Colonial spoils and selective amnesia.. How did imperialism shape modern Britain?

The British Empire, which spanned for several centuries, was described as the one on which the sun never sets. Its influence included many countries, most notably most of India and the regions of Greater Africa, North and South Africa, and also expanded beyond the seas in Asia and the Americas.

In his book "Empireland: How Imperialism Shaped Modern Britain?", British author and journalist Satnam Sangira offers a new critique of the history of the British Empire, and its continuing impact on British society.

In his article published by the London School of Economics and Political Science, the Kenyan writer and critic Ramnik Shah said that this book reflects the view of Satnam Sangira as a child born in the United Kingdom to Indian Sikh parents, who immigrated to Britain in the late 1960s.

The publication of this book coincided with the emergence of an important Black Lives Matter movement and related movements that shed light on the historical dynamics of imperialism, as well as the importance of African and Asian communities and British ethnic minorities in particular.

Empire inheritance

The writer pointed out that the heritage of ethnic groups in the British Empire remained present, although it was not recognized to a large extent.

According to Sanghera's book in Chapter 1, "Although there has been a recent increase in interest in the history of British colonialism [..] the influence of the British Empire on this country is poorly understood."

He attributes this to the failure of the UK education system to educate successive generations of schoolchildren on the subject.

Sanghera returns to this topic in the last chapter of the book entitled “Decolonizing the Past” in the context of decolonizing educational curricula, indicating that the chances of success in this may be greater if activists talk about expanding educational curricula rather than decolonizing, by including the history of and the culture of ethnic minorities and blacks in the school curriculum.

In chapter two, Me and Imperialism, Sangira describes his physical and metaphorical journey to discover the empire by highlighting his life as a child of an immigrant family and Sikh heritage during his many visits to India in his childhood and adulthood and as a documentary filmmaker.

He ended the chapter by saying, "Having encountered and deeply acquainted with how Britain has shaped my life, I cannot help but wonder how imperialism has shaped modern Britain in itself?", which is the central theme of the book as a whole.

In Chapter Three, "The Difficult History," Sanghera offers suggestions on the basics of empire with quotations from some of the many bibliographies he adopted to illustrate Britain's divergent relationship with its colonies around the world.

In this chapter, Sanghera discusses the early stages of the empire, saying, "The first British Empire was established from the 17th century to the 1880s, and was based on the development of sugar plantations in the West Indies with the participation of large numbers of settlers from the American colonies and the Caribbean."

Empire culture

Noting that "the tone and culture of the empire varied greatly throughout its history," Sanghera provides an overview of "the period between 1660 and 1807 when Britain profited from the Atlantic slave trade".

By the beginning of the 20th century, "India and the rest of the empire were already divided along ethnic lines, with Europeans living, working and socializing separately from the people who colonized them".

In the fourth chapter, Sanghera touched upon the riches plundered by Britain, which are currently displayed in its museums.

It provides countless examples of British greed and brutal plunder.

Recording these colonial excesses, Sanghera notes that "what happened with the imperial plunders was, in many cases, strongly condemned at the time".

The Hague Convention of 1899 represented a paradigm shift in this regard.

Sanghera ends this chapter with a call for the recovery and return of stolen artifacts and other tangible heritage to end the colonial facets of British museums and universities.

Law 1948

In Chapter Five, We Are Here Because You Were There, Sanghera recounts the history of people of color in Britain over the centuries, citing numerous examples such as freed slaves or escapees from the West Indies, immigrants, temporary travelers, students, doctors and other professionals. Princes and people who made their first or second homes in Britain during the Empire and beyond.

Historically, all those born or naturalized in the UK or British Overseas Territories were British subjects, which gives them the right to enter the UK.

Perhaps this was established by the British Nationality Act 1948, which enabled the colonial inhabitants of the West Indies, the Indian subcontinent and the African colonies to settle in the United Kingdom.

In Chapter Six, “At Home and Away,” Sanghera points to a study that showed British expats “basically communicate with expatriates like themselves, while having no friends in the host country,” compared to those in, say, Africa who are less assimilated.

This isolation is rooted in the empire, which established separate clubs and enforced strict protocols that excluded the colonists from contact with them.

global policies

In Chapter Seven, The Politics of the Best in the World, Sanghera talks about the factors that led to the further disintegration of the empire, and how the United Kingdom deals with its citizens abroad during crises.

He points to the 1956 Suez disaster, the 1982 Falklands War, and the "war on terror" in Afghanistan, Iraq and other parts of the world as a legacy of the colonial past that led to Britain's exit from the European Union.

Sanghera also criticizes Britain's response to the COVID-19 crisis in the first year of the pandemic.

It highlights the historical links between the empire and every aspect of life today.

dirty money

In Chapter Eight, Dirty Money, a description of the vast fortunes of Britain's slave traders and plantation owners that financed their lavish lives, from buying luxury homes to acquiring valuable art collections.

"Was Mayor of London Sadiq Khan right when he declared that most of the wealth of our city and nation derives from the slave trade? But it is a false claim even for the empire as a whole," Sanghera asks.

He acknowledges that "slavery was a crucial aspect of the British Empire".

In Chapter Nine, entitled "The Origin of Our Racism," Sangira deals with slavery.

He explains that the empire was founded on the conquest and subjugation of "indigenous" or "other" peoples who were seen as a failed or unable to defend themselves.

Over time, when resistance in the colonies led to rebellion, reprisals were swift and fierce and marked the beginning of countless episodes of brutality and oppression.

This happened, for example, during or after the Indian Rebellion of 1857, and the Morant Bay Rebellion in Jamaica in 1865. As the empire grew and reached its zenith in the 19th and 20th centuries, its politics became more entrenched in white supremacy.

In the following two chapters, titled "The Mentality of Empire" and "Selective Amnesia," Sanghera points out what the Empire was, and how it is gradually fading out of collective memory.

He concludes his book with a careful note in the chapter entitled "Disposal of the Past" in which he notes "the absence of an emerging consensus about education and the resistance of British politicians to publicly apologizing for past mistakes".