Colonialism - A Moral Reckoning

A Review of Nigel Biggar's Book setting out a balanced approach to colonial activity.

In the NZ Herald for 26 November Simon Wilson penned a piece about poverty. It was a lengthy piece but a couple of paragraphs towards the end caught my eye. It talks about love as a solution.

It reads as follows:

“Sarah-Jane Paine, research director at the Growing Up in New Zealand study, had a question. “How is it possible for so many people to care so deeply about poverty and for nothing to change year after year?”

“It got me thinking about love,” she said. “Aroha, in its full meaning.”

She talked about a lack of empathy that keeps people at a distance. She said colonial systems

“can say they know and care about us, but their basis in white supremacy means they cannot”.

The suggestion that colonial systems are based on white supremacy is a generalization that infects much of the debate about colonialism and colonization. It suggests that “white supremacy” (which in itself is code for a number of varying issues) was what motivated colonialism and colonization. It did not, although there were times when, during the colonial experience, it manifested itself. Like many of the arguments against colonialism it is cast in binary terms – all good or all bad. And the use of the phrase “white supremacy” casts the colonial experience as evil. And the issue is far more subtle and nuanced than that.

Nigel Biggar is a British Anglican priest, theologian, and ethicist. From 2007 to 2022, he was the Regius Professor of Moral and Pastoral Theology at the University of Oxford.

In 2017, Biggar initiated a five-year project at Oxford University, entitled "Ethics and Empire". Its stated aim was to scrutinise critiques against the historical facts of empire.

Historians and academics widely criticised the project, claiming that it was "attempting to balance out the violence committed in the name of empire with its supposed benefits". The project also received criticism for failing to engage with the wider scholarship on empire and not submitting itself to peer scrutiny and rigorous academic debate.

Biggar addressed the ethics of colonialism in an op-ed for The Times, arguing that the history of the British Empire was morally mixed and that guilt around Britain's colonial legacy may have gone too far.

He also defended an article by Bruce Gilley, titled "The Case for Colonialism", asserting that Gilley's appeal for a balanced reappraisal of the colonial past was both courageous and a call for Britain to moderate its post-imperial guilt.

Biggar’s book Colonialism. A Moral Reckoning, examines the morality of colonialism. It was originally accepted by Bloomsbury who later chose not to publish it, with the suggestion that "public feeling on the subject does not currently support the publication of the book". It was eventually published by William Collin, a division of HarperCollins.

The book has received both praise and criticism. Rudrangshu Mukherjee wrote in The Wire that Colonialism is an "immoral book" that ignores "the structural logic of empire" linking "the development of capitalism and prosperity in Britain with the political control, the economic exploitation and the impoverishment of the colonies," and that it fails "the most elementary test of scholarship"

However, Trevor Phillips in The Sunday Times said that it "carries the intellectual force of a Javelin antitank missile", stating that he "find[s] it hard to disagree" with Biggar's thesis.

Jonathan Sumption in the Literary Review described it as "an important book as well as a courageous one", and that "in general, [Biggar's] approach is objective and he fairly addresses the contrary arguments".

In The Daily Telegraph, Tim Stanley considered the book "thoughtful" and "compelling", one that introduced facts, some of which he was unaware of, indicating that "much that is benign about our civilisation has been forgotten", but concluded that Biggar "is spoiling for a fight, and I fear he's going to get one".

Kenan Malik in the Guardian said that while Colonialism "claims to be a 'moral reckoning', moral questions are rarely taken seriously", and "in seeking to challenge what he regards as cartoonish views of imperial history, Biggar has produced something equally cartoonish, a politicised history that ill-serves his aim of defending 'western values'.

Malik observes that from Biggar’s perspective

“Contemporary historians… have made us feel too guilty about Britain’s colonial past. We need to recognise not just the bad but also the good of empire. Colonialism is [Biggar’s] attempt to create such a moral balance sheet.”

Biggar’s approach, however, is wherever possible to find good motives behind every colonial act – he portrays racial segregation, for example, as the product not of racism but of the desire “to protect native peoples from harmful encounters with settlers”.

However, Malik is not one to support Biggar’s thesis and notes that where it proves impossible to locate a nugget of good, he seeks instead to find exonerating circumstances for the bad.

Malik considers that

“Biggar’s real concern is not with the past but with the present. Denigrating colonialism, he claims, is an “important way of corroding faith in the west”. Yet, in seeking to challenge what he regards as cartoonish views of imperial history, Biggar has produced something equally cartoonish, a politicised history that ill-serves his aim of defending “western values”. After all, to rewrite the past to suit the needs of the present, and to defend people’s rights only when politically convenient, is hardly to present those values in a flattering light.”

A more savage review was penned by Peniel Rajkumar, writing for the Church Times. The Revd. Dr Peniel Rajkumar is the USPG’s Global Theologian, and an Hon. Canon of Worcester Cathedral. There are rarely more pointed arguments than those between clerics of the same belief system. The history of the Christian Church is full of them, as is Islam.

Dr Rajkumar considers the book as an apology for colonialism, suggesting that the sub-title should read “An Amoral Reckoning” and that the book is morally and historically vacuous.

Dr Rajkumar uses the language of the critical theorist in suggesting that the book is

“entrapped in an epistemological premise — one that reeks of the same racist and supremacist inclinations as characterised colonialism in both its malignant and “benevolent” expressions.”

He describes Biggar’s “moral lens” approach as preposterous, suggesting that he weaponizes prejudice. He claims that Biggar has not understood post-colonialism, and his book’s main problem is its avoidance of engagement with more robust appraisals of colonialism in contemporary times.

But Biggar concedes in the Introduction to the book that the subject matter and his approach were both contentious.

The book comprises eight chapters, each dealing with a different aspect or theme of colonialism. He considers the motives for colonial activity, the difficult and confronting topic of slavery, the issue of cultural superiority, equality and racism, the question of land appropriation, settlers and “conquest”, assimilation of settled peoples and the emotive and misdescribed issue of genocide, colonialism and trade, the question of Government and the rise of nationalism and finally whether in certain circumstances force was justified or whether colonial activity was characterized by pervasive violence.

Although Biggar provides evidence from the colonial enterprises of a number of nations, his primary focus is upon the British Empire and its associated colonial activity.

Many commentators of colonialism approach the topic from a critical theory perspective, seeking out any evidence to then suggest that all colonial activity was inherently evil. Biggar does not. His is a more nuanced approach and is that of an ethicist.

Biggar founded his Ethics and Empire Project at Oxford to explore the factual and moral basis for this hostility. The project, its author and the university were at once denounced by other scholars in the field on the grounds that the very idea of balance in this area is unacceptable.

To quote one of the most vocal antagonists,

‘any attempt to create a balance sheet of the good and evil of empire can’t be based on rigorous scholarship’

An extraordinary statement from an academic but in these critical theory neo-Marxist binary days one shouldn’t be too surprised.

Biggar’s argument is that the development of Empire and what is called colonialism was an institution that developed over centuries and no one could say that it was wholly good or wholly bad. Biggar cites examples from other imperial activities. The empire of Islam demonstrated examples of racism regarding those from Northern climes (it was too cold to be intelligent) or the tropics (it was too hot to be intelligent). The conclusion is obvious.

He commences with the proposition that empire is not an historical aberration or a departure from historical norms. It is part of the natural order of a world that, until recently, lacked stable frontiers formalised by an overarching scheme of international law. The armed migration of peoples in search of resources might serve to unlock the riches of the world and spread knowledge and technical competence, processes which potentially benefit all mankind.

Certainly colonialism severely disrupted existing patterns of indigenous life. It was often achieved or maintained through violence and injustice. In the final analysis, all states maintain themselves by force or the threat of it.

Governments, imperial or domestic, have always involved light and shade, achievement and failure, good and evil. Biggar’s point is that it falsifies history to collect together everything bad about an institution and serve it up as if it were the whole.

There are three major points that Biggar makes by way of mitigation when it comes to the legacy of Empire.

To begin with many of the worst things that happened were not the result of an ideology or a preconceived and calculated policy. There were abuses. They were recognized and were addressed although not always with the greatest success.

Secondly, along with the disruption that was caused to communities there were also benefits. Practices such as slavery, cannibalism, sati and human sacrifice, which were by any standards barbarous, were eliminated. The ground was laid for an economic and social transformation that lifted much of the world out of extremes of poverty.

Thirdly and finally not only did colonialism bring disruption but it brought order. The British brought the Rule of Law, constitutional government, honest administration, economic development and modern educational and research facilities, all long before they would have been achieved without European intervention.

Biggar honestly puts his cards on the table and makes a number of observations.

First we cannot judge the past by the standards and values of the present. It is a form of anachronism. But from a moral perspective – and we all make moral judgements – we are continuing to learn morally. Some moral truths are obvious to us that were not to our ancestors. We are clear that slavery is wrong because it makes one person the absolutely disposable property of another. But for our ancestors in the eighteenth century slavery was a fact of life which had existed since time immemorial. Biggar suggests we should forgive our ancestors for not perceiving some moral truths as clearly as we do. And we shall need forgiveness from our grandchildren for our own moral shortcomings.

Secondly we should remember that the circumstances of the past differ from those of the present. Good moral judgements will take that into account. Violence that would be excessive today may not have been excessive in the unstable circumstances of weak nineteenth century states. We must make sure that our present ethics are informed by a sensitivity to human limits and frailities.

Thirdly, Biggar makes it clear that his ethics are shaped by Christian principles and tradition and that there are universal moral principles.

Fourthly one must recognize human limitations and that often we lie on a bed that our ancestors made for us.

There can be no doubt that the British Empire contained evils and injustices but so does the history of any long-standing state. But the Empire was not essentially racist, exploitative or wantonly violent as a general proposition. It could correct errors and sins and importantly it prepared colonized peoples for liberal self-government.

What colonialism did bring to the table in the final analysis were liberal, humanitarian principles and endeavours that should be admired and carried into the future. Imaginary guilt should not cripple the self confidence of the British, Canadians, Australians and New Zealanders as pillars of the liberal international order.

The book is not an easy read. Biggar is an academic and his approach is a rigorous one. He develops the evidence and marshals his argument with care. Some of his conclusions are challenging but are well reasoned and well thought-out. He writes not as an historian but as an ethicist so his approach and analytical style differ from that of the historian or anthropologist

As I read Colonialism I was interested how Biggar developed his argument. He accepts the downsides of colonialism as well as the significant upsides. In terms of bringing liberal democratic ideals, the Rule of Law, an honest administration and an objective of self determination colonialism has more to recommend it rather than the universal condemnation based on isolated incidents and errors.

One of the things that colonialism brought to New Zealand was the Rule of Law and laws that were structured on English common law principles and the theory of legislative supremacy. Thus it is amusing to read of one of our Supreme Court Justices stating

“until we complete the process of decolonisation, the rule of law can only be considered a work in progress.  The new place of the Treaty and tikanga in the law is a start.”

Perhaps the Judge might benefit from a read of Professor Biggar’s book. And perhaps she should realise, as I am sure she does, that the common law particularly is organic and dynamic and continues to develop. It is unhelpful to bring a concept such as “decolonization” into the mix when our system is derived from the colonisation of New Zealand. And that is one of the benefits of colonialism.