Personal Review of Colonialism by Nigel Biggar

The difficulties experienced by Nigel Biggar in having his work published apparently because publishers or at least the publisher which had paid him for the work, were too worried about the woke brigade's likely criticism  of his book, to give the go ahead to its  printing and publishing, caused it eventually to be published by another publisher, William Collins. 

The difficulties he faced caused me to buy and read a copy as well. The last time one of my book purchases resulted from  left wing moans or worse was Salmon Rushdie's  "Satanic Verses"  published in 1988, which like Colonialism I only read because of such negative non-literary publicity.

Colonialism is a completely different type  or work from Salmon Rushdie's and is an excellent read, especially for one who just about managed an history 'O' Level covering as I recall, mainly Siege of Malta, the Aztecs and Incas.

Essentially Nigel Biggar is evaluating British Colonialism from the point of view of the good and the bad whereas the woke brigade and many of those being educated at the best British universities, only wish the bad to be known. Some will even moan about the work without taking the trouble to read it first.

The author's comments about the negative sides of colonialism are full and interesting as are his views of the positive sides. An amusing point was recounted about a Nigerian leader seeking payment for colonial usurpation by the British years back, to which the reply at the time was to the effect that certainly, such payment would be made by the British as soon as we received payment from Rome for its usurpation of this country.

The point was well made that mankind has always acted in negative as well as positive ways from the pharaohs' time if not earlier. The author's details of the effects of empire in say India or Africa are full of negative aspects of which perhaps the worst was in my view Benin, but even there the locals had themselves sacrificed people in dreadful ways.

The centre of the Empire ruled well from London but according to Biggar there were comparatively few local British rulers in the colonies themselves so there was much dependence on organisations like the East India Company.

Many former colonies such as Australia, Canada, New Zealand and even USA, benefitted enormously from the Common Law and still do. Others such as India where there were huge difficulties especially towards the end of British rule, benefitted from eg railways and  London's attempts to treat all equally whereas even today, years after independence the Indian caste system which has only recently been outlawed in Seattle USA, tries to create an order of seniority of mankind which seems abhorrent. 

Were locals better off under British rule, in for example former Rhodesia than they are today in Zimbabwe? Clearly they were there at least. Ceding independence to most colonies was correct and inevitable though the timing and methodology may not have been. 

How it should have been done in South Africa with  many of the Boers being anti-British  there? Then there was the Second World War when the British stood alone against Hitler but many former colonial people joined the fight against Hitler which presumably they would not have done had the British been universally bad as we are led to believe by the woke brigade, today.