‘Triggered’ about the National Trust examining its links to slavery? You’re just furthering the divide

Early Sunday morning the National Trust sent out a fairly innocuous tweet.

It stated, “Many of the places we care for have direct or indirect links to slavery, including objects made from materials obtained by forced labour. Today, as we mark the @UNESCO Day for the Remembrance of the Slave Trade and its Abolition, we take a closer look at these materials.”

Joining London mayor Sadiq Khan, Labour shadow secretary of women and equalities Marsha de Cordova, and Liverpool City Council, the National Trust elected to do their bit in commemorating the abolition of slavery in this country.

The organisation said it would examine, for example, the history of the “Caribbean mahogany furniture” and “chocolate pots” within their collection. At the end of the Twitter thread, they linked to an article on the Trust’s links to the colonial West Indies and colonial India (although strangely not mentioning colonial Africa) and stated their intention “to uncover, research and tell the histories of slavery and colonialism”.

Despite the fact that polling indicates that the vast majority of the British public would support such an endeavour, a lot of outrage was garnered on Twitter. One user remarked that they had “cancelled” their membership, another argued the National Trust was “cherry-picking bits of history to appease the wokerati” and prominent right-wing commentators complained to their followers that the National Trust was partaking in “self-flagellation” and that this move from the National Trust proved that it had gone “woke”.

Incidentally, it would be helpful if our “right-wing” and “classical liberal” thought leaders would explain to us exactly what they mean by the word “woke”. As their definition seems to be particularly amorphous, encompassing everything from looking at historical artefacts to commemorating a deceased friend.

I digress. The point I’m trying to tease out here is that this all seems quite ridiculous. The National Trust announces that they’re going to look at their artefacts, does not claim to make any moral judgments on their having these artefacts, and then a torrent of abuse comes their way. This seems very similar to the outrage expressed when the universities of Bristol and Cambridge announced they were going to look at their links to slavery last year.

Historical undertakings should not be starting pistols in battles within the “culture war”. At least with debates about what history we learn in schools, bringing down statues and campaigning for defunding the police, there is a debate to be had about the conclusions that some activists have come to. But here the outrage seems to be centred on a distorted sense of patriotism, in which any exploration of history that might make Britain look bad is condemned. These people seem to want to erase history by closing their eyes to elements that they do not want to see. People from all sides of our political spectrum do this of course, but it’s always ironic and somewhat distasteful when the people who regularly call others “snowflakes” expose their hypocrisy.

And with this particular topic, it’s a shame that such historical undertakings are met with insults and people sticking their head in the sand. If we made more of our history available to the wider public, we could go some way to furthering racial harmony in this country at a time where racial tensions have become increasingly inflamed.

Polling and survey data, from various sources, indicates that the vast majority of black people in Britain, regardless of political affiliation, have an overwhelmingly negative view of the British Empire. This is likely due to the fact that black people in Britain are predominantly the descendants of the colonised and enslaved, now living in the country that rationalised their colonisation and enslavement.

Similar datasets also show that the vast majority of black people in this country support further public education about the history and legacies of the Empire. This is likely because most black people have an awareness of this history – we are aware, in the words of Ambalavaner Sivanandan, that “we are here because you were there”. Yet a sizeable proportion of the wider public does not know much about the British Empire whatsoever. And by refusing to have these conversations about our history or even to look at our history (which is what National Trust is doing) we only further this divide.

But maybe, if organisations like the National Trust continue to push their head above the parapet, we’ll one day be able to have rational conversations about our shared history. In fact, the Trust said it hoped to “open up debates that further our collective understanding, and make our places and collections relevant and responsive to increasingly diverse audiences”. I couldn’t have put it better myself.