With breathtaking ease, the facts of Britain’s non-war twentieth-century history have been unrooted, dug out from the country’s collective memory. Supplanted. Vague fairytales of benevolent imperial rule bloom instead. How can we engage, discuss, even think through a post-colonial lens, when there’s no shared base of knowledge? When even the simplest accounting of events – as preserved in the country’s own archives – wobbles suspect as tin-foil-hat conspiracies in the minds of its educated citizens?
When I am in the schools, I could try to say something. To the assembly halls of children seeking inspiration. Because even today, the mother country hasn’t loosened her grip. Britain continues to own, exploit and profit from land taken during its twentieth-century exploits. Burning our futures to fuel its voracious economy. Under threat of monetary violence. Lecturing us, all the while, about self-sufficiency. Interfering in our politics, our democracies, our access to the global economic stage; creating LEDCs.
Best case: those children grow up, assimilate, get jobs and pour money into a government that forever tells them they are not British. This is not home.
Should I say that?
No, I can’t charge at it head on. There are conventions, the son says. Familiar, palatable forms. To foster understanding. That’s how they do it in speeches, he says. （He sometimes writes political speeches.） Sugarcoat the rhetoric, embed the politics within a story; make it relatable, personal. Honest, he says. Shape my truth into a narrative arc –
Alright, I try it. I tell a story. But he demands more. He wants to know who did what, specifically, and to whom. How did it feel? （Give him visceral physicality.） Who is to blame? （A single, flawed individual. Not a system or society or the complicity of an undistinguished majority in maintaining the status quo…） And what does it teach us? How will our heroine transcend her victimhood? Tell him more, he encourages. He says he’s listening. He wants to know.
What else could I say – how much detail is enough? Enough to unlock thoughts or understanding or even something basic, human, empathetic within him. It’s just not there. Or, I can’t speak to it. My only tool of expression is the language of this place. Its bias and assumptions permeate all reason I could construct from it.
These words, symbols arranged on the page （itself a pure, unblemished vehicle for objective elucidation of thought）， these basic units of civilization – how could they harbour ill intent?
Fig 5.
white
having no hue due to the reflection of all or almost all incident light
black
without light; completely dark
without hope or alleviation; gloomy
very dirty or soiled
bloodless or pale, as from pain, emotion, etc
benevolent or without malicious intent
angry or resentful
colourless or transparent
dealing with the unpleasant
realities of life, esp in a pessimistic
or macabre manner
capped with or accompanied by snow
counterrevolutionary, very conservative, or royalist
causing, resulting from, or showing great misfortune
blank, as an unprinted area of a page
wicked or harmful
honourable or generous
causing or deserving dishonour or censure
morally unblemished
（of the face） purple, as from suffocation
（of times, seasons, etc） auspicious; favourable
bleed white
whiter than white
How can I use such a language to examine the society it reinforces? The society that conceived it; spoke it into existence and fostered it to maturity as its people scribbled cursive enlightenment anywhere I might call home?
The white hand printed on the white van brandishes silvery cuffs against a black backdrop, beside large stamp-effect typeface searing the playground-familiar taunt into taxpayer-funded legitimacy: GO HOME or face arrest.
Fig 6.
@hmtreasury:
Here’s today’s surprising #FridayFact. Millions of you helped end the slave trade through your taxes.
（Her Majesty’s Treasury’s Twitter account accompanies this cutesy misrepresentation of history with an illustration depicting people, enslaved – including a mother, baby strapped to her back and chain heavy around her neck. The caption boasts of Britain’s generosity in buying freedom for all slaves in the empire. Compensating slave-owners for property lost. Did you know?）
Is it true that his family’s wealth today was funded in part by that bought freedom; the loan my taxes paid off? Yes. And he is an individual and I am an individual and neither of us were there, were responsible for the actions of our historical selves? Yes. Yet, he lives off the capital returns, while I work to pay off the interest? Yes. But, here I am now, walking through the fruits of it; land he owns, history he cherishes; the familiar grounding, soil, bricks and trees stretching metres high; the sense of belonging, of safety, of being home. He has that here, always, to return to? Yes. Sleeping this morning, did he look renewed? Yes. Yes, of course. He is home.