Theoretical error, real-world problems 31 Acknowledging a problematic past The images of being political bequeathed to us came from the victors: those who were able to constitute themselves as a group, confer rights on and impose obligations on each other, institute rituals of belonging and rites of passage, and, above all, differentiate themselves from others, constructing an identity and an alterity simultaneously. (Engin Isin, writing in Being Political in 200216) Tracing­ how­ the­ difficulties­ referred­ to­ here­ have­ arisen­ can­ help­ us­ to­ develop­ ways in which to address them. The sixteenth to nineteenth centuries in Europe were­characterised­by­major­political­changes.­There­was­a­blossoming­of­human­ rights and a recognition of obligations of States towards ordinary people. This included­the­development­of­the­notion­of­‘citizenship’­rather­than­‘subjecthood’.­ Countries like Britain, the Netherlands and France, within which several modern liberals­were­writing,­were­also­benefiting­from­the­new­wealth­and­new­opportun ities in the so-called ‘New Worlds’. In burgeoning European colonies overseas, other­ new­ ways­ of­ categorising­ people,­ using­ racial­ stratifications,­ for­ example,­ were­being­used­to­justify­land­seizure,­violence,­indenture­and­enslavement­of­per sons.17 The role of race and of domination in this construction of modern citizen ship and liberal theory more generally must be part of understanding its limitations today.­It­may­be­that­liberalism­cannot­be­reconfigured­without­these­inconsisten cies. If this is the case, Cole was right to suggest that it might be obsolete. But if liberalism is to stand a chance, it will need to address these problems head-on and examine the blind spots to which they have given rise. This contextualisation is important to understanding the birth of modern liberal thought and the limitations this put upon the vision of its authors. It shows that­in­fact­��egalitarian­political­theory­has­often­ended­up­justifying­explicitly­ inegalitarian institutions and practices’.18 As settlers in English colonies, for example, railed against slavery to the Crown using the language of freedom and equality of Enlightenment liberalism, large populations were enslaved under them, constructed out of consideration within the same liberal calculus.19 John Locke describes how ‘Native’ peoples, as they did not ‘improve’ the land 16 Engin Isin (2002) Being Political,­University­of­Minnesota­Press,­p.­2. 17 For example, see Catherine Hall (2002) Civilising Subjects: Metropole and Colony in the English Imagination 1830–1867, Polity; several essays in Catherine Hall (ed.) (2000) Cultures of Empire: Colonizers in Britain and the Empire in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries: A Reader, Manchester­University­Press. 18 Duncan Ivison, Paul Patton and Will Sanders (2000) ‘Introduction’, pp. 1–22 in Duncan Ivison, Paul Patton and Will Sanders (eds) (2000) Political Theory and the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, Cambridge University Press, at p. 2. 19­ Samuel­Johnson,­creator­of­the­first­English­dictionary,­demanded:­‘How­is­it­that­we­hear­the­ loudest­yelps­for­liberty­from­the­drivers­of­negroes?’.­This­comes­from­his­1775­paper­‘Taxation­ No Tyranny: An Answer to the Resolutions and Address of the American Congress’, www. samueljohnson.com/tnt.html­(accessed­4­April­2017).