Tag Archives: imperialism

Empire

The wind is getting up.
Should I put
Kipling aside
For his pride
In empire?

Should I apologise
And lower my eyes
For seeing empire
In all it’s complexity?

The Romans to Britain came.
Should Italians apologise
And lower their eyes
With shame?

You may say
“The Roman Empire
Was not all bad”.
But you would be mad
To put your head above the parapit
And admit
The same
Of Britain’s imperial past.

A certain class
Would look aghast
And cry “shame”
And label you
With a name
Untrue.

Mud sticks
And many men
Seal their lips.
Whilst a brave few
Say what they
Believe to be true.

If Gandhi Was A Racist, Who Then Shall We Honour?

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Back in 2016, Oxford University announced that it would not bow to the demands of the Rhodes Must Fall campaign, and the statue of Cecil Rhodes would remain, https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-oxfordshire-35435805.

The Rhodes scholarship enables students to benefit from funds left in the will of the late Cecil Rhodes, irrespective of skin colour. However, the Rhodes Must Fall campaign contend that Rhodes was an “imperialist” and a “racist” and his statue has no place on the campus of Oriel College, Oxford.

I smiled with wry humour when I learned that radical students at Manchester University are objecting to the erection of a statue of Gandhi on the grounds that he described black people as “savages” and “dirty (amongst other offensive terms of abuse), https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/oct/17/manchester-council-urged-reject-mahatma-gandhi-statue-racism.

Let me be crystal clear. I did not smile at the offensive words used by Gandhi. Racism is wrong and should be condemned in the strongest possible manner. We all share a common humanity and skin colour does not define the value of a person, as value inheres in us all by virtue of our common humanity. Why then the reason for my wry smile? If Gandi can be attacked, who, then deserves a statue erected in their name? Please, someone show me the individual (living or dead) who is so saintly that they deserve a statue.

Both Rhodes and Gandhi where products of their time as, indeed are we all. In times to come those of us (including myself) who enjoy eating meat may be viewed by posterity as uncivilised, cruel individuals who predated on the inocent animal kingdom. Who, then will erect a statue to one of the meat eaters of today, irrespective of their charitable deeds, literary talent or whatever?

Will the vegetarians of today (or the future) be considered worthy of statues? What about the non meat eater who is a serial adulterer and treats his wives with utter contempt. If he is a great artist will his poor treatment of his wife be overlooked and a statue be erected in his name? Or will the policers of morals jump up and down and say “over my dead body”?

As Hamlet remarks, “treat every man after his desert, and who shall scape whipping”. I answer few, if any of us, for we are all imperfect humans, living in a complex and imperfect world. So, no, Rhodes statue should not fall and those agitating for it to do so should find something more useful to do with their time.

Kevin

Students At Manchester University Paint Over Kipling Mural

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Students at Manchester University have painted over a mural of Kipling’s poem “If”. They say that they where not consulted regarding the murel, that Kipling was a “racist” and an “imperialist” and that it was not appropriate for the mural to have been painted.

I agree that the students should have been consulted (as the mural was in their student union building). However I am in agreement with the editor of the Kipling Society’s Journal when she says:

““Of course he was a racist. Of course he was an imperialist, but that’s not all he was and it seems to me a pity to say so,” she said. Montefiore argued that Kipling was “a magical story-teller” and that his perspective was part of history. “You don’t want to pretend that it all didn’t happen,” she said.

“Dickens said dreadful things about black people in the Jamaica rebellion. Does that mean you don’t read Dickens?” (https://www.theguardian.com/education/2018/jul/19/manchester-university-students-paint-over-rudyard-kipling-mural).

I am not, as it happens, a fan of “If”. I feel that Kipling produced far better verse, including his “Danny Deever”, https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/46782/danny-deever, in which he describes the hanging of a soldier for killing a comrade “while sleeping”. However the tendency to project our own values onto the past is worrying and (if we are not careful) can end up with censorship.

In my poem “Rhodes” I deal with a not dissimilar issue, namely the demand by “The Rhodes Must Fall” campaign to have the statue of Cecil Rhodes removed from Oriel College Oxford, https://newauthoronline.com/2016/11/23/rhodes/. In the case of the Rhodes statue those campaigning for its removal have (thus far) been unsuccessful.

“We are all equal” he said

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“We are all equal” he said.
We nodded our collective head
For who can disagree
That all are equal? But what about free?

“Society is unfair” he said.
Once more, a nod of the collective head.
But who will give up his bed
For the tramp who carries his load
Along yonder road?

“Much of the map was once red
And the English have blood on their hands” he said.
So we dwelt on empire’s shame
And absolved today’s corrupt dictators of all blame,
For Mugabe is a saint
And it is quaint
To believe that the empire did any good
For, of course it produced only blood.

“Let us raise a toast
To the ghost
Of Marx” he said.
I shook my head
And headed for bed.

Kipling May Regret

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In the restaurant its just the waiter and I,
While outside the window Vehicles speed by.
“There are a lot of beautiful women outside today”,
He remarks by way
Of conversation.
I drink
My wine and think
About this nation
On who’s empire the sun would never set.

Kipling may regret,
Yet
The sun continues to shine
And there is curry and wine,
While in the street
Multiracial feet
Hurry
Along,
Beating out a more or less harmonious song.