Corrine Fowler: My writing on colonialism made me a hate figure – so I replied to my trolls

[NonLinguisticRhetoricIsMyKryptonite]

Corrine Fowler is a brave woman, the author of the National Trust report that scarcely anyone read but generated a lot of heat and light. Considering other newsworthy stories at the moment and women unders similar pressure, this is inspirational.

Could this happen with Cass and on other issues?

During the first few months of controversy and coverage, I was rarely given a right of reply. Instead, I watched with mounting dismay as I was presented as an enemy of the British people. Embroiled in a culture war, I encountered opinions I’d never heard before. But the experience unexpectedly transformed the way I relate to people who aren’t like me.

When people heard politicians denouncing the Trust report, or saw me characterised as politically “biased”, finger-wagging, or generally doing down Britain (often a combination of all three), it’s hardly surprising that they felt wronged. The actual content of the Trust report and the evidence it presented was rarely discussed.
…
For over a year, there was little respite from the frequent articles and the angry messages that came in their wake. These were variations on a theme: “one really needs a no-platforming rule for pushy academics”; “I’m not sure you should be allowed anywhere near a university building” and, “presumably you obtained the professor bit out of a Christmas cracker”. There are many more like that.
There was also far worse: I received threats which were obscene and violent…
…
One day, when a stranger wrote, “your willingness to make yourself a laughing stock is appreciated and hilarious”, I hit the reply button. “Dear __,” I began, and pointed out all the inaccuracies in the article that he’d read. Perhaps surprised at my conciliatory response, he replied, “Oh. In that case, I must have added to your woes.”
To another emailer, who wrote that I had “slandered a race on the grounds of the alleged misdeeds of their ancestors” and was therefore “guilty of racism by deliberately stirring racial hatred,” I detailed my own ancestors’ involvement with slavery in Haiti and set out my case that, since formerly colonised people and their descendants had been greatly impacted by colonial history, I thought it better to bring this information into the public domain than to conceal it for fear of giving offence. To my surprise, I got a short reply: “You’re obviously not a bad person, you have my respect for answering.”
…
Reflecting back on the whole experience, focusing on critical, often hostile, voices was like turning the radio dial after years of having had it tuned to my favourite station. It revealed a world of parallel perspectives. My work has always been borne out of a desire to understand our shared history. But the fierce response to that work, while unsettling, prompted me to go much further in listening to people from across political and generational divides. We’re limited by what we know: the more diverse our thinking the more insightful the conversations we can potentially have.
Being under so much fire turned out to be a blessing in disguise. When I became a hate figure, I suffered at first. But I came to realise that, since they’d never met me, people didn’t actually hate me as a person. And when I reached out to the writers of those letters, their response was amazing. It’s been stimulating to interact with people who think radically differently from me: everyone deserves to be taken seriously. Now I’m a happier and more confident person. After everything that happened during that long year, there’s not much left to be afraid of.

https://archive.is/jJQ9M

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/04/22/corrine-fowler-national-trust-report-on-colonialism-trolls/

It is scalable, that’s what mass media is for.
Using the insights gained from individual conversations to inform the way you approach making tv history would reach a wider audience.

There's a later passage in the article that interested me, that relates here, regarding scalability.

I also began to give lots of public talks about my research on country houses and the British Empire. Among the most frequently asked questions from detractors in the audience was: Why aren’t you talking about the oppressed British labourers during those colonial centuries? The obvious reply was because I’m an expert in colonial history, not labour history. But this question led me to look far more deeply into British labour history, and the experience of working people during these times. The questioners communicated to me a sincere and valid concern that labour history is little talked about. I saw that this was true. I’d learned as little about labour history in school as I had about colonial history.

As a result, I decided to write a book that would be really meaningful to those who’d asked that question and this is how I came to explore the relationship between colonial history and British rural life. Thanks to those questions, I discovered that the two are intimately connected. Our Island Stories: Country Walks Through Colonial Britain features ten walks through Scotland, England and Wales. The walks average seven miles and maps are included to inspire others to walk together through those same landscapes. The book opens with an account of my ‘sugar walk’ with Graham Campbell on the Scottish Isle of Jura. We investigated how his Jamaican heritage connects to the island’s slavery history. Contacting a family researcher in Jamaica, we wanted to know why there are so many Jamaicans with the surname Campbell. Another of these walks is about the East India Company history of the Wordsworth family in the Lakes.

Other chapters feature a wool walk in North Wales, a Lancashire cotton walk, a tobacco walk along the Whitehaven coast in Cumbria, an enclosure walk in Norfolk, a banker’s walk through a lovely part of Hampshire and a labourer’s walk through thatched villages in Dorset. I end with a copper walk in Cornwall. Copper mines once employed a third of the local population, but I learned that a significant amount of that copper was used to sheath slave ships so that they lasted longer in tropical waters. Throughout the writing of the book, I kept in mind those who’d exhorted me to include more labour history in my accounts of our colonial past. I’ll always be grateful to them: researching and writing that book was revelatory.

@NonLinguisticRhetoricIsMyKryptonite yes it is ime experience quite universal; the recognition by communication is something very powerful.

It is incidentally used by negotiators all over the world to bring people together and secure agreement. It breaks down the status as "enemy". Obviously there is a lot more to do in reality, but this technique is effective in the most aggressive or difficult negotiations or conflicts

It sounds brilliant. But since the title is all about the colonial aspect the labour history aspect is going to be missed by the people who might be interested.

Goodness yes. I find this a big issue with a certain type of person. They are all over what they see as these vast historical oppressions, but completely ignore current incarnations.

The one that always gets me is looking for the most tenuous connections a historical figure or institution has to slavery, and posting their discoveries on TikTok or Instagram with their Iphones.

I agree. I'd like to read the book based on her description here, but the title wouldn't tempt anyone looking for something exploring the history of Britain's labouring classes.

"Would topics such as colonialism have been quite so fraught and divisive if we hadn't discussed them in this way to begin with? Or would there always have been people who wanted to stick to the way history has always been taught, kind of like those who resist the idea that dinosaurs had feathers and want to continue in their fond thoughts of Jurassic Park dinosaurs?"

Are you not discussing it in exactly the same way though? You're making a lot of assumptions about colonialism because it fits with your politcal narrative. You talks as though and everyone decent is on the left. Everyone else is uneducated or compromised. You are talking about having better ways to talk down to people less enlightened to make sure only your world view prevails! How priggish is that!

Clearly the abuse of academics like Cass, Beard and Fowler is awful. The same things have happened to Suella Braverman and Tony Sewell and I see it happeing to Kemi Badenoch and Katharine Birbalsingh on twitter everyday. But perhaps you don't feel inclined to defend them? All ideas should be debated and no doubt many of Fowler's points are excellent. What is less good is the use the NT has put the report to, Fowler may well be independently minded but the NT are not as can be seen on their attitudes to other issues. The NT are the ones at fault for letting her take the flack.

There are a range of historical view points on the British Empire incidentally. The NT may well have gone to Fowler for her views (I have no idea what her personal politicals are but I bet the NT knows) to get the report it wanted. It certainly did not ask Prof Richard Dale or Prof David Abulafia (just two off the top of my head) who both have a more nuanced view. I guess you've read them as you are so firm in your opinions?

The reason people, educated or otherwise, get irritated by this is that they suspect double standards. They suspect the left hates Britain and that the British Empire which had huge faults absolutely but was one of many empires. The power of having an empire swayed our position when defending ourselves from agressors from Napoleon to Hitler by the way. Empires were how nation states survived pre our postmodern world. The British Empire is an easy target and they (the left) love applying ahistoric moral conventions to it. They never admit it is more complicated than it seems at first glance, they do a lot of virtue signalling (like you do - implying your education is superior and that's why you 'get it' and the poor plebs just need it explaining with a bigger smile) and then use reports like these to kick those they don't like. Which is why you mention only the women you agree with getting a public kicking. Which is why I am suspicious of your defence of the report (not your defence of Fowler who has the right to her opinions unmolested though not unchallenged).

Sorry, this was replying to @songaboutjam

It would be rather more courageous to go and stick up signs on the current oligarchs' stuff and grill them about how they acquired their wealth.

Agreed. However, oligarchs might fight back.

How come?

Thank you@Solrock that other thread is disgusting, all those people are guilty of is being white whilst in possession of a St George's flag. They are all standing there peacefully and there is no evidence they are trouble makers. I have no idea why posh white people hate the working classes so much.

There is a strong correlation between accepting/promoting gender ideology and being very into anti colonialist narratives.

You're making a lot of assumptions about colonialism because it fits with your politcal narrative.

You're making a lot of assumptions about my political narrative. I loathe the insertion of modern sensibilities into places they don't belong. Although I remain nominally left-wing, most of my friends are apolitical or Tories. So no, I do not believe that "most decent people" are on the left. Some of the worst people I know vote Labour. The most decent person I know in real life is a hard-line conservative Christian!

I have a lot of political opinions that I keep off MN because I am not the sort of person who likes to spark discussions by taking contrarian stances, even if they're genuinely held. I have had enough bad experiences living as a young adult in such a polarised country. My statement on the way some left-wing people interact with those they consider "beneath them" comes from direct, bitter personal experience.

I don't always feel the need to take a stance. Sometimes I just want to explore other people's viewpoints in a non-aggressive manner. I'm sorry you didn't like my phrasing. I was trying to come at things from the majority left-wing / progressive perspective so I could engage with some of the ideas and ask exploratory questions without the risk of sparking strong responses.

Makes a nice change to be accused of being a priggish leftist, I suppose. I'm usually accused of being an evil Tory!

"Empires were how nation states survived pre our postmodern world. "
Empires are all about suppression of nation states, and their utilisation for the benefit of the imperial power. Why would anybody bother having an empire otherwise? Pick any former colony, and there'll be a reason why it was worth the bother, whether for direct economic gain, or for the strategic protection of economic interest. All that imperial pomp and circumstance had to be economically viable.

I note that the NT is listing forced labour on Lundy Island by convicts. I want to know whether this labour was part of their rehabilitation in line with nineteenth century penal reform, or whether it is earlier. Both are of interest. Also of interest is the occupation of Lundy during most of the seventeenth century by Barbary Pirates (a mixed bunch based in Algiers) who used the island as a base for their slave raiding of the south coasts of England and Ireland as well as for their forays as far north as Finland.

Accurate description of empires. Britain was colonised by Rome for the gold and tin and to suppress the support given by many of the British tribes to the Gauls in what became France, who were fighting Roman occupation. Rome ruled Britain for 400 years and left an infrastructure and legal system still in use today. Not that I carry any torch for Ancient Rome. Their civilization was brutal as well as beautiful. It was a slaving empire, too, as were most empires until the 1800s. Slavery was normal. It was how your slaves were treated that mattered. Converts to Christianity promised to stop raping their slaves.

I'm not particularly invested in the whole topic (having not followed it that much) but I think she's amazing. It's horrible being attacked either for your work or your views. I'm an academic and I deliberately avoid some research areas as I find it emotionally draining and stressful to engage in certain debates, because they are very repetitive (so you don't feel like you are changing much) and they are also personal. I also have at least one friend who received a deluge of hate mail and death threats for a rather innocuous quote and after seeing that, my motivation to attract that into my life was much less.

Another issue is that often different lobby groups think that by doing my work, I'm on 'their side' and then get upset and angry if you take a more complex or even critical position, even though that's the point of the work!

I like that she found a strategy for dealing with this, could be helpful to try this.

I am not fond of abuse. My accent has been thrown at me several times (elocution taught RP - I was born with a cleft palette), so I must be upper class and a champagne socialist or a wicked Tory or a snob etc. I also am a Ricardian - more popular these days, but many see me as an apologist for a monster.

Thornberry made classist comments about 'white van man' over the St George flag. My DSS is a white van owner. Currently he is spending time helping me cope with the loss of my DH, never suggesting he needs support in losing his DF and that is more important. He also flies the St George flag sometimes. He is interested in history and art and has brought up four well-mannered and successful DCs (3 DS, 1DD) and treats my DS and DD as his brother and sister. Thornberry should be ashamed. And talking down to people is never a lovely sight.

NecessaryScene · Yesterday 06:57

As you and @TempestTostnote, people know the world is unjust, and they know that people can't amass vast fortunes without exploitation.

If every large fortune is amassed by exploitation, have there been investigations into billionaires such as Lord Bamford, Elon Musk, Brian Acton and Jan Koum (Whattsapp), James Dyson and so on to discover who has been exploited by them?

My accent has been thrown at me several times (elocution taught RP - I was born with a cleft palette), so I must be upper class and a champagne socialist or a wicked Tory or a snob etc.

I met someone a while ago. A cut-glass accent to the point that people were passing snide comments that, "She's so far back she's next in line for the throne."

She's been deaf from early childhood. Between speech therapy and what must be thousands of hours of practice, you'd never know. When it came out she said, "What accent do you think I should have been taught by a speech therapist who didn't have an authentic accent for where I lived? As a looked-after child, should the emphasis been on teaching me a regional accent? One appropriate to my social class?"

Especially when you claim to represent the party that was started to give working people a voice.

I think the problem with this sort of attempt is the assumption that there is some deep nefarious intent on the part of such people.

Elon Musk, for all I know, may be a perfectly nice person, who tries to do the right thing most of the time, like we all do.

It's also the case that he, like every person who has ever existed, operates within the economy and social hierarchies that he has found himself in. Which in the case of economics is a worldwide system of global capitalism that is to a large extent controlled and regulated by banks and international bodies.

Just as in the 18th century, or for that matter ancient Greece, every business man operated within an economy that had slave production of goods as a part of the economy, and their business interests would almost inevitably touch on those in some way or another.

I suspect that any one of us posting here who has some kind of pension or investments would find we have connections to companies with some questionable practices.

I know everyone posting here is using an electronic device and the internet both of which depend on exploitation and slave labour.

But gods, if we banged on about it every time we wanted to have a conversation about architecture or melons or something, how dreary would it be..

This is exactly the reason for the backlash.

The work may have had worthy intentions, but the fact is that the results were used to - yet again - denigrate and incite racial hatred against British/English people in the name of decrying colonialism. This was, as usual, extrapolated to inciting hatred against all European people in the name of attacking "white privilege".

This totally ignores that 1) Rich people usually attain their wealth by plundering and exploiting. This has happened throughout history, all over the world, and is ongoing. Yet this is presented as something that only white people do to non-white people. 2) These historical "British" crimes were committed solely by powerful people, at a time when civilians didn't even have the vote.

But somehow "we" - working and middle class people in the 21st century - are all responsible and need to atone ourselves just because we share skin pigmentation levels with a small number of filthy rich people from hundreds of years ago.

Only white people even attempt to hold themselves accountable for historical crimes against outside groups. I have yet to see, for example, the Turks apologising for the Ottoman Empire, apologising for living on stolen land, for genocides and slavery against millions of Europeans. Not that they should, the point is that this form of attack is solely directed at white people.

Therefore, I don't support the work of this woman which can only be used for hatred and division against a demographic I belong to. I don't particularly care that she got a backlash. She may feel she's paid her penance for her wealthy ancestors' roles in slavery, but she's caused a lot of collateral damage.

What can you even do with the results of her report? Does she suppose that these treasures and buildings- now largely belonging to the charity - be re-stolen and given to others? That would be destructive to a charity and victimize the current population (rather than worrying about getting justice for people dead for hundreds of years). So fuck her. I really, really don't care. Her work has threatened the stability and goodwill against a charity that is supposed to maintain and protect our cultural heritage, just so she can virtue-signal.

Talk about malicious compliance. She brings everything back to slavery, as if the historical working class native population aren't worth mentioning in their own right. She even seems to be blaming the working classes, insinuating that the hard-working Cornish miners are responsible for facilitating slavery, as if these men risking their lives and destroying their bodies actually owned the mines and chose where it was sold.

It seems from this excerpt that most of the time she's not even mentioning the actual labouring classes, but rural privileged people. Just so she can tie slavery in to every corner of the country. She is determined that the whole country equally share her direct ancestral guilt.