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A leading race relations campaigner has defended the consequences of colonialism, saying that the empire made Britain a diverse and multiracial modern nation.
Trevor Phillips said he had no personal reason to make a case for colonialism, given that the first years of his life were spent in a brutal state of emergency in British Guiana, with friends and family locked up for sedition. He said, however, that its outcomes should be continually re-examined.
Mr Phillips was defending Nigel Biggar, the academic who has ignited controversy with an article in The Times entitled “Don’t feel guilty about our colonial history”, in which he called for a balanced reappraisal of the past.
Mr Biggar, a Regius professor of theology at Oxford, is leading a five-year project entitled Ethics and Empire to reappraise colonialism.
Dozens of Oxford academics have responded to his work in an open letter calling his views simple-minded. They said his approach, which said that any benefits of colonialism balanced out atrocities, was not serious history. They added that their criticism was not an attempt to silence the professor or curb free speech and said he had “every right to hold and to express whatever views he chooses or finds compelling, and to conduct whatever research he chooses in the way he feels appropriate”.
Mr Phillips has criticised their approach, saying that it was important to look at the full picture. “I have no reason to defend colonialism. But we should constantly reappraise its consequences, one of which is today’s multi-ethnic Britain,” he said in a letter to The Times. “It may be that the 58 Oxford academics would prefer to inhabit the largely mono-ethnic, pre-Windrush Britain (a population mix somewhat preserved in their own university) but it is a fact that we are only here because you were there.”
He also warned Professor Biggar’s opponents to beware of their language. “Students’ misreading of history is entirely understandable if they are instructed by the academics who criticise Nigel Biggar for asking ‘the wrong questions, using the wrong terms’, an attack line of which Joseph Stalin would have been proud.”
Professor Biggar has also been defended by the Irish author Mary Kenny, who said that colonialism often brought progressive measures for women. Irish missionaries, working under the aegis of the British Empire, campaigned against foot-binding in China in the 1900s, she said in a second letter. The Church of Scotland attempted to end female genital mutilation in Africa from the 1920s, which Jomo Kenyatta, Kenya’s first president, denounced as imperialist “meddling”.
Professor Biggar has also been attacked by Oxford students. Common Ground, a race rights group based in Oxford, called him an “inappropriate leader” for the project and accused him of “whitewashing” the British Empire.
Oxford University said it supported Professor Biggar’s right to consider the historical context of the British Empire. It said he was an internationally recognised authority on the ethics of empire and was entirely suitable to lead the Ethics and Empire project.
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/...equality-campaigner-trevor-phillips-zvmbzdcst
Trevor Phillips said he had no personal reason to make a case for colonialism, given that the first years of his life were spent in a brutal state of emergency in British Guiana, with friends and family locked up for sedition. He said, however, that its outcomes should be continually re-examined.
Mr Phillips was defending Nigel Biggar, the academic who has ignited controversy with an article in The Times entitled “Don’t feel guilty about our colonial history”, in which he called for a balanced reappraisal of the past.
Mr Biggar, a Regius professor of theology at Oxford, is leading a five-year project entitled Ethics and Empire to reappraise colonialism.
Dozens of Oxford academics have responded to his work in an open letter calling his views simple-minded. They said his approach, which said that any benefits of colonialism balanced out atrocities, was not serious history. They added that their criticism was not an attempt to silence the professor or curb free speech and said he had “every right to hold and to express whatever views he chooses or finds compelling, and to conduct whatever research he chooses in the way he feels appropriate”.
Mr Phillips has criticised their approach, saying that it was important to look at the full picture. “I have no reason to defend colonialism. But we should constantly reappraise its consequences, one of which is today’s multi-ethnic Britain,” he said in a letter to The Times. “It may be that the 58 Oxford academics would prefer to inhabit the largely mono-ethnic, pre-Windrush Britain (a population mix somewhat preserved in their own university) but it is a fact that we are only here because you were there.”
He also warned Professor Biggar’s opponents to beware of their language. “Students’ misreading of history is entirely understandable if they are instructed by the academics who criticise Nigel Biggar for asking ‘the wrong questions, using the wrong terms’, an attack line of which Joseph Stalin would have been proud.”
Professor Biggar has also been defended by the Irish author Mary Kenny, who said that colonialism often brought progressive measures for women. Irish missionaries, working under the aegis of the British Empire, campaigned against foot-binding in China in the 1900s, she said in a second letter. The Church of Scotland attempted to end female genital mutilation in Africa from the 1920s, which Jomo Kenyatta, Kenya’s first president, denounced as imperialist “meddling”.
Professor Biggar has also been attacked by Oxford students. Common Ground, a race rights group based in Oxford, called him an “inappropriate leader” for the project and accused him of “whitewashing” the British Empire.
Oxford University said it supported Professor Biggar’s right to consider the historical context of the British Empire. It said he was an internationally recognised authority on the ethics of empire and was entirely suitable to lead the Ethics and Empire project.
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/...equality-campaigner-trevor-phillips-zvmbzdcst
