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Should Britain Be Ashamed Of Its Colonial Past?

This week, Owen Bennett Jones and guests are at the Oxford Literary Festival

This week, Owen Bennett Jones and guests are at the Oxford Literary Festival.

Across the world student bodies have been have been asking universities to distance themselves from historical symbols of oppression. In Oxford, the protests took the form of the ‘Rhodes Must Fall’ campaign which began in South Africa and targeted statues of Cecil Rhodes - a committed champion of the British Empire. How representative are these protests of current sentiments in Britain and its former colonies? So how Britain should acknowledge this part of its identity? Should it apologise and pay reparations, or embrace its history with pride?

Photo Credit: Getty Images

Available now

50 minutes

Last on

Sat 9 Apr 2016 10:06GMT

This week's contributors

Elnathan John, Nigerian novelist

Kwasi Kwarteng MP, author of Ghosts of Empire

Lawrence James, historian, author of Rise and Fall of the British Empire

Priyamvada Gopal, English lecturer at the University of Cambridge, specialising in colonial and postcolonial literature

Broadcasts

  • Fri 8 Apr 2016 08:06GMT
  • Fri 8 Apr 2016 23:06GMT
  • Sat 9 Apr 2016 03:06GMT
  • Sat 9 Apr 2016 10:06GMT

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