{"id":36625,"date":"2024-03-13T17:15:40","date_gmt":"2024-03-14T00:15:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/?p=36625"},"modified":"2024-03-13T17:17:11","modified_gmt":"2024-03-14T00:17:11","slug":"biggars-colonialism-a-call-to-nuance-and-critique","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/biggars-colonialism-a-call-to-nuance-and-critique\/","title":{"rendered":"Biggar’s Colonialism: A Call to Nuance and Critique"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cWas British liberal imperialism, given the extent of the damage it inflicted over generations, a more malevolent influence on world history than even Nazi Fascism?\u201d This question is, according to Sunil Khilnani, indirectly implied in Caroline Elkins’s book Imperial Reckoning: The Untold Story of Britain\u2019s Gulag. Khilnani, in reviewing Elkins’s book in The New Yorker, argues that Elkins makes a compelling case that ought not to be dismissed.[1]<\/a> I would argue that, more often than not, challenging such a claim is in great danger of not just dismissal but \u201ccancellation.\u201d Such an ethos of empire condemnation is the fruit of post-colonial thought. The chief seed-sower of empire-condemnation, Edward Said. His tome, Orientalism<\/em>, is the sacred text of post-colonial ideology.[2]<\/a> The harvest is an overall cultural ethos in which to challenge the progressive assumption that all \u201cempire\u201d is evil is to tread in hot water.<\/p>\n

Oxford Professor Nigel Biggar endured the scalding when his book Ethics and Empire<\/em> became the talk of the contentious town known as the internet.[3]<\/a> What transgression did Biggar commit? The unforgivable sin of defending empire.<\/p>\n

Colonialism Summary<\/strong><\/p>\n

Biggar\u2019s book Colonialism: A Moral Reckoning<\/em> is a re-examination of the post-colonialist anthem that empire is evil and the history of colonization is monopolized solely by heinous acts of injustice. Biggar does not defend evil acts of colonization. However, Biggar\u2019s contention is that one cannot sweep over the history of the British Empire with a singular brush of injustice. And it is a gross exaggeration to equate the atrocities of the British Empire with Nazi Germany.<\/p>\n

All [the British Empire\u2019s] evils are lamentable, and where culpable, they merit moral condemnation. None of them, however, amounts to genocide in the proper sense of the concerted, intentional killing of all the members of a people, the paradigm of which was the Nazi policy of implementing a ‘Final Solution’ to the ‘problem’ of the Jews. In the history of the British Empire, there was nothing morally equivalent to Nazi concentration or death camps, or to the Soviet Gulag.[4]<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Ideally, Biggar hopes to disassociate the evils of empire with the liberal, humanitarian ideals the British empire aimed at passing on to non-Western countries.[5]<\/a><\/p>\n

Malik’s Critique<\/strong><\/p>\n

In response to Biggar\u2019s re-evaluation of the moral challenge of \u201cempire\u201d, Kenan Malik writes in The Guardian<\/em> that Biggar\u2019s moral assessment is found wanting.[6]<\/a> In defending western-values, Biggar\u2019s revisionist history, according to Malik, is \u201ca politicised history that ill-serves his aim of defending \u2018western values\u2019.\u201d[7]<\/a><\/p>\n

I am in agreement with Malik\u2019s assessment of Biggar. However, I do agree with Biggar that the broad brush stroke of \u201cinjustice\u201d over the British Empire\u2019s history, with the extreme version of likening it to Nazi Germany, is also irresponsible. I believe there\u2019s a call to nuance in how we understand empire. Khilnani does this when he writes,<\/p>\n

Strains of liberalism embraced or accommodated paternalism, racism, and authoritarianism, helping provide intellectual cover for unimaginable cruelty. Yet liberal philosophies also elaborated ideas of autonomy, individuality, and collective self-rule that, in turn, seeded principles about legitimacy that anti-colonial thinkers and activists enlisted to their cause. Amid colonial condescension about their peoples\u2019 civilizational adequacy, they sought to teach their Western liberal counterparts to imagine politics in genuinely universalist terms.[8]<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

A Posture for Christian Leaders<\/strong><\/p>\n

For us as Christian leaders, there are two invitations. First, in our complex world with stained histories, we must lead the way in nuanced thinking. This means avoiding binary thinking. Progressive, post-colonial groupthink that finds empire as solely evil is faulty as starry-eyed vision of empire that overlooks the many skeletons in the closet. Group-based binary thinking is a disease in our dialogue as a society. Dr. Edwin Friedman would identify the root cause as anxiety-fueled poor self-differentiation. A symptom of this, according to Friedman, is \u201cthe herd instinct.\u201d In this, \u201cdissent is discouraged, feelings are more important than ideas, peace will be valued over progress, comfort over novelty, and cloistered virtues over adventure. Problems are formulated in rigid either\/or, black-and-white, all-or-nothing categories.\u201d[9]<\/a><\/p>\n

Second, for Christian leaders, we must follow the late activist and writer William Stringfellow in courageously recognizing the powers and principalities at work in human systems such as empire. The Church must not get too comfortable in society, for the Church must always be willing to critique and avoid being a servant to such a principality.[10]<\/a> Stringfellow writes the following:<\/p>\n

The course of European and American Christendom since then [Constantine arrangement], has been scandalized by bizarre happenings: The Crusades, the Inquisition, the suppression of the Peasant’s Revolt, the practice of genocide against North American Indians, the sanction of black chattel slavery in the United States, the opportune merger of white colonialism and the missionary enterprise in the nineteenth century, the seduction and surrender of the churches to Nazism\u2014to name only a very few.[11]<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Christian leaders must be willing to critique empire and obey Christ as Lord above empire. In the words of Allan Boesak in his reflection on the book of Revelation: \u201cSo John speaks from his island to the church today. He confronts us with stark choices: obedience to God and God’s Word or subjection to the Caesar, the Living God or the one who calls himself god, the Lord or the dragon, the Messiah king or the beast.\u201d[12]<\/a><\/p>\n

[1]<\/a> Sunil Khilnani, \u201cThe British Empire Was Much Worse Than You Realize,\u201d The New Yorker<\/em>, March 28, 2022, https:\/\/www.newyorker.com\/magazine\/2022\/04\/04\/the-british-empire-was-much-worse-than-you-realize-caroline-elkinss-legacy-of-violence.<\/p>\n

[2]<\/a> Yascha Mounk, The Identity Trap: A Story of Ideas and Power in Our Time<\/em> (New York: Penguin Press, 2023), 43-44.<\/p>\n

[3]<\/a> Nigel Biggar, Colonialism: A Moral Reckoning<\/em> (London: William Collins, 2023), 1.<\/p>\n

[4]<\/a> Ibid., 276.<\/p>\n

[5]<\/a> Ibid., 297.<\/p>\n

[6]<\/a> Kenan Malik, \u201cColonialism by Nigel Biggar Review \u2013 a Flawed Defence of Empire,\u201d The Guardian<\/em>, February 20, 2023, sec. Books, https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/books\/2023\/feb\/20\/colonialism-a-moral-reckoning-by-nigel-biggar-review-a-flawed-defence-of-empire.<\/p>\n

[7]<\/a> Ibid.<\/p>\n

[8]<\/a> Khilnani, \u201cThe British Empire Was Much Worse Than You Realize.\u201d<\/p>\n

[9]<\/a> Edwin H. Friedman, A Failure of Nerve: Leadership in the Age of the Quick Fix (10th Anniversary, Revised Edition)<\/em> (Church Publishing, Inc., 2017), 75.<\/p>\n

[10]<\/a> J. R. Woodward, The Scandal of Leadership: Unmasking the Powers of Domination in the Church<\/em> (100 Movements Publishing, 2023), 187.<\/p>\n

[11]<\/a> William Stringfellow, An Ethic for Christians and Other Aliens in a Strange Land (Eugene, OR: Wipf and Stock, 1973), 45-46. Found in J. R. Woodward, The Scandal of Leadership<\/em>, 187.<\/p>\n

[12]<\/a> Allan Boesak, Comfort and Protest: The Apocalypse of John from a South Africa Perspective<\/em> (Eugene, Oregon: Wipf & Stock Publishers, 2015), 38.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cWas British liberal imperialism, given the extent of the damage it inflicted over generations, a more malevolent influence on world history than even Nazi Fascism?\u201d This question is, according to Sunil Khilnani, indirectly implied in Caroline Elkins’s book Imperial Reckoning: The Untold Story of Britain\u2019s Gulag. Khilnani, in reviewing Elkins’s book in The New Yorker, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":152,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[2347,3120,3121,3111,2842],"class_list":["post-36625","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-dlgp01","tag-biggar","tag-boesak","tag-nigel-biggar","tag-stringfellow","cohort-dlgp01"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36625","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/152"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=36625"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36625\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":36626,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36625\/revisions\/36626"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=36625"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=36625"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=36625"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}