YouSaid · the spoken record

Sathnam Sanghera

lines on the record: 31
first: 2024-05-08
most recent: 2024-05-08
sittings or episodes: 1
sources: podcast

Every line below is reproduced as it was said and linked to the record it came from. Nothing here is summarised or generated. Directory · Search · Corrections

“Do an interview at Oxbridge. I was inspired by your book. Have you got any advice? My advice is always look, I'm happy you're inspired by the book, but go into the interview and tell them what's wrong with my book. Tell them how would you would write it differently. Tell them how someone of a different political view would write it differently. Because history is argument and critical thinking is the thing that you need to demonstrate and what the world needs.”
2024-05-08 · Intelligence Squared · How the Legacy of the British Empire Still Shapes Our World, with Sathnam Sanghera · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, it's been quite bad at certain times, but it varies. Some days you get a lot of abuse and it's funny, you share it on Twitter and everyone has a laugh. Sometimes you get really shocking letters and it's actually quite scary. Sometimes you have to get the police involved. So it depends. Overall, though, I've got to say that Empire World has been mostly a positive experience. Every event I've done, I've not had a single bit of hostility. I think part of that I've realized is about price. If you price the events too cheaply, your haters will come and shout at you. And in general, no one's going to pay 15 pounds to come and shout at you because they're too tight these racists. So that's one way in which I've made my life a lot saner. But yeah, I get every day, every week I get students saying they're studying history because they were inspired by Empireland. I quite often get kids saying I'm about...”
2024-05-08 · Intelligence Squared · How the Legacy of the British Empire Still Shapes Our World, with Sathnam Sanghera · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Politics is the way you see the world. How can you change that? I mean, it's obvious, isn't it? I mean, I cannot pretend that I don't care about racism. I really care about it. And it's obvious that some of my critics want to go out of their way to belittle and to claim that racism is not a problem, has never been a problem. Let's just put it out there. Let's just be honest about our political biases.”
2024-05-08 · Intelligence Squared · How the Legacy of the British Empire Still Shapes Our World, with Sathnam Sanghera · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, it's absurd. All history is biased. All history is politics. Everything is political. If I want you to paint this glass, the way I painted it would be political because politics is the way you see the world. Anyone who goes around saying, I am biased and unpolitical is lying. We all have our politics. All I would say is my politics are pretty obvious. You know, I'm a working class seek writer for the Times newspaper. That covers quite a lot. I have voted for all the political parties and hated voted for all in the world and regretted voting for all of them at some point. You know, I'm pretty centrist. So that's my politics. I just think my critics should be honest about their politics. Quite often when you test out their politics, they're coming from the quite hard right, all the hard left. And I'm just, let's just be honest about where you're coming from.”
2024-05-08 · Intelligence Squared · How the Legacy of the British Empire Still Shapes Our World, with Sathnam Sanghera · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So I think we can still talk about the same stuff. We just can broaden it. We can talk about World War I and World War II and perhaps talk about the imperial contribution. So I don't think we need to let go of our national narratives.”
2024-05-08 · Intelligence Squared · How the Legacy of the British Empire Still Shapes Our World, with Sathnam Sanghera · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I would actually say I'm still interested in Henry VIII. I'm just interested in different aspects. Isn't there a great project to reconstruct the life of, is it John Blank, the trumpeter?”
2024-05-08 · Intelligence Squared · How the Legacy of the British Empire Still Shapes Our World, with Sathnam Sanghera · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“A great novel called English Passengers. I only just discovered it. It came out about 25 years ago, but it's a recreation of the genocide of the Tasmanians. And it's weirdly funny, but there's a character in it as well who recreates the author has imagined how they would speak, one of the people who were victims of the genocide. And it's such a powerful piece of work. And I think we need to do what we can to elevate those books that are written because I think they're not just important pieces of fiction, they're important for history.”
2024-05-08 · Intelligence Squared · How the Legacy of the British Empire Still Shapes Our World, with Sathnam Sanghera · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“That absolutely has been the case that the British state has gone out of its way to conceal what happened. And this is part of the reason why I think imperial history is changing so rapidly now. What we know is suddenly changing 70 years later because the information is only just emerging because the British state did so much to conceal what happened. And obviously some of those voices, when it comes to enslaved, will never be recovered because they weren't given the right to education. You know, their names weren't recorded. They weren't given their own names. And so in that space, it's really amazing to see lots of fictional work being done by novelists like Joseph Patterson. There are increasingly attempts to fill those voids.”
2024-05-08 · Intelligence Squared · How the Legacy of the British Empire Still Shapes Our World, with Sathnam Sanghera · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, that's a really good question. That's something I've really, the penny has dropped with me with my second book, Empire World. I resisted this interpretation, but I think the British state deliberately concealed a lot of information. I mean, it's evident the fact that there was said to be a pool of smoke over Delhi when we left because so many documents were being destroyed. When you look at the foundations of Nigeria, the founders of Nigeria were getting rid of evidence as they were going along, almost like they knew they wouldn't be judged particularly well. It came out in the Mau Mao case where the British state had concealed a whole load of information. You had Operation Legacy where a lot of stuff was concealed. And actually most shockingly, the papers of Lord Mountbatten, you know, the final viceroy of India are still unavailable to historians. There's a campaign, isn't it? One particular historian is taking on the British state. But looking over all of that.”
2024-05-08 · Intelligence Squared · How the Legacy of the British Empire Still Shapes Our World, with Sathnam Sanghera · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Royal family now on the Walker side of the debate here because they have to listen to what the Caribbean nations are saying on these issues about reparations because they're the head of the Commonwealth. So they've got to listen to the Commonwealth countries. They're also the head of a multicultural society. So they've got to listen to what the children of the colonized are saying about these issues. And I get the sense that they are quite interested in the topic of reparations. I think they're actively considering them. They're getting keener on the idea of researching their own history, not least because the Dr. Royal family have commissioned research. So William III's history on slavery, who became our royal prince, right? That's going to be published before we publish our own research. So that makes the royal family look behind the international conversation. But I think they're ahead of.”
2024-05-08 · Intelligence Squared · How the Legacy of the British Empire Still Shapes Our World, with Sathnam Sanghera · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, and the oils were involved in every single aspect of the British Empire, whether it was the coin or diamond taking it from the final Sikh emperor to the Royal African Company, which sent more enslaved Africans across the Atlantic than any other institution in the history of the Transatlantic Slave Trade, which was managed from royal palaces like Whitehall Palace. But at the same time, I get the sense that”
2024-05-08 · Intelligence Squared · How the Legacy of the British Empire Still Shapes Our World, with Sathnam Sanghera · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Work unless you compel them. And yet, now I went for a job interview 20 years ago where I was told I won't be hired because Indians work so hard. And there's a colliery of that because that means that you might think that certain other races are born to be lazy. And these ideas, I think, go straight back to empire and that toxic legacy.”
2024-05-08 · Intelligence Squared · How the Legacy of the British Empire Still Shapes Our World, with Sathnam Sanghera · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, and then that's partly because I think when you talk about Abraham Jpire, you're talking about race. You're talking about generally white people conquering brown people. We talk about the fact that empire was willfully white supremacist, something the British don't want to talk about. You know, one of the things that the British find hardest to confront is that when racial science emerged in the 19th century, it had a distinctly British flavor. It became something else in Germany and it then became something else in America. The British were hugely involved in those weird racial theories which continue to shape our world today. You know, certain ideas about, say, Sikhs, I'm a Sikh, the idea that we're a military race, that goes straight back to that time, that weird, these weird racial martial theories. Also, the idea that certain races were born to work harder than others still a very popular idea. That's something that emerged during the Age of Slavery where the idea emerged that black people wouldn't want to.”
2024-05-08 · Intelligence Squared · How the Legacy of the British Empire Still Shapes Our World, with Sathnam Sanghera · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Take on anyone who raises this woke history. I mean, to such an extent that someone like David Audio Soga has a bodyguard at some events. And I've had to stop doing adult events at a certain times because of the hate that we get when all we're trying to do is promote knowledge.”
2024-05-08 · Intelligence Squared · How the Legacy of the British Empire Still Shapes Our World, with Sathnam Sanghera · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Think Yeah, but it's very common, but equally, there are some things that are incontrovertiblely simple. Like the narratives of the colonized have not been prioritized until now. We've only had generally the view of the colonizers, right? That's quite a simple thing. It's quite simple that the royal family were heavily involved in slavery and they should talk about it and they should probably talk about reparations. That's quite simple too. And it's quite simple that There's a campaign against anyone who talks about this history now. You know, there's an organized right-wing culture war to”
2024-05-08 · Intelligence Squared · How the Legacy of the British Empire Still Shapes Our World, with Sathnam Sanghera · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Opposite things can be true at the same time. It's a good thing that, you know, in a country like Nigeria, all these different groups have got a common language. It's not just English, but the Union Igbo language, which was the British had an involvement in creating, that allows people in that part of the world to communicate with each other and also to communicate with the rest of the world. And it's probably in India's economic benefit that so many people there speak English. But equally, it means that people are sometimes alienated from their own culture. So now you've got attempts in India to teach medical degrees in the non-English languages. Hugely controversial amongst Indian doctors who say the medical terms don't exist in Hindi. So why are you trying to do this? So it's incredibly complex. And yeah, once again, I'm not going to give you a straight answer.”
2024-05-08 · Intelligence Squared · How the Legacy of the British Empire Still Shapes Our World, with Sathnam Sanghera · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Which never Yeah, but some of the stuff in India is problematic because the Modi government is merging the idea of British colonialism with Mughal history. So they're saying they want to get rid of all vestiges of British colonialism, but also Mughal colonism. And this is their attempt to basically say that Hindu has always been Hindu. So that's where the decolonizing agenda has been hijacked. And, you know, a similar thing happened in Zimbabwe. All these terms can be hijacked by people with political missions of their own.”
2024-05-08 · Intelligence Squared · How the Legacy of the British Empire Still Shapes Our World, with Sathnam Sanghera · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I'd like to find an alternative word, something to do with restoring the dignity of once repressed people. That is different. Decolonization immediately becomes a cultural war.”
2024-05-08 · Intelligence Squared · How the Legacy of the British Empire Still Shapes Our World, with Sathnam Sanghera · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I think lots of really good work has been done in the name of decolonization around the world. Repatriation, museum artifacts, loot, you know, renaming cities and places in Australia which have been named after Aboriginal massacres, which are now getting indigenous names. Those are really important things that are restoring the dignity of indigenous people. Ultimately, what you're going to do, you're going to stop the Indians playing cricket. Are you going to get rid of Nigeria because Nigeria is a British creation? Are you going to stop people speaking English around the world? Are you going to undo Christianity from Africa? Are you going to do Islam from West Africa is arguably Islam emerged at the same time as Christianity as a kind of indirect result of missionary work? So these things are really baked into the world. I think the word decolonization is also not helpful because it puts people's backs up.”
2024-05-08 · Intelligence Squared · How the Legacy of the British Empire Still Shapes Our World, with Sathnam Sanghera · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, is I banging your head against the wall? Quite a lot of the time. But I do sense it's changing a bit. You know, those balance sheet exam questions about was British Empire good overall for India or Ireland or whatever. I've got a feeling that those are paying less than, I mean, people send me those questions that when they turn up in exam papers and it's getting they're getting less frequent. I think the penny is slowly dropping. And actually, if you look at surveys of Britain, you know, the British public are much more liberal on these things than our politicians. There was a survey that came out last week which found that I think six out of ten British people think we should apologize for slavery. Four out of ten British people think we should pay reparations. Around three quarters of Britons think we should teach slavery and colonialism in our schools. That's quite liberal compared to the sense of the debate you'd get from the telegraph.”
2024-05-08 · Intelligence Squared · How the Legacy of the British Empire Still Shapes Our World, with Sathnam Sanghera · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“It's about people's personal feelings, and it's not just the right. I think so often when people start talking about Empire in Britain, people start talking about their pride or their shame. And I would say your feelings on either side have got nothing to do with it. History is an intellectual exercise. And when it comes to empire, it was different things in different parts of the world at the same time. It was different things arguably in different times of the day in India. You know, an Indian might have had a positive experience with the British imperialists in the morning. He might, a police officer might have helped him sort out a dispute with a neighbor. And then in the evening, he might have had an extreme experience of imperial racism. On the same day, someone like Gandhi was quite into British imperial values at one stage of his life when he was a lawyer in South Africa, but then became empire's biggest enemy. Both things can be true at the same time. But yeah, I don't think the British public who know a little bit”
2024-05-08 · Intelligence Squared · How the Legacy of the British Empire Still Shapes Our World, with Sathnam Sanghera · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Resulted in anti slavery, resulted in racism, and there were instances of anti-racism where British imperialists heard in London, heard what the Australians were doing and tried to tackle their extreme racism. So this idea, I think I do think it could liberate, it's not just in our understanding of history. I think it could liberate us understanding of people that whatever I say about you, Helen, I think the opposite would be true to a certain degree.”
2024-05-08 · Intelligence Squared · How the Legacy of the British Empire Still Shapes Our World, with Sathnam Sanghera · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I think we've got to remember that almost everything that happened in the British Empire was resisted at the time. There's an idea that we shouldn't apply modern morals to the past, but the abolitionists were applying, they were the ones fighting slavery. It was an outrage in the nineteenth, eighteenth and nineteenth century, you know Gladstone was railing against the extremes of imperialism in the 19th century. So that's a really important thing to remember. The other thing that I think can liberate us in this toxic conversation is the idea that opposite things can be true at the same time. I mean, this is something that kind of social media can't handle. It's something politics can't handle. And even human beings in our lives, we can't seem to handle this. But it's true. It's especially true, the British Empire, which was resulted in democracy, but also resulted in massive geopolitical chaos. It resulted in slavery.”
2024-05-08 · Intelligence Squared · How the Legacy of the British Empire Still Shapes Our World, with Sathnam Sanghera · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So on, but it also led to Increase in racism because When black people didn't behave in the way the abolitionists said they would behave Narrative that they were ungrateful”
2024-05-08 · Intelligence Squared · How the Legacy of the British Empire Still Shapes Our World, with Sathnam Sanghera · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Legacies are contradictory, even of abolition. Ended up with charities like anti-slavery international. Abolition And gave birth to the suffragettes. All sorts of political movements Un”
2024-05-08 · Intelligence Squared · How the Legacy of the British Empire Still Shapes Our World, with Sathnam Sanghera · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Wasn't The popular media that British almost Involved in slavery so they could abolish it because that's the dominant narrative. Also, there's an idea that Abolition happened and slavery was over, but as we know, there were multiple steps. The slave trade was”
2024-05-08 · Intelligence Squared · How the Legacy of the British Empire Still Shapes Our World, with Sathnam Sanghera · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah. And you saw that disconnect a few weeks after my holiday when Prince William and Princess Kate went to the Caribbean and had their disastrous tour. Of the Caribbean Which even the right wing press. Was disastrous, but there was nothing different about that door. Just that suddenly. The world was more aware of the legacies. of slavery Caribbean Didn't look right that royals were standing on the back of Landrovers waving at the locals. With their hands through a wire fence. Images”
2024-05-08 · Intelligence Squared · How the Legacy of the British Empire Still Shapes Our World, with Sathnam Sanghera · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“the genocide of the original indigenous people there. So much of it can be explained by the history and yet It's not discussed, and the British people coming don't want to talk about it, which I found really shocking.”
2024-05-08 · Intelligence Squared · How the Legacy of the British Empire Still Shapes Our World, with Sathnam Sanghera · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Empire after quite intense experience of writing empire land and my girlfriend booked the whole day and Barbados it turns out is not an escape from the British Empire and I was shocked when I went I wrecked the whole day by insisting we go and tour some slave plantations and I've done the same in the Deep South I've done you know the similar things in National Trust. You expect the history to be kind of concealed a bit there but I was shocked that it was concealed in Barbados. And it turns out the guides, the guide I talked to was even more shocked because he got into it because he wanted to talk about the history of enslavement but he'd been told that the British tourists coming on cruise ships didn't want to hear about it. And given that so much about the Caribbean, the high rates of diabetes, the poor healthcare and education, the problem with absent”
2024-05-08 · Intelligence Squared · How the Legacy of the British Empire Still Shapes Our World, with Sathnam Sanghera · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And Barbados itself is a good example of global imperialism. Yeah, well, hello, Helen. I guess what it demonstrated is that you cannot escape the legacies of the British Empire, you know, because it was the biggest empire in human history. And the legacies are everywhere. daily stuff like tea, the fact that British people drink tea, Indians drink tea on a daily basis. That's because of the British Empire. The existence of entire nations like Nigeria and Pakistan and Barbados, you know, but also you pick up the newspaper. You cannot escape, you know, Israel, Palestine. That is a situation partly created by the British. The situation in Myanmar, Yemen, in Kashmir, you cannot escape these legacies. And it's very much even more true in the Caribbean, where you've got societies entirely created by the history of transatlantic slavery. And Barbados was very interested because, yeah, I was trying to...”
2024-05-08 · Intelligence Squared · How the Legacy of the British Empire Still Shapes Our World, with Sathnam Sanghera · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Wonderful turn. Be chatting to you this morning. So the first question I wanted to ask you is about your holiday to Barbados. See, you begin the book with the holiday, and it was much deserved, as I know, but you don't really switch off because you quickly see how this place that is meant to be a real break, a luxury holiday, you're meant to relax is actually steeped in imperial history and legacy. Struck me is when you venture off to do some sightseeing and the conversation that you've had with your local guide who claim that people particularly tourists just don't care or want to hear about the colonial legacy in Barbados and how that has impacted him from unequal medical care to what sounds like effectively ghettoization. So I wanted to ask you how This holiday”
2024-05-08 · Intelligence Squared · How the Legacy of the British Empire Still Shapes Our World, with Sathnam Sanghera · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT