British Colonialism – was it good or bad?

A long review of one’s cultural antecedents would reveal that the past has been a process of growth, adjustments, defeats, revival, consolidations until the present time. Take what I regard as Australian history. Time travel would take the majority of Australians back to the United Kingdom. From there, we would go back through the centuries, through migrations, invasions, colonization, and consolidation to the tribes of Northwestern Europe. From there one goes into the haze of pre-history or unrecorded history.

The point is that the above phases are a natural part of human history, a part of the nation into which one is born at a particular time. A country, a nation or a people is not illegitimate because it was the result of colonization and migration. Indeed, the new stable consolidation erases and supersedes whatever was prior to it.

However, one can make a moral and social judgment about a particular phase of migration and colonization. Prof. Nigel Biggar, Regius Professor of Moral and Pastoral Theology at the University of Oxford and canon of Christ Church Cathedral does so in his new book, Colonialism: A Moral Reckoning . Professor Biggar is interviewed by Peter Whittle on The New Culture Forum.