The Times - UK (2020-10-17)

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Ben Macintyre

Page 33

figure, swindled by Rhodes out of all

his territory.

I began, too, to realise that Britain

was carrying off Africa’s rich natural

resources — gold, diamonds, iron —

with too little of the proceeds going

to the native peoples. China’s present

plunder is worse, sweetened by

bribes to corrupt African elites, no

serious development and grand

projects that saddle African nations

with debts they can never repay; but

still we were wrong not to invest

more of Africa’s riches back into its

peoples, or to give them a say.

And I was ashamed of these

wrongs, and still am; and proud, and

still am, of the good we did. My mind

is settling into a realisation that what

matters is the truth. “Identity

historians” no less than jingo

historians may raise or topple statues

or call for “cancelling” the past but

these are gestures, self-glorifying,

self-indulgent; and the past cannot

be cancelled. It’s what’s true: not

“my” truth or “your” truth but the

truth. And of some of it we should be

ashamed, and of some, proud.

Because we too will be judged.

“How did Britain turn a blind eye to

the brutalities of their prisons?”

people will ask, incredulous as Jack

Straw or Priti Patel are “cancelled”

from the syllabus. “How could they

have squabbled about fishing quotas,

when their oceans were dying?”

The pride, the shame, the sheer

incredulity we feel about our

predecessors, our successors will one

day feel about us. And so they should.

I’m both proud and ashamed of the Empire

Whether or not you grew up in colonial Africa like me, it’s right to celebrate our legacy while facing up to past flaws

PETER KOLLANYI/LNP

governor, but he only laughed.

Alongside a boyish hankering for

plumed hats, however, my

understanding was growing that in

India and Africa we British had done

some terrible things in the name of

empire. In my Rhodesian primary

school we’d been taught a version of

history in which Cecil John Rhodes

was an uncomplicated hero. Later I

learnt the more complex truth. I

remain an admirer of this conflicted,

probably gay, titan of African

development, but his statue at Oriel

College in Oxford should be joined

by a statue of the Matabele Chief

Lobengula — an imperialist land-

grabber and pillager of the Mashona

tribal lands yet a great and tragic

Rather than fall, Cecil Rhodes should

be sharing his plinth with a tribal chief

psychology. There are good

Darwinian reasons why humans

invest pride and shame in the actions

of the group with which they

identify. May we not rejoice at a

cricketing victory for England, or

hang our heads at a defeat?

Individuals are also part of teams

and tribes, part of a story stretching

back to before we were born.

My late father was a servant of

empire. With his growing family he

worked in South Africa (then a

British dominion), Cyprus (a colony),

Southern Rhodesia (British) and

Jamaica shortly after that colony’s

independence. I was sent to boarding

school in Swaziland, a British

protectorate. Working for a

Merseyside company, Dad sold and

later manufactured electric wires

and cables.

My youthful memories are of pride

in the red bits on the map, and my

family’s small contribution: pride at

how Britain kept the Greek and

Turkish Cypriots from each other’s

throats; pride in my mother’s work

for African education; pride that Dad

supplied the cabling for the amazing

Kariba Dam project, still a wondrous

boon to southern Africa; pride in his

factory in Jamaica and all the

capable Jamaican workmen he

created jobs for. In Cyprus I admired

the governor, Field Marshal

Sir John Harding, personally

brave, for beating back the Greek-

Cypriot terrorists.

In Swaziland I was chosen to greet

the governor, Sir Francis Loyd, on

his visit to our multiracial school.

As a schoolboy I wrote to the

Colonial Office to ask how I too

could become a governor, and they

replied that opportunities were

diminishing. Later I told David

Cameron I’d still like to be a

I

t is worth quoting at some length

a letter in Thursday’s Times

from Melvyn Bragg, a fellow

broadcaster whom I admire

tremendously but who I think,

this time, is wrong.

“I was born in 1939:” he writes, “am

I responsible for the wrongdoing of

the British Empire in Africa? Is my

son (born in 1980) responsible for

what happened in the Indian sub-

continent over centuries? Are my

grandsons (born in 2016 and 2018)

responsible for what happened in

Ireland?... On it goes. Where does

the burden of blame start and end?”

I am younger than Melvyn but I’m

implicated, as perhaps he is not, in

empire. And I’m proud of it: proud

not only of those things my family

were involved in (of which more

later) but of so much that our British

forebears achieved in the lands over

which we held sway.

I will not disclaim pride in our

achievements just because I was not

born then. These were my people;

this is my country; and I’m part of it,

the past as well as the present.

And as with pride, so with shame.

Deal in this currency and you must

acknowledge two sides to the coin.

As a child I read accounts of

Britain’s victories in peace and in

war, and felt proud. I heard stories

from my grandparents of our

struggle in both world wars, and

felt proud.

I learnt about Newton, Darwin,

Watt, Lister, Fleming and all the

wonderful British discoveries and

inventions over the centuries, and

felt proud.

I studied literature and felt proud

that Shakespeare was English, that

Burns was a Scot and that Dylan

Thomas came from Wales. Later in

life I walked the decks of HMS

Victory in Portsmouth and felt

proud.

In none of these glories have I

personally played the least part. But

still I’m proud. And were I a 71-year-

old German I’d feel proud of Goethe,

Beethoven and Kant, proud of

Nietzsche, Wagner, Benz... and

ashamed of Auschwitz. Though I’d

had no part personally in the Third

Reich I’d ask not just “how could

people have done this?” but “how

could my people have done this?”

So I am ashamed of Britain’s slave-

trading, the racism, the slave

plantations in the West Indies, as I

feel proud of Wilberforce and the

public sentiment that ended slavery.

And very ashamed of what we did to

the Irish, the more so because it is

not much acknowledged on this side

of the water.

How, if we feel pride in the good

we’ve done, can we argue that for

those chapters in our history that are

shameful, we ourselves should feel

no shame? For all I know Melvyn

may feel no vicarious pride in past

national achievements; and may not

want his son or grandsons to grow

up conscious of any share in their

country’s glories. But if so, he argues

against the grain of human

I told Cameron that I’d

like to be a governor

but he only laughed

My youthful memories

are of pride in the

red bits on the map

Matthew

Parris

Comment

Do pork

scratchings

count as a

Tier 3 meal?

G

reetings from Tier 3

Liverpool, where the

question on everyone’s

lips is: will a small bowl of

nachos pass as a main

course? Here in the Category A

Belmarsh level of lockdown where

you are served alcohol only if you

order a “substantial” meal, hardened

drinkers who think any kind of solids

on a night out is for wimps say, and I

quote: “If a salad counts as a

restaurant main, why doesn’t a packet

of pork scratchings which contains

more calories and soaks up more

booze?” Fair point. You can’t say

they aren’t following the science.

This is a question I would put

to Chris Whitty and Sir Patrick

Vallance if they ever let me into

those damned press

briefings. I’d also ask: “Why

did Robert Jenrick say that

a Cornish pasty must come

with chips to count? Does

the coronavirus flee

when it sees a high-piled

plate of carbs?” The

definition of “substantial”

is so subjective it is

laughable, one person’s pig-

out being another’s amuse

bouche. Bizarre that some

people consider beans on

toast to be a light snack

between meals when it is

obviously a filling evening

meal in itself. How can

Italians have pasta as a

starter? How can people

order pizza and garlic bread? My

inner Bessie Bunter twitches,

however, over roast potatoes.

Anything fewer than five per

serving is unthinkable. More than

eight makes you a pavement-

cracker. These are facts.

Scraps scheme

M

arks &

Spencer has

committed a

small food atrocity. It

is selling tubs of

“scraps”, the loose bits

of batter in a chip shop

fryer beloved by

northern children, for

£1.05. Where will this

gentrification end?

With Harrods selling

Izal? The point of scraps

is that they are free and

come straight from the

chip shop owner’s warm

scoop. I always asked for

“chips with scraps on

top” and was never charged

extra. Sometimes if we were skint

after school the owner would take

pity and give us a bag full of scraps,

like a butcher gifting stray dogs a

bone. Soaked in vinegar and salt,

these nuggets of zero nutritional

value tasted ambrosial. Now made on

a production line to be reheated in

your kitchen, they’ll just be grease,

monetised.

Tied to the mast

D

ominic West, a married man,

was photographed apparently

canoodling with Lily James but

later posed for pictures with his wife,

saying it was all innocent. Call me

naive but I’m inclined to believe him.

He strikes me as a man unafraid to

tell the truth. Once he was asked if

he ever became, er, too immersed in a

sex scene, the thespians’ so-called

“full-mast situation”. This is where

most male actors throw up their

hands protesting: “Me? Gosh, no —

it’s the unsexiest thing you can

imagine lying naked with a beautiful

actress!” But West gamely admitted:

“Yes, of course!” Then he added that

actresses “don’t mind” because all

equipment is safely in a sock and

“everyone likes to be thought of as

Carol Midgley Notebook

@carolmidgley

attractive”. I suspect there’s a sliver of

truth in that, too.

Don’t get ratted

I

n a park I stopped to watch two

small puppies rolling together in

the grass. “Aw, cute”, I thought,

“but where’s the owner?” Then I

realised they were not puppies but

rats, fatter and bigger than baby pugs

and unfazed by the humans yomping

past occasionally looking over and

screaming. Rentokil says rats have

become “super confident” in

lockdown, invading homes through

lavatories and letterboxes. These

ones looked like they’d kick the door

down in bovver boots. News of an

invasion triggers my Weil’s disease

phobia, especially imagining all those

pub cellars where hard-case rats

wazz copiously over the bottles. Tip:

post-lockdown never drink your

lager from the bottle neck. Even if

they do shove in a poncey lime to

save on glassware.

the times | Saturday October 17 2020 1GM 27