Posted: Thursday 29 April 2010
The Annual Lewis Lyons Lecture 2010
Racism, Nation-State Formation and Colonial Expansion in the Early Modern World
Satnam Virdee
Professor of Sociology, University of Glasgow
In February, along with my fellow history students in S5 and S6, I went to the 10th annual Lewis Lyons History Lecture, which is part of the Friday morning Talking Points lecture series. To say that the title of the lecture is a bit vague would be an understatement, so I was prepared to hear about almost anything. Professor Virdee is a sociologist, the first sociologist in a long line of historians, and when he started by telling us that 'Race is a fiction' my curiosity was piqued even further.
He went on to tell us how the ancient Greeks and Romans hadn't had a concept of racism, only of 'the barbarian other and the civilised self'. I was surprised to find out that the first mention of racism was in a1508 poem, 'The Dance of the Sevin Deidly Sins', by William Dunbar. I was particularly interested to hear that racism was first understood in England as a struggle between the old and the new orders, between those who considered themselves 'true English' and their Norman rulers. In order to rid themselves of the old King, so that the 'true English' could take over their heritage again, they devised a story to show how the Normans were oppressing them and that they were not really English. The idea of classing people according to their origins or appearance was the beginnings of true racism.
In our earlier years in secondary school we learned about the Atlantic slave trade and about the atrocities endured by slaves, and Professor Virdee filled in some of the gaps by explaining how Africans came to be regarded as slaves rather than equals. At the advent of the Industrial Revolution, European workers were needed back home and more African labourers were needed for the plantations. By this time most of the working people were African while the plantation owners were European and so race formed with colour-coded class restrictions. Eventually the Africans started being treated as a lower and lower class until they were simply classed as slaves. Racism was a consequence of slavery that is still felt keenly today.
Professor Virdee ended by saying that racism, at barely 500 years old, is a product of the modern world and he left us with Martin Luther King's famous words:
"I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the colour of their skin but by the content of their character."
Professor Satnam Virdee (left, with History teacher Claire Singerman and Head of History Dr Rona Gaffney), is the author and co-author of five books and more than 40 articles and essays. He has recently completed a major historical study focusing on racism and anti-racism in British society since 1789 which will be published as Racism, Resistance and Radicalism by Palgrave Macmillan in 2010.