October was the 25th UK Black History Month.  I attended 20 related events over the last 8 weeks, and thought I'd write a blog diary of them in retrospect, to show the diversity of approaches and venues I encountered. As you will see, the diary begins in September and ends in November- showing that Black History Month is well on its way towards becoming Black History Season. But, ultimately, I'd like to see it disappear, because as Andrea Stuart has argued, it will only be a success once it has become redundant, because we have what Tony Warner of Black History Walks calls a "Full- Colour History", all year round. In the interim, we need Black History Month, to educate and campaign for an inclusive approach.  

I've tried to keep the entries brief, but sometimes there was a lot to say. Let me know which ones you'd like me to discuss further in later posts!

1. Sunday 29th September: Influential Black Londoners exhibition opens at National Trust Sutton House

Still on till the end of November, the exhibition opened with a Family Fun Day on the last Sunday of September, with activities and an appearance by John Blanke himself!

I was delighted to see the letters I'd written to 9 Londoners in situ, with great artwork by Jane Porter.

The featured individuals were: John Blanke, fl.1507-1512; Lascars, 17th-20th century; Ignatius Sancho, c.1729-1780; Francis Barber, c.1735-1801; Olaudah Equiano, c.1745-1797; Dido Elizabeth Belle, c.1761-1804; George Bridgetower, 1780-1860; Mary Seacole, 1805-1881; Samuel Coleridge- Taylor, 1875-1912.

Sutton House in Hackney was a great venue to tell the story of Black Londoners as it was built in the Tudor period by Ralph Sadleir, who might have encountered our earliest Black Londoner, John Blanke, at the court of Henry VIII. 

You can read more about the project here. And see more photos here. 

2. Monday 30th September: Othello at the National Theatre

What better play to watch on the eve of Black History Month? I've studied the "Moor of Venice" in the context of my research into Africans in Shakespeare's England but the experience of watching Adrian Lester, Rory Kinnear and Olivia Vinall play out the tragedy of jealousy was something else. My viewing was in part informed by having seen Toni Morrison's excellent Desdemona last year at the Barbican. I felt the modern setting was a distraction, but was most disturbed by the speed at which Othello is transformed from a hero to a violent, irrational murderer in the central scene. Food for thought as I write an article for Literature Compass on '"Making the beast with two backs": interracial relationships in early modern England'- due out next year. 

3. Thursday 10th October: Influential Black Londoners Launch

Back to Sutton House for the official launch event for the exhibition, with some honoured guests- including some of those Influential Black Londoners of the 1980s and 1990s nominated to be included in the exhibition next year. (The eventual winner was Doreen Lawrence). 

This was also my first glimpse of some of the local school children's fantastic artistic responses to the letters. See this photo album for more. 

4. Friday 11th October: Dan Lyndon-Cohen, Black History in the National Curriculum talk at Balham Library

Dan is Head of History at Henry Compton School, Fulham and the creator of www.blackhistory4schools.com. He gave us a useful summary of the complicated political wranglings over the curriculum over the last year and then proceeded to demonstrate how he manages to incorporate Black History into his own teaching. Much of his approach is summarised in this article he wrote for History Workshop. 

There was some strong feelings in the room- some wanted to get rid of Black History Month, others told of the troubles they'd had trying to convince their children's schools to teach Black History.

Nonetheless, Dan's pioneering approach is a model that others should emulate.

5. Wednesday 16th October: Africans in Stuart England 1603-1642 talk at Beauchamp College, Leicester. 

On a rainy Wednesday, I travelled to Leicester to speak to some 6th formers who were "doing" the Stuarts, 1603-1642 for A-Level. This was remarkably close to a paper I had sat back in 2000- and of course had no reference to the black presence in Britain at that time.  
Using plenty of images, I told the story of Africans in Stuart Britain, what they were doing, how they got here and how they were viewed in the eyes of the law. I enjoyed showing them pictures of both Oliver Cromwell and Prince Rupert depicted with black pages, and showing them a different side to history. Hopefully this will be reflected on their Black History Month display board next year- the teacher who invited me later tweeted: "my students want to start a hist soc to talk about things we don't normally do. Think your talk helped :-)."

6. Friday 18th October: Righting Past Wrongs? The Case for and Against Reparations, Senate House

Having read about the latest move by Caricom to seek reparations for slavery, and that they were being advised by London law firm, Leigh Day, who won the Mau Mau case earlier this year, I was very curious to hear Daniel Leader of that firm talk. Also speaking were Sir Ronald Sanders, Senior Research Fellow at the Institute of Commonwealth Studies and a former Caribbean diplomat (who has blogged about reparations here) and Professor Philip Murphy, Director of the Institute. 
It was agreed that there had always been a strong moral case for reparations, but the question was whether it was possible to bring a legal case.
Daniel Leader spent a long time explaining the details of the Mau Mau case, which was fascinating, but didn't give us much idea how he would go about bringing a case for slavery reparations. Professor Murphy made the point that it would be a bad idea to have politicians feeling morally cleansed, having paid reparations- can a residue of guilt serve as an inoculation against future mistakes? Sir Ronald brought up the worry that pursuing reparations might have a negative impact on the tourism industry on which Caribbean countries are dependent. 
There were some strong feeling in the room that it was wrong that the case for reparations was being judged in a European court by European legal standards. From a historical perspective, I found it interesting that the case was being brought against Britain, France and the Netherlands by their former colonies, but that there is no sign of a similar move by the former Spanish and Portuguese colonies- when the Spanish and Portuguese were the originators of the transatlantic slave trade, with over 13,000 voyages marked with their flags on the 
Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade Voyages database.
Ultimately the issues involved are too varied to go into here but I will watch the progress of this with interest. There's already been some interesting comment in The Telegraph,  The Economist and the New York Times. 

7. Friday 18th October: My review of Slavery and the British Country House is published in the TLS.

A fascinating collection of essays based on the 2009 conference of the same name, making a big step towards breaking the silence on this subject that has been deafening for too long.

You can read my review here, and find out more about my own research into links between English Heritage properties and Slavery & Abolition here. The book was launched in September at the Little Britain's Memory of Slavery Conference, and has been made available to download for free on the English Heritage website. 

8. Monday 21st October: Image and Reality of Africans in Renaissance England (IRBARE) talk at Sutton House with Michael Ohajuru. 

Miraculously managed to arrive to give this talk on time, having attended my godfather's funeral in Vienna that morning! 
I presented on John Blanke, and the reality of the lives of Africans in England, in contrast to Michael's work on the Black Magi. You can read more about our double act on the IRBARE2013 website.

9. Thursday 24th October: Michael Ohajuru's Hidden in the Collections- Africans in Medieval & Renaissance Art- guided tour of the V&A

Really enjoyed Michael's tour of the V&A which he wrote up on his blog. It's a wonderful place, and the tour showed a different side to the art presented there. Michael's approach showed up some shortcomings in the museum's interpretation of some of the works on show- see his blog on this. I've heard they've already taken steps to rectify the mis-identification of Simon of Cyrene in the Marnhull Orphery (see this page for more accurate info, which has not yet been interpolated into the main listing), but it's even more vital to provide some context to the Tilman Reimenschneider statue to show that St. Maurice was usually depicted as of African origin. Michael has written a persuasive document to this effect here, but really all you need to see is the statue (below, left) alongside other images of the saint (below) and more on Pinterest:

10. Thursday 24th October: Unveiling of Mary Seacole statue maquette at the Royal College of Nursing

Having written about Mary Seacole earlier this year in The Times, it was fantastic to see the unveiling of this 1/4 size maquette of the statue, which is to be placed outside St. Thomas's hospital, striding towards the river and the Houses of Parliament. This will be the first statue erected to commemorate a black woman in Britain. More info on the Memorial Appeal website.

As a historian, I was particularly fascinated by artist Martin Jennings's account of his trip to the Crimea to find the site of Seacole's British Hotel. Using old maps and with the help of the local authorities, he was able to pinpoint the exact place, and found remnants of bottles and pots still lying on the ground. The 15 ft high disc behind Mary in the statue will bear the imprint of stone from a quarry near the site, which has a detonation mark from a WW2 tank. I'll be watching out for the documentary, due to air on ITV in 2015. 

11. Tuesday 29th October: Image and Reality of Africans in Renaissance England talk at SOAS with Michael Ohajuru. 

A second performance of the IRBARE double act, this time at SOAS, the School of Oriental and African Studies. Michael explained the appearance of a Black Magus in 1520s Devon while I talked about the realities of life for Africans in Renaissance England, through the experience of John Blanke, the Tudor court trumpeter (who I've now been asked to write an entry on for the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography). Read more on the IRBARE2013 website.

12. Wednesday 30th October: Africans in London, 1500-1640 talk at Queen Mary University London. 
The next night, I rushed to QMUL after a day spent proof-reading the Sunday Times Food List, to talk about Africans in early modern London. I had kindly been recommended to my hosts, the QMUL History Journal, by Professor Kate Lowe, who is doing some fascinating research into sub-Saharan Africans and African objects in Southern Europe between 1440 and 1650, and was involved in the great Revealing the African Presence in Renaissance Europe exhibition I reviewed for History Today earlier this year. The QMUL History Journal had a Black History theme this term (read it online here), with an essay entitled To what extent was ‘race’ used to categorise people as ‘other’ in early modern England? by Joanna Hill, one of Kate Lowe's students, which I look forward to reading. 

13. Thursday 31st October: 100 Great Black Britons at the National Portrait Gallery

in 2003, as a response to the BBC's 100 Greatest Britons poll, in which the most diverse individual was Freddie Mercury (born in Zanzibar), Patrick Vernon launched 100 Great Black Britons, with Mary Seacole eventually topping the list.  Ten years later, the campaign is being re-launched. 
The debate at the NPG posed the questions:  What are the issues, challenges  and impact of black achievement in Britain today? And who should we be calling Great?
Patrice Lawrence of Every Generation Media chaired the debate on black achievement and British identity. The speakers were: Rev Rose Hudson–Wilkin, The House of Commons Speaker's Chaplain; Elizabeth Pears, News Editor, The Voice newspaper; Dean Atta, writer and poet and Patrick Vernon OBE, Founder of 100 Great Black Britons.

Luckily, not everyone arrived on time, so we were treated to an impromptu performance by Dean Atta. I liked the line: "Silence is not golden/Silence is the truth stolen"- seemed to chime with the Mansfield Park Complex of not speaking about slavery I wrote about here. Dean pointed out when he spoke later that all the terms "Great", "Black" and "Briton" are problematic and require definition. We discussed whether the list should expand in size, or include categories, such as Science, Law, Business, Medicine, Young achievers, Parenting, and Regional lists.


The Rev Hudson-Wilkin pointed out how important it is that white people see images of successful black people. In the same way as some people see BHM as a segregation, this Black-only list has the same problem. But, as long as the mainstream doesn't include these stories, we need BHM and 100GBB as campaigning tools. Elizabeth Pears made the point that perhaps the BBC should re-run their poll, to see whether attitudes have changed.  I pointed out in the discussion that, although there's still a long way to go,  there are some signs of progress in mainstream media- such as the increasing inclusion of people of African and Asian origin or descent in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, the National Trust's Influential Black Londoners exhibition at Sutton House, Hackney and recent discussion on the BBC Radio 4 Media Show on how to reach black audiences. 

14. Friday 1st November: Black History's Future, Islington 

This event, organised by Everyvoice, brought together some key decision-makers from Islington Council with a great panel of speakers to debate the future of BHM. 
The conference sought to address the question: how do we reach a place where people’s histories are not marginalised, so there will be no need for Black History Month? How do we ensure that diversity is integrated in mainstream education and celebrations all year round?
 I had in mind the thought-provoking article I'd read by Andrea Stuart in the Guardian the day before on the same subject. I blogged my response to the article here.

The speakers were so engaging that no one seemed to mind that the event overrun its timetable. One of the most impressive images I saw was the map above that Patricia Lamour showed us that the African continent is larger than the United States, China and India put together. Dr. Robin Whitburn and Abdullahi Mohamud spoke about their Doing Justice to History project, which is designed to explode two false premises: 1) Black people did not play a significant role in British life before 1948; 2) Multiculturalism doesn't work. They used some fascinating case studies to prove their point, such as the story of Somali sailor Mahmood Hussein Mattan, who was unjustly hung in 1952.  Tony Warner, Director of Black History Walks showed us how Black History is everywhere when you know how to look,  and reminded us that the BFI has a regular African Odysseys  film programme, as well as showing us a very disturbing video of the black doll/white doll experiment. Kandace Chimbiri talked about her Black History books for children, including one to accompany the recent Origins of the Afro Comb exhibition at the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge. History teacher Martin Spafford summarised the latest curriculum wrangling and explained how Black History could still be taught within the new framework, sharing stories such as the North African "Ivory Bangle Lady" who lived in Roman York and the Indian Hockey team that beat Germany in the 1936 Olympics, which can easily be incorporated into study of "The Romans" or "Nazi Germany". 

The ensuing discussion was passionate and varied. It was mostly agreed that BHM needs to continue for now, as a campaigning tool, a stepping stone to where we'd like to be, with a "Full-colour" history. 

15. Wednesday 5th November: Graeme Evelyn's Call and Responses: Odyssey of the Moor at Kensington Palace

Was lucky enough to be invited to a private view, where Graeme spoke about the piece. You can see it at Kensington Palace until 6th January. 

The work is a contemporary response to John van Nost’s Bust of the Moor – a marble sculpture commissioned by King William III in 1688/1689. 

Evelyn places the bust within a gilded cage, but with its doors flung open to capture the view over Kensington Gardens, creating for the Moor a dream of self-determination and freedom. The inside of the cage is circled with a series of tiles telling an imagined story of the Moor's life, using the premise that this man had read Homer's Odyssey and seen parallels. 

Evelyn's earlier work, Reconciliation Reredos, an altarpiece in Bristol confronts the fact that the church, St Stephen’s, blessed every ship that left the port, including every slaver that left the city harbour for Africa to trade for enslaved people during the Transatlantic Slave Trade.

Evelyn's work is part of a wider trend in which heritage institutions seeks to commission the work of black artists. Other temporary installations, e.g. Yinka Shonibare's Mrs Oswald and Colonel Tarleton Shooting (2007) for Scratch the Surface at the National Gallery and his current exhibition in Greenwich. This was discussed by 
Lubaina Himid, Joy Gregory and Sokari Douglas Camp  on the artists  in conversation panel at the Little Britain's Memory of Slavery conference at UCL in September.

Call and Responses: Odyssey of the Moor poses many unanswered questions about Africans in late 17th Century England and Holland. Evelyn has thrown down the gauntlet to historians to answer some of these questions. For example, at it's base, the installation incorporates a contemporary report of William of Orange marching into Exeter in 1688 with: "200 Blacks brought from the plantations of the Netherlands in America, Imbroyder'd Caps lin'd with white Fur, and Plumes of white Feathers, to attend the Horfe."  Evelyn hopes the piece will inspire historians to research the context of this, and what impact the advent of a Dutch monarch had on the history of Africans living in England and the history of English involvement in the slave trade. 

The work has already inspired a response by Delia Jarrett-Macauley, who won the Orwell Prize for Political Writing for her debut novel, 'Moses, Citizen and Me' and is currently a Fellow in English at the University of Warwick.

You can listen to the music Graeme Evelyn listened to while creating the work here:  ODYSSEY of the MOOR art 2013   

16. Wednesday 5th November: Making Freedom exhibition at the Royal Geographical Society

On until Sat 21st December, this important exhibition marks the 175th anniversary of the emancipation of nearly 1 million Africans in the Caribbean. This is taking the date of freedom as 1838, when indentured labour ended, as opposed to 1834, when slavery was officially abolished.

In front of a large map of the Caribbean created specially, to show all the islands and their capitals, Burt Caesar quoted Claude McKay's If We Must Die (1919), which sets the tone for this exhibition's tale of constant resistance, "Pressed to the wall, dying, but fighting back!".  

Sir Keithlyn Smith, author of To Shoot Hard Labour told the story of his grandfather's great grandmother, Mother Rachel's quest to be reunited with her daughter Minty in 1838. You can listen to the story here.  Benjamin Zephaniah performed his powerful poem White Comedy and shared some of his own experiences of racism. He pointed out how important this exhibition is, to dispel the myth that "slaves were given freedom by the white man". In fact, their constant resistance and rebellion made the slave system increasingly hard to sustain. Toussaint L'Ouverture's  uprsing in Haiti in 1791, leading to the declaration of independence in 1804 was the most successful, but not an isolated occurrence. The exhibition tells the stories of other attempts to make freedom- in Barbados in 1816, Guyana in 1823 and in Jamaica in 1832. 

This exhibition put the agency back in African hands and tells the other side of the story we heard in 2007. A must -see! And there's now talk of putting it on at the House of Commons next year!

17. Thursday 6th November: Black People in Tudor England and Inclusive Curriculum  event at the House of Commons

There was an impressive crowd gathered in Committee Room 11 of the House of Commons to hear Onyeka talk about his new book, Blackamoores: Africans in Tudor England, their presence, status and origins, published by Narrative Eye and discuss how to get a more inclusive history curriculum with Stella Creasy MP, Chi Onwurah MP, Cllr Lester Holloway, and Tony Warner of Black History Walks.

Onyeka gave a passionate and gripping speech about his research- he has been working on the subject since 1991. When he first set out to look into the history of Tudor Africans, people told him he was wasting his time, that he would find nothing. I heard similar opinions when I started my research on the subject in 2004. I was very pleased to get my hands on a copy of his book, for although I've known Onyeka for years, this was the first time I'd been able to read his work at greater length.

It was fantastic to see the political support for the subject from Stella Creasy, Chi Onwurah and Lester Holloway. I'm looking forward to reading the book and engaging further on the challenge it poses to politicians and educators. 

18. Friday 8th November: Africans in Urban Britain, 1500-1640, talk at the University of Leicester

Went up to Leicester again, this time to talk about Africans in Urban Britain, 1500-1640 at the University's Centre for Urban History. I told some stories about the lives of Africans in 16th and 17th century England and Scotland's ports and cities, explaining how they arrived in Britain, what occupations and relationships they found in the city and how they were treated by the church, the law courts and the other inhabitants of urban Britain. This provoked a lively debate and I also learned about my host Dr Kidambi 's fascinating research into the All India Cricket Team's 1911 tour of England. 

19. Friday 8th November: Vincent Carretta on Ignatius Sancho: Britain's First African Man of Letters at the British Library

I rushed back from Leicester to catch expert Vincent Carretta talking about Ignatius Sancho, one of the Influential Black Londoners I had written to at Sutton House. 

The British Library has recently acquired 13 of Sancho’s signed letters to his friend and patron William Stevenson, plus two to his father the Rev. Seth Ellis Stevenson.  These are the only letters by Sancho that are known to survive.
The British Library's Untold Lives has an interesting blog post on this, but, as Carretta himself remarked, it's a great pity Sancho does not feature in the Georgians Revealed exhibition. 

Carretta provided us with a handout with quotes from them and Sancho's other correspondence and proceeded to explain the significance of the new acquisition in context. One thing that makes these letters really significant is that they can now be studied alongside the printed text of 1782, revealing identities obscured and also proving beyond any doubt that Sancho wrote the letters himself. For this was questioned by none other than Thomas Jefferson who, in his Notes on the State of Virginia (1781) grudgingly admitted  him "to the first place among those of his own colour who have presented themselves to the public judgment", but went on to say "This criticism supposes the letters published under his name to be genuine, and to have received amendment from no other hand; points which would not be of easy investigation." The acquisition of the Stephenson archive has made this investigation much easier and will allow scholars to defend Sancho from this underhand attack. 

20. Tuesday 19th November: Image and Reality of Africans in Renaissance England talk at Greenwich University with Michael Ohajuru. 

A third outing for IRBARE, this time in Greenwich, the location of the old royal palace, built by Henry VII on the site of today’s Old Royal Naval College, where John Blanke would have worked.  You can read more about the presentation on the IRBARE2013 website. In the light of discussion of Black History Month's future, it's interesting to note that this talk took place in the second half of November, as part of the Greenwich Student Union's Black History Week (see poster). Could we be making a transition to a Black History Season?

Black History 365...

For me, this is really an artificial end, because I seek out events like these all year round! Check my Talks page for details of my upcoming talks, and if there isn't one near you, invite me to your local school, university, library or history society!

Less than eight minutes into Juliet Gardiner's programme, Presenting the Past, How the Media Changes History on Radio 4, I had to press pause and start tweeting yesterday. 

She said that as a historical advisor on Atonement (2007), there was a decision that had made her uneasy- the depiction of a  black soldier appearing with Robbie in Dunkirk. She asserts: "In fact, it was almost impossible for there to have been a black soldier in the British Expeditionary Force in France". She suspects this was done "to reflect today's multicultural society" and "gave a misleading impression of how Britain was at the time". Screenplay by Christopher Hamilton- explains it away as colour-blind casting, but says "it probably wasn't accurate". This element of the film did prompt discussion at the time, in the Guardian and the Spectator. And Gardiner herself responded to questions, commenting "statistically one would expect there to have been a handful of black soldiers scooped up by the Military Services Act, and one or two of those may have been sent to France with the BEF"- a statement which seems quite contradictory to what she says on her Radio 4 programme. I'm no expert on the 20th century, but I've seen plenty of pictures of black soldiers in both world wars- not just African Americans, or even Imperial troops, but British-born men too, as you can see from this online exhibition from the Ministry of Defence, this slideshow from Phil Gregory of the Black Presence website, and Tony Warner's recent talks at the Imperial War Museum. Surely, even if there wasn't a huge number of black soldiers in the BEF at the beginning of the war, showing one in Atonement makes the larger point that there were black soldiers in World War 2, in the same way as the Lancastria was co-opted to represent many smaller ships that sunk at Dunkirk. 

But where I really had to press pause in shock was when Tim Bevan, producer of Elizabeth (1998) as well as Atonement, commented "had that [casting a black actor] taken place in our Elizabeth movie, you wouldn't have been able to prove that, at all,  and it would have been interpretative". This is a film which has no problem placing it's own dramatic interpretation on various other historical events- showing the queen sleeping with Robert Dudley, for example- something that really is unprovable. (See Alex von Tunzelman's unpicking of the film on her Guardian Reel History blog). But I'd like to pick up Bevan's gauntlet now, just in case he's planning a third Elizabeth film to follow Elizabeth: The Golden Age (2007). If he ever wants to cast a black actor in a Tudor film (or indeed a Stuart or a Georgian one): I can prove it for him! In my research into Africans in Britain, 1500-1640 for my Oxford D.Phil. thesis I found evidence of over 360 Africans living in England and Scotland during the period. (Oh, please, someone make a film set in the court of James IV of Scotland, featuring the "More Tabronar"). More specifically, there is clear evidence that Elizabeth I had at least one African servant at her court. Records survive from 1574 and 1575 showing her ordering clothes for a "lytle Blackamoore" from her tailor. Further to this, a painting known as "Elizabeth I at Kenilworth" shows her being entertained by a small troupe of black musicians. This was in keeping with a wider trend  of Africans working at royal and aristocratic courts across Europe. However, it would equally be accurate to show Africans walking about in Tudor crowd scenes. The most interesting recent attempt to show this was in Dr. Who, The Shakespeare Code (2007). But that's another story (and another blog?).


For now, I just want to end by saying that as historians, we have to work harder to ensure that the Media doesn't Change History, but History Changes the Media. This is a two-way street, but we need to do our bit (by blogging, for example!) to ensure new research is fed into the media. The BBC Radio 3/ AHRC collaboration New Generation Thinkers initiative  is a great example of how this can work in practice. Let's have more of that!



You can read yesterday's Twitter discussion on this with @jessicammoody, @cath_fletcher, @michael1952 and @HistoryNeedsYou on Storify. 

"it's as if a bunch of squatters were to vote on whether or not to keep occupying a building illegally."


This was the Argentinian President Kirchner's  comment on the recent referendum in the Falkland Islands (or Islas Malvinas to the Argentinians), where 1,513 out of 1,517 (a 92% turnout) voted in favour of remaining British.  


Her attitude was no surprise to anyone who's been following her approach over the last few years, but the extent of her commitment surprised to me, when I visited the Casa Rosada in Buenos Aires last month, and found the writing literally on the wall! 

This picture shows a metallic outline of the islands, displayed in a prominent position in one of the courtyards. The image, emblazoned with the Argentinian flag, also appeared in the Gallery of Latin American patriots (see below), while outside in the Plaza de Mayo, protestors flags (picture below) read: 

"Las Malvinas fueron, son y serán Argentinas. 
La sangre derramada jamas será negociada. 
Por nuestros hermanos muertos en las Islas, océano y continente. 
Soberania si. 
Abandono no." 

Loose translation:
The Malvinas were, are and will be Argentina's.
The blood shed will never be negotiated.
For our brothers killed in the islands, ocean and continent.
Sovereignty YES.
Abandonment NO."

I was born on 15th April 1982, during the Falklands war, on a day when Argentine tanks were photographed rolling down one of the island's streets. So I had a heightened sensibility to this area of conflict between my country and the country I was visiting. I spotted the outline of the islands in other prominent places around Buenos Aires, in one case it made a rather attractive water feature! I avoided discussing it with people we met, but my travelling companion, a Frenchman, was not so discreet! His enquiries met with a determined silence from most. I got a sense of a culture where it was best to avoid political conversations, particularly with strangers. 

I was fascinated by Matthew Parris's recent article in The Times highlighting the hypocrisy of Argentina's approach. He  quotes General Julio Argentino Roca, President of Argentina twice near the end of the 19th century:

“Our self-respect as a virile people obliges us to put down as soon as possible, by reason or by force, this handful of savages who destroy our wealth and prevent us from definitely occupying, in the name of law, progress and our own security, the richest and most fertile lands of the Republic.”

and points out that the history of Argentina has left only  1.6 per cent of its 40 million inhabitants directly descended from or calling themselves indigenous people.

Of course two wrongs don't make a right. However, Kirchner's focus seems to be on the land, whereas the British are taking the cue from the people. For me, the people are more important. But my trip to Buenos Aires has left me in no doubt that this is not a problem that's just going to go away. 

As Black History Month drew to a close, I found myself addressing the Department for Education. My 'lunchtime seminar' talk  was called " Africans in Tudor and Stuart Britain: before the slave trade." (I hastened to add that I meant before the English really got going at the slave trade, not before the Portuguese and Spanish slave trade, and pointed out that John Hawkins' voyages in the 1560s were something of an aberration, which were not to be repeated for some 70 years). 

A few days before my talk, the poet Benjamin Zephaniah had been quoted  by the BBC as saying that black and Asian pupils are turned off history because they are told only "half the story" in British schools.

The same BBC article reported that Education Secretary Michael Gove "has said schools should focus on a traditional narrative of British history in response to concerns it had become too politically correct [and]... that the current approach to history denies 'children the opportunity to hear our island story', and... this has to change."

Continue reading the main story... the current approach to history denies "children the opportunity to hear our island story", and this has to change."The phrase "our island story"  jumped out at me because it reminded me of an old book I'd grown up with.  Our Island Story is a nostalgic, patriotic storybook written in Australia in 1905  by Henrietta E. Marshall. This Edwardian tome was reprinted in 2005 by the think-tank Civitas, with the aim to send a free copy to each of the UK's primary schools. David Cameron told the RSC it was his favourite childhood book in 2010, and that it "really captured [his] imagination and ... nurtured [his] interest in the history of our great nation.”  But what stories does this book tell? And are they really only "half the story"?

Take Sir Francis Drake, for example. A classic Elizabethan hero, he appears of course in Our Island Story, where Marshall describes him as "very bold and daring", and tells the story of the singeing of the King of Spain's beard, and him refusing to face the Armada before he'd finished his game of bowls on Plymouth Hoe. But my research has shown me another side of Drake, that is writ large upon the Drake Jewel (above, a present from the Queen in 1588, which Drake wore  hanging from his belt in this 1591 portrait) but that is not included in Marshall's version of events. 

The bust of an African man on the Drake jewel has been interpreted as a symbol of Drake's alliance with the Cimaroons.  These were the Africans who had runaway from the Spanish who had enslaved them and set up their own communities. Their local knowledge was invaluable to Drake when he allied with them to capture the Spanish silver train in Panama in 1573.  One of these Cimaroons, a man named Diego, returned to Plymouth with Drake and accompanied him on his circumnavigation voyage of 1577-80. Unfortunately he died near the Moluccas, from wounds received from the hostile inhabitants of Mocha Isle, off the coast of Chile. 

Diego was not the only African onboard. We know of at least three more, one of which, a woman named either Francesca or Maria, who was abandoned, heavily pregnant, on Crab Island, Indonesia. William Camden, the first historian of Elizabeth I's reign, reported in his Annales that Drake "purchased much blame…for having most inhumanely exposed in an island that negro or blackamore maid who had been gotten with child in his ship.” However this, and other stories of Africans who encountered Drake, seem to have disappeared from popular record. 

Drake's cousin, John Hawkins doesn't appear in Our Island Story at all. Drake may well have accompanied him on some of his slaving voyages in the 1560s. And later voyages that Drake made to the Caribbean, for example his raid of 1585-6, also resulted in Africans coming to England. 

The idea of "Our Island Story" needs to be re-imagined. To be 'insular' can mean to be cut off from the rest of the world. But the histories of most islands, from Crab and Mocha isles, mentioned here, to the Island of Britain, are stories of comings and goings, of invaders and immigrants.  The story of our island is one of these. And we need to tell our children the whole story, and to do so we need to re-tell it for our time and not rely on the imaginings of an Edwardian patriot, however picturesque. 

When I heard Todd Akin assert that pregnancy as a result of rape is “really rare” and that "from what I understand from doctors":

"If it is a legitimate rape, the female body has ways to try and shut that whole thing down," I  wondered which doctors he'd been speaking to. 

The last time I’d heard such a theory was when reading early modern English social history books. I wasn’t the only one- Guardian blogger Vanessa Heggie traces the “legal position that pregnancy disproved a claim of rape” back to the 13th century. I remember being horrified when I first read that a 16th century rape victim had no case if she became pregnant.

In fact the medical theory on which this law was based is even older. As Corrine Saunders explains in her book Rape and Ravishment in the Literature of Medieval England:

“One widely circulated medical theory, based on the ideas of Galen, held that women as well as men emitted seed, and therefore that only when an emission was made, through orgasm, could conception occur: Failure of either partner to achieve orgasm rendered intercourse nonprocreative... According to the Galenic theory of conception, for pregnancy to occur as a result of rape was impossible...”

As Galen lived from 129 –c. 200 AD, we can see that these ideas have been in circulation since ancient times.
  But even more disturbingly, Akin is not the only modern man to have espoused such ancient views regarding female biology, as Robert Mackey demonstrates in his latest blog for the New York Times.  

I thought it was fascinating that the works of Galen could continue to have currency as late as the Tudor and Stuart period that I’ve studied. It’s even more surprising to see men dangerously innocent of modern biology today. 

As Editorial assistant for Diplomat Magazine in July, I reported on some interesting events, including Breakfasts addressed by MPs and foreign minsters, attended by London's diplomats and the opening of South Africa's Ekhaya, or Olympic Home from Home. 

Diplomat Magazine is 65 years old this year and aimed at the  diplomatic community in London, which includes the heads of mission and diplomats at the capital's 162 Embassies and High Commissions and MPs and members of the House of Lords dealing with Foreign affairs.

You can read the reports here:

Ekhaya Centre Opens on London's Southbank, Diplomatmagazine,com,  27 July 2012. 

South African Sports Minister opened the Ekhaya centre last night, which will provide a home from home for South Africans and showcase their culture, reports Miranda Kaufmann.

On a hot sunny evening, a large drum was placed outside the door to Queen Elizabeth Hall on London's Southbank. It still had its luggage tag with LHR for London Heathrow clearly printed on it. It was closely followed by the Dance Africa Dance troupe, also fresh off the plane from Johannesburg. They danced and sang and crowds gathered to watch the colourful spectacle. Soon, the South African Minister for Sport and Recreation, Fikile Mbalula arrived and cut the yellow ribbon, formally opening the Ekhaya.

Ekhaya is a Nguni word meaning 'home' and the South Africans have set up camp in the Queen Elizabeth Hall for the duration of the Games to create a 'home from home' for athletes, supporters and ex-pats, filled with South African art and culture and a programme of events and entertainment to not only make South Africans feel at home, but also to showcase what South Africa has to offer to the world.

The show began immediately, as the rousing music of Vusi Mahlasela struck up inside and the minister, and other dignitaries including High Commissioner Dr Zola Skweyiya, South African Sports Confederation and Olympic Committee (SASCOC) President Gideon Sam and Chef de Mission Patience Shikwambana were shown around the centre, which had been painted bright yellow and was full of art and crafts from South Africa's nine different provinces, displayed in the aptly-named Beautiful Things exhibition.

There followed some speeches of thanks and then the  South African High Commissioner, Dr Zola Skweyiya took to the podium to say that his countrymen should be proud, not afraid, to be known as South Africans.

Then SASCOC President Gideon Sam said that, just as many years ago, the English came to Africa, South Africa was now annexing a small part of the United Kingdom.  He joked that he couldn't guarantee when they would be giving it back. Although they were only staying for a couple of weeks, they would make their presence felt.  He added some advice for those facing transport problems during the Games:  Grab a horse from a policeman!

In a spirited, rousing and heartfelt address, Sports Minister Mbalula explained that the Ekhaya was an opportunity to tell South Africa's story to the world.  He recalled that Londoners had stood side by side with South Africans in the battle against apartheid, staging many protests in Trafalgar Square. No longer battered and tortured, South Africa is now a nation with dreams.  Their Olympic athletes have been released like free birds, empowered by the spirit of Nelson Mandela. Inspired by recent victories in the British Open golf championships and Test Cricket, they are now aiming to take at least 12 medals home.

The speeches were followed by cocktails in the St Paul's pavilion. The Ekhaya Hospitality Centre will be open daily from 10am until the end of the Paralympic games, with a lively calendar of cultural events, ranging from music from world-renowned acts including Vusi Mahlasela, Sipho "Hotstix" Mabuse, Thandiswa Mazwai, the Parlotones, Ringo, Tamara Dey, Dance Africa Dance and Mapantsula to screenings of South African films, South African comedy acts and a South African fashion show.

Diplomat Breakfast with Djibouti Finance Minister

Diplomatmagazine.com,  13 July 2012. 

This morning APCO Worldwide and Diplomat magazine hosted a Breakfast Roundtable at APCO Worldwide’s offices on Long Acre with the Djibouti Minister for the Economy, Finance, Industry and Planning, Ilyas Moussa Dawaleh.  Over a generous selection of coffee, teas, pastries and fruit, the Minister abandoned his native French to address the international audience in fluent English.

This was Dawaleh’s first visit to London as Minister and forms part of a tour of English-speaking nations to put Djibouti on the map. A small country of 23,000 square meters, with a population of less than one million, limited resources and 45 degree summers, it is Djibouti’s geostrategic position that is its greatest asset. With major ports situated at the crux of three continents, Djibouti has French, German, US and Japanese military bases and is the headquarters of the Atalante mission, an EU mission coordinating the fight against piracy. A new Regional Anti-Piracy Institute is due to open there by the end of year, making it a key actor in international security and the fight against terrorism and piracy. 

Djibouti also plays a central role in international trade, with 80% of the world’s oil trade and one third of all international trade passing through the region. It has the largest container terminal in east Africa, with one million containers being processed there each year, and has the biggest fibre-optic cable network in Africa, making it vital to continental progress in telecommunications.

Dawaleh outlined his country’s vision for 2035. Building on existing strengths, Djibouti aims to become the largest logistic hub in Africa, using 100% green energy. Also, they hope to become the number two destination in the world for scuba diving, after Sharm-el-Sheik. The key to these ambitions is to improve Africa’s poor infrastructure, which Dawaleh identified as being a root cause of poverty. Becoming better connected will help to change that and combat the challenge of youth unemployment. The ICT sector will provide much needed jobs. Erickson is one company that has come to Djibouti. In the past, education in Djibouti has favoured the theoretical over the vocational: in future, young people will be trained in the practical skills required to help take their country forward.

The talk was attended by Inspector General Hassan Issa Sultan, the Ambassadors of Finland and Ethiopia, the High Commissioner for Cameroon and diplomatic representatives from Australia, Nigeria, British Virgin Islands, the Czech Republic and others.

The Finnish Ambassador, His Excellency Mr Pekka Huhtaniemi, identified a ‘hub’ strategy, and enquired whether Djibouti saw places such as Hong Kong, Singapore, and Panama as role models, and asked about the role of financial services. The Minister felt Singapore was the closest model for Djibouti and stressed that good infrastructure was vital to developing financial services. He indentified the stable currency in Djibouti as a major advantage: there has been no fluctuation in the exchange rate with the $US since 1949. ($1 = 1.76 Djibouti Francs).

The High Commissioner of Cameroon, His Excellency Mr Nkwelle Ekaney, asked about the need for foreign investment in infrastructure. Dawaleh agreed that foreign direct investment was needed and confirmed that Djibouti had recently made a $300 million investment agreement with the Chinese government.  

APCO's Tomas Eymond-Laritaz asked about the democratic future of the country where the Government lost a regional election in Djibouti City (home to 80% of the country’s population) three months ago. The Minister said that at the next elections in January 2013, a move to proportional representation should allow a minority opposition to emerge. Ultimately, Djibouti’s vision for 2035 relies on peace and political stability and developing a better infrastructure to enable it to make even better international connections.

YDL – Diplomat magazine Breakfast with MP Nadhim Zahawi

Diplomatmagazine.com, 5 July 2012. 

This morning Conservative MP Nadhim Zahawi addressed young diplomats on “The Arab Spring and its implications for the UK and Europe” at the YDL – Diplomat magazine Breakfast at the Hyatt Regency Hotel - The Churchill.

Prior to being elected MP for Stratford on Avon in May 2010, Zahawi was an award-winning businessman, CEO of YouGov, with the unusual distinction of having won an award for Craziest Parking ticket in 2004, when after a crash, his bike got an £100 fine as he lay in the back of an ambulance.

This morning, in a brief address, Zahawi outlined three main ways in which the Arab spring would affect the UK and Europe: disruption of the oil trade; a significant rise in immigration through Turkey to Greece, and the continued threat of war in Syria, which could escalate to involve neighbouring Lebanon and become a proxy-war, waged between Iran and Saudi Arabia and Qatar. Such a conflict could polarise world opinion, provoking high-scale intervention.

He strongly asserted the importance of allowing democracy to develop organically, at a pace that is right for each country. After all, he remarked, it took 713 years for the UK to become a “fully-fledged” democracy- from signing Magna Carta in 1215 to giving votes to women in 1928.

H.E. Werner Matías Romero, the Ambassador for El Salvador asked what sort of timetable Zahawi had in mind, given that South America, which was more like Europe than the Middle East, was still far from ideal in democratic terms.

In response, Zadawi, referencing Gary Marcus’s Kluge: The Haphazard Construction of the Human Mind (2008), suggested that it was necessary for voters to move past the instinctive choice of strong leaders, to make more rational, educated choices.

The MP also highlighted the work of the Westminster Foundation for Democracy, which aims to give emerging democracies a helping hand by sharing knowledge, as in this recent project to give Iraqi people a voice.

Counsellor Ara Margarian of Armenia asked what lay in store for the Christian minorities in the region, and whether they were likely to suffer the same fate as those driven out of Iraq. Zadawi, whose own Kurdish parents fled the persecution of Saddam Hussein, commented that he had observed positive steps taken in Iraq to protect the remaining Christian population.

Zahawi admitted that he didn’t have all the answers, but he certainly provoked some interesting questions and this YDL – Diplomat magazine Breakfast gave all who attended food for thought (besides the croissants).