WEBVTT - BONUS: Anticolonial Resistance with Dr. Priyamvada Gopal 0:00:00.120 --> 0:00:03.320 If there is a universal value, it is that tendency 0:00:03.360 --> 0:00:06.960 to push against tyranny and exploitation. And if we can 0:00:07.000 --> 0:00:11.000 foster that tendency in ourselves in our societies, then this 0:00:11.080 --> 0:00:14.400 is a historical moment where we absolutely need to capture 0:00:14.520 --> 0:00:30.400 and foster that. We're back today with another bonus conversation 0:00:30.640 --> 0:00:33.479 for a popular If you haven't yet listened to the 0:00:33.560 --> 0:00:36.440 first season of Unpopular, you should go ahead and do 0:00:36.520 --> 0:00:38.760 that because there are a lot of amazing stories on 0:00:38.800 --> 0:00:42.320 different people in history who resisted the status quo and 0:00:42.440 --> 0:00:46.080 we're persecuted for it. But today's conversation is going to 0:00:46.159 --> 0:00:48.720 be a little bit different. We're going to be speaking 0:00:48.760 --> 0:00:52.280 with Dr Preambata Gobel, who is the author of the 0:00:52.360 --> 0:00:58.120 book Insurgent Empire, Anti Colonial Resistance and British Descent. And 0:00:58.320 --> 0:01:00.760 my hope for these conversations is that we can add 0:01:00.800 --> 0:01:04.720 just another layer on top of this conversation around descent 0:01:04.880 --> 0:01:08.000 and around what discent means today and around what we 0:01:08.040 --> 0:01:11.119 can learn about the histories of descent and the legacies 0:01:11.160 --> 0:01:15.320 of descent. And Dr Gopel has a lot to say 0:01:15.360 --> 0:01:19.160 and knows a lot about descent and anti colonial resistance, 0:01:20.000 --> 0:01:23.720 and I really hope that you enjoy today's conversation. So 0:01:23.840 --> 0:01:28.160 let's get into it. My name is Priamboda Gopo and 0:01:28.480 --> 0:01:31.880 I'm a lecturer in the Faculty of English at the 0:01:31.959 --> 0:01:36.919 University of Cambridge in the UK. So you have a book, 0:01:36.959 --> 0:01:41.959 Insurgent Empire about anti colonial resistance. As I understand it, 0:01:42.440 --> 0:01:45.280 you came kind of about, you know, doing all the 0:01:45.319 --> 0:01:47.520 research on this topic and writing this book from a 0:01:47.600 --> 0:01:51.279 controversial instance. UM, A little back and forth that happened 0:01:51.320 --> 0:01:54.480 in the beginning. Can you tell me about that? Yes, 0:01:54.640 --> 0:01:58.240 So I was invited onto the BBC, onto one of 0:01:58.320 --> 0:02:03.080 its kind of flagship, the discussion programs on the radio UH, 0:02:03.240 --> 0:02:07.560 to discuss empire. UM. One of the occasions for that 0:02:07.640 --> 0:02:12.760 discussion was I think the publication of UH, the right 0:02:12.800 --> 0:02:17.440 wing historian Neil Ferguson's book on the Empire. And in 0:02:17.480 --> 0:02:19.440 the course of that discussion there were five of us 0:02:19.440 --> 0:02:24.040 in that discussion, it became very clear that the presenter, 0:02:24.280 --> 0:02:28.120 the host stands and Ferguson stands was one that was 0:02:28.280 --> 0:02:31.280 very much about how great the British Empire had been 0:02:31.440 --> 0:02:33.639 and how even though there might have been a kind 0:02:33.639 --> 0:02:37.840 of few, uh, you know, mishaps on the whole. It 0:02:37.880 --> 0:02:41.640 was a benevolent force that shaped the world for the 0:02:41.720 --> 0:02:46.519 better in the image of Britain. Um. There were two 0:02:46.520 --> 0:02:50.440 people of color on the panel, the eminent black theologian 0:02:50.960 --> 0:02:55.480 Robert Bedford and myself, and it ended up being kind 0:02:55.480 --> 0:02:58.800 of a strange discussion where it was only Robert and 0:02:58.840 --> 0:03:02.720 I who were raised seeing some doubts about whether the 0:03:02.760 --> 0:03:06.240 Empires had been all that great um, And we brought 0:03:06.360 --> 0:03:11.560 up questions of slavery in venture, racism, uh, you know, 0:03:11.760 --> 0:03:17.400 land grabs, ethnic cleansing, famines um. And all of that 0:03:17.600 --> 0:03:22.040 was sort of, you know, treated slightly dismissively by certainly 0:03:22.040 --> 0:03:26.799 by Ferguson Um. And then that evening the BBC took 0:03:26.800 --> 0:03:31.960 a very unusual step where they did another program basically 0:03:32.760 --> 0:03:36.119 in which they brought on an Indian woman to say 0:03:36.200 --> 0:03:39.920 I think in in one sense that I was not 0:03:40.320 --> 0:03:44.160 representative of Indians um, and that a lot of Indians 0:03:44.160 --> 0:03:46.720 were very grateful to the Empire, and that they really 0:03:47.360 --> 0:03:49.760 cherished the memory of the Empire and so on. So 0:03:49.920 --> 0:03:54.880 that incident has never quite gone away from for me, 0:03:55.000 --> 0:03:57.960 and I've written about the Empire since then in the 0:03:58.000 --> 0:04:03.440 British press. I've been involved debates around decolonizing the curriculum, 0:04:03.480 --> 0:04:07.280 and also about how we commemorate the Empire. So this 0:04:07.320 --> 0:04:12.240 book is kind of related to that incident, but also 0:04:12.320 --> 0:04:15.640 to discussions that I've had since then. And also it's 0:04:15.680 --> 0:04:18.920 partly a response to my students often telling me that 0:04:19.040 --> 0:04:22.440 they're not taught anything about the empire, um that when 0:04:23.320 --> 0:04:27.400 they are taught something about the Empire, it's very very generally, 0:04:27.480 --> 0:04:33.000 very positive and very sketchy in the details. Why do 0:04:33.040 --> 0:04:35.400 you think that is, Why is it that that your 0:04:35.440 --> 0:04:37.919 students are taught about the empire in that way? And 0:04:37.920 --> 0:04:40.520 why does this idea persist that the empire was kind 0:04:40.560 --> 0:04:43.960 of the savior and viewed in this positive light. Well, 0:04:44.000 --> 0:04:47.120 I think, you know, there are many reasons. One of 0:04:47.200 --> 0:04:51.919 them is that, uh, the idea of having headed a 0:04:52.000 --> 0:04:57.799 benevolent and great empire is still extremely important to British 0:04:57.920 --> 0:05:02.720 national self image, certainly the official self image, as is 0:05:02.760 --> 0:05:08.000 propagated by government and by the mainstream media. There. I 0:05:08.040 --> 0:05:11.279 think that there is an awareness that if you open 0:05:11.440 --> 0:05:14.160 up that can of empire then there are a lot 0:05:14.200 --> 0:05:17.520 of worms in there, and I don't think there is 0:05:17.560 --> 0:05:21.279 an appetite to deal with the ugliness that might surface. 0:05:21.320 --> 0:05:23.400 I mean, the fact is that any discussion about the 0:05:23.400 --> 0:05:26.520 Empire is going to be very difficult for all concerned. 0:05:27.040 --> 0:05:31.440 You know, whether whatever race or ethnicity or religious background 0:05:31.760 --> 0:05:35.400 you're from. It's a very complicated and in many ways, 0:05:35.480 --> 0:05:38.880 very ugly story, very demanding story, I would say, And 0:05:38.920 --> 0:05:41.800 I don't think that the school curriculum is at all 0:05:41.839 --> 0:05:45.360 equipped to discuss difficult issues and not not unlike you know, 0:05:45.400 --> 0:05:49.560 slavery in the United States force people to come to 0:05:49.680 --> 0:05:55.360 terms with some very complicated and less than pretty sides 0:05:55.440 --> 0:05:58.480 of their own history. So I think there's a general reluctance. 0:05:58.520 --> 0:06:03.960 There is certainly an enforced amnesia about the less palatable 0:06:04.040 --> 0:06:07.599 sides of empire and what is out there in the 0:06:07.600 --> 0:06:10.720 public domain is is really banal. It's very facile. It's 0:06:10.720 --> 0:06:12.479 sort of like, yeah, there were a few bad things, 0:06:12.520 --> 0:06:15.240 but you know, on the whole it was really quite good. Um. 0:06:15.279 --> 0:06:17.400 And I think that that story would be blown to 0:06:17.480 --> 0:06:21.679 pieces if there was any serious engagement with the Empire. 0:06:21.760 --> 0:06:25.080 So I think I think this kind of British self conception, 0:06:25.240 --> 0:06:28.520 national self conception is very dependent on the idea of 0:06:28.560 --> 0:06:32.120 having not only having had a great empire, but also 0:06:32.279 --> 0:06:38.240 therefore being an important country today in the world. At 0:06:38.279 --> 0:06:43.240 a time when it's frankly losing um its status and 0:06:43.279 --> 0:06:46.080 its powers, it becomes even more important to kind of 0:06:46.120 --> 0:06:50.520 click to that story. So, speaking of slavery, there is 0:06:50.560 --> 0:06:55.919 also here around slavery this idea that largely persisting, not 0:06:55.960 --> 0:06:58.160 that everybody thinks about it this way, but this kind 0:06:58.160 --> 0:07:02.039 of overarching idea that slaves were kind of docile, that 0:07:02.120 --> 0:07:06.560 they didn't resist, that they even you know, we're happy 0:07:06.600 --> 0:07:11.680 about the lots of their lives, and that's just not true. 0:07:11.800 --> 0:07:14.480 You know, we have a lot of you know, historical 0:07:14.520 --> 0:07:18.760 documentation about the fact that slaves did resist um and 0:07:19.120 --> 0:07:22.000 in so many different ways. And that's that's also true 0:07:22.040 --> 0:07:25.440 when it comes to anti colonial resistance and the British Empire. 0:07:26.040 --> 0:07:31.400 So can you talk about how people did resist or 0:07:31.640 --> 0:07:34.360 kind of you know, the ways in which they resisted 0:07:34.880 --> 0:07:39.520 um imperialism and when it came to the British Empire. Yeah. 0:07:39.640 --> 0:07:41.880 So I actually began the book with a chapter that 0:07:41.920 --> 0:07:45.400 I pulled out later on just because it became too complicated. 0:07:45.720 --> 0:07:48.200 I began the book talking about some of the lost 0:07:48.640 --> 0:07:52.000 slave rebellions that took place between eighteen o seven, the 0:07:52.360 --> 0:07:56.720 abolition of the slave trade, and then the eventually mancipation 0:07:57.040 --> 0:08:01.600 by eight UM. That so to year period was filled 0:08:01.640 --> 0:08:05.080 with rebellions, as of course there were rebellions before as well. 0:08:05.120 --> 0:08:08.320 And one of the reasons I wanted to begin with 0:08:08.600 --> 0:08:12.880 the slave Uh, the slavery part of the British empire, 0:08:13.440 --> 0:08:18.520 um is that slaves rebelled constantly in a slavery required 0:08:19.080 --> 0:08:23.880 an immense course of apparatus. As we know. Um. I 0:08:23.920 --> 0:08:26.120 think this is true of America, but I think it's 0:08:26.280 --> 0:08:28.760 very true of Britain. Is that Britain also likes to 0:08:28.800 --> 0:08:32.360 think of itself as the abolitionist nation. So um, it 0:08:32.480 --> 0:08:35.160 likes to think of itself not as a nation which 0:08:35.920 --> 0:08:40.280 undertook slavery for several centuries, but as the nation which 0:08:40.400 --> 0:08:44.000 led the way in abolishing slavery. And in order to 0:08:44.000 --> 0:08:47.080 hold onto that myth, which is a kind of a 0:08:47.160 --> 0:08:50.600 white savior myth, the all the focus is put on 0:08:50.640 --> 0:08:56.080 people like Thomas Clarkson and Wilbertforce. Uh and uh, you know, 0:08:56.120 --> 0:08:59.240 the idea is that white, enlightened white men came and 0:08:59.240 --> 0:09:01.439 freed the slaves. But actually I wanted to begin by 0:09:01.440 --> 0:09:05.280 talking man, how slaves rebelled all the time, even after 0:09:05.320 --> 0:09:08.320 the so called abolition of the slave trade. It didn't 0:09:08.320 --> 0:09:12.000 abolish slavery as we know. So, UM, I begin with 0:09:12.040 --> 0:09:17.760 the insight which the American historian of Empire of Slavery, 0:09:17.840 --> 0:09:22.760 pardon me, Herbert Attecker says, which is that resistance is 0:09:22.800 --> 0:09:26.680 absolutely key to history, and the resistance of slaves is 0:09:26.679 --> 0:09:29.760 absolutely key to the history of slavery. And I take 0:09:29.840 --> 0:09:34.000 that into a thinking about the empire as well. And 0:09:34.040 --> 0:09:37.600 I also very deliberately begin with Frederick Douglas, the great 0:09:38.320 --> 0:09:43.920 former slave and a black abolitionist, who noted very powerfully 0:09:43.960 --> 0:09:47.680 that power concedes nothing without a demand, and that against 0:09:47.679 --> 0:09:51.280 struggle is absolutely central to freedom, and that the story 0:09:51.360 --> 0:09:56.040 of abolition as as something led by white people, has 0:09:56.120 --> 0:09:59.560 to be challenged. So that is the insight that I 0:09:59.640 --> 0:10:05.200 take from slavery into empire. I'll give you an example, um, 0:10:05.240 --> 0:10:08.320 of one of the kinds of rebellion. I'm talking about. 0:10:08.760 --> 0:10:11.520 The colonized and the enslaved rebelled in all kinds of ways. 0:10:11.520 --> 0:10:15.200 There's no simple single way of rebelling. They would drew labor, 0:10:15.320 --> 0:10:19.800 there was active rebellion with arms and with force, or 0:10:19.920 --> 0:10:25.160 they are undertook demonstrations passive resistance. There isn't a single 0:10:25.240 --> 0:10:29.360 way of resisting But one very interesting example, which I 0:10:29.400 --> 0:10:33.960 talk about in terms of a clash of freedoms, takes 0:10:34.000 --> 0:10:39.120 place in eighteen sixty five in Jamaica, uh in Morant 0:10:39.240 --> 0:10:46.040 bay Um, and this involved freed slaves and their descendants 0:10:46.120 --> 0:10:50.640 are undertaking and uprising, which is essentially about the terrible 0:10:50.720 --> 0:10:55.240 conditions in which they live after so called emancipation, because 0:10:55.240 --> 0:11:01.079 what are they emancipated into. They are emancipated into absolute poverty, 0:11:01.200 --> 0:11:06.480 and they are essentially told that they may no longer 0:11:06.520 --> 0:11:08.560 be slaves, but they need to continue working on the 0:11:08.559 --> 0:11:12.280 plantations for a minimum you know, next to nothing, poverty 0:11:12.280 --> 0:11:15.559 wages um, and that that is the definition of freedoms. 0:11:15.720 --> 0:11:20.120 They're now free to be wage laborers. And their answer 0:11:20.280 --> 0:11:22.800 is essentially sorry, no, this is not this is not 0:11:22.880 --> 0:11:25.240 our understanding of freedom. That for us to go back 0:11:25.240 --> 0:11:27.800 and work on the plantations, even if it is as 0:11:27.960 --> 0:11:32.640 nominally free laborers. To us, that is far too close 0:11:32.679 --> 0:11:36.320 to the conditions of slavery. Our idea of freedom is 0:11:36.440 --> 0:11:39.079 having a very small plot of land that we can 0:11:39.120 --> 0:11:42.880 farm and be truly independent on that. We don't want profits, 0:11:42.920 --> 0:11:44.920 we don't want to be part of the entire economy. 0:11:44.960 --> 0:11:49.400 We're not interested in being entrepreneurs. We want our own 0:11:49.400 --> 0:11:52.920 independence and our autonomy by farming our own land and 0:11:52.960 --> 0:11:55.800 feeding ourselves and our families. And this is the kind 0:11:55.800 --> 0:11:58.000 of this is at the heart of the rebellion in 0:11:58.240 --> 0:12:00.800 Morante Bay. So I also talk about the ways in 0:12:00.840 --> 0:12:05.000 which it's not just that, um, the colonized are rebelling, 0:12:05.440 --> 0:12:08.679 but they're also putting into the phray their own ideas 0:12:08.720 --> 0:12:11.760 of freedom, which are very different from the ideas of 0:12:11.800 --> 0:12:14.960 freedom that are put in place by capitalism and colonialism. 0:12:14.960 --> 0:12:17.120 I mean, for me, and in the book throughout I 0:12:17.200 --> 0:12:22.559 talked about the very intimate relationship between colonialism and capitalism 0:12:22.559 --> 0:12:26.560 and that that is challenged by those who resist the empire. 0:12:27.920 --> 0:12:29.880 Can you talk a little bit more now about the 0:12:30.400 --> 0:12:35.920 relationship between capitalism and colonialism. Well, I think that, um, 0:12:35.960 --> 0:12:39.400 you know, there's a tendency sometimes in our discussions of 0:12:39.520 --> 0:12:43.080 colonialism to talk about the cultural aspects. You know that 0:12:43.600 --> 0:12:46.840 we talk of it as one nation versus another nation. 0:12:46.960 --> 0:12:50.640 So we might say, for instance, India became independent or 0:12:50.760 --> 0:12:54.320 Nigeria became independent, um, And that I think is a 0:12:54.400 --> 0:12:57.080 very limited way of looking at it. What what we 0:12:57.160 --> 0:12:59.400 know is that of course there are cultural dimensions to 0:13:00.320 --> 0:13:05.520 empire there were very profoundly degrading racial dimensions to empire. 0:13:05.640 --> 0:13:07.959 But at what was empire at the end of the day. 0:13:08.320 --> 0:13:12.679 Empire at the end of the day was about profits. Um. 0:13:12.720 --> 0:13:18.080 It was about extracting labor. It was about extracting resources. 0:13:18.240 --> 0:13:21.360 It was about taking land where necessary in order to 0:13:21.400 --> 0:13:25.360 perform these functions. Um, it was about bringing profits back 0:13:25.520 --> 0:13:28.800 from the colonies into what we call the metropol the 0:13:28.840 --> 0:13:34.520 great European empires, bringing money back to Europe, and slavery 0:13:34.760 --> 0:13:38.120 was a foundational moment for that reason. You know, often 0:13:38.120 --> 0:13:41.480 slavery has talked about in a very self serving way 0:13:41.480 --> 0:13:44.480 as something quite separate from empires, you know, something of 0:13:44.520 --> 0:13:48.080 an accident before you know, everything became better. But actually 0:13:48.120 --> 0:13:51.680 slavery is very foundational to empire because it is a 0:13:52.080 --> 0:13:55.280 it's this kind of primary moment of extracting labor in 0:13:55.360 --> 0:13:59.319 order to make capital. Uh, you know, Western capitalism is 0:13:59.440 --> 0:14:05.160 founder it on the extracted extorted labor, on free labor, 0:14:05.360 --> 0:14:09.520 on black people and subsequently indentured people. We often don't 0:14:09.520 --> 0:14:12.720 talk about indenture. Slavery was replaced by indenture, which was, 0:14:13.040 --> 0:14:16.840 you know, just a few steps better than slavery. So 0:14:16.880 --> 0:14:19.880 I think that for me, Uh, you can't make sense 0:14:20.000 --> 0:14:23.880 of the imperial project if you don't talk about capitalism, 0:14:23.960 --> 0:14:26.840 because it is all about putting into place capitalism. So 0:14:26.880 --> 0:14:30.040 we're not post empire. We are living in a world 0:14:30.160 --> 0:14:33.800 in which our everyday lives are shaped by uh. You know, 0:14:33.880 --> 0:14:36.440 people will use the word legacies, but I tend to 0:14:36.520 --> 0:14:39.280 use the word afterlife. We have the afterlife fire with 0:14:39.400 --> 0:14:43.680 us today in the ways in which we live economically 0:14:43.880 --> 0:14:47.760 and deal with each other. Yes, so often, it seems 0:14:47.760 --> 0:14:50.760 like in conversations here in the US when it comes 0:14:50.760 --> 0:14:54.560 to things like acknowledging the great economic you know, success 0:14:54.600 --> 0:14:56.440 that place has had, for instance in the South and 0:14:56.480 --> 0:14:59.480 the colony is like, oh, they were successful because of indigo, 0:14:59.560 --> 0:15:02.640 because of because of In so many of those conversations, 0:15:03.080 --> 0:15:06.760 enslaved people aren't mentioned at all, but also integral to 0:15:07.000 --> 0:15:09.880 that whole process and the economic growth of that place. 0:15:10.040 --> 0:15:14.760 So yeah, there's a there's a huge hole there. So absolutely, yes, yes. 0:15:15.080 --> 0:15:19.040 So what were some of the goals of anti colonial resistance? 0:15:19.440 --> 0:15:22.600 What was success? What I guess success if you could 0:15:22.680 --> 0:15:25.000 use that word, Where were some of the goals of 0:15:25.120 --> 0:15:27.440 things that people wanted to come out of their resistance 0:15:27.480 --> 0:15:31.960 to colonialism? Now, it's very important to remember that. Um, 0:15:32.080 --> 0:15:36.520 when people resisted colonialism, it wasn't a kind of simple Okay, 0:15:36.560 --> 0:15:40.280 we are anti colonial and we want colonialism gone. Um. 0:15:40.320 --> 0:15:42.840 You know, very often, as in the case of Morant Bay, 0:15:42.880 --> 0:15:46.360 which I just discussed, UM, they will demand, for instance, 0:15:46.360 --> 0:15:49.400 for plots of land to farm. UM. In the cases 0:15:49.480 --> 0:15:54.160 of India in the early twentieth century and um the 0:15:54.200 --> 0:15:57.600 West Indies in the nineties, twenties and thirties, it was 0:15:57.680 --> 0:16:02.480 demands for better conditions, better ages, um. Um, you know, 0:16:02.520 --> 0:16:07.600 more rights, more civil rights. UM. So often anti colonialism 0:16:07.680 --> 0:16:13.360 took the form of demanding rights from colonial powers and 0:16:13.480 --> 0:16:18.000 their representatives. So there isn't a single model antic colonialism, 0:16:18.080 --> 0:16:20.480 nor is it simply a case of wealth. You know, 0:16:20.880 --> 0:16:23.880 we are anti colonial and we want colonialism over. You know, 0:16:23.880 --> 0:16:28.040 often it because they came at it with specific uh 0:16:28.480 --> 0:16:31.520 demands and specific agenda. So as I said, there's there's 0:16:31.520 --> 0:16:36.280 the land question in uh Jamaica. When you get to India, 0:16:36.440 --> 0:16:41.080 there are demands for foreign products to be removed, for 0:16:41.160 --> 0:16:44.880 the Indian markets to be uh, you know, self sustaining, 0:16:45.120 --> 0:16:49.920 to for local products, local industry to not be decimated 0:16:49.960 --> 0:16:55.560 by foreign products, by by British industry, protecting local industries. UM. 0:16:55.720 --> 0:17:00.480 In the nineteen twenties, there are several strikes, a great 0:17:00.560 --> 0:17:05.800 deal of labor unrest in India, which was about you know, 0:17:05.840 --> 0:17:11.119 better conditions for workers, for not being exploited again. In 0:17:11.200 --> 0:17:14.280 the nineteen thirties, much of it takes the form of 0:17:14.359 --> 0:17:18.399 labor rebellions. There are also demands for more freedom of expression, 0:17:18.520 --> 0:17:21.000 for the right to assembly. We have to remember that 0:17:21.160 --> 0:17:23.639 all the rights that people in Britain were starting to 0:17:23.680 --> 0:17:29.160 take for granted in the UH, in London, in England 0:17:29.160 --> 0:17:31.960 in the twentieth century, those were not rights that people 0:17:31.960 --> 0:17:34.760 in the colonies had. So you know, all the things 0:17:34.800 --> 0:17:38.560 that you know, British people took as as normal freedom 0:17:38.600 --> 0:17:43.000 of expression, freedom to right, freedom of pressed, anti censorship, 0:17:43.640 --> 0:17:46.720 the right not to be jailed because you held a demonstration, 0:17:46.800 --> 0:17:48.919 these were not rights that were available in the colony. 0:17:49.000 --> 0:17:52.879 So often anti colonial UH struggles took the form of 0:17:53.040 --> 0:17:58.160 demands for these things. In the nineteen twenties, after the 0:17:58.240 --> 0:18:01.920 end of the First World was something very interesting happens. UM. 0:18:02.040 --> 0:18:05.960 You start to have the idea of self determination coming 0:18:06.040 --> 0:18:10.960 into the Phray very very obviously it's coming from the 0:18:11.000 --> 0:18:15.080 fact of the Russian Revolution which is incredibly inspirational to 0:18:15.800 --> 0:18:18.320 people under the yok of colonialists and the idea that 0:18:18.400 --> 0:18:23.160 kind of so called backward nations can actually revolt against 0:18:23.200 --> 0:18:26.200 autocracy and tyranny, and that it can actually be done, 0:18:26.200 --> 0:18:27.840 that you can put in place a new kind of 0:18:27.880 --> 0:18:31.280 way of governing, a new kind of economic order. Lennon's 0:18:31.400 --> 0:18:35.080 idea of self determination is important. At the same time, 0:18:35.119 --> 0:18:39.040 of course, you've got the Western powers talking the talk 0:18:39.640 --> 0:18:45.680 of liberty, peace, justice, the quality of nations. Right, so 0:18:46.280 --> 0:18:49.280 the European nations in the United States, now led by 0:18:49.280 --> 0:18:54.080 Woodrow Wilson, are talking about self determination, and of course 0:18:54.080 --> 0:18:57.959 in theory this is all about uh, you know, global rights. 0:18:58.400 --> 0:19:01.159 But what are the colonies discover their colonies discovered? That 0:19:01.200 --> 0:19:04.119 Wilson doesn't really mean it to apply to the colonies. 0:19:04.640 --> 0:19:09.720 Wilson means, you know, international order, peace, justice, human rights 0:19:09.800 --> 0:19:18.200 for United States and Europe. And this enables anti colonial activists, 0:19:18.280 --> 0:19:21.439 campaigners thinkers to say, well, hang on a second, we 0:19:21.640 --> 0:19:24.560 fought alongside you in the First World War because you 0:19:24.600 --> 0:19:27.840 said this was a war for justice, peace and human 0:19:27.960 --> 0:19:30.800 rights and freedom. Well what about these things for us? 0:19:31.520 --> 0:19:38.360 Um and that hypocrisy that you know, that realization that uh, 0:19:38.680 --> 0:19:42.280 global didn't really include the whole world, that the colonies 0:19:42.280 --> 0:19:47.280 were still expected to be subservient to Europe and eventually 0:19:47.320 --> 0:19:50.280 the United States. I think that provokes a great deal 0:19:50.320 --> 0:19:53.879 of anger. One of the interesting episodes that I write 0:19:53.920 --> 0:19:59.080 and talk about in the book is the Italian invasion 0:19:59.400 --> 0:20:02.679 of what was then known as Abyssinia, the country that 0:20:02.760 --> 0:20:08.720 we know as Ethiopia today. Italy invades Ethiopia again, having 0:20:08.720 --> 0:20:12.080 done it earlier in nineteen thirty four. At the end 0:20:12.080 --> 0:20:18.040 of nineteen the Emperor Highler Selassi takes an unprecedented step 0:20:18.280 --> 0:20:22.800 for a non Western nation. He goes to the League 0:20:22.800 --> 0:20:26.160 of Nations and he says, excuse me, We've just been invaded, 0:20:27.160 --> 0:20:32.360 and you have a consensus that sovereign nations cannot be invaded. 0:20:32.480 --> 0:20:35.840 So what about me? What about my country? And it 0:20:35.840 --> 0:20:38.199 turns out that the League of Nations has absolutely no 0:20:38.280 --> 0:20:45.360 intention of restraining Italy. Britain has no intention of, uh, 0:20:45.400 --> 0:20:51.240 you know, doing anything about it, and highlights Selassie realizes 0:20:52.280 --> 0:20:55.399 by taking this public stance, he not only realizes, but 0:20:55.440 --> 0:20:59.920 he makes very visible the double standards, and this set 0:21:00.040 --> 0:21:03.760 sort of a great wave of rage across the African 0:21:04.280 --> 0:21:06.520 and Caribbean world. And it really is one of the 0:21:06.600 --> 0:21:10.160 kind of foundational moments in twentieth century Pan Africanism, which 0:21:10.200 --> 0:21:12.960 is to say, right, so the standards that apply to 0:21:13.040 --> 0:21:16.960 the white world, uh and are pretended to be universal, 0:21:17.040 --> 0:21:19.800 really don't apply to us. And that's the kind of 0:21:19.880 --> 0:21:25.639 moment when self determination becomes absolutely key across the colonized world, 0:21:25.800 --> 0:21:28.840 and it becomes very clear that self determination will not 0:21:28.920 --> 0:21:33.320 be quote unquote given by or appor America. It will 0:21:33.359 --> 0:21:37.040 have to be seized. We'll be back with more with 0:21:37.160 --> 0:21:52.359 Dr Gobel after this break. So I know that a 0:21:52.400 --> 0:21:55.840 lot of the time anti colonial resistance was met with 0:21:56.000 --> 0:22:00.520 resistance by establishments and by this state. What did that 0:22:00.520 --> 0:22:02.800 look like? I know that you've mentioned that there were 0:22:02.840 --> 0:22:06.440 wars under Queen Victoria. So if there are, those are 0:22:06.480 --> 0:22:10.320 some of the examples of resistance to resistance, and what 0:22:10.400 --> 0:22:13.600 are some of the other ones as well? Well? I 0:22:13.640 --> 0:22:16.000 think this is the other aspect of empire that is 0:22:16.400 --> 0:22:20.520 quite casually forgotten, certainly in Britain, which is that it 0:22:20.600 --> 0:22:24.680 was a very very bloody enterprise. It was met with resistance, 0:22:24.800 --> 0:22:28.240 just as slavery was met with resistance all the time. 0:22:28.680 --> 0:22:32.439 Slaves were always rebelling. The colonized were always rebelling. So 0:22:32.480 --> 0:22:38.320 what do you do when you have rebelling, unquiet populations. 0:22:38.359 --> 0:22:41.359 Of course it takes the form of that famous uh, 0:22:41.440 --> 0:22:44.480 you know British saying the natives are restless tonight. The 0:22:44.560 --> 0:22:47.040 natives were always restless. And what did that means? It 0:22:47.080 --> 0:22:49.320 meant you had to bring arms. You had to bring 0:22:49.359 --> 0:22:54.240 in the maximum gun um and so you have wars 0:22:54.480 --> 0:22:59.840 throughout the eighteenth and nineteen centuries. Rebellion was endemic in 0:23:00.040 --> 0:23:04.800 the rebellion was endemic across Africa. I can't list the 0:23:04.920 --> 0:23:10.320 number of wars that really were about putting empire into place, 0:23:10.680 --> 0:23:14.560 really were about so called pacifying natives. Well, let me 0:23:14.640 --> 0:23:17.199 just mention a few, and just from the kind of 0:23:17.240 --> 0:23:21.479 mid nineteenth century onwards. You've got the Jossa War in 0:23:21.880 --> 0:23:25.359 South Africa. You've got the Anglo Persian War. You of 0:23:25.400 --> 0:23:30.000 course have the Indian Uprising in eighteen fifty seven, which 0:23:30.040 --> 0:23:33.480 I talk about. You have the so called Maori Wars 0:23:33.640 --> 0:23:38.280 in New Zealand. You have the Ashanti Wars in Ghana, 0:23:38.400 --> 0:23:42.439 the Zulu Wars again in Southern Africa. Um. I write 0:23:42.480 --> 0:23:47.320 about the British invasion of Egypt in eighteen eighty two 0:23:47.320 --> 0:23:50.240 and the resistance to that. You have no less than 0:23:50.320 --> 0:23:53.800 three wars in Afghanistan. They were known as the First, Second, 0:23:54.160 --> 0:23:59.119 and Third Afghan Wars respectively. There were the wars in 0:23:59.240 --> 0:24:04.520 Sudan around the heavy the headiest wars. You have campaigns 0:24:04.560 --> 0:24:09.160 at the beginning of the twentieth century in Somaliland, so 0:24:09.200 --> 0:24:11.360 you know I mean, And of course there's China where 0:24:11.359 --> 0:24:15.040 you have the Boxer Rebellion also a nine, and prior 0:24:15.080 --> 0:24:17.760 to that, the Opium Wars, which was a way of 0:24:17.800 --> 0:24:24.200 forcing British mercantile interests into a very resistant Chinese empire. 0:24:24.400 --> 0:24:30.359 So is just completely endemic. And when they're not taking 0:24:30.400 --> 0:24:33.159 the form of wars, they are taking the form of 0:24:33.400 --> 0:24:38.920 very brutal counter insurgencies. So in eighteen sixty five, the 0:24:38.960 --> 0:24:41.520 incident that I referred to as a Morant Bay rebellion, 0:24:42.119 --> 0:24:46.080 that was put down with great bloodiness, despite the fact 0:24:46.080 --> 0:24:48.440 that there was actually very little violence on the part 0:24:48.480 --> 0:24:52.920 of those who led the uprising, and there were executions 0:24:53.119 --> 0:24:57.720 those martial law imposed houses were burned, people were killed. Um. 0:24:57.800 --> 0:25:00.520 And the other point that I make is that often 0:25:00.600 --> 0:25:05.240 these repressions came back home to Britain, and not all 0:25:05.359 --> 0:25:10.879 of Britain was comfortable with the violence being undertaken. And 0:25:10.960 --> 0:25:13.399 so what I write about in much of the book 0:25:13.560 --> 0:25:16.040 is the people who are saying, not in our name. 0:25:16.960 --> 0:25:21.000 So people are saying, wait a second, why did you 0:25:21.000 --> 0:25:24.040 you know, hang so and so? Why there were so 0:25:24.200 --> 0:25:28.800 many houses in Jamaica burnt down? Why were so many 0:25:28.880 --> 0:25:34.879 Indians put into jail? Why are our gunships in Egypt? 0:25:35.240 --> 0:25:37.520 So there are people also saying, why is all this 0:25:37.600 --> 0:25:41.359 happening in our name? Why so much bloodshed taking place 0:25:41.400 --> 0:25:43.960 in our name? So, really, what you've got is either 0:25:44.160 --> 0:25:50.640 kind of repression of strikes. You have arrests, detentions, martial law, 0:25:51.480 --> 0:25:55.639 actual killing, actual wars. You know, so that the violence 0:25:55.640 --> 0:25:59.680 of empire um is very very strong. In fact, there's 0:25:59.680 --> 0:26:02.960 a there's a wonderful book by John Newson Joe called 0:26:03.280 --> 0:26:07.480 The Blood Never Dried, which is really about how there 0:26:07.560 --> 0:26:11.080 is no dry blood and Empire at constant bloodshed, constant 0:26:11.720 --> 0:26:15.439 spilling of blood in the face off between resistance to 0:26:15.520 --> 0:26:22.480 empire and putting down that resistance. I'm wondering what what 0:26:22.560 --> 0:26:27.560 kind of people were actually resisting. So I can imagine, 0:26:27.560 --> 0:26:30.280 you know, they're seeing all this violence happening around them, 0:26:30.440 --> 0:26:33.520 and there could be an element of like having to 0:26:33.600 --> 0:26:37.280 have a lot of thought put into the resistance and 0:26:37.320 --> 0:26:39.760 a lot of courage to actually go out and do it. 0:26:40.040 --> 0:26:42.520 But on the other side, I know that they were 0:26:42.560 --> 0:26:45.880