Tweet by British Conservative MP prompts accusations of ‘historical amnesia’

In a week when Britain’s colonial legacy was put under the spot light, a senior Conservative MP has highlighted the deep historical amnesia of the British people.

After the country’s Prime Minister, Theresa May, told the British people to feel pride in the Balfour Declaration, Conservative MP and former Secretary of State for Defence Liam Fox, tweeted: “The United Kingdom, is one of the few countries in the European Union that does not need to bury its 20th century history.”

His tweet was met with disbelief and irritation.

“Congratulations on posting the most ignorant tweet of the day” wrote one individual as others accused Fox of “an astonishing lack of historical knowledge” and was told to “brush up on British history” while some, astonished by his ignorance, mocked him saying “Oh dear. It must be nice to just simply not know about things”.

Most shot tweets at Fox debunking his claim by pointing to the countless crimes, atrocities and political deceit which the British Empire has been responsible for, citing the Boer concentration camps, suppression of the Mau Mau uprising in Kenya, Aden, Amritsar, Bengal Famine, Dresden, Suez Crisis, aerial bombing of Kurd villages, its support for Apartheid South Africa.

One irritated person responded: “The British state bombed, looted, maimed, raped and murdered its way through the 20th century.”

The debate over Britain’s colonial legacy grabbed headlines following May’s announcement that Britain would celebrate the centenary of the Balfour Declaration this summer with “pride”.

The centenary of the Balfour Declaration has prompted vigorous campaigning to mark the event which many cite as one of Britain’s worst foreign policy disaster and a decision over which the country needs to apologise.

Critics see this as another example of Britain’s historical amnesia, resulting from the country’s lack of education about the real story of the empire.  Speaking to Channel 4 News Indian MP and author Dr Shashi Tharoor said: “There’s no real awareness of the atrocities, of the fact that Britain financed its Industrial Revolution and its prosperity from the depredations of empire.”

The result of this oversight in the education system is that 44 per cent of Britain’s were proud of Britain’s history of colonialism, while only 21 per cent regretted it happened, according to a YouGov Poll.

These figures highlight the extent to which many in the UK are completely oblivious of their past and unaware of the fact that the Middle East is a graveyard of misguided foreign policies that have been pursued by Britain, which have left the region in turmoil.