We went to the Empire and Commonwealth Museum today; after nearly three years in Bristol, it seemed like a good time to visit! For someone like myself who actually grew up in a Commonwealth country (Australia), it’s interesting to see how the Empire is now viewed from the Imperial side of things.

Of course, Australia is just a small part of the former British Empire, and a relative late-comer. Most of the exhibition focuses on Imperial Africa, North America and India. In particular, there is a special exhibition, “Breaking the Chains“, developed for the 200th anniversary of the abolition of the slave trade in Britain.

I though the special exhibition was interesting, from a historical perspective, though fairly dry. In fact, the most emotive piece I saw was in the main museum: a metal collar attached to a smaller metal loop (a manacle or bracelet?) by 2m or so of chain. It’s an item that needs little introduction or interpretation: it’s essential purpose is awfully clear. It holds something of the fundamental wrongness, of the extremity of inhumanity, that is slavery.

It’s odd, I suppose, that a metal collar and chain can seem so much more horrible than, say, a sword or gun. Perhaps because small weapons seem much more personal and more literal. They don’t carry the same metaphorical weight. The violent interactions that such side-arms might imply are always at some remove.

But in that object I couldn’t help but see the wrist of the master pulling at the neck of the slave (whether or not that is how they were actually used). In a gun or sword I don’t see two soldiers—and I’ll wager that neither do you—just the one who wields the weapon.

Apart from the historical significance of the collar, i think there’s a lesson there about objects as metaphors, and the power of something that can show a relationship, an interaction, from both sides. When we can see both sides of the relationship—or the dialectic, or the synthesis, or the argument—our understanding of it is much stronger and much more immediate. I wouldn’t say that everyone who sees such a thing feels just as I did, but whatever it means to them I’m sure it does so much more clearly because it can express so much more.

Now, I read and (try to) write fantasy and science fiction. But these genres, and particularly their epic forms (high fantasy and space opera), have a predilection for looking at things from just one side. I’m sure that anyone familiar with speculative fiction, and probably most who aren’t, can imagine a book cover that features a sword, or a gun, or an individual or like-minded group in a moment of fantastical action. The explanation would seem to be that readers want (or are perceived to want) this singular point of view. They want to be on someone’s side, and perhaps to enjoy the implied vice versa. But although a sword, or a gun, or heroic struggle might be symbols of the warrior, they are not symbols of war. I say, give readers cover art and a story that allows them to see both sides.

Even if you’re not inclined to see lessons in genre literature everywhere you look, I’d recommend the Empire and Commonwealth Museum; it’s not expensive and it’s interesting. Unfortunately for Bristol, the museum will be moving it’s main operations to London later this year, so if you’ve been thinking about a visit, don’t put it off any longer.