I read today that at part of the Birthday Honours the British Empire Medal is being reintroduced. It is bad enough that the current honours retain the word Empire, but to add another to the list is ridiculous. The introduction of an extra honour would have been the perfect opportunity to move away from our imperial past and think of a title which did not incorporate Empire, even if it is something as simple as British Commonwealth Medal.
Benjamin Zephaniah perfectly summed up why we should not be dishing out these gongs when he declined his OBE stating:
"Me? I thought, OBE me? Up yours, I thought. I get angry when I hear the word 'empire'; it reminds me of slavery, it reminds me of thousands of years of brutality, it reminds me of how my foremothers were raped and my forefathers brutalised." Independent Nov, 2003The history of the British Empire is one our country should be deeply ashamed of. Not just the immorality of colonisation but the brutality and disregard for human rights which followed us across the Middle East, Africa and Asia. Just type in British Empire Atrocities into Google to bring up a catalogue of atrocities carried out in the name of the British Empire.
Millions are not aware of imperialistic history and it is important that we start recognising the crimes we carried out and apologise for them. A good start would be to drop the word Empire from our honours system.
