Over the last year, the Black Lives Matter movement has created an infectious blend of conflated antipathy to slavery, Empire and England. Across our institutions, there has been a rush to appease self-righteous activists by removing statues and pictures, rewriting our history, altering street names and allowing them to silence anyone who dares question their orthodoxy.
What is motivating this supplication? The reasons ostensibly given are England’s part in the Atlantic slave trade and the British Empire, dismissed as racist and without any redeeming features.
This shift in how the empire is viewed today shows just how historically illiterate we have become as a nation. One ‘academic’ even recently dismissed the British Empire as ‘far worse’ than the Nazis. This line of thinking betrays not only a failure to comprehend the history of slavery, but Britain’s part in it. For our relationship with slavery is not unique. Our role in ending the trade, however, is.
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