Jameela Jamil’s British Empire Comments Sparked Backlash, But Where Is The Lie?

Jameela Jamil has found herself at the centre of yet another online firestorm, this time after a clip from the Yestergays podcast went flying around online landing with the wrong side of the internet.

“Americans think British people are so sweet, which is so crazy because British people are truly the most evil people in history. They are Thanos. Britain is Thanos. They owe 43 trillion to India. We colonise the world,” she said on the clip in question.

And can I just say: WHERE IS THE LIE??

The clip started circulating a few days ago and the reaction online has been exactly what you’d expect from the bafoonery that exists on the interenet. Some people were furious, some people agreed, and some people seemed genuinely shocked that colonial history is still, in fact, colonial history.

One Reddit user wrote, “She’s entirely right. The things that the British did to places like India, Ireland, Africa, etc would make your hair stand on end.”

Another added, “The Indigenous Australian population for another. The massacres, literal slavery then literally stealing ‘half caste’ children from their Indigenous mothers.”

Sky News, naturally, was not in the mood for nuance with one of their journalists, Rowan Dean calling The Good Place actress “depraved”.

“This is so depraved, but this is the sort of garbage that’s been taught in universities,” he said.

“Here you have the very reason why multiculturalism has been such a disaster for Britain because unless you accept that you’re all part of the one culture, that’s what you get.”

Many other right wing pundits and agitators jumped on the bandwagon.

Which, honestly seems like a lot for one woman saying Britain has some history to answer for.

Also, a Marvel villain comparison is hardly the most shocking thing in the world when comic books have spent decades turning real fear, real politics and real violence into capes, lasers and moral allegories. “Good versus evil” did not fall from the sky fully formed, babe. It was nicked from the mess of actual human history.

Jamil has responded to the backlash on Instagram and did not back down. On Instagram, she said her comments were made “in a notably tongue in cheek way”, adding: “Had I known the right wing listen to YESTERGAYS the iconic gay comedy pop culture pod to get their serious and considered political statements, I would have tightened up my language.”

She also wrote, “I am British. I say ‘we’ in the video”, and said, “my family lived under the violent British colonialism in India”. She added that she had been sent “racist slurs” and “violent threats”, along with messages telling her to go “back to my country.”

“I hold the right wing pundits and media directly responsible for the impact on my safety and how much abuse I have received. Twisting words and taking them out of context has grave consequences. Shame on them for riling up so many scary men against one woman for clicks,” she said.

“This media hysteria has lead to tens of thousands of young people around the world digging deeper into exactly how bad the british empire was… A win is a win! I am not the enemy of the British people.”

And she’s right. It seems like people are finally learning about the atrocities the British committed, which has also pointed out a massive gap in British education systems.

If you still don’t know what I’m talking about, TikToker Shabnam Nasimi has effectively done the homework for anyone who could not be bothered to Google it.

“That $43 trillion isn’t a figure that she invented. It comes from the economist Utsa Patnaik, who spent decades inside the colonial tax and trade records and estimated that Britain drained around $45 trillion out of India between 1765 and 1938,” she explained.

“Now, is that number contested? Yes, it depends on how you compound value across two centuries. But the mechanism underneath it is not fringe. Britain taxed Indians, then used their own money to pay for the goods that India exported, and booked the difference as British wealth. So why does simply stating this feel to so many people like an insult? Because in this country, the empire is not compulsory in the national curriculum.

“We find room for the American Civil War, for Nazi Germany, for the Tudors, but the empire that Britain itself built, we simply do not teach.

“Then there’s the double standard. For years, politicians, newspapers, and public figures in this country have called other cultures backward, uncivilised, barbaric, and that gets defended as free speech, as refusing to be silenced.

“But when a woman of Indian and Pakistani heritage gives a sharp opinion about the empire that shaped her own family’s history, suddenly it’s beyond the pale and it requires an apology. Free speech cannot mean free speech in one direction only.”

That is really the point, isn’t it? You do not have to love Jameela Jamil’s delivery to see why this clip hit a nerve, and you do not have to pretend Britain’s colonial record is a cute little historical footnote just because the internet would prefer a simpler storyline.

As Jameela said,”This has made British people look amazing to the rest of the world. This is the best way to make sure people don’t think you’re evil. Nailed it.”

Lead image: Yestergays / TikTok