Why should we teach Black History in our schools?

How should we remember British History? Opponents of statue-topplers keep quoting the words of my personal hero George Orwell:

Every record has been destroyed or falsified, every book rewritten, every picture has been repainted, every statue and street building has been renamed, every date has been altered. And the process is continuing day by day and minute by minute. History has stopped. Nothing exists except an endless present in which the Party is always right. (1984)

Eric Blair (George's real name) gets quoted because his books are brilliant satires of what happens when governments Go Completely Wrong. He'd seen it happen in Stalin's Russia just as much as in Hitler's Germany, and 1984 is a brilliant spoof of post-war Britain ('Airstrip One') with its rationing, poverty, propaganda, and total dependence on the USA during the new Cold War.

But using Orwell to criticise Black Lives Matter is weak- because he also wrote, 'Who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past.'  There's an old saying (wrongly) attributed to Winston Churchill that 'History is written by the winners'. It's cynical, but there's an underlying truth that How and Why we remember something is just as important as What we remember about it- because there's so much spin involved in deciding exactly What gets remembered and passed on.  Sellars and Yeatman's '1066 And All That' satirised how old British history schoolbooks said the Romans or the Normans could be a Good Thing of a Bad Thing because they 'gave' us laws or roads or aqueducts (or whatever), building up a developing picture of Britain and its Empire accumulating all these Good Things to become an overwhelming force for good in the world. Unfortunately, a little bit of travel and wider reading shows that not everyone in the world agrees with that idea.

When teaching in Birmingham, I once led an assembly for older children recounting the strange story of the 1879 Battle of Isandlwana, in South Africa. Have you never heard of it? It's the tale of the day a British Army was defeated by a Zulu army (as in the film 'Zulu Dawn'). There are all sorts of comic aspects involving screwdrivers and ammunition boxes that can't be opened in time- but it was a bloody affair, and by the end, the British were wiped out. So why tell it? Because a good percentage of the pupils in that school were of African and Afro-Caribbean origin, and I wanted them to be proud of their roots- and also learn how on the centenary of the battle, members of the modern British Army went back to the site to remember their fighting ancestors, along with the descendants of the Zulu army who fought that day- and celebrate their memory now as friends together in mutual respect.

A couple of days later, a mum came in to see me, her son next to her, all smiles. 'I've just heard about your assembly, and wanted to say Thank You. My boy was full of it when he came out of school.' They were from Zimbabwe, a country with its own history of ethnic and colonial conflicts- but she appreciated her son being shown the broader picture of what happened during the British Empire. Their people had plenty to be proud of, as well.

 Many schools use Black History Month to dig out and celebrate the stories of great people, but it can be a bit tokenistic (Dr Martin Luther King Jr, Mary Seacole, Nelson Mandela again). But it's necessary, because so many of these stories weren't told before, and the only way children like myself in the 1960s learned about black people was by watching TV. The History I learned in school was all about a succession of white people doing noble things. Growing up in Surrey, I never saw any black people at all, except when my school ran a trip into the BBC television centre to see Basil Brush being filmed, and the bus took us through Clapham High Street- where we were surprised to see black people out doing their shopping. Wow. For me, that was a first.

So I'm not too bothered about statues falling or being replaced (legally), if it's all part of exploring and teaching a broader history that acknowledges how our ancestors got some things wrong- because that way, there's a better chance of getting other things right in future. The History I learned at school was an inadequate reflection of the country where I was growing up- and there are plenty of  fascinating tales waiting to be passed on, if we have the courage to look for them.

And to help that (of course) there's an excellent book about resisting the African Slave Trade too...

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Enthusiastic-Rage-Beginnings-CK-Hudson-ebook/dp/B08B1VRTCJ/ref=sr_1_2?dchild=1&keywords=ck+hudson&qid=1592911534&s=books&sr=1-2

An Enthusiastic Rage- Why remember the Atlantic Slave Trade?

Yes, Black Lives Matter. They always did. but for anyone who starts arguing that All Lives Matter, we need to remember there are certain places in the world where Black Lives still obviously don't- and for Western Europe and the USA, that particular idea started with the creation of the Atlantic Slave Trade.

Of course, slavery has been around for millennia, we can read about it in many accounts from the classical world, ancient literature, The Bible and many other places. But the notion that people with darker skins are inherently inferior to those with lighter skins is very modern. The 18th century Atlantic Trade gave reason for it (financial profits turned into industrial investments) and the 19th century provided a justification (Social Darwinism). But prior to the Trade's transatlantic beginnings in the 1600s, racial differences didn't matter very much to the Romans, Greeks or other empires in the Ancient World. Slaves were either prisoners of war or conquered peoples, and could be of any ethnicity. Pope Gregory the Great saw some captured blonde-haired 'English' children in a Roman slave market and when enquiring, was told  they were 'Angles'. 'No...' he replied. 'Angels.'

So why remember all this? Three reasons.

Firstly, 200 years after the first great campaign against slavery, it's worth remembering how the world's first successful non-violent human rights campaign got off the ground- without even an internet for sharing Likes. Thomas Clarkson, Olaudah Equiano, Granville Sharpe, Hannah More (and yes, eventually, William Wilberforce too) were pioneers in researching, cataloguing, networking and spreading the word that Something Needed to be Done about African Slavery even if it went against Britain's interests. That's a big Ask- but they succeeded despite serious, sometimes violent opposition. And for the Enslaved, of course, the struggle in the West Indies could have brutal, even fatal consequences. Slave rebellions were common, and frequently put down with much loss of life. Their story should not be forgotten.

Secondly, we still live with the consequences of the Trade. Why did the United Kingdom end up with so many statues celebrating the life and works of people who either made money from running plantations in the West Indies, or the ships that moved goods and people from place to place? It's because the business was so profitable, they had to find ways of either making the most efficient use of their wealth back here in new investments  (dock facilities, warehouses, new industries and technology such as steam railways) or giving it to Good Causes. Edward Colston poured his money into schools, almshouses and other charitable work around Bristol. By creating jobs and raising the social capital in Great Britain, these businessmen made a positive difference in their communities, courtesy of the unpaid labour of thousands of enslaved Africans in the West Indies. Curiously, Colston didn't ask for a statue to be raised in his honour- but he had many admirers who did. Nestling in the Bristol dock area, the church of St Mary Redcliffe now has a stained glass window dedicated to Colston that likens his charity to the Good Samaritan of Jesus' great parable.... which is pushing it a bit. to my mind, statues like his belong in a museum where they can be properly explained- not left in public places as a mark of celebration. As for St Mary Redcliffe, I hope their window is kept safe and used to explain this troubling legacy to generations of schoolchildren.

Thirdly... because Black Lives Matter. The memorial gravestone at the top reminds us how we can all try to distance ourselves from the consequences of our actions... and Commander Hughes' family might have wanted to remember him with affection. But his African victims would have thought rather differently.

To find out more, read my historical novel 'An Enthusiastic Rage: Beginnings.' (£2.75 Amazon ebook)

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Enthusiastic-Rage-Atlantic-Broken-Beginnings-ebook/dp/B08B1VRTCJ/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=ck+hudson&qid=1591976117&quartzVehicle=2590-558&replacementKeywords=hudson&sr=8-1

'Here's me, with a brain the size of a planet....'

Could robots run things better than us? 'The Tyranny of Heav'n' does a lot with robots, but we're not talking Metal Mickey, CP-30, Daleks or even my personal favourite, Marvin the Paranoid Android from 'The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.' My 'robots' inhabit a variety of locations and machines, transferring themselves from database to database as they see fit. (Imagine trying to set up the wifi... On some nights here, it's bad enough trying to stream Netflix.)

My robots are also curious. As a teacher, I remember my school banning Tamagochis, those irritating electronic 'pets' that children brought into school that demanded to be 'fed', 'exercised' and 'played with' or else they would sicken and 'die'. It was just a fashion that came and went, like the Furrbees that reacted to human speech with squeaking and simple movements, but they were just an accumulation of inputs reflecting the behaviour of their human owners. What happens something genuinely starts wanting to learn for its own sake? That's really the point of 'The Tyranny of Heav'n' - guessing at what could come next.

I once bought a big fat SF paperback of space-opera ('Ilium', by Dan Simmons) which lasted me two whole weeks of a holiday (Thank you, Oxfam books of Bideford), featuring two robots of strange shapes and dimensions whose care and compassion for the humans around them stood in marked contrast to anything the humans could do. Something about that story stuck with me, providing the seeds for my own offering. In popular fiction, robots turn on their human creators with cold deliberation - but that's probably just a symbolic fear of all downtrodden 'servants' biding their time until the day they finally rise up to swat their oppressors with big slap. Slaves? The underclasses? The proletariat? It's all a hidden guilt about having to rely on someone else doing what we cannot (or prefer not to), do for ourselves. But Simmons' robots were strong, content with who they were, interested in culture (One was a Marcel Proust fan), and genuinely concerned for the welfare of the people around them who were suffering all sorts of alien mayhem. The robots provided the story's moral centre.... and that is probably reflected in 'The Tyranny of Heav'n'.

Could they do a better job than us? Not yet. But by 2068.... who knows?

'The Tyranny of Heav'n' Spot the deliberate mistake competition

This is a real competition, and you can win a Mars bar. Yes, it's that serious. A real Mars bar. (What did you expect? Golden elephants?) But the said sweet is there, sitting on my shelf at Hudson Towers, waiting to be given to the first person who solves the riddle. First reply by Facebook gets it.

This is all because when designing the front cover of 'The Tyranny of Heav'n' using Microsoft's Paint3D software, let's just say... I got a bit carried away.  Images can be imported, 3D items selected, assembled, rotated, brought closer and moved further away. There's a variety of paintbrushes, colours and textures at your fingertips, and tutorials explaining how to use them.

So having sketched out on paper an approximation of what I wanted for the book cover, I started playing with all the possibilities. Space. Robots. That sort of thing. The software had some ready-made examples, and sundry bits that could be assembled rather like an Airfix kit.

 Once I was happy with the 'thing', it could be rotated, tilted, painted, shadowed, then saved, ready for insertion on a background.

Ah, the background. We're looking for a landscape that could believably 'fit' for the surface of a comet, which is a giant ball of dirty ice and rock, flying through space. Then the idea came. We'd been to the Canadian Rockies a few years ago, and travelled up an ice glacier. I dug out the photos. This one seemed to fit.

Using Paint3D, I fiddled with the sky.

It still needed a bit of shadow and contrast adjustment, but we were getting there. I just needed to add the robot and give him a book. 

All well and good, it's ready to upload on the Amazon Kindle author page.

But then I spotted the mistake. No, it's not in the title. (That's John Milton's spelling from Paradise Lost', a deliberate reference because the poem is part of the story.) And it's not to do with the idea of the robot having a physical book out there on a comet, when in the story he's actually reading the thing online. (The book's a deliberate incongruity.)

Something else is wrong with this cover, and the only way you'll spot it is by reading the free sample on the Amazon kindle page.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Tyranny-Heavn-CK-Hudson-ebook/dp/B089B535H6/ref=zg_bsnr_277560_4?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1&refRID=R24CT98P99P36XREXM9N  

Like I said, the first person to spot it and tell me on Facebook, gets the Mars bar. I'd love to say it was deliberate, but it wasn't. Go on, then.

'But I don't read Science Fiction'

Maybe that's your attitude- but let me try and persuade you to give Science Fiction (or 'SF') a go, because you're missing out. Some say SF is only popular with male teenagers, science nerds, and men who Refuse to Grow Up from tales of derring-do with spaceships, bug-eyed monsters and blasters- although the best SF isn't actually about Science, but something more.

Many trace its beginnings to HG Wells and Jules Verne, whose work filled my bookshelves as a teenager. Verne's characters now seem rather two-dimensional, but he tried to get the Science right, and was rather sniffy when Wells simply invented stuff to make his stories work. For example, Wells created 'Cavorite', an anti-gravity substance to power his spacecraft for 'The First Men in the Moon' whilst Verne envisaged some kind of giant gun to fire his travellers into space. (Thankfully, it was never tried.) But Verne was only out to showcase the possibilities of 19th century Science, when Wells was exploring broader ideas with fantasies that placed realistic characters in strange new settings- and his results are far superior. 'The War of the Worlds' is just as much a satire on Western Imperialism as a rattling good yarn, and still worth a read.

But before them, a woman created the first real SF tale- Mary Shelley's 'Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus'. Like Wells, Shelley explores the implications of Scientific discovery, but she's also asking much bigger questions about human pride, loneliness and hope. Her Doctor is probably the first Mad Scientist in popular fiction- but his Creature is a highly sympathetic figure until Despair gets the better of him. There's many a reference to Milton's Paradise Lost and the Bible on the way. Creation and Fall, aspiration and destruction are all wrapped up in a gothic tale of high drama.

So where could a discerning reader find some good SF? Here are some starters.

EM Forster's 'The Machine Stops' envisages a society living in perpetual lockdown,  Written in 1909, it even predicts Zoom. Read it here for free.  https://www.ele.uri.edu/faculty/vetter/Other-stuff/The-Machine-Stops.pdf

Colson Whitehead's 'The Underground Railroad,' (2016) turns a 19th century slave-smuggling network into a real, functioning secret railway, following the adventures of one escaped African-American struggling for freedom- and on the way, encountering a whole series of responses to how the United States has tried to 'solve' The Problem of Slavery. Under the current circumstances, a must-read for anyone trying to understand the African-American historical experience.

Frank Herbert's 'Dune' (1965) is a 20th century masterpiece. The desert planet Arrakis is the only known source of Spice, an addictive drug that extends life expectancy. However, its human inhabitants wage a constant fight for survival against both the giant worms that create the spice, but also the noble families who run the planet as a personal fiefdom. A new family is given control of the planet, but politics intrudes- and one boy discovers a messianic destiny. Space-opera writ-large, for adults. (As a follow-on, read the prequels, but not the sequels.)

Zenna Henderson's 'Pilgrimage: the Book of the People''(1965) is a series of stories about one teacher's encounters with a rural refugee community with a past, living in constant fear of discovery and persecution through their alien origins. Her schoolwork with their children provides a wonderful parable about the power of education to liberate young minds. Once read, never forgotten. My own 'The Tyranny of Heav'n' does contain a fair dollop of hard Science, which hopefully won't get in the way of the bigger story, which come to think of it, probably owes quite a lot to Zenna Henderson.

Got any others to share?

Back to the Future

Well... it's been a long time, what with one thing and another (Covid-19), my son's marriage, becoming a grandfather (again), and getting on with living. But it's time to dust off the old blogspot- firstly, to show you that yes, I have finally written my first novel, and can share a lot of ideas about the weird business of turning a bunch of ideas into a publishable Thing.

The Tyranny of Heav'n is a novel about the power of Reading. Look closely at the cover. I'll expand on that more over the next few posts- and if you want to buy it, that's £3.45 on Kindle, or Free if you're into the Kindle Unlimited deal. And please afterwards, do Post a Review. Find it here and read a sample...

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Tyranny-Heavn-CK-Hudson-ebook/dp/B089B535H6/ref=zg_bsnr_4034621031_23?_e

A Confession from 1978

Guilt. It's a terrible thing. I now have a very responsible job telling Bible stories to children- with some of the nasty bits left in, because they like it that way. They do ask interesting questions. Often, I prefer their answers to anything I’ve got. But since I am meant to be a bearer of Truth, it behoves me to finally unburden myself of a deed that insulted an entire nation. Yes, it’s that big...