Netherlands apologises for role in slavery - BBC News

A good history book generates in the mind of its readers a series of visual images of people, places and events, blurry and perhaps not very accurate, but nevertheless the sort of thing that can be held in the memory. Television history challenges this because it provides ready-made versions of many of the visuals, and they too can become locked in one’s memory of historical events. Put differently, television takes over from individual imagination in portraying the past, and that is a particular problem for documentaries that do not admit to spicing up the past, as a costume drama will inevitably do. Rather, documentaries claim to uncover the truth. And if the details are wrong, well, that is because there is a higher truth than accuracy, in the eyes of devotees of so-called critical race theory.



It is therefore very worrying that a report by History Reclaimed, brilliantly researched by Alexander Gray, has brought to light serious problems in recent BBC history documentaries. While there are indisputable errors of fact in several programmes, even more significantly there are skewed interpretations which ignore important facts. Above all of this critical race theory is casting its shadow, obsessively presenting the history of the world as the seizure of power by white Europeans, capitalists and imperialists who built their success on the backs of black African slaves transported in their millions across the Atlantic from the sixteenth to the nineteenth century. The argument of Eric Williams’s famous, or notorious, book Capitalism and Slavery, first published in 1944, is cited as if it is established fact, rather than a book whose argument generations of eminent economic historians have rejected. Nowadays it tells us more about Marxist ideology in the 1930s and about the history of the Caribbean at that time than about the era of slave trading or the Industrial Revolution, whose origins he traced back to profits from Atlantic slavery.


Our researcher identified several programmes where serious problems arose. Turning briefly to radio, a programme fronted by Kit de Waal and Zeinab Badawi devoted to Sarah Forbes Bonetta mentioned slave revolts in Jamaica in the 1860s. Slavery had been abolished across the British Empire in 1833. If we look a bit further at this remarkable woman, a protégée of Queen Victoria, we find ourselves inside a world that barely exists in the TV and radio narratives. Sarah was a high-status Yoruba woman who had been enslaved by King Ghezo in Dahomey. The king is supposed to have said: ‘the slave trade has been the ruling principle of my people. It is the source of their glory and wealth. Their songs celebrate their victories and the mother lulls the child to sleep with notes of triumph over an enemy reduced to slavery.’

The failure of several BBC programmes to mention the role of African rulers in the acquisition and export of slaves, and the further failure to mention the role of the British Navy in suppressing the slave trade of other European nations, is a major problem. In one programme, Romesh Ranganathan visited the slave compound at Bunce Island in Sierra Leone. From 1670 this was a loading point for slaves transported in unspeakable conditions across the Atlantic to British colonies in North America and the Caribbean. Its English proprietors were the Royal Africa Company. All this is unquestionable fact. But then the list of omissions begins. The RAC acquired its slaves from African raiders. Over a century later, British opponents of slavery established Freetown upriver from Bunce Island, and around it Britain created a colony inhabited by freed slaves. The ‘Freedom Arch’ in Freetown carries the inscription: ‘any slave who passes through this gate is declared a free man’. The government of Sierra Leone has applied for its recognition as a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Part of the programme was filmed close to it, yet it is neither shown nor mentioned. On all these points, silence.

Similar objections arise to Enslaved with Samuel L. Jackson, where Afua Hirsch interviewed Dr Wilhelmina Donkoh, who opined that in Africa there were no slaves, only ‘unfree people’. This betrays deep ignorance about the nature of slavery. It has taken many forms, from agricultural serfdom to slave sultans in medieval Egypt. But there certainly were slaves in the despotically ruled Kingdom of Benin, not all of whom were exported, and the British put an end to its slave trade. The question of the return of the Benin Bronzes is another area where the BBC only tells part of the story, rendering intelligent discussion of a complex problem even more difficult.

Closer to home, the report looks at Alice Roberts’s Digging for Britain. Roberts is a marvellous presenter, though at her best with Neanderthals and their like; so it is not clear why the Irish potato famine came into her purview. A discussion with Dr Onyeka Nubia, better known for his writings about black British history, elicited the view that the British government looked the other way during the Irish Famine and was ‘bent on extermination’, making it sound as if this was a pre-run of Ukraine’s horrific Holodomor. He attached heavy blame to Sir Robert Peel, despite his suspension of the corn laws and his importation of American maize into Ireland. No one suggests that everything that could be done was necessarily done, nor that English rule over many centuries was in the best interests of the Irish people, but the lack of nuance in the picture is very troubling. In the case of the Bengal Famine of 1943 the BBC actually admitted breaching its impartiality guidelines by ignoring the supplies sent to India and the difficulties posed by a war that was uncomfortably close to India. Again, no one disputes that this was a dreadful situation, but ironing out the complexities so as to write a sensational story is unacceptable.


History Reclaimed points to the fact that too many non-experts are being hauled in to discuss important and controversial historical issues. Precisely because they are controversial it is incumbent on the BBC to represent a variety of viewpoints. That means understanding ‘diversity’ properly, so as to embrace diversity of opinion. As the report states with perhaps excessive politeness, ‘it almost seems as if the BBC is choosing interviewees who are intended to give a particular slant.’ The result is that these programmes will generate rather than reduce prejudice. The BBC Charter stresses the requirement for impartiality, but the requirement is being ignored. Ultimately the BBC needs an advisory panel with a diversity of opinions. By all means let’s have Hirsch there, but she has to be prepared to sit round the table with the likes of Andrew Roberts.

Although America declared its independence in 1776, it would take nearly 90 years for those enslaved to obtain their freedom. And despite the abolishment of slavery 158 years ago, Reuters found some of the country's most powerful politicians today are descendants of slaveholders. Amna Nawaz spoke with editor Tom Lassiter about the report and his own family’s history with slavery.