The President of Ireland, Michael D Higgins, has sharply criticized British imperialism and the “false amnesia” of academics and journalists who refuse to address its legacy.
Higgins writes in the Guardian and accuses unnamed academic and media organizations of turning a blind eye to the devastating impact of colonialism, not just in Ireland but around the world.
” A bewildered memory loss surrounding the awkward aspects of our shared history will not help us create a better future together, ” he says, contrasting British oblivion with Ireland’s reflection on its war of independence and division a century ago.
The negation of the “shadows that cast our shared past” is part of a wider unwillingness to deal with the imperial legacy, says Higgins, who holds a major ceremonial post. His article comes beforehand at a seminar on imperialism that he will present on 25 February.
‘I have been plagued by a disturbance,’ he says, ‘in academic and journalistic reports criticizing the empire and imperialism. Openness to and involvement in a critique of nationalism seemed greater. And while it was of the utmost importance to our aim in Ireland to investigate nationalism, it is just as important to do so for imperialism, and it has much more to do with British / Irish relations. ‘
The article represents a sharp intervention for a head of state who promoted reconciliation between Britain and Ireland, visiting the Queen and acknowledging that Irish Republicans committed atrocities during and after the War of Independence.
In 2014, Higgins delivered the first speech by the Irish president to the British Parliament. In a speech last December, he urged the Irish people not to stereotype the British people because of Brexit and its destabilizing impact on Northern Ireland.
In his Guardian action, Higgins, a socialist, a poet and a former sociology lecturer, focused on British and European imperialism, which repeated the Black Lives Matter protests last year.
Imperial powers use a mask of modernity for cultural oppression, economic exploitation, expropriation and domination, Higgins says. “Those who were on the receiving end of the imperialist adventurism were denied that they were cultural agencies, if acceptably incapable of doing so and responsible for a violence against the ‘modernizing’ forces directed at them. ‘
British imperialists did not recognize the Irish as equals, he says. At its core, imperialism involves making a number of claims that are put forward to justify its assumptions and practices – including their inherent violence. One of the allegations is the assumption of superiority of culture. ”