:45. > :12:52.So really you have the question of what empire it is.
:12:53. > :12:57.If I can just look at the 18th century, which is when the British
:12:58. > :13:00.come onto the map in India, we have three empires essentially.
:13:01. > :13:05.We have Aurangzeb, the last of the Mughal emperors.
:13:06. > :13:08.Now he tries to rule India with one standard law which actually happens
:13:09. > :13:15.He brings in a whole series of rules which essentially discriminate
:13:16. > :13:20.Now the other model we have are the Sikhs.
:13:21. > :13:22.The Sikhs under Ranjit Singh are trying again but essentially
:13:23. > :13:28.They are expanding and there again you have another model
:13:29. > :13:30.which essentially draws on an even earlier system which
:13:31. > :13:39.Sikhs will disagree with me, I suspect,
:13:40. > :13:49.What I am saying is that when the Brits come in,
:13:50. > :13:52.the Brits have the idea that the law applies to all equally.
:13:53. > :13:54.This is a new model in the Indian context.
:13:55. > :13:58.And there are advantages in that, which are there to this day.
:13:59. > :14:01.The Indian penal code is developed by McCauley in the 1830s and it
:14:02. > :14:09.I mentioned the caste system and you were agreeing with me
:14:10. > :14:11.as I posited the fact that it was exploited
:14:12. > :14:16.When you look back at the British Empire,
:14:17. > :14:23.I grew up in India until I was 11 and I can tell you, just coming back
:14:24. > :14:28.to that point, the fact is that now a lot of the voices that
:14:29. > :14:34.When we look back now, it is from a more balanced viewpoint.
:14:35. > :14:38.We can look back and hear the voices of those that were actually
:14:39. > :14:40.exploited and know that it wasn't so good.
:14:41. > :14:42.What we are seeing now is that propaganda of
:14:43. > :14:49.The powerful back then were so powerful.
:14:50. > :14:51.Before every movie they would have these cheering natives
:14:52. > :14:55.It was all designed to make people here feel good that this
:14:56. > :15:00.That viewpoint has endured even though it wasn't real.
:15:01. > :15:04.Even though the people didn't want to be exploited.
:15:05. > :15:06.Many, many Indians fought against the British to get them out
:15:07. > :15:09.of India but that viewpoint was kept quiet and the point that was sold
:15:10. > :15:12.to the British public here was that this was an empire
:15:13. > :15:16.that is designed as a force for good.
:15:17. > :15:19.What I find worst about this is that viewpoint now, looking back 100
:15:20. > :15:23.years later and hearing about the exploitation
:15:24. > :15:26.and the murders, and we can still sit there thinking there must
:15:27. > :15:37.In reality the people never wanted to be exploited.
:15:38. > :15:53.There might be something good about being shot in the back.
:15:54. > :15:55.You might say, well, some good came out of that.
:15:56. > :15:58.We can look at straws here and there and say,
:15:59. > :16:01.we had a benign rule or we made some railways, but in reality
:16:02. > :16:04.Dr Kartar Lalvani, come back in on this.
:16:05. > :16:07.It was during the British rule when all the castes,
:16:08. > :16:09.cultures and races were brought together for the first time
:16:10. > :16:16.For the first time under British rule.
:16:17. > :16:21.All the untouchables, everybody worked hand in hand
:16:22. > :16:28.The railway, again hundreds of thousands.
:16:29. > :16:34.The telegraph, hundreds of thousands worked together, no problem.
:16:35. > :16:49.It was the first time India, because India was a conglomerate
:16:50. > :17:20.the British empire in India was a civilising mission.
:17:21. > :17:41.The Sikh empire was far more civilised.
:17:42. > :17:43.Hold on, I will let you come back in a second.
:17:44. > :17:47.You should know better than anybody else, he is Sikh.
:17:48. > :17:50.I don't know what he is saying, but let me tell you.
:17:51. > :17:52.It was the first time, the burning of the widows.
:17:53. > :17:57.For 1,000 years, nobody bothered to do anything about it.
:17:58. > :18:02.Not just it's British but the British
:18:03. > :18:08.They took a great risk by involving themselves, when nobody
:18:09. > :18:14.This is my point, that to look at it in black and white is wrong.
:18:15. > :18:22.You have to have a more nuanced view.
:18:23. > :18:42.A lot of things. wants to speak to me!
:18:43. > :18:45.Mr Singh should appreciate that more.
:18:46. > :19:00.I think what we are seeing here is somebody, a mindset
:19:01. > :19:03.People have been programmed to believe that people
:19:04. > :19:05.are coming here to exploit you for your own good.
:19:06. > :19:08.They look past the exploitation and think, they gave us a few things.
:19:09. > :19:11.Let me go back to the points about Sati and female infanticide.
:19:12. > :19:21.The empire that the British, that the Sikhs built, for a Sikh
:19:22. > :19:25.it was totally against the law, something made by the gurus
:19:26. > :19:32.in the 17th century to have Sati or female infanticide.
:19:33. > :19:35.Issues like this make me think that we had a very high culture
:19:36. > :19:37.and then we were told, your culture is terrible.
:19:38. > :19:41.The Sikh empire never had capital punishment.
:19:42. > :19:44.We had an empire that was so big and yet nobody...
:19:45. > :19:47.How many Sikh wives had to commit Sati?
:19:48. > :19:51.Ranjit Singh was not the epitome of Sikh religion.
:19:52. > :19:55.He was called to account by the Sikh kingdom.
:19:56. > :19:58.He was the King of the Sikh empire but he was not seen
:19:59. > :20:01.He was punished by the Sikh authorities themselves.
:20:02. > :20:06.He was called to be whipped by the Sikh empire in Amritsar.
:20:07. > :20:10.Andrea, I'm coming, but clarify what you're saying.
:20:11. > :20:14.If you go to Lahore, you will see the imprints
:20:15. > :20:25.of all the wives of Ranjit Singh who when he died had had to be
:20:26. > :20:38.You were defending Sikhism as being anti-...
:20:39. > :20:40.Sikhism versus Ranjit Singh are two different things.
:20:41. > :20:43.We are into a very rich seam with this debate,
:20:44. > :20:52.We seem to be examining the tree rather than looking at the forest.
:20:53. > :20:54.We've got odd incidents of injustice here, a hospital
:20:55. > :21:04.The whole empire I take to be the forest.
:21:05. > :21:07.I think we put it into context, during the 18th and 19th
:21:08. > :21:09.century there are several revolutions in Europe.
:21:10. > :21:18.An intellectual, a scientific, and an industrial.
:21:19. > :21:21.They give Europe what I might call - Western Europe certainly -
:21:22. > :21:25.At the same time there is in Europe an enlightened movement to say
:21:26. > :21:33.we should share these things with other people.
:21:34. > :21:36.If you like, when the first - a banal example perhaps -
:21:37. > :21:38.cinema opens in India in 1896, this is a simple example
:21:39. > :21:51.The fact that we're a lot of cads, scoundrels and rascals running
:21:52. > :21:57.But there are also men of virtue,
:21:58. > :22:04.I think we should look in that general position of the empire
:22:05. > :22:14.I think a force for good, but there were some villains
:22:15. > :22:23.There's a phrase, that the sun never set on the British empire
:22:24. > :22:26.because the Almighty could never trust what the British would get up
:22:27. > :22:33.It was certainly a playground for many.
:22:34. > :22:35.Femi, you've been responsible for the campaign to get rid
:22:36. > :22:45.We had a bit of talk about the instrumentalisation
:22:46. > :22:57.of the caste system in India under British colonial rule.
:22:58. > :23:02.The British Raj was the model for a lot of what happened later in the
:23:03. > :23:19.process of colonisation. The British Raj was a model
:23:20. > :23:21.for the use of the House of Fulani in northern Nigeria
:23:22. > :23:24.and indirect rule there. The British Raj was the model
:23:25. > :23:27.for a lot of what happened later You mentioned there
:23:28. > :23:30.are legacies of empire. I would say that the Darfur conflict
:23:31. > :23:33.and the recent civil war in Sudan is a legacy of the fact that you've
:23:34. > :23:36.split the Arab north and the black African south into two segments
:23:37. > :23:39.and developed the north And the British are entirely
:23:40. > :23:42.responsible for that. I would say the British
:23:43. > :23:43.are largely responsible. There was conflict in Sudan
:23:44. > :23:46.before the British came. I thought the northern parts
:23:47. > :23:49.of the Sudan were preying on the south in that the Sudanese
:23:50. > :23:52.slave trade which General Gordon helped destroy relied on the north,
:23:53. > :23:55.the Islamic north, taking people from the tribal regions of the south
:23:56. > :24:01.and selling them into Egypt. You have animist and Christian,
:24:02. > :24:04.black African there is the south. You have in the middle, Muslim black
:24:05. > :24:06.Africans, and in the north Arab Muslims. It was a Muslim animist
:24:07. > :24:07.conflict mainly before the imposition of Christianity in the
:24:08. > :24:13.south and the kind of... But people make their
:24:14. > :24:14.own decisions to rape This is the same argument that
:24:15. > :24:22.there's so much crime in black America is due to the fact
:24:23. > :24:24.that there are primordial tensions. It is not, it's socioeconomic
:24:25. > :24:27.and structural inequality. So the Janjaweed militia,
:24:28. > :24:34.you are saying, it is not our fault? If you look at most conflict
:24:35. > :24:37.in Africa at the moment and you look at most ethnic conflict,
:24:38. > :24:51.a lot of it is due to poverty. A lot of Boko Haram comes from our
:24:52. > :24:56.schools which are impoverished where hundreds of kids
:24:57. > :25:00.have to go out and beg. I've been to Kaduna and seen
:25:01. > :25:02.it for myself. So the rape of resources
:25:03. > :25:05.and the drawing of the straight David Vance, do you want to come
:25:06. > :25:08.back here for a bit? It did take the British empire
:25:09. > :25:11.to stop the burning That was a clear, demonstrable
:25:12. > :25:16.advance of civilisation Had it not been for
:25:17. > :25:21.Britain it wouldn't I'm sorry it has taken
:25:22. > :25:25.so long to come to you. Talk about this
:25:26. > :25:34.civilising mission. We have to understand that even
:25:35. > :25:37.in the 19th century the British had to justify what they were doing,
:25:38. > :25:39.because it was known So the emphasis on things
:25:40. > :25:43.like the abolition of Sati, and I'm not going to defend
:25:44. > :25:46.the burning of widows for a second. I have problems with the idea
:25:47. > :25:49.of voluntary Sati. But that's not why what we
:25:50. > :25:53.were there for. A by-product of us our being there
:25:54. > :26:09.doesn't justify the Was it a case then there there
:26:10. > :26:13.were good people there, noble-minded people there,
:26:14. > :26:14.and humans are complex creatures, who saw this and thought,
:26:15. > :26:17.this is wrong, and in very good faith sought to
:26:18. > :26:19.and succeeded in abolishing it. I absolutely would give
:26:20. > :26:23.those people credit. Of course, in any place in any time
:26:24. > :26:27.there are be the people and bad people, and people working
:26:28. > :26:29.with good intentions, what they believed were good
:26:30. > :26:31.intentions at the time, and those willing to undertake
:26:32. > :26:33.nefarious acts to personally profit Of course there's good
:26:34. > :26:36.and bad. I don't think we can take a few
:26:37. > :26:40.examples of civilising missions. Sati affected maybe 500
:26:41. > :26:53.widows a year. There are thousands of pages
:26:54. > :26:55.of papers on them. None at all on the hundreds
:26:56. > :26:58.of thousands of people It is far more to be
:26:59. > :27:08.appreciated that the authority Companies were solely
:27:09. > :27:11.responsible to directors. They did what the Kings of India did
:27:12. > :27:15.not dare to do before. And they did it, it is
:27:16. > :27:20.a very great achievement. An early manifestation
:27:21. > :27:25.of globalisation. I think what you're seeing
:27:26. > :27:31.here are the best of British values. You can't say that Britain
:27:32. > :27:35.has no good values. I served in the British
:27:36. > :27:37.Army for four years. I do think the current Britain
:27:38. > :27:41.we are living in now does have The reality is some terrible
:27:42. > :27:53.things were done. The good things they did,
:27:54. > :28:01.I don't know where to start from. The railway, I have a 13
:28:02. > :28:04.chapter book of doing good. Judicially, what was
:28:05. > :28:20.the judiciary before? Civic society, it's judicial system.
:28:21. > :28:26.The judiciary in India was made by the British. The Empress of India,
:28:27. > :28:42.Queen Victoria, she never went there did she? OK, listen everyone. Femi
:28:43. > :28:49.mentioned the religions in Sudan - animist and Muslim... It brings me
:28:50. > :28:53.on to talking about religion, the missionary he missionary position,
:28:54. > :28:57.if you like - I wish I hadn't said that! Spreading the word, spreading
:28:58. > :29:03.the good word of the Lord. That wasn't a good thing was it? You were
:29:04. > :29:07.destroying people's cultures. Cultures. I am not saying you were,
:29:08. > :29:17.Rose. I agree with that entirely. Yes, I
:29:18. > :29:20.am a Christian, but I want to recognise that along with
:29:21. > :29:23.Christianity people brought their own culture. Of course people had
:29:24. > :29:28.their own religions where they were and the audacity of the British
:29:29. > :29:35.Empire to think we know what is right and yours is no longer
:29:36. > :29:41.important all of value! But there was health and education. The
:29:42. > :29:44.longest serving establishment in terms of health and education, it
:29:45. > :29:55.was brought through the Christian medium there. Another curates egg.
:29:56. > :29:58.Well, you may call it that. The reality
:29:59. > :30:01.Well, you may call it that. The hand on heart, cannot say I am proud
:30:02. > :30:13.of the British Empire. I am not looking at it through rose tinted
:30:14. > :30:15.believe some awful things were done. You mention about the British
:30:16. > :30:19.demolishing slavery. They didn't. You mention about the British
:30:20. > :30:29.was the people who were being enslaved who were making slavery
:30:30. > :30:34.unworkable. I am afraid that what that does is it simply contradicts
:30:35. > :30:40.the fact that the British Navy was the instrument to ensure that the
:30:41. > :30:47.slave trade was eventually removed. It is a matter of historical fact.
:30:48. > :30:57.How can you deny history? Let's go to the audience. Arms have sprung
:30:58. > :31:01.up. Good morning. The Navy took Africans to the Caribbean to work,
:31:02. > :31:06.just like slaves, which was a bad thing. They also took many back to
:31:07. > :31:14.Africa, again to endure poverty and trouble. In fact it wasn't a good
:31:15. > :31:18.thing that the Navy did, not at all. So you think that had the Royal Navy
:31:19. > :31:24.not sought to stop the slave trade, it would have magically stopped
:31:25. > :31:29.anyway? No, they encouraged it in a sense by using the same Africans to
:31:30. > :31:33.do what the planters wanted. The Jamaican rebellion was some years
:31:34. > :31:35.after that. Because of the disappointment that Emancipation had
:31:36. > :31:44.not made a difference to their lives. That was brutally put down.
:31:45. > :31:49.1865, was it? This gentleman wants to promote the image of a utopian
:31:50. > :31:54.British Empire and talking about a Soviet dystopia. The Caribbean was a
:31:55. > :31:58.dystopia for the Caribbean people and the Africans transported there.
:31:59. > :32:03.You talk about the Navy stopping slavery but I will tell you who
:32:04. > :32:07.stopped slavery. The Africans in the Caribbean rebelled violently. At the
:32:08. > :32:12.same time, granted, there were a lot of people in the UK fighting for
:32:13. > :32:18.abolition as well. From the late 1500 up until 1833 there was forced
:32:19. > :32:22.migration of 20 million people plus all their descendants. Forced
:32:23. > :32:26.dehumanisation, rape, removal and eradication of culture. For you to
:32:27. > :32:34.say that the Navy stopped it is historically disingenuous. On the
:32:35. > :32:38.Navy point, when we were fighting the French in the 19th century, it
:32:39. > :32:44.was just an excuse to attack French ships. We have abolished slavery,
:32:45. > :32:48.OK. How can we attack the French? Granted it was the Europeans
:32:49. > :32:52.transporting slaves across and cancelled their slave trades later.
:32:53. > :32:57.It was an excuse to attack French ships because they can't attack them
:32:58. > :33:01.during peacetime but since we don't like slavery any more we can attack
:33:02. > :33:06.them. The excuse was to attack the French because they are carrying the
:33:07. > :33:10.flag. Don't say the Navy was a great humanisation force when it was the
:33:11. > :33:17.same Navy that enforced the policy of forced migration of people for
:33:18. > :33:27.350 years prior. Do you want to come and sit in the front row? Can I put
:33:28. > :33:34.that in context? Go on. We have to put this in context and understand
:33:35. > :33:39.that abolishing was going on, and 40% of the contemporary state budget
:33:40. > :33:42.was given to former slave owners as compensation. 40% of the
:33:43. > :33:47.contemporary state budget. That amount of money was at stake and it
:33:48. > :33:51.was given to the slave owners. Why did they need to be pacified and
:33:52. > :34:00.paid compensation for exploiting people's lives? Celebrating the end
:34:01. > :34:03.of the slave trade is like going on a killing spree and saying now I
:34:04. > :34:08.don't like killing. You don't pat that person on the back. I would
:34:09. > :34:11.like to bring up the curious point about cinemas. It is possible to
:34:12. > :34:14.have cultural exchange and share culture and ideas without covering
:34:15. > :34:23.much of the world and inflicting famines. I think Lawrence said it
:34:24. > :34:29.was a trivial example, to be fair. The final point, this argument that
:34:30. > :34:34.somehow, again, we are applying 21st century standards to the past. In
:34:35. > :34:37.1950s there was an uprising in Kenya against British rule and the British
:34:38. > :34:43.Empire responded brutally, thousands of people. I am just making this
:34:44. > :34:48.point. People spoke up against it. Do you know who one of them what?
:34:49. > :34:53.That well-known lefty Enoch Powell, who condemned British brutality in
:34:54. > :34:56.Kenya. My point is this. There were people who stood up against this
:34:57. > :35:01.brutality and it is a disservice and a smear on those people at the time
:35:02. > :35:05.who fought for the freedom of people to say that they did not do so and
:35:06. > :35:10.were just applying the standards of the day. The broader point here
:35:11. > :35:14.which some don't seem to take into account is this. Nobody is arguing
:35:15. > :35:19.that the British Empire is a utopian model of empire. There never has
:35:20. > :35:23.been a utopian model of empire. Let me finish my point. There has never
:35:24. > :35:27.been a utopian model of empire. The very fact that the British Empire
:35:28. > :35:32.did contribute in the mid 18th-century towards the stopping of
:35:33. > :35:35.the slave trade shows that it was a more enlightened empire than many
:35:36. > :35:41.other ones that existed. But you are not here to whinge about them. I
:35:42. > :35:44.think the Arab empire was far more brutal. I want to make one point.
:35:45. > :35:52.The Sikhs suffered from both the British Empire and the Arab empire.
:35:53. > :35:55.The thing about the Arab empire, they knew they were the enemies and
:35:56. > :36:02.they fought them. With the British it was more nuanced. The Arabs never
:36:03. > :36:08.tried to twist the secret agent to suit them. With the British it was
:36:09. > :36:11.very much of taking a religion which is very independent and loving, and
:36:12. > :36:16.trying to convert that into something they can use for their own
:36:17. > :36:23.benefit. They convinced the people to join the British Army, use them
:36:24. > :36:30.for their own good and then attack other people. They were far more
:36:31. > :36:36.insidious and dangerous. Let's talk about decolonisation. There are
:36:37. > :36:45.things I want to talk about again, like Christianisation. Some people
:36:46. > :36:51.argue that has left never get to -- negative legacies. Things like
:36:52. > :36:57.homophobia. But talking about decolonisation, sitting down and the
:36:58. > :37:00.straight lines drawn on a map in Africa, and no understanding of
:37:01. > :37:06.tribal or ethnic complexities in that continent. I suppose empires
:37:07. > :37:11.have historically been short on foresight, but we made some terrible
:37:12. > :37:19.mistakes, didn't we? Well, I am not sure. No, let's think of it. How
:37:20. > :37:27.many African states are fighting boundary walls at the moment? Quite
:37:28. > :37:36.if you actually. -- quite a few actually. Let's forget about the
:37:37. > :37:40.boundaries. That is irrelevant. The British government asked for the
:37:41. > :37:48.assistance of the subjects of empire to fight the Second World War. This
:37:49. > :37:54.generated a powerful sense of reciprocity. A large number of
:37:55. > :37:57.Indians and Africans knew what Hitler and Mussolini had in store.
:37:58. > :38:05.It was very nasty and they knew that. So they fought. And then at
:38:06. > :38:09.the end of the war in 1945, tens of thousands of them, in the French and
:38:10. > :38:14.the British Empire, came home and they asked the question: We have
:38:15. > :38:19.risked our lives in a fight which we have been told, and rightly so, I
:38:20. > :38:29.believe, was a morally good cause. What do we have in return? We have
:38:30. > :38:32.been fighting this war for freedom. President Roosevelt, the Atlantic
:38:33. > :38:39.charter. What share are we going to get of the spoils of this war, and I
:38:40. > :38:44.think that is the first thing in the background to decolonisation.
:38:45. > :38:51.Thousands and thousands of Africans, and educated elite, ex-soldiers,
:38:52. > :38:57.were asking the question: This freedom we fought for, when is it
:38:58. > :39:02.coming to us? The British government has turned round and said, well, I
:39:03. > :39:07.think we have got to consider decolonisation. In 45, the Labour
:39:08. > :39:14.government came to power promising it to India and Pakistan. With no
:39:15. > :39:19.money, so we liked it. It was a manifesto. Labour said, we will give
:39:20. > :39:25.independence to India, Salam and Burma. This was in the Labour
:39:26. > :39:28.manifesto and it came about in 1947. They go further and say it will be
:39:29. > :39:36.extended to Africa. Nobody could quite work out what the timetable
:39:37. > :39:40.would be. The 1990s was given. And then something else happened in
:39:41. > :39:48.1945. We have the beginning of a Cold War. Yes. In which newly
:39:49. > :39:53.independent countries find that the Soviet Union and the United States
:39:54. > :39:56.are competing for them. They are coming along and saying join us,
:39:57. > :40:04.vote for us in the United Nations, we will help you. In 1954, an
:40:05. > :40:12.African ruler of an independent country, Colonel NASA, once weapons.
:40:13. > :40:25.-- General Nasser. Chris Chester I will give you weapons and tanks to
:40:26. > :40:29.fight Israel and also resist encroachment by Britain. Then you
:40:30. > :40:36.have Africa decolonisation at the same time as the Soviet union and
:40:37. > :40:43.the United States are looking for world power and confronting each
:40:44. > :40:47.other. So we are relevant? Britain does become irrelevant. There are
:40:48. > :40:51.well sourced arguments that the secular regime of General Nasser,
:40:52. > :40:57.the reaction to it, has led to many of the seeds of Islamism and the
:40:58. > :41:03.seeds we have that. One thing leads to another. Can I ask you because
:41:04. > :41:11.you have been coming back in, if we talk about 1947, India's freedom, if
:41:12. > :41:19.you drew a line on the map and you had done it better, what would you
:41:20. > :41:27.have done? Over to you. I have been put on the spot, haven't I? Better
:41:28. > :41:38.than Mountbatten. I would certainly have taken more than two weeks! It
:41:39. > :41:46.is an interesting question. It is. If I can slightly evade the
:41:47. > :41:49.question? It has happened before! So many things have been bandied about
:41:50. > :41:54.in this debate that I want to get back to. The idea that Britain gave
:41:55. > :41:59.India independence in 1947, that is a myth. We need to get over that.
:42:00. > :42:05.All the civilising that we had been doing for this period, we did all
:42:06. > :42:11.this great good to the people, and this was the time that we felt that
:42:12. > :42:14.India was right to be handed over, given its freedom, and we left. It
:42:15. > :42:19.didn't work like that. Britain was in a terrible mess in the post-war
:42:20. > :42:23.situation. It might have been in the Labour manifesto for obvious reasons
:42:24. > :42:27.but it was also a question of this becoming a very expensive colony to
:42:28. > :42:34.maintain and it just could not have happened. The Congress showed itself
:42:35. > :42:38.as downright noncooperative during the Second World War and this was
:42:39. > :42:40.the last straw, the time and they were absolutely sure that normal
:42:41. > :42:45.co-operative talks could go on between themselves and Britain. From
:42:46. > :42:53.the point of view of the Indian freedom struggle, it had reached its
:42:54. > :42:58.point. This had to be sold. It was a internal pressure as well. It wasn't
:42:59. > :43:03.just the war and aspirations for liberation that had been suddenly
:43:04. > :43:07.sparked to life in people. This is a freedom struggle that goes back to
:43:08. > :43:12.1885. It isn't suddenly the Second World War that has created these
:43:13. > :43:22.aspirations. Hell I quickly finished? That is one method that we
:43:23. > :43:28.should get over, that myth. The idea that the nation was a gift of
:43:29. > :43:33.Britain to India does not hold true. It wasn't education, it was on the
:43:34. > :43:37.railways, it was the civilisation that did this, it was the presence
:43:38. > :43:41.of Britain in India. It was the anti-colonial nature of the struggle
:43:42. > :43:45.that brought India together. The British contributed to the Indian
:43:46. > :43:48.nation but only by being there and being what they were, which was an
:43:49. > :43:54.oppressive colonial regime. Let's talk about legacy as well, not just
:43:55. > :44:01.decolonisation. In Africa we paved the way to apartheid, didn't we?
:44:02. > :44:07.Many of the problems in Africa today are down to how we behaved, what we
:44:08. > :44:11.did. Should we hang our heads in shame?
:44:12. > :44:20.I don't think the problems today in Africa can be laid at the door of an
:44:21. > :44:24.empire long since gone, Nicky. People have to accept responsibility
:44:25. > :44:29.for themselves in their own independent countries. But people
:44:30. > :44:35.are still suffering because of the slave trade aren't they? Which is
:44:36. > :44:41.being carried out by other rising empires such as for example some of
:44:42. > :44:47.the Islamic empires we see cropping up. No, we cannot be carrying the
:44:48. > :44:51.consistent guilty over everything that isn't perfect in every part of
:44:52. > :45:02.the world. We weren't a perfect empire, I'm not saying we were. Did
:45:03. > :45:08.we make mistakes? Yes we did, but Zambia, whenever it was part of the
:45:09. > :45:14.British empire, and we ruled and governed it, the average Zambian had
:45:15. > :45:20.an income of one seventh of what we had here. All these years later,
:45:21. > :45:26.what do they have? One 27th of the income here. Whose fault is that?
:45:27. > :45:42.Whose fault is that? We've gone. Who is responsible? Femi? The first
:45:43. > :45:49.point on Owen and what he said about the Mau Mau insurrection. How is
:45:50. > :45:54.bringing are civilisation to a culture systemic internment camps of
:45:55. > :46:01.1.5 people, anal rape of men with snakes, scorpions and knives? You
:46:02. > :46:06.have women, pregnant women shot. You have kids, when the British went to
:46:07. > :46:13.Australia... Are there atrocities in all empires? There are atrocities in
:46:14. > :46:18.the French empire, the Belgian empire. Human beings can be ghastly
:46:19. > :46:34.creatures. ALL TALK AT ONCE
:46:35. > :47:29.I think there is an awful tendency to simplify. The fact is that we do
:47:30. > :47:35.not study this period. Many countries that have been newly
:47:36. > :47:40.liberated from 1947 onwards, and use that word, it is a liberation, they
:47:41. > :47:44.do not study anything other than the freedom movement. India is a classic
:47:45. > :47:50.example. If you ask people about what happened in the 19th century,
:47:51. > :47:54.people will not know the freedom movement has become... We need
:47:55. > :47:58.national myths, and I can understand why every country, whether it is
:47:59. > :48:05.Kenya or another, needs to portray the freedom struggle in the most
:48:06. > :48:12.positive terms, but there are nuances that get missed. How many
:48:13. > :48:17.other tribes got involved? How much was it about land guarding by one
:48:18. > :48:23.tribe? Who were the victims? Other Africans. Very few Europeans
:48:24. > :48:27.actually got killed by that tribe, so this is not black and white
:48:28. > :48:31.history. My worry is that we are getting black and white history when
:48:32. > :48:36.there are so many nuances involved. Nuances are the great delights of
:48:37. > :48:40.history, aren't they? Let's talk about history. You can come in
:48:41. > :48:45.without me even asking you a question. I would not like us to go
:48:46. > :48:50.away feeling guilty about the atrocities of the British Empire.
:48:51. > :48:57.What I want us to do is to acknowledge that there were these
:48:58. > :49:04.major, major issues. They are still impacting on us today. For example,
:49:05. > :49:09.by virtue for example of paying the slave owners, and giving nothing to
:49:10. > :49:19.those who were the victims of it, it has left people in that victim mode.
:49:20. > :49:23.By virtue of taking away people's culture, killing who they are, that
:49:24. > :49:35.still exists today. That is why the racism that exists in our present
:49:36. > :49:41.time exist because we still think you are white, you are black, you
:49:42. > :49:46.are not good enough. This is part of the legacy. We see this happening
:49:47. > :49:50.all over the world from one set of human beings to another. The Chinese
:49:51. > :49:54.empire, the rape of resources in Africa from the Chinese empire at
:49:55. > :49:57.the moment. The American empire, the Chinese, there will always be
:49:58. > :50:03.empires and the human being does terrible things. But do you think
:50:04. > :50:07.the British Empire has a uniquely pernicious legacy because of the
:50:08. > :50:12.slave trade? It is there. We cannot deny it. It is still there. Why is
:50:13. > :50:20.it that our children today do not learn about cultural things? Why is
:50:21. > :50:28.it only what is Eurocentric or British? Can we take on a collective
:50:29. > :50:35.guilt, people watching today? Guilt is useless. Are we responsible in
:50:36. > :50:38.the way we spread Christianity for homophobia? I was listening to a
:50:39. > :50:42.documentary about homophobia in Jamaica. You gave us the Bible, the
:50:43. > :50:47.truth, we believed it, and suddenly you tell us not to believe it. I
:50:48. > :50:50.agree that it's wrong and I would never condone that. Are we
:50:51. > :50:57.responsible for spreading those never condone that. Are we
:50:58. > :51:02.reaping the legacy of it today. Do you think the spreading of
:51:03. > :51:05.Christianity was wrong? It is not so much about the spreading of
:51:06. > :51:11.Christianity. It is what we packaged it in. There are strong arguments
:51:12. > :51:14.that we are responsible for the spreading of homophobia and those
:51:15. > :51:22.attitudes, but there have been generation after generation of
:51:23. > :51:27.changes to penal codes, so can they still put the blame at our door?
:51:28. > :51:34.I think we are very much still under the umbrella, as it were, of that
:51:35. > :51:41.painful time in history. Still very close in the great span of time.
:51:42. > :51:46.Audience. You've had your hand up for so long. There's been a lot of
:51:47. > :51:51.nonsense talked this morning. You should come every week! The saddest
:51:52. > :51:58.thing I've seen this morning is the true British way, where two Sikhs
:51:59. > :52:05.have argued the most. You talked about the mogul empire preceding the
:52:06. > :52:09.British empire, sati is not an Islamic principle. But as a young
:52:10. > :52:13.British Pakistani Muslim, what we are talking about now angers me the
:52:14. > :52:17.most. Muslims are always told, you don't integrate, you are not
:52:18. > :52:23.involved. Black people are told you are not good enough, you are not
:52:24. > :52:27.smart enough, you are crimes. You are criminals. Criminals. When you
:52:28. > :52:33.have people like this on the front row who will always see black,
:52:34. > :52:37.brown, Asian people as being below them, we subjugated you, we owned
:52:38. > :52:41.you at one stage, you can't get above your level, how dare you get
:52:42. > :52:51.anywhere? They keep you at that level. What is your name? Mohammed.
:52:52. > :52:54.One of the arguments is that one of the positive effects of empire is
:52:55. > :53:01.multiculturalism. It is not working. One of the do we do next? You talked
:53:02. > :53:05.about India and Pakistan being the jewel in the crown. Literally.
:53:06. > :53:13.You've still got the jewel in the crown. My crown? Whose brown. The
:53:14. > :53:18.British. But you're British, it is in your crown. No, it needs to be
:53:19. > :53:30.returned to the people it was stolen from. Charles, a lot of yous going
:53:31. > :53:35.on here. It should go back to the tribal people in Golconda. Return
:53:36. > :53:39.it. It shouldn't go to Lahore, because it has gone through hundreds
:53:40. > :53:45.of rulers and conquerors over the centuries. The idea that these
:53:46. > :53:49.simple tokens, that is not enough. Let me go back to that gentleman
:53:50. > :53:59.there. Good morning to you. Good morning. A quick point. I just need
:54:00. > :54:03.a minute. I have heard some of the most preposterous comments today
:54:04. > :54:10.made by many panellists. Which one most of all? Mainly from this side.
:54:11. > :54:16.We started as an India with a nation. Nationhood ationhood was
:54:17. > :54:21.given by Britain - thank you. You. And there was infrastructure that
:54:22. > :54:24.was laid. Whether it was Indian penal code, the Indian Post Office
:54:25. > :54:26.or Indian Indian penal code, the Indian Post Office or Indian
:54:27. > :54:31.railways, the Indian Army - these were all central to the development
:54:32. > :54:36.of the empire. The infrastructure was necessary, so it was for their
:54:37. > :54:41.own needs, as one of our panellists put. We had that point earlier. We
:54:42. > :54:45.haven't got a lot of time, so come to your point quickly. What I'm
:54:46. > :54:54.coming to is the social engineering that we talked about earlier was not
:54:55. > :54:58.given by the British. It was by all the social engineers, people like
:54:59. > :55:04.Gandhi and others. They are this ones that did that. We have also
:55:05. > :55:11.talked, not talked about famines in India. We have talked about famines.
:55:12. > :55:17.That point you made about racism is critical. Obviously to justify
:55:18. > :55:21.empire, people who were being colonised were being dehumanised.
:55:22. > :55:24.They had to be seen as inferior, as you wouldn't allow that behaviour
:55:25. > :55:31.against people you would see as like yourself that. Legacy scars our
:55:32. > :55:37.society today. I do think the people are watching this and saying you are
:55:38. > :55:42.castigating Britain, an anti-Britain it has fest. In our curriculum in
:55:43. > :55:46.schools across the country, we are not seeing the history of all
:55:47. > :55:52.backgrounds and faiths who fought for our rights and freedoms. Are you
:55:53. > :55:57.proud of Churchill? I'm proud of the British war effort against the
:55:58. > :56:03.Nazis. It is argued he had racially supremacist attitudes. Of course
:56:04. > :56:09.people who ran the British empire were full of racism. Having a statue
:56:10. > :56:14.of someone who called, he said Indians were ghastly people with a
:56:15. > :56:21.ghastly religion, the famine was their own fault because they bred
:56:22. > :56:26.like rabbits. Ultimately would you like the statue... I'm not going to
:56:27. > :56:30.make a comment on that, or I will be dragged through the Daily Mail. You
:56:31. > :56:34.said Chinese rape of African resources as if. Shell, a
:56:35. > :56:38.British-Dutch company, was not paying the Nigerian Government...
:56:39. > :56:46.I'm proud that we are now a diverse society and we can build on it and
:56:47. > :56:49.go forward. What is the positive legacy? What can people look at and
:56:50. > :56:53.remember? Is there anything about the empire that still binds us
:56:54. > :57:00.together? I think the Commonwealth for me is a good thing. I am glad
:57:01. > :57:05.that you gave us cricket I am talking with my Caribbean hat on.
:57:06. > :57:10.That I gave you cricket? Yes, and look at how terrific we are. But I'm
:57:11. > :57:19.glad that right here in Britain we can be truly, we are not fully there
:57:20. > :57:21.yet, we need work at being a better diverse and multiethnic,
:57:22. > :57:27.multicultural society, celebrating each other. There are three enduring
:57:28. > :57:30.legacies we can be proud of. We spread liberal capitalism around the
:57:31. > :57:36.world to the annoyance of some. We shared a form of government which in
:57:37. > :57:42.many ways still continues. And last but by no means least, 450 million
:57:43. > :57:48.people speak English in some regards. What a wonderful labcy.
:57:49. > :57:55.Labcy. There is lots to be proud of. We heard lots of grievances going on
:57:56. > :57:59.but there is lots to be proud of. They only need to speak English
:58:00. > :58:02.today precisely because we did colonise half of the world. And you
:58:03. > :58:10.should be proud of that. APPLAUSE. It is called an
:58:11. > :58:11.achievement. It is not an achievement.
:58:12. > :58:22.ALL TALK AT ONCE MUSIC: Ain't No Mountain High Enough
:58:23. > :59:07.by The Supremes Follow the world's greatest
:59:08. > :59:09.migrations on an epic race for life.