Review of Colonialism: A Moral Reckoning, by Nigel Biggar

The strange inconsistency of the modern left

Observe Western politics long enough and you'll inevitably come across the strange inconsistency of the modern left. This strange inconsistency is perhaps no better illustrated than in the phrase "Queers for Palestine"---because why does it make sense for queers to support a culture that's explicitly hostile to them, and even if they support Palestinian rights, why does it make sense to them to attach queer identity to that support?

Observe Western politics for some time longer and you may eventually conclude that the unifying theme of the modern left is anti-colonialism. That the primary project of the modern left is to erase all vestiges of influence from the time of European and Christian cultural dominance. This theory of the left, I believe, carries much more explanatory power than other theories. For example, some people say that the left is concerned primarily with liberating the oppressed. But if the left cared primarily about oppressor/oppressed relationships, then why do they not speak up about Chinese oppression of Uighurs, or Nigerian oppression of Christians? Categories of oppression only seem to matter when it is Western culture doing the oppression. So the unifying theme that best explains the modern left is not anti-oppression, but anti-colonialism.

One can see why anti-colonialism is attractive

And one can see why anti-colonialism would be an attractive ideology. From a purely empirical perspective, it's hard to deny that the advantaged position of certain demographic groups derive at least in part from historical European Christian hegemony. It is also impossible to deny that Western cultural imperialism gave rise to many human rights abuses suffered by non-Westerners at the hands of Westerners. Introspection is always and everywhere a virtue, so for the Westerner, it makes good sense to introspect about past wrongs and to apologize for them. For the non-Westerner, such introspection may be encouraged as a means to either achieve reconciliation or to garner material concessions.

What's missing is the relevant counterfactual

But what's missing from the anti-colonial impulse is an assessment of the relevant counterfactual. Yes, Western colonialism led to abuses. But what other abuses, and how many and to what degree, would have happened had the Europeans not engaged in their colonial past? Can we fairly say that the world have been better had the Europeans not engaged in their colonial past? By what measure do we judge the result of Western imperialism versus the cultures that they displaced?

A fair look at the spectrum of humanity involved

Nigel Biggar tackles these questions in Colonialism: A Moral Reckoning. A moral philosopher, (like Adam Smith), Nigel Biggar is interested in telling the moral history of European colonialism, with a fair look at the entire spectrum of the humanity involved: from the European nobles who made policy from afar, to the lowly settler engaged in conflict with the natives, to the natives with varied attitudes towards European colonization, to the modern academics who look back at these stories through agenda-tinted lenses.

A much needed corrective to anti-colonial tropes

The book is a much needed corrective to modern anti-colonial tropes. Biggar does not shy away from acknowledging some of the horrors that resulted from European colonization, but he rightly points out that European colonization did much good around the world too. For example, he points out the British bore as much economist cost in trying to abolish slavery around the world as it profited from the slave trade prior to abolition. He also demonstrates, through primary sources, the wide extent to which many Europeans were motivated by genuine humanitarian sentiments.

Most importantly, he highlights the messy nature of human morality, showing us that it doesn't make sense to paint any culture with too broad of a brush, Western or otherwise. Within the European colonizers there were both saints and sinners, abolitionists and slavers, and the whole spectrum of humanity; just so amongst the native populations as well. Among the natives there were those who would have enslaved each other were it not for the European abolitionists, and there were others who welcomed European traditions as a relief against their oppressive native traditions. The picture that Biggar paints is simply one of messiness: when two cultures come into contact with each other, stuff happens; often, every kind of stuff you can imagine.

Least sympathetic group: modern academics

Perhaps the group that comes across least sympathetic in Biggar's analysis is the modern left leaning academic. Biggar shows that much of modern scholarship is biased and agenda driven. He does this by showing examples of modern academics taking historical quotes out of context so that they can paint a more damning picture of European attitudes than is deserved. Biggar instead shows that European attitudes were varied and diverse, and that claims about European racism are often unfair and overstated.

Book contains a plethora of historical quotations

The most useful aspect of the book is its plethora of historical quotations that show a varied range of both European and native attitudes. The book forcefully makes the point that many Europeans truly were motivated by altruistic goals of bettering the lives of natives; and crucially that many natives also welcomed their efforts. But he also highlights how settlers and natives sometimes came into conflict, and how differences in tradition often led to social frictions which made it difficult for Europeans and natives to truly integrate, even if the desire was there.

Below, I have picked out a few select quotes for a few specific topics.

On slavery

On the degree to which the British were instrumental in fighting slavery worldwide

The humanitarian motive to suppress the slave trade and slavery remained a common reason for imperial endeavour in Africa from the late nineteenth century into the twentieth. It caused the British government to lean upon the khedive of Egypt to sign the Anglo-Egyptian Slave Trade Convention in 1877. It propelled General Charles Gordon into the Sudan in the same year. It found expression in the principles of the Imperial British East Africa Company, when it was founded in 1888. It featured among the reasons for establishing a British protectorate in Nyasaland in 1891. And it was one reason for the invasion of the Sokoto Caliphate (now northern Nigeria) by Frederick Lugard in 1903.

...

Moreover in absolute terms the British spent almost as much attempting to suppress the trade in the forty-seven years, 1816–62, as they received in profits over the same length of time leading up to 1807. And by any more reasonable assessment of profits and direct costs, the nineteenth-century costs of suppression were certainly bigger than the eighteenth-century benefits.

...

Basil Cave, who was consul-general in Zanzibar when domestic slavery was finally abolished in 1909, bore witness to this when he reflected with satisfaction on the local history of British efforts at abolition: "All the time British influence was being steadily brought to bear upon the Sultan. Whenever an opportunity presented itself, when the Sultan appealed for political, financial, or personal assistance, when some benefit was offered or conferred, occasion was always taken to introduce some fresh anti-slavery measure and to move one more step forward towards final abolition. As a result, the whole of the servile population of East Africa has been freed from bondage without a hand, and almost without a voice, being raised in protest."

On racial attitudes

On the degree to which racism wasn't isolated to Europeans, and how some natives welcomed European cultural change

And in the 1940s, Gerald Hanley, then an officer in the British Army, found Somalis unshakeable in their prejudice against other black peoples: "I had once tried hard to get the Somalis to give up their contempt for Bantu people. But 'We cannot obey slaves', Somalis told me. 'It is impossible for us to live under slave people even when they are in British uniform and have arms.' I could not change the memory they [the Somalis] had of a time when these Bantu people were slave material for the Muslim world to the north. That was the trouble, the curse of race, looks, noses, lips, eyes, legends. Colour has little to do with it."

...

Looking back on the period 1890–1904, Baba of Karo, a Muslim African woman in what is now Nigeria, had this to say: "We Habe wanted them [the Europeans] to come, it was the Fulani who did not like it. When the Europeans came the Habe saw that if you worked for them they paid you for it, they didn't say, like the Fulani, 'Commoner, give me this! Commoner, bring me that!' The Europeans said that there were to be no more slaves; if someone said 'Slave!' you could complain to the alkali who would punish the master who said it. No one used the word 'slave' any more. In the old days if the chief liked the look of your daughter he would take her and put her in his house; you could do nothing about it. Now they don’t do that."

...

Far from being reluctant converts, many Africans were attracted to Christianity as a source of liberation. Writing in 1959, Ndabaningi Sithole asserted that "one of the unique teachings of the Bible, especially the New Testament, is the worth and dignity of the individual in the sight of God. The Bible is redeeming the African individual from the power of superstition, individuality-crushing tradition, witchcraft, and other forces that do not make for progress. The Bible-liberated African is now reasserting himself not only over tribal but also over colonial authority, since these two are fundamentally the same."

On assimilation and "cultural genocide"

Regarding the controversy over residential schools in Canada

However, the instrument of assimilation that now attracts the fiercest opprobrium was Canada's system of residential schools. The motivation for establishing these schools was basically humanitarian, namely, to enable pupils to adapt and survive in a world that was changing radically. This was a general need that many native people themselves acknowledged, as they found themselves unable to sustain their traditional hunting-and-gathering economy. As Chief Paulus Claus of the Bay of Quinte Mohawk said at the July 1846 conference at Orillia (in what is now southern Ontario), "we cannot be a people unless we conform ourselves to the ways of the white man". Consequently, native leaders actively lobbied missionaries to set up schools that would teach their children agricultural skills, English language and Christian religion.

...

Quite how extensive the [school] failings were is difficult to determine. Certainly, they were not universal. In 1886, for example, Red Crow, a powerful chief in the Blood nation of the Blackfoot Confederacy, together with several of his fellow chiefs, "had been greatly impressed by the attainment of Indian youths at the Anglican Mohawk Institute". Moreover, had there not been a significant record of success, "numerous Indian groups" would not have lobbied, as they did, for the establishment of residential schools well into the twentieth century

...

As for first-hand testimony, it is equivocal. As J.R. Miller, author of the standard history of the residential schools, has commented: "While there are many former students who testify to the damage that the suppression of their language and other things did to them and to people they knew, there are also former students who firmly deny that their school experience scarred them or their fellow students. Too many ex-pupils have spoken positively of the experience as a whole, or of particular school workers who befriended them, or even of the balance of positive consequences that they struck after weighing both sides to justify ignoring or downplaying such memories. Too many argue that the schools were important sources of knowledge and preparation for them to trivialize all positive recollections as the products of individual peculiarities."

Conclusion

To conclude, I'd recommend this book to anyone interested in understanding European colonial history and anyone who is looking for a corrective to modern anti-colonialist sentiments.