Colonial Clown
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Rosina Visram reading was super interesting to know more about a part of history that is not discuss enough: the use of Indian servants in European countries - with a special focus on the United Kingdom (UK).
Indeed, the expansion of the empire, the rise of globalization and trade roads led to a need for cheap labor. That’s how the UK used its imperial dominance in India to bring them to the old continent. This system was fuelled by a fake representations of Asians - as Visram developed “with full-blooded Asians available, there was no longer any need to dress African servants in Oriental costumes” (p. 13). British servants were only seen as “other” which reinforced racial hierarchies in the UK. Servants were more treated as what Visram calls “chattel” rather than human beings. Some of them had to follow a contract that restricted their rights and freedom. After the end of that contract, once their services were no longer need, they were often abandoned; left in the streets, etc.
Talking of their services, Visram describes them as maintaining the domestic economy of wealthy British households. What I understand here is that the presence of Indian servants was a way to guarantee your social status. They performed domestic roles, and give rich families a better social status. That’s how the class structure worked in Britain during the 18th/19th century.
However, even if the households wanted them at their will - “When a family return from India, they generally bring over with them one or more female blacks to take care of the
children” (p. 18), Gilliat-Ray and Mellor argue that they face harsh racism.
Indeed, as more and more racialised people came to the UK, we saw the establishment of communities in important cities, especially close to the sea. In Cardiff, more than 5.000 Muslims came in few years as Gilliat-Ray reports. Once seen as useful for the economy and the smooth operation of the British society, some sort of racism came quickly as a reverse. The authors describe this racism as different from modern islamophobia. It focused more on a “anti-Arab and anti-coloured sentiment” (p. 456) rather than on the religious identity. However the result was quite the same: violence, riots, assassinations.
We saw here how useful racialised people were to Britain society, but still faced racism. Let’s finish by talking about another form of what I call hypocrisy. It was ok for them to take care of children, houses, etc. but it was inconceivable for a girl to marry/date on of them. If a woman did so, she was “not surprisingly […] estranged from their parents” (p.468).These two authors showed the hypocrisy of Britain society in treating and using what they considered to be “the Other”.
In the song “Empire Empire”, the artist is using a 2 words that describe this situation in my opinion: “Colonial Clown”. It shows the hypocrisy of what happened.
In order to grow their empire/interests and benefits, they used human (not even considered like this).. Taking everyone for a fool, I can affirm these unlucky people were just “colonial clowns” for the UK society.