Transcript
Dejan: Hello and welcome back to another episode of the Debatable Discussions podcast. They were incredibly lucky to have a guest with us in Nigel Bigger. And John, can you please introduce Nigel to our guests?
John Gartside: So yes, today we are joined by Professor Dr. Nigel Bigger. Nigel is currently a Baron. He's a member of the House of Lords. um He's also very well known for his career teaching at Oxford University and leading the Empire and the Ethics Project, under which he wrote his book, Colonialism and Moral Reckoning.
John Gartside: Nigel, it's an honour to have you with us today.
nigel biggar: ah Thanks, John. Thanks, Diane, for the invitation. I look forward to our conversation.
John Gartside: yeah um So without further ado, we thought we'd perhaps look into theology as you were the Regis Professor of theology at Oxford.
Dejan: Thank you.
John Gartside: So firstly, what philosophers or theologians have particularly shaped your thinking?
nigel biggar: ah So ah early on, the theology of Karl Barth, who was probably the leading or one of the leading ah Protestant theologians of the 20th century. He was Swiss-born.
nigel biggar: um His theology early in my career was very influential, and I was interested in it because um he developed a multi-volume set of books. He developed a systematic theological view of the world, and i I wanted to climb into it to see what
Dejan: Thank
nigel biggar: ah systematic comprehensive theological view of the world looked like. So I spent but about 10 years off and on working on him.
John Gartside: right.
nigel biggar: um i mean, since since then, um i and I've i'veve swung from Protestant to more Roman Catholic. So they the the scholastic method of the famous Catholic theologian Thomas Aquinas, and and those who follow Thomas Aquinas, the Thomists, that attracts me because I like um i like precision, I like um ah rational method, and the scholastic method is is very methodical and clear, in a way often that Protestant theology, frankly, is is not.
John Gartside: Thank
nigel biggar: so So I'm an Anglican, so I get to to draw from all sorts of wells, both Protestant and Catholic. um And i've I've certainly made use of the of the um the broad church that the Church of England is.
Dejan: So talking about the Church of England and the Roman Catholic and Protestant churches, how do you think your Christian faith has shaped your approach to thinking about historical events, politics, ethics in general?
nigel biggar: one One way is that that i'm I'm well aware that um I am and we are well we are all creatures. We're not gods. So we have limited power and limited knowledge.
nigel biggar: ah What's more, um even such power and knowledge as we have is um is vulnerable to being distorted by what Christians call sin, what might be better called...
nigel biggar: ah exaggerated or distorted loves. um And so not only is my knowledge and power ah limited naturally, but also it sometimes is is morally distorted.
nigel biggar: And what that um what that implies or what it implies practically is humility. So when I look at how ah my ancestors behaved,
nigel biggar: um I do so with humility. i do so sensitive to the fact that their circumstances were not mine. i mean, I get to live in as you do, you get to live in Britain that enjoys unprecedented ah wealth, health and security. um And most of our ancestors did not enjoy that.
nigel biggar: And when we judge how they behaved, We need to put ourselves in their shoes. So I think, among other things, the way in which my Christian theological view of the world shapes how I deal with judging the past, it's it's this notion of creaturely limits and sinful distortion and how we're all subject to those.
Dejan: Thank you.
nigel biggar: um and how people in the past, they behaved because of their circumstances as we behave according our circumstances. So we're not gods, we're creatures.
John Gartside: And in particular, I thought we could perhaps delve into the issue of warfare, because am I right in saying that you agree with the just war theory? Why do you agree with this?
nigel biggar: Yes, I do.
John Gartside: Purely because a criticism that's sort of often heard at GCSE or A levell level level at school is that it's not sort of on the same line as the teachings of Jesus.
Dejan: that.
John Gartside: Jesus was someone against warfare, was against violence. So yeah, why why do you agree with the just war theory?
nigel biggar: I agree with just war theory because we all want peace. Peace is nice. And war is not nice. It's violent. And so if we could do without war, that be great.
John Gartside: right.
nigel biggar: um But what I say is that that um peace is complicated. ah So, for example, in 1994, we in the UK stood at peace. We didn't go to war.
nigel biggar: But because we didn't go to war and... other European countries during the war in Rwanda, ah that left the Hutu at peace to slaughter 800,000 Tutsi.
nigel biggar: um So our peace left other people at peace to do to to perpetrate genocide. So all I'm saying here is that peace is complicated. ah we all want peace, but the question ask is, whose peace and at what cost?
nigel biggar: um So, you know, we we could have. i Last night I just watched for the third or fourth time the excellent film, The Darkest Hour, about May 1940 when Churchill had to decide whether or not to ah um make peace with Nazi Germany.
nigel biggar: And we could have done that. We could have done that. ah But it would it would have saved some lives. but it would also have allowed Nazi tyranny to dominate Europe and dominate us. And we know what that tyranny involves. So the first thing to say is we all want peace, but peace is complicated. And sometimes peace carries very considerable costs that other people have to pay. ah That's the first thing.
nigel biggar: As for for Jesus and war, yes, um looking at the Gospels, it it it does seem, ah you can read, Jesus as preaching a gospel of pacifism that one should never use violence um But I think one has to take want us to understand Jesus in his context. That's to say, he was he wasn't a politician.
nigel biggar: He wasn't from the upper classes. He didn't live in a democracy. So had no direct means of taking part in government. He was a son of a carpenter and an itinerant preacher. So when he's talking about ah how to deal with other people's abuse of you,
nigel biggar: ah other people's abuse of you His contact is mainly ah family or intimate or local relations. He's not thinking about politics because politics wasn't way above his pay grade.
nigel biggar: was way above his pay grade um um And it's only it's only um in the early years of the church when you begin to get people, Christians, who were involved in government, but mostly only when um ah Christianity became tolerated after the year 313 AD in the Roman Empire that Christians begin to shoulder the responsibilities of government.
nigel biggar: And that's why in the early four hundreds you get um Christian military tribunes. These are the these are people responsible for keeping law and order. And in order to keep law and order, they sometimes have to use violence.
nigel biggar: And as Christians, their consciences are ah um ah troubled. And so they write to St. Augustine, Augustine Bishop of Hippo in North Africa, and they say, how how can we square our Christian beliefs with our public responsibilities?
nigel biggar: And that like it was Augustine's response to those questions that began the the tradition of the Christian a theory of of justified use of force or just war.
Dejan: Thank you.
John Gartside: Correct.
nigel biggar: um But in ah you know in answer to you the question, yeah how can you square Jesus over this? The first point is, Jesus... the question of political responsibility didn't really occur to Jesus because because they they they weren't within his his his world. um they have the what One can draw implications from what Jesus said for politics, but but not directly.
nigel biggar: um And the the other thing to say is, um um in the Gospels and the Acts of the Apostles, um you can there are There are three occasions, I think, when either Jesus or the apostles come across um Roman military centurions.
nigel biggar: And not once ah do they tell the centurions they should give up their profession because it's not compatible with their Christian faith. And on every occasion, I think, um the centurions are praised for their faith.
nigel biggar: ah but they're not required to abandon their military profession, which does suggest that um in the eyes of Jesus and of of the um um of the apostles, that that maybe faith, Christian faith and military profession are not incompatible.
John Gartside: Bye.
Dejan: So that was, that was a really interesting sort perspective on peace. How do you think that applies nowadays and in the, in the 21st century, 2025, with everything happening around both in Europe and and they all over the world?
Dejan: Do you think countries such as Britain should play an active role? Should they just step back?
nigel biggar: Well, we can't step back. I mean, there may there may be a time when we thought we could step back, but um i was so our own security is is increasingly under threat. um And so it's not it's not responsible to step back. Unless you don't care who rules the world. I mean, since all of my lifetime and all of yours to this point,
nigel biggar: The United States ah has dominated and on the whole, that's been a good thing um because notwithstanding um ah the but present woes of the United States, it does remain a democracy with institutions that so far um can um constrain executive government, institutions of law, for example,
John Gartside: Thank you.
nigel biggar: um But if if if the US ceases to dominate, then the the the likely successors will be China, or to be precise, the Chinese Communist Party. um And I myself would prefer not to live under the Chinese Communist Party.
nigel biggar: And if you want to see what life would be like, then then observe what happened to Hong Kong in the last 10 years.
John Gartside: Thank you.
nigel biggar: ah So if we care about... whether or not we live under a totalitarian regime, then we should care about our security. And that means um that means, among other things, being prepared to use military force.
nigel biggar: um I mean, one reason for strengthening our military force is actually to to be able to present an effective deterrent um And if you if you present an effective deterrent, then you won't have to use military force. The danger is, if you don't present um an effective deterrent, then you back yourself into a corner where you might have to use it.
nigel biggar: ah so So better to strengthen ourselves now, for example, to discourage ah Russia ah from um ah crossing any of NATO's borders. I think that's extremely important. And that's why I think that even though Ukraine will have to compromise it won't recover all its pre-2014 territory even though that's the case i do think it's important that vladimir learn that what he's done to ukraine he cannot repeat elsewhere and also president xi with regard to taiwan
John Gartside: linked to these ideas of peace and conflict, um perhaps we could transition on to the next sort of segment of the podcast, which is on history, and in particular, the British Empire.
John Gartside: So could you perhaps summarise your views on the British Empire, which have obviously attracted some sort of controversy?
nigel biggar: so
nigel biggar: Yes. um So first of all, when we consider the British Empire, we must put it in context. ah One context was that empire ah was a universal um um political ah universal phenomenon, a universal political form practiced by every people in every continent from the dawn of time. And It has been said that most people in history have lived under empires of one kind or the other.
nigel biggar: ah Secondly, the mass migration of peoples ah is a universal phenomenon. So the British Empire consisted partly of the mass migration of people from England, Ireland and Scotland and Wales across the Atlantic to North America and then subsequently to Australia.
nigel biggar: um ah This migration impacted native peoples in both those places, initially in negative ways, in the end, arguably positively.
Dejan: Thank
nigel biggar: um But the mass migration of peoples is universal. The Iroquois migrated north of the Great Lakes in North America in the sixteen hundreds overwhelmed the Huron.
nigel biggar: The Comanche expanded in the southwest of whatt'su the U.S., um and overwhelmed the Apache and created ah vast slave economy, according to one historian. The Zulu expanded westward ah in the eighteen twenty s in South Africa, ah scattering so other African peoples to three of the four winds.
Dejan: Thank you.
nigel biggar: And the Maori expanded when they sailed across to the Chatham Islands from what is now New Zealand in 1835, where they slaughtered 10% of the population and enslaved the rest.
nigel biggar: so um but theres that the you know When you think about British um migration, British ah worldwide exploration, the establishment colonies,
nigel biggar: um the but the British were not unique in this at all, and nor were they unique and in in being involved in slavery for 150 years or so. That's the first thing to say. Second, um I'd say...
nigel biggar: um And in the conclusion of my book, I lay out this argument. I say, you survey 400 years of British Empire from Newfoundland to New Zealand, you find, yes, the empire presided over bad stuff, slavery, spread of disease, theft or seizure of, unjust seizure of land, racial prejudice, et cetera.
Dejan: Thank you.
nigel biggar: But I challenge you to find any 400-year-old state of which that isn't true. um As a Christian, ah christian i don't I don't expect perfection of my ancestors any more than i expect perfection of...
nigel biggar: of um ah contemporary people. And so, yes, there's bad stuff there and we should lament it. But ah ah um there was also in the imperial ledger um um a a credit column too.
nigel biggar: um For example, the the development of the conviction in the late 1700s that slavery is abhorrent, and then the movement to abolish first slave trading, and then slavery within the British Empire, and then the use of imperial power worldwide for the rest of the empire's life, suppressing slavery from Brazil to New Zealand. And um i said that slavery and slave trading were universal institutions.
nigel biggar: Britain was among the first states in the history of the world to abolish both and then to suppress both of them worldwide. And then you get the spread of liberal institutions to the empire.
nigel biggar: The empire was not democratic until ah the nineteen thirty s in India.
Dejan: Thank you.
nigel biggar: ah But then um Britain didn't achieve universal suffrage, um adult ah equal suffrage until 1928.
nigel biggar: um But notwithstanding the lack of democracy, the British did establish institutions of a free press, and of an independent judiciary, which held colonial governments to account in a way that the governments of communist China, Putin's Russia, the Aitola's Iran, are not held to account to this day.
nigel biggar: um And then finally, I'd say that um Something important is set is revealed about the character of the British Empire in the fact that in 1939, the empire committed itself to combat the massively murderous, genocidal, racist regime in Nazi Berlin.
nigel biggar: And from May 1940, when France fell until June 1941, when Germany bailed the Soviet Union, the British Empire offered Nazi Germany the only military resistance, with the sole exception of Greece.
nigel biggar: And if you find yourself traveling in northeast Sicily and you're driving south of Mount Etna, and you're driving eastwards from Regalbuta to Agyra, ah you will notice on the left-hand side at a certain point a cemetery.
nigel biggar: If you pull it pull over and get out of your car, walk into the cemetery, you'll find yourself surrounded by young Canadians. And if you walk around enough, you will come across one dedicated to a certain H.R. Anderson, aged 28, killed on the July ninety forty three um And his his um headstone bears the epitaph anti-fascist fighter.
nigel biggar: And Anderson was a volunteer. There were no conscripts in Canada at that time. Anderson answered the call to fight fascism. Who called him?
nigel biggar: The British Empire. so So ah ah whatever whatever bad stuff the empire presented over, and it did, um I think one can say that as it as it grew and matured, it became more humanitarian and more liberal.
nigel biggar: And that's about the most we can expect of any state.
John Gartside: And that is really interesting there because especially the narrative, I think that's traditionally told about the empire overlooks all those aspects. And I think, and that was personally the thing which I really gained from reading your book is that even if you don't agree with it, I think you've at least got to understand that there are there are aspects outside of this narrative, which we should recognize how the empire was beneficial.
Dejan: Thank you.
nigel biggar: No, absolutely, John. and And you can be forgiven, ah given your age for saying traditionally, actually, the the view that um that dominates your world is one that has only dominated for about seven years, or eight years, or 10 years.
John Gartside: All right.
John Gartside: oh
nigel biggar: ah The view I present, actually, was pretty unremarkable 15, 20 years ago. um But you're right, the the the the the relentless denigration of ah European, British empire and colonialism is is is a um a major feature of of our current culture.
nigel biggar: And it needs to be corrected because it's false. And it also produces, i think, unhelpful guilt. And it it doesn't, in my view, help race race relations at all to say that white people are all bad and all white people are just victims.
nigel biggar: It wasn't true and doesn't help.
Dejan: So you talked about this sort of perspective that a lot of people hold nowadays. And perhaps ah good question is, what do you think is the most misunderstood aspect of the British Empire?
Dejan: You've even asked a couple of examples, but if there's one that truly stands out, which do you think that is?
nigel biggar: but it's ah I think, Diane, the irony is um what I'm doing and what my book does is to talk up the humanitarian and liberal elements in the empire, which were certainly there.
nigel biggar: And these are the ones that are ah ah systematically ignored and dismissed.
Dejan: Thank you.
nigel biggar: So ironically, i'm i'm I'm saying we should admire the progressive parts of the empire. Yeah. um because I think there were, and I think think it's really important that we we admire what deserves to be admired among our ancestors, ah so the and by all means lament the stuff that was bad, so we don't repeat it, but admire and and follow and promote the the liberal humanitarian um element. so So I think...
nigel biggar: um um Dayana, to answer your question, i do think that the growth of a humanitarian and and liberal conscience um in the course of the 19th century um was really important. and And it didn't manifest itself in every empire. certainly It certainly didn't manifest itself in ah King Leopold's Congo.
nigel biggar: And it was certainly not manifest in the Japanese empire of the 1930s and forty nineteen forty s um 1940s. So the British empire was relatively distinctive. I think the French empire was perhaps not so different.
nigel biggar: But ah this's this this um the idea that that one has dominant power in order to emancipate slaves... or in order to enable Aboriginal peoples to to develop and become equal citizens of of a new modernised society, ah not simply to annihilate them.
nigel biggar: um That was relatively distinctive. And and the fact is that um countries like ah New Zealand and Australia and Canada and the United States now are, according to certain measures, and Britain,
nigel biggar: are among the least racist countries on earth. um The World Value Survey 2023 asked two questions of interviewees in 17 countries.
nigel biggar: One was, ah would you object to having an immigrant as a neighbor? And the other, would you object to having someone of a different race as a neighbor? And the Anglo-Saxon countries, which were all, um even the US originally, part of the British Empire, are among the least racist.
nigel biggar: in in so in stark contrast to China, Japan, Russia and Iran. And um you know I'm not saying that we that there has been horrible racism, both in the empire and in Britain in the past, ah but we've combated it.
nigel biggar: and And no doubt there is still racial prejudice now, but we are combating it. And we've been actually ah pretty successful and certainly very successful comparatively. and it's But it's it's not ah it's not a coincidence that these countries, former members of the British Empire, um um have ah developed and strengthened these liberal traditions.
Dejan: I think that's a very interesting parallel you make there between sort of different world empires. Why do you think that the British and, as you said, the French empire are a bit distinctive in comparison to others?
nigel biggar: Well, it's certainly partly to do with, let me not speak for the French, but the the the English or the British Empire, i mean, we had in this country um a peculiar political development whereby from quite early on, we developed institutions whereby executive power was constrained. um yeah We had monarchs, ah but even in the medieval period, um
nigel biggar: um ah French observers were astonished at the degree to which English kings were constrained by their parliament. And then that, that of course, um was confirmed in the 1600s in the course of the English Civil War.
nigel biggar: so So we developed ah institutions and customs ah that would would constrain executive power. And and the by the century, nineteenth century ah that the the the the custom whereby ah ah governments are voted in and voted out and they they leave with grace and they don't they don't resort to violence.
nigel biggar: um And so to some extent it's because of of of our own political evolution that then affected the institutions and the customs we spread world worldwide.
nigel biggar: um but Another influence was Christianity. i mean, the... um the The movement to abolish slavery was inspired partly by Enlightenment philosophers like Montesquieu in France, but the the Enlightenment philosophers influenced only the the literary elite, um people like Adam Smith in Scotland.
nigel biggar: the the The abolition movement was a popular movement. um um In 1791, something like 20% of the male population of the country signed petitions to abolish slavery. This was long before mass democracy, long before social media, long before mass communication.
nigel biggar: and so that's quite remarkable. And at the popular end, it wasn't Enlightenment philosophy, it was Christian conviction, the the the the conviction that all human beings are equal under God, regardless of race.
nigel biggar: um So I'd say those were those were two reasons for the relatively humanitarian and liberal character of of the British Empire.
John Gartside: Oh, so thank you very much, Nigel, for joining us today. ah hope our listeners had fun listening to you because, i mean, personally for me, ah learned lots of new things, but also you offered a narrative and a and actually a very evaluative and truthful account of the empire, which is rarely told, especially in education, but also in the wider public conscious.
Dejan: too.
John Gartside: So thank you for coming on today.
nigel biggar: My pleasure. I'm glad to have this conversation and glad to get the message out there.
Dejan: And always, if you enjoyed this episode, please also, you know, get a copy of Nadja's book as well as go back to some of our past episodes with guests or just with John and I discussing issues of history and philosophy.
Dejan: Thank you very much and see you next week.
John Gartside: see you then.
