WWBU - Racial Guilt?

[LyannaStarktheWolfMaid]

I had dinner with some very good friends last night. At two in the morning after a skinful of wine, my friend (who is a British man of Sikh Indian descent) casually threw out the idea that white Brits should feel cultural guilt about the (obviously horrific) cruelty in the history of the British Empire. Cue discussion about cultural guilt in general, e.g. how do Germans feel about the Nazis, etc. To which I responded, as a white Brit, I need to feel guilt about the crimes of my forebears to the same degree that you should feel guilty about the crimes of men against women. General dinner party concensus was that that's completely different. I'm not sure that it is. What do you think?

Nearlyhellokitty

don't you think a lot of the 'go back home' stuff is linked to people having no idea about what happened with colonism?

Well I hope it is ignorance rather than some kind of sick pride in it. Unfortunately I think there are both kinds of these people.

I think better education would help modern day racism. But I think it’s important not to cherry pick the history that is taught, because that’s not an accurate representation either.

Sounds like an awful dinner party 😂

OP, yanbu

chocco do you think there is any actual teaching about colonial history in schools? I'm probably out of date but I remember a lot about medieval history, WWI and WWII...

but tonicandlime a lot of the infrastructure you use now was built on the back of the empire? surely worth being aware

Err we did have other industries etc going on at the time which also built stuff.

Being aware is a different issue. I know what happened but am not apologetic for it - I wouldn't celebrate it but it's gone, water under the bridge.

I'm pretty sure many of the Colonised Countries infrastructure was built in the Empire years (and probably still functions better than ours).

tonic - it's not water under the bridge. it has a clear and present impact on the world we live in today.

of course we built stuff too, but where did we get the materials, where did we get the investment?

infrastructure was built in the empire, a lot of it was built to extract - ie roads leading to the port, not to develop the country per se. and I'm not sure which countries you think the infrastructure works better now than the UK.. if we're talking about roads, rail and buildings!!

"The Industrial Revolution would have been impossible without the wealth generated by slave labour. Britain’s major ports, cities and canals were built on invested slave money. Several banks can trace their origins to the financing of the slave trade. Apart from the Barclays Brothers, who were slave traders, we also know of Barings and HSBC which can be traced back to Thomas Leyland’s banking house. The Bank of England also had close connections to the trade. Hundreds of Britain’s great houses were built with the wealth of slavery (pdf) and the Church of England also acknowledges its pecuniary gains from slavery. As an excellent project at University College London is showing, not only many contemporary millionaires and politicians but also perfectly ordinary middle-class people come from families which were compensated for the loss of slaves. The freed slaves, of course, never received such compensation and their families inherited, instead, the poverty and landlessness which blights them to this day."
www.newstatesman.com/economics/2014/04/much-britains-wealth-built-slavery-so-why-shouldnt-it-pay-reparations

This is such an interesting question. I am happy to accept this country's part in colonialism and the bad effect it had and that it was this country's responsibility.
I don't feel any personal sense of guilt or responsibility for most it of though because my male ancestors did not have a vote until 1918 and most of the women not until 1928.
It seems pointless to me to try allocate blame to people in the past. Should we blame the Norman Conquest for the loss of rights that women had in Anglo-Saxon England ? Many Irish hold the 'English' responsible for the worst effects of the potato famine. At that time none of my ancestors could read and were struggling in extreme poverty to keep themselves alive.
What is your Sikh friend suggesting we do about it now ?

Oh you're so right Kitty we would have never had any materials or investments if we didn't have an Empire

I've found the infrastructure you are referring to massively better in Continental Europe, USA!Canada and many other non EU Western Countries.

A lot of roads lead to ports etc that us part of development for most countries.

oh come one *tonic. you're just determined to throw all kinds of dust around. We got a great deal of our materials and investments from the empire, note I didn't say all. That was the whole point of having an empire in fact, to access all those materials, goods and labour. and Gold from the South African mines and elsewhere to finance it all. Seriously if you don't believe me look it up. It's not particularly controversial.

I was wondering if you were talking about African infrastructure that we were kind of involved in, US not so much :-) or maybe the indian rail network that a lot of people tend to point to as a visible legacy of UK colonialism.

The issue is what purpose would this guilt serve anyway? It's fact that empires benefit from taking over countries, that's why they do it and it's fact that people were enslaved and perished, their wealth and freedom taken. It's horrific no question about it. Not the first and it's not the last (look around the world now).But what do people want British people of this generation to do? They have opened their doors to immagrants from all over the world, have they not also benefited too?It has also led to progression in human rights which have also benefited other countries. There's loads to do still, why can't we collectively look forward to make it better for all?

I have always felt similarly to the op.
Men, by virtue of being men, are born into and 'inherit' a patriarchal society, which affords them so many benefits and priveliges over women.
By the same token, people who are British are still benefitting from the spoils of our old empire in the form of infrastructure, healthcare, education etc etc. But I would go as far as suggesting all residents of Britain gain many of these benefits. Our whole society is built on our empire.
Was your Sikh friend educated and born in Britain? Because if he was, then it could be argued he gains as much from the richness of this country as you do. Of course it is countered by the idea that his antecedents were victims of the British empire, and there is no denying institutionalised racism. However, I think you point is very valid and don't see a difference between racism and patriarchy.

It is part of the key stage three curriculum for history Nearlyhellokitty.

My grandfather was in the British Colonial Service, he served in East Africa. Mu Mum has a lot of stories growing up in Africa. She feels that they were doing good out there,

Guilt through the generations is a pointless exercise.

Recognition of the impacts of what we as a country (and so many others) did and how it still has disastrous impacts across the world today is needed and putting heads in sand or asking whataboutery type questions is mere deflection and intellectually weak,.

Recognition of the patriarchy and the effects it has on women today across the world is vital and many men (and lots of women) still need to be educated about the impacts it has and will have in the future.

Both are correct positions but its unreasonable to deflect one with other.

"They have opened their doors to immagrants from all over the world"

Not really no but keep believing that.

It would be an interesting study - one wonders at the correlation between states with high numbers of wars, economic failures and famine and those that were, at one point, oppressed by a western nation.

Glaf, good point. My ancesters were mostly from Ireland. They moved here in the 1850s as their lives have been destroyed by the English and they benefited from moving here just as the Sikh has done. So I and the Sikh are identical (except he has the current benefits of being male and I don't). Thus his advantage and need to apologise is stronger than mine surely? He and I have both benefited from moving to England.

Granted I'm not a Historian bluebells but I'd still like to know why you think the caste system is exactly like our class system. The latter is bad enough, but the former tells you that you're poor or disabled because you were bad in a previous life so deserve it and get no compassion. Would also like to see more evidence for your assertions.

There is only one direction to travel from Empire. Downward.

This question, this and class, eat at the heart of Modern Britain.

lucy as a foreigner, the class system feels like A caste system because of its rigidity.
It’s the looking down at people who are under or above you
It’s the issue that so many people have with ‘bettering yourself’ (an expression that just doesn’t exists in many languages btw)
It’s all the rules associated by being part a certain group. People a
L buying stuff from the exact same shop, decorating their house in the same way, same colour, same type of furniture found in the same sort of shops.
It’s the looking down at people from the north/south/English/not English
It’s all the talk about the fact you cannot possibly become upper class if it’s not in yur roots for the last 3 generations (see all the talk about KM that will never be part of the real upper class) etc etc etc

On a very practical basis, it’s the feeling my dcs have, as teens, that they can’t go to because it’s too posh/not where they belong because we happen to live in the north of England.
It’s the difficulty I have to ‘fit in’ because I never quite get the rules right and dare say something slightly ‘out of line’ according to the ‘rules’. And it has made very clear that I don’t belong to their group...

Also re guilt through generation.
I would want to turn it on its head.
How many people are really proud of Britain and its empire? Think that it was so sort of golden area and shows how fantastic Britain is. The empire where the sun never sets. In a quite logical way, most Britain people are rapid of the country and what it has achieve through time.

Now I don’t think you can be proud through the generations of what people have done AND refuse to feel guilty through the generations for all the hurt the British have inflicted on people. The racism, the slave trade, the numerous deaths (eg the people in India who died of hunger because all the food was directed to the British soldiers at the detriment of the locals who were growing said food)

The very big issue I have is to take one part of history, thenone that shows in a very nice light, and forget the other, the ones that actually portray you as a country not so nice (to put it mildly)
That’s just dishonest.

I hear what you say, but the caste system is all of that AND enforced by religion. So, if you live in a religious society, it is worse.

Isn’t the U.K. a religious country? What with the queen being the head of the Church and religion being taugh in normal state schools?

Sorry, I should have been more clear. I meant a religious country where the state religion is Hinduism. Outside the subject - but i don't believe the UK is a religious country except in a legalistic sense, which is good (even though I am religious).

Lucydogz, India is a secular country. There is no state religion.

I was once on a techy course, held in the UK, but delivered by a German. He started by apologising for WW2. Not one of us in the room can have been born before 1960, and in most cases, a lot more recently. It was a very odd way to start the class.

I don't think we should feel guilt like that when we weren't there. We should be aware of it, though, and where our own responsibility lies is in making sure atrocities don't happen again. I'm not sure we're doing so well at that.