A World to Win: Who Benefited from Britain's Empire? w/ Kojo Koram
Jacobin Radio
Jacobin
4.7 • 1.6K Ratings
🗓️ 14 April 2022
⏱️ 42 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Grace talks to Kojo Koram, who teaches in the School of Law at Birkbeck College and is the author of Uncommon Wealth: Britain and the Aftermath of Empire, about why the government is trying to change the curriculum to include a more 'balanced' perspective on Britain's empire. We ask who actually benefited from the days of formal empire, how imperialism continues to this day, and why the right are so keen to keep the culture wars alive.
A World to Win is a podcast from Grace Blakeley and Tribune bringing you a weekly dose of socialist news, theory and action with guests from around the world. Thanks to producer Sarah Hurd for filling in this week and to the Lipman-Miliband Trust for making this episode possible.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello and welcome to another episode of World to Win. This week we are talking about the |
| 0:17.5 | British Empire, specifically the UK government's attempt to change the curriculum in order |
| 0:23.3 | to introduce a what they call more balanced perspective, including the positive elements |
| 0:28.5 | of Empire as well as some of the negative ones. I talked to Kojo Karam who teaches at |
| 0:34.8 | the School of Law at Berpet College and is the author of the brilliant book Uncommon |
| 0:38.8 | Wealth Britain and the aftermath of Empire. So we talk about where this change comes from, |
| 0:44.4 | what the government actually wants to do, and we also have a much broader discussion about |
| 0:48.5 | who actually benefited from the days of formal Empire, how formal Empire kind of receded |
| 0:54.4 | and changed into imperialism and neocolonialism, and why the right are so keen on keeping the |
| 0:59.9 | culture wars alive while claiming that it's actually the left fighting all of these battles. |
| 1:04.5 | As always, thank you so much to our patrons. We couldn't keep bringing you the show without the |
| 1:11.2 | support of our patrons, so thank you so much to all of you who have supported us from the start, |
| 1:15.8 | and please if you haven't already considered signing up so we can continue to bring you the |
| 1:21.9 | podcast for years to come. If you want to support the show in another way, please consider giving |
| 1:29.2 | us a follow, we are at a world to win pod on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram, and share this episode |
| 1:34.8 | and any other episodes that you particularly like on social media. And now a quick word from our |
| 1:40.0 | sponsor before we take you to the main interview with Kojo Karam. The left book club is a not-for-profit |
| 1:45.2 | subscription book club. It's the voldable way to get a carefully chosen list of inspiring books |
| 1:50.0 | that explore radical alternatives to the current crises of capitalism. I personally get all the books |
| 1:56.2 | that the left book club send out, and I find them incredibly useful and really interesting, |
| 2:01.0 | just as a way to get a much broader set of insights than I would ordinarily get if I was just |
| 2:07.9 | buying books myself, so I would really recommend it. Every book is printed in a unique edition, |
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