Sathnam Sanghera

ABOUT 40 years ago dozens of Sikh families hid in a temple in Wolverhampton as a far-right mob laid waste nearby in a rampage that wasn’t a rarity in 1970s Britain, whether in the former “workshop of the world” or elsewhere.

The reason? Race. Enoch Powell’s infamous “rivers of blood” speech was within recent memory as part of the country shifted not just uncomfortably, but angrily in its seat in the face of immigration.

One of the young boys sheltering was future Times journalist Sathnam Sanghera, whose new book, Empireland: How Imperialism Has Shaped Modern Britain, could not be more prescient. Last year thousands took to the streets in support of the Black Lives Matter movement, the statue of slave-trader Edward Colston was thrown into the river that had transported 100,000 African slaves between 1728 and 1732, while only 12 per cent of victims of the Windrush scandal have received any compensation.

In Camden, Beckford School is being renamed after links were found to 18th century slave owner William Beckford, Cecil Rhodes house in Somers Town will be renamed after a ballot of residents and the borough’s Bame residents were hardest hit by Covid-19.

The book successfully shows how mainstays of everyday life are inherently linked to empire. Not just tea and sugar, but from Worcestershire Sauce to the technological developments that enabled the Sunday roast. The Magdala Tavern in South Hill Park, which is still slated to reopen, was named after a battle in one of Britain’s imperial exploits in Abyssinia, the final act of which saw 9,000 Ethiopians killed. It was followed by looting on a mass scale, with some of the proceeds ending up in the British Museum.

A few manuscripts were returned to the Ethiopians in the early 20th century, but many items, including the Magdala Crown remain; in this case in the V&A. It was the centre of a special exhibition in 2018 that acknowledged how it ended up in Britain – including prime minister William Gladstone’s “deep lament” that they were pinched by British forces.

V&A director and ex-Labour MP Tristram Hunt finishes a blog on its website by hoping it would help “encourage a better – and a wider – understanding about these object’s difficult past”. Oddly, any mention of returning it to Ethiopia, from where it was plundered, was found wanting. It’s no surprise, holdings, archives and museums have all dragged their heels on giving items back to their home countries – despite a huge number of them being hidden from the public.

According to Empireland in 2009 and 2010, 99 per cent of the British Museum’s collection was in storage. Culture secretary Oliver Dowden told institutions last year that they could lose funding if they “took action motivated by activism or politics”. With such attention, it’s no wonder gallery and museum directors have been caught looking at their shoes.

The book tackles this, as well as being a good primer on the history of migration to Britain, the perverse way that the Enlightenment gave rise to the idea of the “oneness” of humankind but didn’t extend this to slaves, and the country’s selective amnesia over slavery. It’s true that Britain led the way in abolishing the trade in 1807, but by the same token the country had picked up the flag and run with it for centuries.

The book manages to be nuanced, including in calculating the economic effects of empire and talk of reparations, and while it occasionally slips into the verbose, it’s easy to see how with the depth of the topic. Sanghera is a second-generation immigrant, a term he skewers during the book, and it gives it a personal anchor. The history, years, dates, people killed, items looted could have been written by anyone – but the events are deeply relevant to the identity and stories of hundreds of thousands of Britons today.

John Major, on taking office in 1990, said he wanted to create a country at ease with itself. Since then neither he nor successive prime ministers have achieved it, and Britain finds itself today tetchier than ever. Ministers use newspaper columns to stand up to “woke militants” wanting to “censor our past,” and the music choice at the BBC Proms triggers outrage. In truth, Britain is uncertain in its identity, keen to be comforted, nervous about introspection.

The fear is this will lead to performative self-flagellation, where the great-great grandchildren are punished for the sins of the father. But a reckoning, seeking to gain a further, broader understanding of Britain’s history, good and bad, does not have to turn into this.

Britain needs to look at where it’s come from to know where it’s going.

Sanghera’s book is an incredibly important one. Copies should not only be inside every school and public library in the UK, but its contents should be taught. He ends the book on a positive note, and says he thinks one day the country might face up to the nebulous and destructive period in its national history. His book provides a mirror so that if it wants to, Britain can look at its reflection and see whether it likes what stares back. The question is, will it be brave enough to do so?

• Empireland: How Imperialism Shaped Modern Britain. By Sathnam Sanghera. Viking, £18.99