Schools in the UK need to wake up and teach pupils the history of the British Empire

There is the odd mention of Gandhi and the abolition of slavery, but not in a way that shows what Britain used to be

A statue of Britain's Queen Victoria outside the Port Elizabeth city library, South Africa after being splashed with green paint, April, 2015. Michael Sheehan / AP

An empty plinth where the statue of 18th century slave owner Robert Milligan used to be, stands in front of the Museum of London Docklands in London, UK, on June 23. Many of the financial district’s most venerable names were built off colonial oppression. Olivia Harris / Bloomberg

In this July 31, 1980, file photo, Rhodesians beat a statue as they celebrate the removal of Rhodesia's founder, Cecil Rhodes, after Rhodesia, became independent in April, ending nine decades of British colonial rule and becoming Zimbabwe. Louise Gubb / AP

A bust of British colonialist Cecil Rhodes, the nose vandalised, at the Rhodes Memorial in Cape Town, South Africa, Sept, 2015. Schalk van Zuydam / AP photo

The "Gilt of Cain" monument by Michael Visocchi & Lemn Sissay, commemorating the abolition of the transatlantic slave trade, in London, UK, on June 23. Olivia Harris/Bloomberg

A section of the "Gilt of Cain" monument by Michael Visocchi & Lemn Sissay. Olivia Harris/Bloomberg

Workers remove a controversial statue of Captain John Fane Charles Hamilton from Civic Square in Hamilton, New Zealand on June 12, following a formal request by the Waikato-Tainui iwi (tribal confederation) and threats it would be torn down during a Black Lives Matter march due to take place the following day. The statue of Hamilton, a British military commander who led a detachment against Maori during the Battle of Gate Pa in 1864, was removed as statues of colonial figures in Britain, Belgium and the US were toppled by demonstrators amid worldwide protests. Michael Bradley / AFP

A relief on the door of the Bank of England (BOE) depicts chains, in London, UK, on June 23. Many of the financial district’s most venerable names were built off colonial oppression. Olivia Harris / Bloomberg

Battle of Britain veterans with Dame Vera Lynn (C) outside the Churchill War Rooms, in London, UK in August 2010. Dame Vera Lynn died this month on 18 June, aged 103. Facundo Arrizabalaga / EPA

In this Dec 2, 1975 photo, singer Vera Lynn is seen outside the Buckingham Palace after being invested 'Dame Commander of the British Empire'. AP

A statue of Robert Clive in Whitehall in London, UK, June 10. Clive was the Governor of Bengal and helped the British Empire gain control of large areas of India. London's Mayor, Sadiq Khan, said the capital's landmarks would be reviewed by a commission to remove those with links to slavery after Black Lives Matter protesters tore down a statue of slave trader Edward Colston in Bristol. Neil Hall/ EPA

A protester next to a statue of Winston Churchill in Parliament Square during a Black Lives Matter demonstration on June 20, 2020 in London, UK. The movement has triggered the removal of statues with links to racism and the slave trade. Chris J Ratcliffe / Getty

Artwork in Brixton in London, UK, 22 June. The day marks the third Windrush Day and is the 72nd anniversary of the SS Empire Windrush arriving at Tilbury Docks in Essex carrying the first Caribbean migrants bringing workers from Jamaica, Trinidad and Tobago and other islands, as a response to post-war labour shortages in the UK. Brixton was the first 'Windrush community' in 1948 and is still a vibrant centre for Caribbean culture. The Windrush Square stands in the centre of Brixton. Facundo Arrizabalaga / EPA

In this June 22, 1948 file photo, Jamaican men, mostly ex-Royal Air Force servicemen, pose for a photo aboard the former troopship, S.S. Empire Windrush, before disembarking at Tilbury Docks, England. June 22, 2020 marked the 72nd anniversary since the Empire Windrush ship brought hundreds of Caribbean immigrants to a Britain seeking nurses, railway workers and others to help it rebuild after the devastation of the Second World War. Eddie Worth / AP

About a hundred years ago, when the British Empire was at its peak, it covered about a quarter of the world’s land mass and dominated over 412 million people, a quarter of the world’s population at the time. Its vastness even prompted the phrase, "the empire on which the sun never sets" – because it was always daylight somewhere in the territories it occupied across the world.

Whatever your views on the British Empire, its significance to the state of our world today is undeniable. For people in the UK, its legacy affects every aspect of life, from matters like food and language to existential issues like race, inequality our relationships with the world, who gets to be called British, how class structures work, the stratification of wealth and resources and the decline of our industrial towns. Put another way, it affects everything.

Yet for an empire so vast and long-lasting, even in its impact, we in Britain seem equivocal about whether we should teach our children anything about it. There is a lot of talk about being proud of Britain’s history and Empire. But when it comes to actually teaching it, there is a big fat void. It is mind boggling that the history of the biggest empire does not appear on Britain's official school curriculum.

Yes, there is the odd mention of Gandhi and the abolition of slavery. But without cohesively joining together the people, events and policies of the British Empire, there is no way to truly understand what Britain was then and therefore what it is today.

One viral clip last week showed a far-right protester next to Winston Churchill’s statue in London, ostensibly there to protect it from Black Lives Matter protesters. There was no Black Lives Matter protest that day. He explained: “We’re here to say it’s wrong to desecrate the statue of Winston Churchill because he killed Hitler. He killed Hitler.”

Hitler’s death was perhaps one of the most famous suicides in history. Churchill did not kill Hitler, unless the protester meant in an indirect, defeating-the-Germans kind of way. Highlighting mentions of Churchill in the context of anti-racist protests is connected to his contested legacy with regard to the British Empire. It is why ignorance of even a well-known fact is so problematic. While it is easy to mock a single person for their lack of knowledge about history, the popularity of the clip struck a chord precisely because it is so common.

The heated debates over whether the statue of Edward Colston in Bristol should have been thrown into the harbour demonstrate this. What does the statue mean to the people of Bristol: was he a slave trader who was responsible for the deaths of tens of thousands of trafficked human beings and their possibly millions of descendants who were born into slavery? Or was he a philanthropist who benefited Bristol? And why was his statue only erected in 1895, 170 years after he died? These questions cannot be meaningfully discussed without a basic grounding in history.

Lessons from the history of the British Empire pertain to questions of who are we and what is our place in the world

Many campaigns have been launched in recent years calling for the British Empire and its role in colonialism to be included in the school curriculum. The Labour party included it as one of their manifesto pledges in 2019.

An open petition on the UK Parliament’s website calls to “Teach Britain’s colonial past as part of the UK’s compulsory curriculum.” Any petition that exceeds 100,000 signatures automatically gets discussed in Parliament. As of writing this, it has received nearly 250,000.

Indian troops with a Nazi flag in the rubble of Western Desert trenches of Libya in May 1942. Up to 2.5 million Indians fought for Britain during the Second World War. Getty

Teaching pupils the lessons of the British Empire is not just for people from black and minority ethnic backgrounds. The British Empire is as significant to a white child in a small town in the industrial north as it is to a child whose grandparents came to the UK from the Caribbean as part of the Windrush generation or to those who descended from wealthy slave-owning families.

The lessons in the history of the British Empire must address all of these audiences, because it informs our nation’s biggest questions – who are we; what is our place in the world; how has our country become what it is; and who gets to be part of this country.

The opposition to including the history of British Empire in the school curriculum is unclear. If you are proud of it, why would you not want it to be taught? If the worry is that this will be ‘revisionist’ history, then proponents should be confident of their facts.

And for those who say this destroys Britain’s pride in its past, if the British Empire is our most notable achievement, why is it absent from our children’s textbooks?

Shelina Janmohamed is the author of Love in a Headscarf and Generation M: Young Muslims Changing the World