Racism: A History: Eugenics

RACISM: A HISTORY
A RESPONSE BY EXECUTIVE PRODUCER DAVID OKUEFUNA TO COMMENTS ON THE BBC WEBSITE
In response to the criticisms of T Scott from Andover and Dr J Owen from London concerning the passage on eugenics which appears in the second episode of Racism: A History, we would like to point out that this section was based on information drawn from a number of authoritative sources. As well as numerous conversations with eminent academics and researchers, this film relied on several acclaimed books by distinguished authors, including Michael Burleigh's award-winning The Third Reich: A New History; Harry Bruinius' Better For All The World; and most importantly, of course, the works of Francis Galton himself.

Mr Scott's suggestion that "eugenics was not about racism" and Dr Owen's assertion that it had been a 'valid' field of study that was later "brought into disrepute" by the Nazis are interesting interpretations of eugenics' chequered history. Unfortunately, though, these assertions are not supported by the facts. Questions of race were a crucial aspect of eugenic thought right from the start. The pioneering eugenicist Francis Galton might have been a gifted statistician, as Dr Owen says, but it remains the case that he made a significant contribution to the development of racist ideas in the Victorian era. In a chapter entitled The Comparative Worth of Different Races, which appears in his most famous work, Heredity Genius (1869), Galton makes several references to the relative superiority of Europeans compared to what he called 'the lower races'. After insisting that "the number among the Negroes of those whom we should call half-witted men, is very large", Galton went on to say that the behaviour of 'Negroes' was "so childish, stupid, and simpleton-like, as frequently to make me ashamed of my own species".

In the preface to the 1892 edition of same work, Galton also considers the impact of the new European empires being established in Africa. Once the Europeans "enforce justice and order", he wonders whether "the Negroes, one and all, will fail as completely under the new conditions as they have failed under the old ones, to submit to the needs of a superior civilization to their own; in this case their races, numerous and prolific as they are, will in the course of time be supplanted and replaced by their betters." Taken together with his description of "the uncorrected sense of moral perspective" and "impulsive, unstable nature" of "savages", Galton's writings supply abundant evidence to suggest that - decades before eugenics was "brought into disrepute" by the Nazis - the founding father of eugenics was already advancing positions that sit firmly in what some might call 'the exterminatory wing' of late Victorian racial science.

As Dr Owen quite rightly observes, eugenics drew support from many 'liberal', 'progressive', and indeed 'socialist' figures, including George Bernard Shaw, HG Wells, Harold Laski and the Webbs. Nowhere in our film is it claimed that these eminent 'liberal' Victorians were 'proto-Nazis'. But it is clear that many prominent figures within the British 'liberal' intelligentsia explicitly supported ideas of racial purity - notions that were promoted by the leading eugenicists of the time. Just like Charles Dickens, who supported Governor Eyre's murderous response to the protest at Morant Bay in 1865, many prominent 'liberal', 'progressive' and 'left-leaning' members of Europe's intellectual elite have embraced and supported racism. Hence, the 'socialist' HG Wells - an enthusiastic champion of eugenics - could warn of the menace of the "ill-trained swarms of inferior people", and suggest that it was "sane and logical" to exterminate members of an 'inferior race'.

For reasons of space, the film did not offer evidence that Winston Churchill was a supporter of eugenics - but there's no doubt that Churchill was wholly committed to the cause. In 1910, Churchill wrote to the Prime Minister Herbert Asquith to express his support for a Bill that proposed the introduction of compulsory sterilisation for the 'feeble-minded' in Britain. Two years later, Churchill attended the First International Eugenics Congress in London and even agreed to become its Vice-Chairman.

Further, our film did not intend to make sweeping claims about the impact of Social Darwinism on British Social Policy in general. Rather, we simply suggested that these ideas influenced the Viceroy of India, Lord Lytton, during the time of the great Indian famines in the last quarter of the 19th century. In the book Late Victorian Holocausts, the historian Mike Davis writes: "The grim doctrines of Thomas Malthus... still held great sway over the white rajas. Although it was bad manners to openly air such opinions in front of the natives in Calcutta, Malthusian principles, updated by Social Darwinism, were regularly invoked to legitimise Indian famine policy at home in England".

It was Lytton's administration that imposed The Anti-Charitable Contributions Act of 1877, which prohibited private relief donations that potentially interfered with the market-fixing of grain prices. In effect, this legislation meant that any individuals wishing to make charitable donations to save the lives of starving Indians were threatened with imprisonment. By this time, official relief centres had already turned away famished people if they were too weak to work for their meagre rations. Under Lytton's rule, survival really was the sole preserve of the fittest.