Speaker 1: If there is a universal value, it is that tendency
Speaker 1: to push against tyranny and exploitation. And if we can
Speaker 1: foster that tendency in ourselves in our societies, then this
Speaker 1: is a historical moment where we absolutely need to capture
Speaker 1: and foster that. We're back today with another bonus conversation
Speaker 1: for a popular If you haven't yet listened to the
Speaker 1: first season of Unpopular, you should go ahead and do
Speaker 1: that because there are a lot of amazing stories on
Speaker 1: different people in history who resisted the status quo and
Speaker 1: we're persecuted for it. But today's conversation is going to
Speaker 1: be a little bit different. We're going to be speaking
Speaker 1: with Dr Preambata Gobel, who is the author of the
Speaker 1: book Insurgent Empire, Anti Colonial Resistance and British Descent. And
Speaker 1: my hope for these conversations is that we can add
Speaker 1: just another layer on top of this conversation around descent
Speaker 1: and around what discent means today and around what we
Speaker 1: can learn about the histories of descent and the legacies
Speaker 1: of descent. And Dr Gopel has a lot to say
Speaker 1: and knows a lot about descent and anti colonial resistance,
Speaker 1: and I really hope that you enjoy today's conversation. So
Speaker 1: let's get into it. My name is Priamboda Gopo and
Speaker 1: I'm a lecturer in the Faculty of English at the
Speaker 1: University of Cambridge in the UK. So you have a book,
Speaker 1: Insurgent Empire about anti colonial resistance. As I understand it,
Speaker 1: you came kind of about, you know, doing all the
Speaker 1: research on this topic and writing this book from a
Speaker 1: controversial instance. UM, A little back and forth that happened
Speaker 1: in the beginning. Can you tell me about that? Yes,
Speaker 1: So I was invited onto the BBC, onto one of
Speaker 1: its kind of flagship, the discussion programs on the radio UH,
Speaker 1: to discuss empire. UM. One of the occasions for that
Speaker 1: discussion was I think the publication of UH, the right
Speaker 1: wing historian Neil Ferguson's book on the Empire. And in
Speaker 1: the course of that discussion there were five of us
Speaker 1: in that discussion, it became very clear that the presenter,
Speaker 1: the host stands and Ferguson stands was one that was
Speaker 1: very much about how great the British Empire had been
Speaker 1: and how even though there might have been a kind
Speaker 1: of few, uh, you know, mishaps on the whole. It
Speaker 1: was a benevolent force that shaped the world for the
Speaker 1: better in the image of Britain. Um. There were two
Speaker 1: people of color on the panel, the eminent black theologian
Speaker 1: Robert Bedford and myself, and it ended up being kind
Speaker 1: of a strange discussion where it was only Robert and
Speaker 1: I who were raised seeing some doubts about whether the
Speaker 1: Empires had been all that great um, And we brought
Speaker 1: up questions of slavery in venture, racism, uh, you know,
Speaker 1: land grabs, ethnic cleansing, famines um. And all of that
Speaker 1: was sort of, you know, treated slightly dismissively by certainly
Speaker 1: by Ferguson Um. And then that evening the BBC took
Speaker 1: a very unusual step where they did another program basically
Speaker 1: in which they brought on an Indian woman to say
Speaker 1: I think in in one sense that I was not
Speaker 1: representative of Indians um, and that a lot of Indians
Speaker 1: were very grateful to the Empire, and that they really
Speaker 1: cherished the memory of the Empire and so on. So
Speaker 1: that incident has never quite gone away from for me,
Speaker 1: and I've written about the Empire since then in the
Speaker 1: British press. I've been involved debates around decolonizing the curriculum,
Speaker 1: and also about how we commemorate the Empire. So this
Speaker 1: book is kind of related to that incident, but also
Speaker 1: to discussions that I've had since then. And also it's
Speaker 1: partly a response to my students often telling me that
Speaker 1: they're not taught anything about the empire, um that when
Speaker 1: they are taught something about the Empire, it's very very generally,
Speaker 1: very positive and very sketchy in the details. Why do
Speaker 1: you think that is, Why is it that that your
Speaker 1: students are taught about the empire in that way? And
Speaker 1: why does this idea persist that the empire was kind
Speaker 1: of the savior and viewed in this positive light. Well,
Speaker 1: I think, you know, there are many reasons. One of
Speaker 1: them is that, uh, the idea of having headed a
Speaker 1: benevolent and great empire is still extremely important to British
Speaker 1: national self image, certainly the official self image, as is
Speaker 1: propagated by government and by the mainstream media. There. I
Speaker 1: think that there is an awareness that if you open
Speaker 1: up that can of empire then there are a lot
Speaker 1: of worms in there, and I don't think there is
Speaker 1: an appetite to deal with the ugliness that might surface.
Speaker 1: I mean, the fact is that any discussion about the
Speaker 1: Empire is going to be very difficult for all concerned.
Speaker 1: You know, whether whatever race or ethnicity or religious background
Speaker 1: you're from. It's a very complicated and in many ways,
Speaker 1: very ugly story, very demanding story, I would say, And
Speaker 1: I don't think that the school curriculum is at all
Speaker 1: equipped to discuss difficult issues and not not unlike you know,
Speaker 1: slavery in the United States force people to come to
Speaker 1: terms with some very complicated and less than pretty sides
Speaker 1: of their own history. So I think there's a general reluctance.
Speaker 1: There is certainly an enforced amnesia about the less palatable
Speaker 1: sides of empire and what is out there in the
Speaker 1: public domain is is really banal. It's very facile. It's
Speaker 1: sort of like, yeah, there were a few bad things,
Speaker 1: but you know, on the whole it was really quite good. Um.
Speaker 1: And I think that that story would be blown to
Speaker 1: pieces if there was any serious engagement with the Empire.
Speaker 1: So I think I think this kind of British self conception,
Speaker 1: national self conception is very dependent on the idea of
Speaker 1: having not only having had a great empire, but also
Speaker 1: therefore being an important country today in the world. At
Speaker 1: a time when it's frankly losing um its status and
Speaker 1: its powers, it becomes even more important to kind of
Speaker 1: click to that story. So, speaking of slavery, there is
Speaker 1: also here around slavery this idea that largely persisting, not
Speaker 1: that everybody thinks about it this way, but this kind
Speaker 1: of overarching idea that slaves were kind of docile, that
Speaker 1: they didn't resist, that they even you know, we're happy
Speaker 1: about the lots of their lives, and that's just not true.
Speaker 1: You know, we have a lot of you know, historical
Speaker 1: documentation about the fact that slaves did resist um and
Speaker 1: in so many different ways. And that's that's also true
Speaker 1: when it comes to anti colonial resistance and the British Empire.
Speaker 1: So can you talk about how people did resist or
Speaker 1: kind of you know, the ways in which they resisted
Speaker 1: um imperialism and when it came to the British Empire. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So I actually began the book with a chapter that
Speaker 1: I pulled out later on just because it became too complicated.
Speaker 1: I began the book talking about some of the lost
Speaker 1: slave rebellions that took place between eighteen o seven, the
Speaker 1: abolition of the slave trade, and then the eventually mancipation
Speaker 1: by eight UM. That so to year period was filled
Speaker 1: with rebellions, as of course there were rebellions before as well.
Speaker 1: And one of the reasons I wanted to begin with
Speaker 1: the slave Uh, the slavery part of the British empire,
Speaker 1: um is that slaves rebelled constantly in a slavery required
Speaker 1: an immense course of apparatus. As we know. Um. I
Speaker 1: think this is true of America, but I think it's
Speaker 1: very true of Britain. Is that Britain also likes to
Speaker 1: think of itself as the abolitionist nation. So um, it
Speaker 1: likes to think of itself not as a nation which
Speaker 1: undertook slavery for several centuries, but as the nation which
Speaker 1: led the way in abolishing slavery. And in order to
Speaker 1: hold onto that myth, which is a kind of a
Speaker 1: white savior myth, the all the focus is put on
Speaker 1: people like Thomas Clarkson and Wilbertforce. Uh and uh, you know,
Speaker 1: the idea is that white, enlightened white men came and
Speaker 1: freed the slaves. But actually I wanted to begin by
Speaker 1: talking man, how slaves rebelled all the time, even after
Speaker 1: the so called abolition of the slave trade. It didn't
Speaker 1: abolish slavery as we know. So, UM, I begin with
Speaker 1: the insight which the American historian of Empire of Slavery,
Speaker 1: pardon me, Herbert Attecker says, which is that resistance is
Speaker 1: absolutely key to history, and the resistance of slaves is
Speaker 1: absolutely key to the history of slavery. And I take
Speaker 1: that into a thinking about the empire as well. And
Speaker 1: I also very deliberately begin with Frederick Douglas, the great
Speaker 1: former slave and a black abolitionist, who noted very powerfully
Speaker 1: that power concedes nothing without a demand, and that against
Speaker 1: struggle is absolutely central to freedom, and that the story
Speaker 1: of abolition as as something led by white people, has
Speaker 1: to be challenged. So that is the insight that I
Speaker 1: take from slavery into empire. I'll give you an example, um,
Speaker 1: of one of the kinds of rebellion. I'm talking about.
Speaker 1: The colonized and the enslaved rebelled in all kinds of ways.
Speaker 1: There's no simple single way of rebelling. They would drew labor,
Speaker 1: there was active rebellion with arms and with force, or
Speaker 1: they are undertook demonstrations passive resistance. There isn't a single
Speaker 1: way of resisting But one very interesting example, which I
Speaker 1: talk about in terms of a clash of freedoms, takes
Speaker 1: place in eighteen sixty five in Jamaica, uh in Morant
Speaker 1: bay Um, and this involved freed slaves and their descendants
Speaker 1: are undertaking and uprising, which is essentially about the terrible
Speaker 1: conditions in which they live after so called emancipation, because
Speaker 1: what are they emancipated into. They are emancipated into absolute poverty,
Speaker 1: and they are essentially told that they may no longer
Speaker 1: be slaves, but they need to continue working on the
Speaker 1: plantations for a minimum you know, next to nothing, poverty
Speaker 1: wages um, and that that is the definition of freedoms.
Speaker 1: They're now free to be wage laborers. And their answer
Speaker 1: is essentially sorry, no, this is not this is not
Speaker 1: our understanding of freedom. That for us to go back
Speaker 1: and work on the plantations, even if it is as
Speaker 1: nominally free laborers. To us, that is far too close
Speaker 1: to the conditions of slavery. Our idea of freedom is
Speaker 1: having a very small plot of land that we can
Speaker 1: farm and be truly independent on that. We don't want profits,
Speaker 1: we don't want to be part of the entire economy.
Speaker 1: We're not interested in being entrepreneurs. We want our own
Speaker 1: independence and our autonomy by farming our own land and
Speaker 1: feeding ourselves and our families. And this is the kind
Speaker 1: of this is at the heart of the rebellion in
Speaker 1: Morante Bay. So I also talk about the ways in
Speaker 1: which it's not just that, um, the colonized are rebelling,
Speaker 1: but they're also putting into the phray their own ideas
Speaker 1: of freedom, which are very different from the ideas of
Speaker 1: freedom that are put in place by capitalism and colonialism.
Speaker 1: I mean, for me, and in the book throughout I
Speaker 1: talked about the very intimate relationship between colonialism and capitalism
Speaker 1: and that that is challenged by those who resist the empire.
Speaker 1: Can you talk a little bit more now about the
Speaker 1: relationship between capitalism and colonialism. Well, I think that, um,
Speaker 1: you know, there's a tendency sometimes in our discussions of
Speaker 1: colonialism to talk about the cultural aspects. You know that
Speaker 1: we talk of it as one nation versus another nation.
Speaker 1: So we might say, for instance, India became independent or
Speaker 1: Nigeria became independent, um, And that I think is a
Speaker 1: very limited way of looking at it. What what we
Speaker 1: know is that of course there are cultural dimensions to
Speaker 1: empire there were very profoundly degrading racial dimensions to empire.
Speaker 1: But at what was empire at the end of the day.
Speaker 1: Empire at the end of the day was about profits. Um.
Speaker 1: It was about extracting labor. It was about extracting resources.
Speaker 1: It was about taking land where necessary in order to
Speaker 1: perform these functions. Um, it was about bringing profits back
Speaker 1: from the colonies into what we call the metropol the
Speaker 1: great European empires, bringing money back to Europe, and slavery
Speaker 1: was a foundational moment for that reason. You know, often
Speaker 1: slavery has talked about in a very self serving way
Speaker 1: as something quite separate from empires, you know, something of
Speaker 1: an accident before you know, everything became better. But actually
Speaker 1: slavery is very foundational to empire because it is a
Speaker 1: it's this kind of primary moment of extracting labor in
Speaker 1: order to make capital. Uh, you know, Western capitalism is
Speaker 1: founder it on the extracted extorted labor, on free labor,
Speaker 1: on black people and subsequently indentured people. We often don't
Speaker 1: talk about indenture. Slavery was replaced by indenture, which was,
Speaker 1: you know, just a few steps better than slavery. So
Speaker 1: I think that for me, Uh, you can't make sense
Speaker 1: of the imperial project if you don't talk about capitalism,
Speaker 1: because it is all about putting into place capitalism. So
Speaker 1: we're not post empire. We are living in a world
Speaker 1: in which our everyday lives are shaped by uh. You know,
Speaker 1: people will use the word legacies, but I tend to
Speaker 1: use the word afterlife. We have the afterlife fire with
Speaker 1: us today in the ways in which we live economically
Speaker 1: and deal with each other. Yes, so often, it seems
Speaker 1: like in conversations here in the US when it comes
Speaker 1: to things like acknowledging the great economic you know, success
Speaker 1: that place has had, for instance in the South and
Speaker 1: the colony is like, oh, they were successful because of indigo,
Speaker 1: because of because of In so many of those conversations,
Speaker 1: enslaved people aren't mentioned at all, but also integral to
Speaker 1: that whole process and the economic growth of that place.
Speaker 1: So yeah, there's a there's a huge hole there. So absolutely, yes, yes.
Speaker 1: So what were some of the goals of anti colonial resistance?
Speaker 1: What was success? What I guess success if you could
Speaker 1: use that word, Where were some of the goals of
Speaker 1: things that people wanted to come out of their resistance
Speaker 1: to colonialism? Now, it's very important to remember that. Um,
Speaker 1: when people resisted colonialism, it wasn't a kind of simple Okay,
Speaker 1: we are anti colonial and we want colonialism gone. Um.
Speaker 1: You know, very often, as in the case of Morant Bay,
Speaker 1: which I just discussed, UM, they will demand, for instance,
Speaker 1: for plots of land to farm. UM. In the cases
Speaker 1: of India in the early twentieth century and um the
Speaker 1: West Indies in the nineties, twenties and thirties, it was
Speaker 1: demands for better conditions, better ages, um. Um, you know,
Speaker 1: more rights, more civil rights. UM. So often anti colonialism
Speaker 1: took the form of demanding rights from colonial powers and
Speaker 1: their representatives. So there isn't a single model antic colonialism,
Speaker 1: nor is it simply a case of wealth. You know,
Speaker 1: we are anti colonial and we want colonialism over. You know,
Speaker 1: often it because they came at it with specific uh
Speaker 1: demands and specific agenda. So as I said, there's there's
Speaker 1: the land question in uh Jamaica. When you get to India,
Speaker 1: there are demands for foreign products to be removed, for
Speaker 1: the Indian markets to be uh, you know, self sustaining,
Speaker 1: to for local products, local industry to not be decimated
Speaker 1: by foreign products, by by British industry, protecting local industries. UM.
Speaker 1: In the nineteen twenties, there are several strikes, a great
Speaker 1: deal of labor unrest in India, which was about you know,
Speaker 1: better conditions for workers, for not being exploited again. In
Speaker 1: the nineteen thirties, much of it takes the form of
Speaker 1: labor rebellions. There are also demands for more freedom of expression,
Speaker 1: for the right to assembly. We have to remember that
Speaker 1: all the rights that people in Britain were starting to
Speaker 1: take for granted in the UH, in London, in England
Speaker 1: in the twentieth century, those were not rights that people
Speaker 1: in the colonies had. So you know, all the things
Speaker 1: that you know, British people took as as normal freedom
Speaker 1: of expression, freedom to right, freedom of pressed, anti censorship,
Speaker 1: the right not to be jailed because you held a demonstration,
Speaker 1: these were not rights that were available in the colony.
Speaker 1: So often anti colonial UH struggles took the form of
Speaker 1: demands for these things. In the nineteen twenties, after the
Speaker 1: end of the First World was something very interesting happens. UM.
Speaker 1: You start to have the idea of self determination coming
Speaker 1: into the Phray very very obviously it's coming from the
Speaker 1: fact of the Russian Revolution which is incredibly inspirational to
Speaker 1: people under the yok of colonialists and the idea that
Speaker 1: kind of so called backward nations can actually revolt against
Speaker 1: autocracy and tyranny, and that it can actually be done,
Speaker 1: that you can put in place a new kind of
Speaker 1: way of governing, a new kind of economic order. Lennon's
Speaker 1: idea of self determination is important. At the same time,
Speaker 1: of course, you've got the Western powers talking the talk
Speaker 1: of liberty, peace, justice, the quality of nations. Right, so
Speaker 1: the European nations in the United States, now led by
Speaker 1: Woodrow Wilson, are talking about self determination, and of course
Speaker 1: in theory this is all about uh, you know, global rights.
Speaker 1: But what are the colonies discover their colonies discovered? That
Speaker 1: Wilson doesn't really mean it to apply to the colonies.
Speaker 1: Wilson means, you know, international order, peace, justice, human rights
Speaker 1: for United States and Europe. And this enables anti colonial activists,
Speaker 1: campaigners thinkers to say, well, hang on a second, we
Speaker 1: fought alongside you in the First World War because you
Speaker 1: said this was a war for justice, peace and human
Speaker 1: rights and freedom. Well what about these things for us?
Speaker 1: Um and that hypocrisy that you know, that realization that uh,
Speaker 1: global didn't really include the whole world, that the colonies
Speaker 1: were still expected to be subservient to Europe and eventually
Speaker 1: the United States. I think that provokes a great deal
Speaker 1: of anger. One of the interesting episodes that I write
Speaker 1: and talk about in the book is the Italian invasion
Speaker 1: of what was then known as Abyssinia, the country that
Speaker 1: we know as Ethiopia today. Italy invades Ethiopia again, having
Speaker 1: done it earlier in nineteen thirty four. At the end
Speaker 1: of nineteen the Emperor Highler Selassi takes an unprecedented step
Speaker 1: for a non Western nation. He goes to the League
Speaker 1: of Nations and he says, excuse me, We've just been invaded,
Speaker 1: and you have a consensus that sovereign nations cannot be invaded.
Speaker 1: So what about me? What about my country? And it
Speaker 1: turns out that the League of Nations has absolutely no
Speaker 1: intention of restraining Italy. Britain has no intention of, uh,
Speaker 1: you know, doing anything about it, and highlights Selassie realizes
Speaker 1: by taking this public stance, he not only realizes, but
Speaker 1: he makes very visible the double standards, and this set
Speaker 1: sort of a great wave of rage across the African
Speaker 1: and Caribbean world. And it really is one of the
Speaker 1: kind of foundational moments in twentieth century Pan Africanism, which
Speaker 1: is to say, right, so the standards that apply to
Speaker 1: the white world, uh and are pretended to be universal,
Speaker 1: really don't apply to us. And that's the kind of
Speaker 1: moment when self determination becomes absolutely key across the colonized world,
Speaker 1: and it becomes very clear that self determination will not
Speaker 1: be quote unquote given by or appor America. It will
Speaker 1: have to be seized. We'll be back with more with
Speaker 1: Dr Gobel after this break. So I know that a
Speaker 1: lot of the time anti colonial resistance was met with
Speaker 1: resistance by establishments and by this state. What did that
Speaker 1: look like? I know that you've mentioned that there were
Speaker 1: wars under Queen Victoria. So if there are, those are
Speaker 1: some of the examples of resistance to resistance, and what
Speaker 1: are some of the other ones as well? Well? I
Speaker 1: think this is the other aspect of empire that is
Speaker 1: quite casually forgotten, certainly in Britain, which is that it
Speaker 1: was a very very bloody enterprise. It was met with resistance,
Speaker 1: just as slavery was met with resistance all the time.
Speaker 1: Slaves were always rebelling. The colonized were always rebelling. So
Speaker 1: what do you do when you have rebelling, unquiet populations.
Speaker 1: Of course it takes the form of that famous uh,
Speaker 1: you know British saying the natives are restless tonight. The
Speaker 1: natives were always restless. And what did that means? It
Speaker 1: meant you had to bring arms. You had to bring
Speaker 1: in the maximum gun um and so you have wars
Speaker 1: throughout the eighteenth and nineteen centuries. Rebellion was endemic in
Speaker 1: the rebellion was endemic across Africa. I can't list the
Speaker 1: number of wars that really were about putting empire into place,
Speaker 1: really were about so called pacifying natives. Well, let me
Speaker 1: just mention a few, and just from the kind of
Speaker 1: mid nineteenth century onwards. You've got the Jossa War in
Speaker 1: South Africa. You've got the Anglo Persian War. You of
Speaker 1: course have the Indian Uprising in eighteen fifty seven, which
Speaker 1: I talk about. You have the so called Maori Wars
Speaker 1: in New Zealand. You have the Ashanti Wars in Ghana,
Speaker 1: the Zulu Wars again in Southern Africa. Um. I write
Speaker 1: about the British invasion of Egypt in eighteen eighty two
Speaker 1: and the resistance to that. You have no less than
Speaker 1: three wars in Afghanistan. They were known as the First, Second,
Speaker 1: and Third Afghan Wars respectively. There were the wars in
Speaker 1: Sudan around the heavy the headiest wars. You have campaigns
Speaker 1: at the beginning of the twentieth century in Somaliland, so
Speaker 1: you know I mean, And of course there's China where
Speaker 1: you have the Boxer Rebellion also a nine, and prior
Speaker 1: to that, the Opium Wars, which was a way of
Speaker 1: forcing British mercantile interests into a very resistant Chinese empire.
Speaker 1: So is just completely endemic. And when they're not taking
Speaker 1: the form of wars, they are taking the form of
Speaker 1: very brutal counter insurgencies. So in eighteen sixty five, the
Speaker 1: incident that I referred to as a Morant Bay rebellion,
Speaker 1: that was put down with great bloodiness, despite the fact
Speaker 1: that there was actually very little violence on the part
Speaker 1: of those who led the uprising, and there were executions
Speaker 1: those martial law imposed houses were burned, people were killed. Um.
Speaker 1: And the other point that I make is that often
Speaker 1: these repressions came back home to Britain, and not all
Speaker 1: of Britain was comfortable with the violence being undertaken. And
Speaker 1: so what I write about in much of the book
Speaker 1: is the people who are saying, not in our name.
Speaker 1: So people are saying, wait a second, why did you
Speaker 1: you know, hang so and so? Why there were so
Speaker 1: many houses in Jamaica burnt down? Why were so many
Speaker 1: Indians put into jail? Why are our gunships in Egypt?
Speaker 1: So there are people also saying, why is all this
Speaker 1: happening in our name? Why so much bloodshed taking place
Speaker 1: in our name? So, really, what you've got is either
Speaker 1: kind of repression of strikes. You have arrests, detentions, martial law,
Speaker 1: actual killing, actual wars. You know, so that the violence
Speaker 1: of empire um is very very strong. In fact, there's
Speaker 1: a there's a wonderful book by John Newson Joe called
Speaker 1: The Blood Never Dried, which is really about how there
Speaker 1: is no dry blood and Empire at constant bloodshed, constant
Speaker 1: spilling of blood in the face off between resistance to
Speaker 1: empire and putting down that resistance. I'm wondering what what
Speaker 1: kind of people were actually resisting. So I can imagine,
Speaker 1: you know, they're seeing all this violence happening around them,
Speaker 1: and there could be an element of like having to
Speaker 1: have a lot of thought put into the resistance and
Speaker 1: a lot of courage to actually go out and do it.
Speaker 1: But on the other side, I know that they were
Speaker 1: fighting for survival and basic rights, So it's like what
Speaker 1: they had to do? So what what? What kind of
Speaker 1: people were resisting? What? Who were they? Well, as you
Speaker 1: might guess, the answer to that is quite varied. Uh
Speaker 1: you know. One of the things about the book is
Speaker 1: that I obviously end up talking about the most prominent figures.
Speaker 1: I end up talking about the figures who had a voice,
Speaker 1: who had an impact, and for obvious reasons, many of them,
Speaker 1: not all of them, but many of them are male,
Speaker 1: Many of them are educated. Many of them have a
Speaker 1: certain degree of uh No, I wouldn't say class privilege,
Speaker 1: but they have access to uh platforms. Um. But the
Speaker 1: truth is that ordinary people were rebelling all the time.
Speaker 1: We do not know their names. So we do not
Speaker 1: know all the names of the men and women who
Speaker 1: were involved in the Morad Bay rebellion. We do know
Speaker 1: the most famous people, people like Paul Bogel or George
Speaker 1: William Gordon, who I write about. Who are the men
Speaker 1: who uh you know? Can come to the front as
Speaker 1: leaders and whose impact has felt back in Britain. In
Speaker 1: Egypt in eighteen eighty two, you have a man called
Speaker 1: Ahmad Urabi who comes from a very humble peasant background,
Speaker 1: but he becomes a leader in the army and the
Speaker 1: Egyptian Revolution of eighteen eighty two is named after him
Speaker 1: as the Arabi Rebellion. UM. In India, you have lots
Speaker 1: of very ordinary people involved in the boycott movement, in
Speaker 1: the Swadeshian movement at the end of the nineteenth beginning
Speaker 1: of the twentieth century. But then you have uh, you know,
Speaker 1: quite famous nationalist figures who emerge as as prominent in that.
Speaker 1: When you get to Britain in the mid in the
Speaker 1: nineteen twenties and nineteen thirties, UM, you you're looking at
Speaker 1: people who have come there from India and from the
Speaker 1: African continent and from the from West Indies, um. And
Speaker 1: they are kind of really interesting figures because they're connected
Speaker 1: to the resistances, rebellions, insurgencies that are taking place back
Speaker 1: in their home countries and they are kind of presenting
Speaker 1: and interpreting them for a British audience. So there are
Speaker 1: there's a man called Schapourgi Subplatvala, who I write about,
Speaker 1: who's a communist. Eventually he starts out in the labor
Speaker 1: movement in Britain and then he becomes a communist, but
Speaker 1: he's kind of representing in his speeches and in his writings,
Speaker 1: he's representing the millions of people who are involved in
Speaker 1: labor organizing and labor demanding labor rights in India. And
Speaker 1: then you have people like the famous Uh Trinidadian British
Speaker 1: writer Clare James, who also of course spends a lot
Speaker 1: of time in America, very involved with both the American
Speaker 1: and the British left. You have the less well known
Speaker 1: but equally brilliant George Padmore, also from Trinidad UH, very
Speaker 1: much involved in organizing both around labor issues and around
Speaker 1: race and anti colonialism UM. And then when you get
Speaker 1: to Mauma, which is the rebellion that I end with
Speaker 1: Mauma importation marks it's of course the rebellion of the
Speaker 1: Kenyan land and freedom Army UM. Again you have thousands
Speaker 1: and thousands of ordinary Kenyan men and women, many of
Speaker 1: whom died in the course of the rebellion. And but
Speaker 1: then you have more, you know, more famous names like
Speaker 1: Tom Moboya or Joe More Kenyatta who became involved as
Speaker 1: became the kind of figureheads. Even though Kenya Kenyatta was
Speaker 1: not actually literally involved with that movement, he became a
Speaker 1: kind of figurehead for it. So you've got a mix
Speaker 1: of famous names, many of whom I talk about. You've
Speaker 1: got some less well known names, um, and then you
Speaker 1: have the you know, thousands and thousands of ordinary people,
Speaker 1: including women I mentioned in passing the famous Nigerian market
Speaker 1: women's revolved. We don't know that you know the great
Speaker 1: names around that they're not household names, but they do
Speaker 1: come back to Britain. Knowledge of it does come back
Speaker 1: to Britain through the writings of these other people. I'm
Speaker 1: assuming that right now you're asking me about anti colonial figures,
Speaker 1: uh from the colonies? Yes, okay, So back in Britain,
Speaker 1: you've got people I began a few minutes ago by
Speaker 1: saying that you know, there were people who were saying, well,
Speaker 1: wait a second, what's going on? Why is this happening
Speaker 1: in our name? And again there are many many ordinary
Speaker 1: people who are kind of signing petitions, writing letters to
Speaker 1: the editor, going to demonstrations at Trafald Square, or going
Speaker 1: on marches, or you know when when the British government
Speaker 1: in India imprisons thirty two people really on trumpet up
Speaker 1: charges and something known as the merit conspiracy case in
Speaker 1: seven uh thousands of ordinary Britain's signed petitions and and
Speaker 1: letters saying free the prisoners. Why are you imprisoning them
Speaker 1: in our name? But there are others who are more prominent.
Speaker 1: So um I talked about in the nineteenth century, people
Speaker 1: like Ernest Jones, whose name will be known to some
Speaker 1: people because he's one of the leaders of the Chartist
Speaker 1: movement in Britain, which was a movement for rights for
Speaker 1: ordinary people, voting rights and franchise rights as well as
Speaker 1: labor rights. Um I talked about a man called Richard
Speaker 1: Congreve who was influential in intellectual circles and who was
Speaker 1: one of the first people, you know, in eighteen fifty
Speaker 1: seven to say we should leave India, and we should
Speaker 1: leave India unconditionally. What is happening there in our name
Speaker 1: is unconscionable. I talked about a man called M. Wilfred Blunt,
Speaker 1: very unusual figure who is sorry, did you want me
Speaker 1: to stop there? No? No, no, I would love for
Speaker 1: you to talk about Wilfrid Blind. He was one of
Speaker 1: the people who I really wanted to hear about because
Speaker 1: I'm so interested in that kind of change, because I
Speaker 1: think there's this narrative around resistance where it's like this
Speaker 1: person was always so on board and always had this
Speaker 1: moral compass, but there is the that capacity. You know,
Speaker 1: are those instances where people did um go through a
Speaker 1: process of learning and change their minds about resistance. No,
Speaker 1: I would say that that is the key point. You know,
Speaker 1: very few people, including anti colonialists in the colonies, emergence
Speaker 1: fully fledged resistance. There's a constant process of learning, people
Speaker 1: learning from ordinary insurgencies, people learning from their reading, people
Speaker 1: learning from other people. So Blunt is a is a
Speaker 1: kind of particularly fascinating example. I can see why you
Speaker 1: were interested in him, because he begins as someone who
Speaker 1: you wouldn't dream would become a resistant. He's born into
Speaker 1: the establishment. He's an aristocrat. His family is conservative voting.
Speaker 1: There are landowners. He lives a kind of very typically
Speaker 1: rich landowner life. He you know, it's like he's a
Speaker 1: party boy, he's a he's a kind of ladies man.
Speaker 1: He he hunts, he horse rides. Uh, he you know,
Speaker 1: goes to Balls and and and and becomes a diplomat
Speaker 1: very closely tied up to many political figures and the
Speaker 1: British establishment. And then he becomes, by the end of
Speaker 1: his life a fierce anti colonialist. I mean, he's constantly
Speaker 1: condemning Brickland's imperial adventures. He even ends up going to
Speaker 1: jail because he stands up for Ireland and he protests
Speaker 1: against what is being done to Irish peasants who are
Speaker 1: being evicted from their land. Now, how does this happen.
Speaker 1: It happens simply through a process of learning and engaging
Speaker 1: with other cultures, but it also happens by witnessing the
Speaker 1: Egyptian Revolution. Blunt goes to Egypt several times with his wife,
Speaker 1: Lady Anne. Both of them are very interested in horses,
Speaker 1: They're interested in Islam, They're interested in you know, they're
Speaker 1: kind of classic orientalists. They're very fascinated by the exotic
Speaker 1: orient and that draws them in the first instance. But
Speaker 1: then they witness this revolution which is taking place led
Speaker 1: by Colonel la Rabi who I just mentioned. And witnessing
Speaker 1: that revolution, witnessing and talking to the key figures in
Speaker 1: bought in that revolution, talking to Islamic intellectuals and reformers
Speaker 1: at the Azhar or the University Empire. Blunt changes, and
Speaker 1: you know, I think we know more about him because
Speaker 1: he's one of the people who documents his change. He
Speaker 1: you know, he's he's constantly writing, and he's saying, and
Speaker 1: he's constantly assessing his own changes. And he basically says,
Speaker 1: you know, I began as somebody who loved Britain and
Speaker 1: who thought that Britain was the fount of liberty and
Speaker 1: that you know, Britain would never stand in the way
Speaker 1: of liberty. But my god, I was wrong, and how
Speaker 1: betrayed I feel by my own country. And he actually
Speaker 1: ends up saying, I consider myself now not an Englishman
Speaker 1: but an Egyptian patriot, which is you know, quite startling.
Speaker 1: And the stakes place in the course of about three
Speaker 1: to four years, and by the end of the nineteenth
Speaker 1: century he's writing these astonishing pieces in newspapers where he's
Speaker 1: just saying, you know, your people are just going to
Speaker 1: worship in front of yourself. You're gonna look at yourself
Speaker 1: in the mirror and worship your own image. You have
Speaker 1: no sense of of the horrors that you have unleashed
Speaker 1: in the world. And that's a really remarkable transformation. It's
Speaker 1: one of the more dramatic transformations. But I think there
Speaker 1: are versions of the story in the case of other people.
Speaker 1: We're going to take a quick break, but we'll be
Speaker 1: back soon. I been thinking about newspapers. What role did
Speaker 1: the press play when it came to resistance. Well, as
Speaker 1: you might expect, the mainstream press are largely in the
Speaker 1: form of The Times. Newspaper was on ambiguously then as
Speaker 1: now Um an imperial organ um. It was, as Ernest
Speaker 1: Jones would say in eighteen fifty seven, it was the
Speaker 1: dishonest organ of the laden Hall money mambers. But Jones
Speaker 1: is one of the many people who are producing, you know,
Speaker 1: in much the way that you are, a kind of
Speaker 1: alternative press. So he edits a paper called the People's Paper.
Speaker 1: And the People's Paper documents the resistance in India, and
Speaker 1: it's documents British misdeeds in India, and it says, listen,
Speaker 1: you know, the people who are doing this in India
Speaker 1: in our name are also the people who are oppressing
Speaker 1: us back in Britain. So it is better for us
Speaker 1: to throw our celebrity behind the Indian rebels then to
Speaker 1: identify with our rulers, simply because we share the same race.
Speaker 1: There are other newspapers to which people write letters. A
Speaker 1: Blunt writes, of course, to The Times. He also writes
Speaker 1: to the Manchester Guardian, which is a liberal paper then
Speaker 1: as now, which carries a mix of views and tendencies
Speaker 1: on empire. UM. There are other papers. Sylvia Pankhurst, the
Speaker 1: great feminist, who edits a paper which begins as though
Speaker 1: as the Women's Dreadnought, and then it becomes the workers Dreadnought.
Speaker 1: Is the Worker's Dreadnought becomes one of the kind of
Speaker 1: you know, anti imperialist newspapers for a time in the
Speaker 1: in the immediate First World War period and just after
Speaker 1: UM and there are the kind of smaller newspapers Uh
Speaker 1: and Organs on the left. UM. I talk about a
Speaker 1: Labor Party independent Labor Party newspaper called The New Leader,
Speaker 1: which certainly in the nineteen thirties and forties stakes increasingly
Speaker 1: anti imperialist stances, in part because of the influence of
Speaker 1: people like C. L. R. James Uh and George Padmore
Speaker 1: who are writing for them, UM and who are very
Speaker 1: much involved in advising them Uh so, yeah. I mean
Speaker 1: there's there's a kind of alternative press. The mainstream press
Speaker 1: which could really be only boiled down to the Times
Speaker 1: at the and the Guardian mixed bag. I would not
Speaker 1: call them the the primary platforms for any form of
Speaker 1: criticism of empire. There's a there's a line that you've
Speaker 1: said before that really really struck me, and that was
Speaker 1: when you said there was no period that was completely
Speaker 1: about pride or shame, and this idea around how so
Speaker 1: many people of so many different backgrounds were joining together
Speaker 1: to do the work to resist, and I would love
Speaker 1: for you to talk a little bit more about what
Speaker 1: you meant by there was no period that was completely
Speaker 1: about pride or shame. I think what I was saying,
Speaker 1: in at least in the video was that nothing, uh
Speaker 1: is a no nation, but particularly not the British Empire
Speaker 1: can be either just about pride or just about shame.
Speaker 1: None of us has histories in which we can say, oh,
Speaker 1: this is all unambiguously about pride, nor do we all
Speaker 1: have histories where we say, oh my god, it's all
Speaker 1: just completely miserable and shameful. We all have historical backgrounds,
Speaker 1: whether as nations or as people's or as communities that
Speaker 1: are a mix of good and bad things. So it's
Speaker 1: really quite absurd, um, you know, when we here in
Speaker 1: Britain as we often do, and I'm sure there are
Speaker 1: versions of this in America. Oh, we must take pride
Speaker 1: in our history. The point is our history is a
Speaker 1: mixed bag. There might be some very wonderful moments in
Speaker 1: it and there are some very problematic, troubling, even shameful
Speaker 1: moments in it. So talking about history either in terms
Speaker 1: of all pride or all shame, to me, is an
Speaker 1: unproductive discussion For me. I think the key word in
Speaker 1: talking about history is honesty. And I also think, and
Speaker 1: this is where I really agree with Jamaica Kincaid the writer,
Speaker 1: that we also all need to develop a more demanding
Speaker 1: relationship to history, which is to trying to think about
Speaker 1: history in all its difficulty, in all its complexity. So
Speaker 1: these kind of simple minded emotions pride and shame, I
Speaker 1: have said, and I think that it's the note on
Speaker 1: which I end the book is that that is, these
Speaker 1: are not helpful terms around which to have a discussion.
Speaker 1: This is not about emotions. This is not about gripping
Speaker 1: up one kind of emotion or the other. Yeah, there
Speaker 1: are shameful moments and we need to you know, stay
Speaker 1: are at them and accept that they happen. And then
Speaker 1: there are events in which, you know, we might take pride,
Speaker 1: but um, it can't be simple minded. Is that? I
Speaker 1: think that's really what I'm saying. Yeah. I do think
Speaker 1: that that's the thing that we are reckoning with in
Speaker 1: the US right now, having that conversation that people's legacies
Speaker 1: or histories were very complicated and very nuanced, and we
Speaker 1: don't really know how to talk about that altogether. Maybe
Speaker 1: you know, individually, on an individual level, we can have
Speaker 1: those conversations within groups of like minded people, but I
Speaker 1: think with people who are you know, on different lean
Speaker 1: different ways, that's a very difficult conversation to have. Because
Speaker 1: so many historical things have come up recently, as in
Speaker 1: you know, sixteen, the four hundredth anniversary of the first
Speaker 1: slaveship coming over, and also things like Confederate monuments and
Speaker 1: what we name buildings and establishments and who we name
Speaker 1: them after. So I do think that is definitely something
Speaker 1: that is troubling, you know, the national conversation right now.
Speaker 1: It is, And I think but the other problem here
Speaker 1: is that if if one, if we only talk about
Speaker 1: it as national conversations, then already there is um a
Speaker 1: problem because nations do try to attach themselves to very
Speaker 1: simple ideas um. And so you know, Britain likes to
Speaker 1: think of itself, as I said earlier, as the abolitionist nation,
Speaker 1: which is an absurd idea. America likes to think of
Speaker 1: itself as the fount of liberty or fount of democracy,
Speaker 1: which is an equally absurd idea. You know, all nations
Speaker 1: have very checkered histories, and they have very checkered histories
Speaker 1: in relation to each other and in relation to their populations.
Speaker 1: So you know, we need to ask what do we
Speaker 1: mean when we say the British nation or when we
Speaker 1: say India, you know, which is again a nation on
Speaker 1: the tremendous pressure right now in terms of who are
Speaker 1: we and what are we doing? And what are we
Speaker 1: doing to the populations we call our own populations? H
Speaker 1: So you know that we need to actually take a
Speaker 1: good hard look at this weed well when we talk
Speaker 1: about the nation and and ask well, what are the
Speaker 1: constituent parts of the we, and how did this so
Speaker 1: called we come to be? Yes? And it seems in America,
Speaker 1: if you don't talk about slavery, or you try to
Speaker 1: pretend slavery was okay, then you no longer have a
Speaker 1: national we, because you know, in slavery doesn't mean the
Speaker 1: same thing to everybody who has thought of that nation,
Speaker 1: and you you know, and having a very selective understanding
Speaker 1: of slavery is also not thought of any kind of we.
Speaker 1: So I think it's a real mismatch between you know,
Speaker 1: when we use the national we and then we describe
Speaker 1: the nation in these fairly simple minded ways on which
Speaker 1: we are all ostensibly supposed to agree, right, right, So
Speaker 1: why do you think it's so important to recover the
Speaker 1: violence of imperialism and the dissident tradition in Britain. I
Speaker 1: think it's important precisely towards this discussion of what the
Speaker 1: national we is. So I think that you know, for instance,
Speaker 1: Britain is a country not unlike America, but because of
Speaker 1: a different history. There is a very large Asian population.
Speaker 1: There is now an increasingly large Muslim population. Uh. There
Speaker 1: is there are people from Ireland and Scotland. Uh. In
Speaker 1: in the wake of you know, Brexit, there are all
Speaker 1: kinds of questions about you know, whether there is even
Speaker 1: a United Kingdom, given that the Scots and the Irish
Speaker 1: voted very differently uh in relation to the referendum on
Speaker 1: whether to leave Europe. So I think that that this
Speaker 1: conressly recovering the story of Empire is actually and this
Speaker 1: is what I'd say at the end of the book,
Speaker 1: perhaps rather controversially, is that having this discussion about the
Speaker 1: Empire is precisely what will enable some kind of national
Speaker 1: conversation to emerge, because the history of the Empire shapes
Speaker 1: every single person in Britain in one form or the other. UM.
Speaker 1: And again, it's not not about pride or shame. It's
Speaker 1: it's simply about well, how did you come to be
Speaker 1: here and how were you produced by the Empire? And
Speaker 1: that actually I would go so far as to say
Speaker 1: that the equivalent would be I think slavery is the
Speaker 1: fundamental discussion alongside, of course, the question of Native Americans, uh,
Speaker 1: And that is the conversation on how was this land
Speaker 1: settled and who did the labor to make this land
Speaker 1: what it is? Are the fundamental questions that Americans have
Speaker 1: to deal before you can start talking about, you know,
Speaker 1: immigrants and how you treat immigrants or whether who is
Speaker 1: an American and who isn't you have to say, well,
Speaker 1: you know, how did how did we come to settle
Speaker 1: this land? Then who worked this land and who contributed
Speaker 1: to the wealth of this country. So if you don't
Speaker 1: have these foundational conversations, uh, and also in those conversations
Speaker 1: engage with kind of constitutive violence and repression, then you're
Speaker 1: in no position to have an honest discussion about national
Speaker 1: history or understand what the national we is. And I
Speaker 1: haven't fully got the answers to this because I didn't
Speaker 1: produce this book. As you know, how to Resist, There's
Speaker 1: something to be learned from history, and I do very
Speaker 1: passionately believe that history is vital to how we live today.
Speaker 1: I would say, well, what we learned from the people
Speaker 1: that I write about, who are all, you know, very
Speaker 1: very interesting thinkers. One is that the same forces that
Speaker 1: oppressed within societies are also the forces that are imperial
Speaker 1: outside countries or that are militarizing outside the country. And
Speaker 1: I think that it's very important for people across the
Speaker 1: world to understand that quite often we are oppressed or
Speaker 1: exploited by the same forces across the globe. You do
Speaker 1: also learn from a history of anti colonialism that although
Speaker 1: it's very complicated and difficult and often impossible project to resist,
Speaker 1: not everybody is in a position to resist. People do
Speaker 1: share a tendency to push against tyranny. Uh. And you know,
Speaker 1: when slaves could rebel, they did even in very very
Speaker 1: dangerous conditions. Um. And when workers or colonized people's resisted,
Speaker 1: they also did what they could in very difficult conditions.
Speaker 1: And that tendency that we share as human beings. And
Speaker 1: it was very clear to me doing this study that
Speaker 1: people across the globe, if there is a universal value,
Speaker 1: it is that tendency to push against tyranny and exploitation.
Speaker 1: And if we can foster that tendency in ourselves in
Speaker 1: our societies, then this is a historical moment where we
Speaker 1: absolutely need to capture and foster that. You also understand
Speaker 1: that you can learn from the resistances of other people,
Speaker 1: so you can be inspired by resistance is taking place elsewhere.
Speaker 1: I'm very struck by the number of British dissidents who said, hey,
Speaker 1: you know what, not only is resistance happening in the West,
Speaker 1: Indies are happening in India, but my god, we should
Speaker 1: be learning from this resistance. We should learn how to
Speaker 1: organize ourselves by looking at the West Indian workers or
Speaker 1: the Indian uh Sibyl disobedience people. And this leads us,
Speaker 1: I think to my kind of final insight from having
Speaker 1: written the book is that building solidarities is vital. What
Speaker 1: is really striking, particularly in the twentieth century, is how
Speaker 1: people were able to build solidarities across racial and national lines,
Speaker 1: and not just between black and white or Asian and
Speaker 1: black and white, but across you know, Asian people, Black people,
Speaker 1: Muslims and Hindus, across religious boundaries, so you know, finding
Speaker 1: a way to learn from each other's as resistance and
Speaker 1: building solidarities. I mean, I think that is not just desirable,
Speaker 1: but probably from this point on, is going to have
Speaker 1: to be a survival skill. M thanks for listening to
Speaker 1: this interview. I hope you've enjoyed it. If you want
Speaker 1: to give us a shout and let us know what
Speaker 1: you thought about today's interview, you can do that by
Speaker 1: email at Unpopular at I heart media dot com, or
Speaker 1: you can hit us up on social media. We're on
Speaker 1: Twitter at underscore Unpopular Show, We're on Instagram at Unpopular Show,
Speaker 1: and we're on Facebook at this is unpopular. Producer Andrew
Speaker 1: and I are so excited for season two. We're really
Speaker 1: excited to share it with you too, so keep your
Speaker 1: eyes on the feed and we'll be back soon