It is more likely that an increased understanding of the Empire will result in wide-spread ambivalence rather than outright revulsion. Its significance should provoke a healthy kind of intellectual dissonance by diminishing the current critical trend of ethical and ideological absolutism. We should be impressed by its feats and repulsed by its failures, and feel fascinated by, but unsentimental about, the triumphs and transgressions of its leaders.
All In Britain Posts
No matter how advanced we regard our society; no matter how ignorant we perceive our forebears; no matter how comfortably we enjoy our lives, one of the most devastatingly cliché human questions still haunts us, and becomes ever harder to answer: who are we?
The current hyperbolic preoccupation with race in the Anglosphere has provided an opportunity for some to link caste to race as though they are cognate phenomena of oppression. The depiction of Brahmins as the epitome of whiteness at the apex of the Indian caste system, is actually generated from within the same western framework that treats race as a salient difference.
The Covid-19 virus has thrown the creative and cultural industries into a grim crisis. Since lockdown the only access we have to culture has been online: Instagram, YouTube, Netflix, Facebook Live, Amazon Prime, Spotify are all the platforms where I currently consume and appreciate culture in lieu of going out…
I was recently interviewed by Max Klinger of the E2 Review Podcast about Political Activism in Education.
Is it really true that the British Empire is not statutory or not taught? This blogs explores the current History National Curriculum to debunk oft-repeated myths.
Following Labour’s crushing defeat, many commentators and reporters have proffered the view that Labour has become sharply divided between its city – especially London – supporters and those in its traditional heartlands in Wales, the Midlands and Northern England. The former are deemed liberal and progressive in outlook while the…
This year we’ve had a flurry of articles on Sajid Javid’s proposal in 2018 for a British Values Test (BVT) to be added to the Life in the UK test (see here, here and here.) The Life in the UK test itself is already mandatory but the BVT would be…
The Victoria Memorial outside Buckingham Palace. I’ve lost count how many times I’ve stood by this fountain with Mauritian friends and family, statically frozen for that photo moment, being a tourist in London. It’s an iconic, majestic monument, but I never really paid much attention to it other than that…