Sathnam Sanghera on Imperialism’s Impact on Britain
Britain as we know it is a direct product of our imperial past. And yet, empire is barely taught at school and continues to be a subject of both shame and glorification.…
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Britain as we know it is a direct product of our imperial past. And yet, empire is barely taught at school and continues to be a subject of both shame and glorification.…
From the archive
The rest of the world sees us as the country who had the biggest empire in the world, we don't. That creates a gap in understanding.
— Sathnam SangheraBritish journalist and author, wrote "The Boy with the Topknot
White people have nothing to fear from understanding their history- they're not responsible for it. It's like having therapy… it's understanding our past behaviours so that we don't repeat them. I think we need to face up to our imperial history for the same reasons.
— Sathnam SangheraBritish journalist and author, wrote "The Boy with the Topknot
The idea that if you are proud to be British you need to be proud of British history is nonsensical. Does it mean you have to be proud of all of history? Of slavery? Of abolition of you? Or me? Or Lenny Henry? You might as well be proud of biology or jelly. It makes no sense…
— Sathnam SangheraBritish journalist and author, wrote "The Boy with the Topknot
It's really complicated to work-out how much of our wealth came from empire, it's like trying to take the egg out of a baked cake. It's better to look at individual wealth and businesses.
— Sathnam SangheraBritish journalist and author, wrote "The Boy with the Topknot
We have a very strange relationship with empire, a combination of selective amnesia and nostalgia. The amnesia comes from the fact we mostly identify as the nation that won World War 2 not as the nation which had the greatest empire in human history. That helps us forget that there was at least a century where we were quite massively white supremacist and sometimes genocidal.
— Sathnam SangheraBritish journalist and author, wrote "The Boy with the Topknot
The idea that if you are proud to be British you need to be proud of British history is nonsensical. Does it mean you have to be proud of all of history? Of slavery? You might as well be proud of biology or jelly.
— Sathnam SangheraBritish journalist and author, wrote "The Boy with the Topknot
It's really complicated to work-out how much of our wealth came from empire, it's like trying to take the egg out of a baked cake.
— Sathnam SangheraBritish journalist and author, wrote "The Boy with the Topknot
We're a multicultural society because we had a multicultural empire. The reason you and I are here talking is because some English people went to India and invaded it in the 17th century.
— Sathnam SangheraBritish journalist and author, wrote "The Boy with the Topknot
Researching the story of empire didn't make me hate Britain, rather it gave me a deeper sense of belonging because it made me realise that we (brown people) have been here for centuries.
— Sathnam SangheraBritish journalist and author, wrote "The Boy with the Topknot
We have a very strange relationship with empire, a combination of selective amnesia and nostalgia. The amnesia comes from the fact we mostly identify as the nation that won World War 2 not as the nation which had the greatest empire in human history.
— Sathnam SangheraBritish journalist and author, wrote "The Boy with the Topknot