time we saw films that show the evil perpetrated in the name of British empire

12 Years a Slave shows US atrocities – but who will do the same for Britain?

It is time we saw films that show the evil perpetrated in the name of British empire

Kele Okereke

Over the weekend, at a sold-out screening in Brixton, I watched Steve McQueen's much-lauded 12 Years a Slave. Having read a lot about the film beforehand, I knew that it was going to be hard to watch but nothing prepared me for the skin-rending violence I was about to see. As the film finished and the credits started to roll I, like most of the audience, sat in complete silence, partly in reverence, partly due to revulsion, but glad that a film of this nature had finally been made by a black director.

Previous references to US slave history have often been sentimentalised on film, such as the Gone with the Wind "Mammy" or "Uncle Tom" stereotypes. But it seems that Hollywood is finally shining a light on importance of the "slave narrative", with Steven Spielberg's Lincoln touching on the issue, and Quentin Tarantino's controversial postmodern slave spaghetti western Django Unchained.Writing in the New Yorker, David Denby described 12 Years a Slave as "easily the greatest feature film ever made about American slavery". All across America the film is enabling a discussion about the horror of slavery. Many people have asked why it has taken so long for a film to address America's past. Variety said it was a "disgrace" that it has taken "a British director to stare the issue in its face". Perhaps the fact that McQueen is British is the reason why this film offers such an unflinching gaze.

McQueen suggests that an explanation for this interest is in part the Obama effect. Henry Louis Gates, who was the historical consultant for 12 Years a Slave, believes it is as a result of black studies finally being on the agenda in traditionally white academic institutions. The size of the black middle class has increased in recent years, but the appeal of this film cannot solely be down to its reliance on black audiences. This is a film that seems to be resonating with people across racial divides. In Brixton it was a majority-white audience and I saw tears in the eyes of men and women as they left the cinema.

There seems to be a new culture of introspection among American audiences, a willingness to probe the uncomfortable. Coming from this side of the civil rights movement of the 60s and 70s, American audiences no longer feel connected to the prejudiced attitudes that previous generations held. There is a distance that allows them to watch and sympathise without feeling implicated.

Here in Britain we have a chequered history in examining our own hand in similar atrocities. Our colonial past is not taught in GCSE or A-level history syllabuses, where the emphasis is always on the first and second world wars. When colonialism is discussed, it is often presented as benign imperialism, whose overriding purpose was not to seize land, commodities and commit atrocities, but to teach the natives English and impose the rule of law. This myth has been carefully propagated by the rightwing press, but it represents a staggering national ability to airbrush the past.

When it was revealed in 2012 that the British government destroyed the documents detailing the mistreatment of its colonial subjects and that the Foreign Office then lied about a secret cache of files containing lesser revelations, it was largely ignored by most of the British press. In February 2013, when David Cameron laid a commemorative wreath at Jallianwala Bagh, the site of a 1919 massacre of 1,000 Indian protesters by British forces, he did not apologise for the attack, instead stating that "there is an enormous amount to be proud of in what the British empire did and was responsible for. The bad events we should learn from and the good events we should celebrate."

Britain has a long history of multiculturalism, in part due to our colonial ties. Workers from the Commonwealth have come to this island and enriched life here. With the current emphasis that is being placed on immigration, perhaps if we could take an honest look backwards we wouldn't feel so threatened about what is to come.

Will there be a day when British film attempts to depict the horrors of our colonial past, not in a heroic sense, as in Zulu, but in an honest examination of the evil that was perpetrated in the name of empire? Only in examining our past will it redefine what it means for us be British in the present day.

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/jan/13/12-years-a-slave-us-atrocities-britain