In a country where public discourse concerning the actions and legacy of the British Empire is principally shaped by the likes of Dan Snow, Jeremy Paxman and Niall Ferguson, any cultural event that seeks to critically assess Britain’s imperial history is not only welcome, but crucially necessary. So, after I saw the sub-heading of Tate Britain’s latest major exhibition ‘Artist and Empire: Facing Britain’s Imperial Past’,

I was intrigued and cautiously optimistic that it might be the start of a move away from the wishy-washy apologia of Snow, Paxman’s nostalgic glorification and Ferguson’s transparent adoration of imperial power towards something more honest and critical. My hopes in this regard were raised further by a glance at the selection of books for sale in the exhibition shop on the day that I visited, for, although the ubiquitous histories of the British Empire by Paxman and Ferguson were unfortunately there, so were C L R James’s crucial studies A History of Pan-African Revolt and The Black Jacobins, Edward Said’s Culture and Imperialism (although strangely not his classic work, Orientalism – more on that later), Richard Gott’s Britain’s Empire: Resistance, Repression and Revolt and Franz Fanon’s seminal works Black Skin, White Masks and The Wretched of the Earth. The limited edition ‘Empire’ India Pale Ale that I also spotted for sale seemed distasteful, but I hoped it was not a sign of things to come.

The introductory text of the exhibition, printed on the wall next to its main entrance, states that the British Empire’s ‘history of war, conquest and appropriation is difficult, even painful to address’. Of course, it is a history that the Tate itself is intimately entwined with. As observed by historian Andrea Stuart, ‘thousands of locals and tourists visit the grand Tate Galleries without remembering that its collections were funded by the exploitative sugar company Tate & Lyle’.1 Unfortunately, it appears that ‘facing’ this past ultimately proved too painful for the exhibition’s curators; anyone hoping that this exhibition engages critically with Britain’s imperial past will be left largely disappointed. There is no doubt that the exhibition brings together a number of fascinating, visually arresting and thought-provoking objects (the beautiful watercolours of the Indian artist Shaikh Zain ud-Din were a personal highlight). However, as I made my way around the exhibition I quickly felt a sinking feeling as I recognised the familiar pattern of quasi-glorification, carefully non-committal wording and vague explanations coupled with a distinct lack of open, critical analysis of the realities of the British Empire. As observed by Richard Gott, the British Empire was ‘established, and maintained for more than two centuries, through bloodshed, violence, brutality, conquest and war’.2 From the perspective of the majority of those colonised, aside from a small elite, the experience of empire was one of seemingly never-ending brutality, racism, dispossession and subjugation. Admittedly, acts of violence on behalf of the British Empire are explicitly acknowledged in the exhibition, but they are only mentioned in passing and never from the perspective of the victims. On the contrary, Britain’s violence is often rationalised and most worryingly, occasionally appears to be tacitly justified. Much like the way in which in contemporary media parlance, Israel appears to permanently be ‘retaliating’ against the ostensibly violent and irrational Palestinians, the British Empire is frequently portrayed as merely reacting to the violence of the ‘natives’.3 This problematic tendency is encapsulated perfectly in the choice of wording for the caption of two of the exhibition’s most stunning pieces; two bronze head sculptures from late nineteenth-century Benin (two of the famous ‘Benin Bronzes’). An extract of the caption for the heads reads as follows:



These heads were among the many precious ancestral objects looted from the palace of the Oba (king) of Benin during a British ‘punitive raid’ in 1897, in retaliation for the killing of envoys trying to negotiate trading rights.

Therefore, in the same sentence that it is introduced, the killing of the ruler of Benin’s capital and subsequent looting of precious artefacts on an enormous scale is immediately rationalised and presented as merely ‘retaliation’ on behalf of the British. The official vocabulary of a ‘punitive raid’ is repeated uncritically and the crucial background – that the invasion of 1897 was in fact motivated by Britain’s long-standing desire to destroy one of the last independent kingdoms in the region and gain access to its plentiful natural resources of palm oil, rubber and ivory – is entirely obscured.4 The broader context, that the Kingdom of Benin’s destruction took place at the height of the so-called ‘Scramble for Africa’, during which European nations ruthlessly conquered and divided up the African continent between themselves, is also left unmentioned. The specific incident to which the caption refers, the so-called ‘Benin Massacre’ of 1897 was not the cause of the Kingdom of Benin’s demise, but merely the spark that provided the British with the pretext needed to launch an all-out invasion against the Kingdom and thus complete its takeover of the region. Moreover, the ‘trade envoys’ mentioned in the caption were in fact a large contingent headed for the capital, composed of a number of British military officers, two trading agents and a group of 250 native porters, servants and guides. The force was also accompanied by a drum and pipe band and, as Ian Hernon has observed, ‘a column of that size suggested military intent’.5 Subsequently, the group was mistaken for an invading force and after calling a national emergency, the Oba sent a force of tribesmen from all over his kingdom to move against it.6

The Benin bronzes appear in the exhibition’s second room, which is titled ‘Trophies of Empire’. In the three paragraphs of explanatory text provided for this room, the central role that systematic looting and plunder by the British played in the accumulation of so-called ‘trophies’ is drastically underplayed. The text states that ‘loot, barter, gift and purchase by soldiers, sailors, explorers and missionaries all contributed to the Empire’s collection’. This single mention of ‘loot’ is the only reference to the central role that violence played in the accumulation of such ‘trophies’. The widespread practice of the collection of human remains including skulls and other bones (not to mention the shameful, but not uncommon phenomenon of human zoos) is not mentioned at all.7 Of course, Britain’s looting was not limited to West Africa, it was so rampant in India, for example, that the word ‘loot’ itself is actually derived from the Hindustani slang word for plunder, but this too is not mentioned. Ironically, the caption for a Mughal miniature painting in this room states that ‘Mughal paintings were sought after by elite British collectors in India’ yet makes no mention of the widespread looting of Mughal paintings and other artefacts committed by British forces, notably after the Indian Rebellion of 1857. In September of that year British forces assaulted Delhi (with orders to ‘shoot every soul’) and during the subsequent sacking of the city, the Mughal’s grand library in the Red Fort was ransacked and its contents shipped almost wholesale back to Britain.8 The British Library now holds this collection, one so huge that it is yet to be fully catalogued, over a hundred years later. More broadly, looting committed by the British in India was so vast in scale that Powis Castle (in Wales) alone holds more Mughal artefacts ‘than are on display at any one place in India – even the National Museum in Delhi’.9 William Dalrymple has observed that in the late Victoria era, motivated by embarrassment at the ‘shady’ mercantile origins of the Empire in India, a ‘calculated and deliberate amnesia about the corporate looting that opened British rule in India’ took place. It appears that for some this amnesia is ongoing; to imply that legitimate purchase and barter played an equally important role as plunder in the acquisition of ‘trophies’ is wholly inaccurate.