Yes, the country is called Great Britain – but that does not mean or imply that it is ‘great’ – as in wonderful…  Yet clearly many (British) people believe that it is great, and have extended the meaning of this word beyond all recognition; believing that, despite being a county which is reliant for consumables upon the rest of the world (only 50% of the food eaten and 10% of clothing sold in the UK is produced in the UK – to name but two examples) Great Britain can stand on its own.  For perspective – the UK had a trade deficit with the EU alone of £79 billion in 2019 – hardly the sign of a country that can stand on its own!!

The belief that Great Britain is indeed great and that it can stand on its own without help is, I think, at the heart of the crisis that the UK currently faces: Brexit.  It is also misplaced I think; founded on a superficial and jingoistic education system that looks only at the impact of its history on its own four small countries and disregards the wider picture.  Quite simply, children in Britain are not routinely taught about the impact of Britain’s actions on others.  This being the case, how can anyone expect the British to understand the relationship of cause and effect between it and other countries?

I attended school in the United Kingdom, and I was taught a version of history that painted the British is a very flattering light.  The history taught in the United Kingdom teaches of the glory of the monarchy and the glory of colonialism – focusing on whatever positive traits (as seen through British eyes) may have existed rather than looking at the global and cultural impact of these actions.  Key points in (world) history were (at least in my generation) passed down to children with a surprisingly parochial bias, and the map of the empire was held up in proud achievement of the exploration that naval navigation had facilitated rather than being what it really is – a map showing the extent to which the British oppressed, enslaved and profited from nearly two thirds of the globe.  The ’empire’ as it is called shows nothing more that the extent to which the British dominated by force those peoples who were less advanced culturally or militarily at the time.  And rather than bringing the benefits of any possible difference in standards to those societies – as did some other conquering civilisations, the British imposed class and racial division: systems designed to ingrain their oppression at a cultural level.

British ‘explorers’ continue today to be hailed as pioneers of their time.  Certainly it is the case that the distances travelled and the hardships faced on such journeys were challenges that deserve mention.  However, the ambition was rarely (if ever) the scientific challenge or the thirst for new knowledge, the challenge was a search for more profit.  The individuals involved in these ground-breaking ventures are the people who were responsible for theft of land from native peoples and who then proceeded with genocide, piracy and slavery.  British ‘history’ calls such people ‘privateers’; individuals who were sufficiently wealthy to undertake these missions unsupported by the state.  In reality, these ‘privateers’ were little more than bullies and pirates; often rewarded for inflicting the violence of the crown, and many of them individuals who became wealthy through violence, piracy and slavery.

In terms of the history of Great Britain, despite (or perhaps because of) his violent crimes Walter Raleigh represents a major figure – yet this does not mean that he needs to be glorified.  It is surely possible to teach history without a need to imbue the characters and events with some form of rose-tinted national pride.  It is possible to teach people about the British Empire without forgoing mention of the oppression and violence conducted on the way.  Other more modern figures suffer the same glorification through lack of a full understanding: Winston Churchill continues to be hailed as a hero for his actions as Prime Minister during the second World War – and was even voted ‘Greatest Ever Briton’ in 2002.  Yet this is the same person who espoused racist views against Jews and Muslims and who as Home Secretary sent military troops in during the TonyPandy Riots.  Churchill also oversaw the Bengal Famine in 1943, which saw the deaths of 3 million people.  Adolf Hitler is remembered for the death of 6 millions Jews, but apparently the death of 3 million Bengal Indians doesn’t deserve a mention!

The teaching of history in the UK seems to have progressed in some areas: current revision programmes at least refer to the fact that Raleigh was a slaver and a pirate.  In contrast however, the controversial TonyPandy Riots are not even mentioned in Winston Churchill’s biography… and the result remains that these people continue to be considered to be heroes to the British nation…  as opposed to being bullies and criminals.

It is only possible to have a perspective on events if one is aware of the consequences of the actions, and there are other, more honest ways of teaching history than simply mentioning what we think are the ‘good’ bits.  If the British people wish to have a balanced view of the world, then they need to start having a balanced education of history.  Perhaps teaching societies what actually happened – all of what happened, from all sides  – would even counter the jingoistic national pride that led to such an unthinking drive to a misplaced concept of ‘sovereignty’.

German children learn about the horrors of National Socialism and the fascist régime under Adolf Hitler – why shouldn’t the British learn about the millions killed for the good of the ‘Empire’?  Britain has a history which comprises both positive and negative events – but if you never learn about it, how can you hope to truly understand the nature of your country and how it fits in which and relates to those around it?