Wikipedia says:
He has been described as the "Father of the Nation", having led the then British Colony of Trinidad and Tobago to majority rule on 28 October 1956, to independence on 31 August 1962, and republic status on 1 August 1976, leading an unbroken string of general elections victories with his political party, the People's National Movement, until his death in 1981.
As a historian, he was best known for his book Capitalism and Slavery. Based on his doctoral thesis, it:
makes criticisms of the historiography of the British Empire of the period: in particular on the use of the Slavery Abolition Act of 1833 as a sort of moral pivot; but also directed against a historical school that saw the imperial constitutional history as a constant advance through legislation.
In other words, it attacks just the understanding of history that Jenrick urges upon us.
As Williams once observed of such views:
"The British historians wrote almost as if Britain had introduced Negro slavery solely for the satisfaction of abolishing it."
Thanks for bringing this absurdity to our attention.
ReplyDeleteIt is always educational to see how absurd thoughts get put forward by apparently well educated people in their desire to grab a headline to promote their particular hobby horses, and Robert Jenrick and Eric Williams are just more examples of this.
Judging slavery and colonisation is much too important and too complex for such lazy journalistic techniques, but it happened many years ago and still happens now.
To achieve a better understanding of events depends fundamentally on taking a more rounded and well balanced approach based on academic rigor and not mere Trumpian headline grabbing.