Hello and welcome to Downstream the Navara Media interview series where if politics is

downstream from culture, we're basically the Bechton works.

Today I'm here with Dr. Khojo Karam, boxer, breaker of heart and teacher of law to talk

about his new book on Commonwealth Britain and the aftermath of Empire.

Khojo has also written books on the global colour line and the war on drugs.

He is a lecturer at Berkbeck University and he is actually also a one-time amateur boxer.

We'll see if that comes up.

Thank you so much for having me Ash.

So this is quite different from your previous work which is tender to focus on drugs.

Have you had that focus on drugs predominantly because you're from Liverpool?

Not necessarily, I mean it doesn't the kind of interest in Empire.

The interest in Empire also I think has a lot to do with grown-up within Liverpool and

may decide you know a move there when I was seven and the reality is as well as thinking

where does wealth come from when you're in this area, you know, some of them I come from,

particular illegal trafficking but a lot of it as well when you look at the grand old buildings,

when you look at a lot of the famous names that are on those buildings in places like Liverpool,

in Bristol and Glasgow, you recognise you're like, oh who built this giant building?

Oh, another slave trade, another imperialist.

And I think that that kind of reckoning with that is something that definitely influenced

my interest in Empire perhaps maybe earlier than I thought but also the kind of consequences

of the aftermath of Empire for places like Liverpool.

This idea, you know, that was famous in Fatcher of putting Liverpool into managed decline

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