Britain and The End of Empire: An Examination of Caroline Elkins' Imperial Reckoning and Benjamin Grob-FitzGibbon's Imperial Endgame.
In 2011, British Prime Minister David Cameron addressed a group of Pakistani students and academics while on a state visit to Pakistan. During a time of questions, a student asked the Prime Minister about Britain’s role in ending the Kashmir dispute with India. Cameron answered, “I don’t want to try to insert Britain in some leading role where, as with so many of the world’s problems, we are responsible for the issue in the first place.”[1] The Prime Minister’s remarks caused a storm of controversy in Britain as academics, and ordinary citizens debated the impact of the Empire on the world. For years, British citizens admitted that mistakes and atrocities existed within their Empire. But the British took solace that the British Empire was essentially benevolent when compared to the French, Belgians, and other imperial powers. The British also point with pride that the transition to independence for their colonies was much easier than other powers.[2] But the conflict gained further ammunition when the Foreign and Commonwealth Office released thousands of documents found at a government facility in Hanslope Park, divulging the atrocities committed by the British in the final years of rule in Kenya. The records revealed the atrocities committed during the Mau Mau Rebellion, including rape, torture, and denial of due process.[3]
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| David Cameron from BBC News |
The end of
the British Empire is the subject of both Imperial
Reckoning: The Untold Story of Britain’s Gulag in Kenya by Caroline Elkins
and Imperial Endgame: Britain’s Dirty
Wars and the End of Empire by Benjamin Grob-Fitzgibbon. Elkins examines the
British attempt to end the Mau Mau Rebellion through large-scale repression,
while Grob-Fitzgibbon looks at the last years of the Empire through case
studies of Palestine, Malaya, Kenya, Cyprus, and Aden. Both books challenge the
thesis of the benevolence of the Empire during its waning years and offer
pictures of atrocities and the struggle to maintain British control. 
Photograph: Martin Argles for the Guardian
The end of
World War II brought new circumstances to the world stage which challenged the
role of Britain. Neither the Conservative or Labour governments relished the
role as a junior partner to the USA. They hoped that along with the
Commonwealth, Britain would serve as a triumvirate of world powers alongside
the United States and the Soviet Union. The British needed a stable
Commonwealth of nations standing with the mother country to maintain their
status. As the Cold War began to grow in intensity, it became apparent that the
Big Three was finished.
Yet, the
rivalry between communism and capitalism meant that it was imperative that the
colonies within the British Empire remain within the Western orbit. The ability
of the British to administer their colonies during the post-war period divides
historians. Benjamin Grob-Fitzgibbon claims that while some imperial apologists
point to the British Empire as a success compared to other Europeans, most
contemporary historians see the British Empire in the twentieth century as a
picture of “decline, disarray, and despondency.”[4]
The loss of the Empire demonstrates weakness and defeat as Britain becomes
second-fiddle compared to the USA and USSR. Historians see that prior to the
'wind of change' speech delivered by Prime Minister Harold Macmillan, the
British Empire's final years were a "mismanaged disaster.”[5]
The British faced numerous insurgencies dominated by bombings, murders, and
terrorist groups leading to uncertainty and indecision. Grob-Fitzgibbon quotes
historian Ronald Hyam in his 2007 volume, Britain's
Declining Empire The Road to Decolonisation, 1918–1968, discussing the end
of the Empire, “Success is not a theme or prediction that history can endorse
for the twentieth-century British empire.”[6]
Grob-Fitzgibbon disputes the proposal that the ending of the
Empire was a sign of weakness. Rather, he contends that the British decolonization
succeeded despite the insurgencies because of their eventual Commonwealth
membership. He believes that an examination of imperial strategy reveals that
the British successfully secured their colonies for the “Commonwealth in an
orderly transfer of power while maintaining British influence in the region and
strengthening overall Western dominance in the Cold War world.”[7] Grob-Fitzgibbon
presents his study in a chronological fashion by looking at how successive
premierships dealt with the attempt to extinguish insurgencies within the
colonies. This allows one to see the overall approach and the transfer of
administrators and military across the Empire.
A
difficulty Grob-Fitzgibbon faces lies in his title, Dirty Wars. Historian Ashley Jackson says that it is difficult to
know on which side Grob-Fitzgibbon’s “bread is buttered” since he alternates
between a tone of condemnation in his introduction only to present a
conservative account of decolonization.[8] The
term “dirty war,” implies warfare that lies outside the bounds of a just war,
yet Grob-Fitzgibbon insists that his goal was to
present a balanced interpretation absent of either praise or denunciation.[9] He
desires to show that the groundwork for decolonization began in the 1940s and
1950s, not the 1960s, with a deliberate plan and not an improvised reaction to
multiple emergencies.[10]
He further contends that the violence accompanying the counter-insurgent
campaigns was inevitable despite the liberal aims of decolonization policies. Grob-Fitzgibbon argues that “liberal imperialism can
only be sustained by illiberal dirty wars.”[11]
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A wounded insurgent being held and questioned after his capture in 1952 from Wikipedia |
Grob-Fitzgibbon
successfully points to the common strategy used by the British against the
different insurgencies in their colonies. Administrators and military officers
often rotated to various colonies and trouble spots. General Henry Gurney
created British policy against the Zionist insurgency in Palestine in his role
as Chief Secretary from 1947 to 1948. He soon afterward served in Malaya from
1948 until 1951, directing military strategy against communist insurgents. In
Malaya, Gurney utilized lessons learned in Palestine to gain control in Malaya.
While he believed both situations were police issues rather than military
problems, he was instrumental in the resettlement of civilians to lessen the
support to communist insurgents.[12] The
overlap is evident in the impact of Malayan strategies on the tactics used in
Kenya. And while the stratagems used were horrific in Malaya, these plans rose
to a higher level of horror in Kenya. These were strategies also seen in Cyprus
and Aden. The hearts-and-minds policy impacted Kenya when Thomas Askwith
arrived from Malaya in 1953 to begin a new campaign. Askwith endorsed self-help
programs and community development but found his program sidelined as the
colonial government favored punitive measures.[13] 
Sir Henry Gurney, High Commissioner for Malaya photo from Wikipedia
Elkins
concentrates on the uprising of the Kikuyu towards British rule and the
encroachment onto their lands. Land was central to life and culture as the
ability to claim land was a sign of manhood for Kikuyu men. The loss of land derived
from the arrival of British settlers who acquired large estates in some of the
richest land in Kenya. Agricultural policies favored the settler population
while many Kikuyu remained within overpopulated reserves. The issue over land
led to the Kikuyu taking oaths “in a collective effort to fight the injustices
of British rule.”[14]
The oathing spread and evolved into the Mau Mau Rebellion. Both Kikuyu men and
women pledged to fight against British occupation for land and freedom. Groups
of Kikuyu formed armed groups in the forest and attacked settlers and Kikuyu
loyal to the colonial government. Attacks and vicious murders against settlers
moved the colonial government to take drastic measures against the adherents of
the Mau Mau movement. In 1952, the colonial government declared a state of
emergency, with the military sent against the Kikuyu combatants in the forest
while thousands faced detainment in camps throughout Kenya. The British set up
a system called the Pipeline, where the Kikuyu faced screening and often
torture to indoctrinate and transform the Kikuyu into subservient citizens. In
1954, the detainment camps greatly increased when the colonial government
instituted Operation Anvil which in “Gestapolike” manner detained the Kikuyu
population of Nairobi.[15] In
addition to those held in detainment camps, even larger numbers were forced
into villages controlled by loyal Africans and police. Nearly 1.5 million
experienced some form of detainment, comprising almost the entire Kikuyu
population.[16] 
Kikuyu detention camp in Kenya, photo from BBC News
Ironically,
according to Elkins, the goal of the British in Kenya was the civilizing
mission of the British Empire. The British consoled themselves with the belief
that their purpose in Keya was not exploitative but rather a moral duty. The
mission of the British Empire was to lift up the savage African to join the
modern world.[17] This civilizing crusade
allowed the British to direct a brutal campaign of terror against the Kikuyu as they believed the Mau Mau must be crushed
before Kenya achieved any form of self-determination. But even after
independence, the Colonial Office saw the need to preserve a place in Kenya for
whites. The British believed that the European community had a future role in
Kenya and were essential to civilizing the nation. The Mau Mau represented
savagery at its worst in the eyes of the British, who portrayed the rebels as
subhuman. The brutality and savagery of the Kikuyu provided the British with
the needed justification for the lack of due process, detention without trial, and
torture used against the Mau Mau.[18]
Grob-Fitzgibbon
also deals with the leadup to Kenyan independence. He proposed that the British
waged dirty wars to maintain control and allow more moderate indigenous rulers
to keep former colonies in the Commonwealth and in the Western orbit. He
asserts that this policy developed as early as the 1940s, and successfully kept
most colonies under British influence. Elkins agrees that the British goal for
Kenya was to put in place “hand-cultivated moderates who would help safeguard
British interests and protect the settlers after colonial retreat.”[19]
For British leaders, independence was impossible until Kenya possessed enough
enlightened and civilized leadership to guide the nation. Few within the
Colonial Office saw Kenyan independence as a possibility in the near future.
While Elkins and Grob-Fitzgibbon agree on the goal of the necessity of keeping
former colonies within the Commonwealth and the Western sphere, Elkins contends
that the timing of independence was vague at best. For many within the colonial
office, independence appeared to be a generation away if not longer.
Grob-Fitzgibbon
insists that his goal was not to pronounce a
moral judgment upon the conflicts during British decolonization, while Elkins provides
condemnation based on the many examples she offers of human rights abuse
committed during the attempts to destroy the Mau Mau. The tactics used to
defeat insurgents in Malaya also came with human rights abuses, but Grob-Fitzgibbon
still maintains the success of British counter-insurgency efforts. He believes
that situation in each of the former colonies might have been far bleaker if
the British abandoned these countries to the insurgent groups. To an accusation
that he possesses a Panglossian approach, Grob-Fitzgibbon
relies:
It is unfashionable in the academy today to employ the use of
counterfactuals, but in this instance it might prove helpful. Take Malaya, for
example, where a determined Communist insurgency, with Chinese backing,
attempted to replace the British colonial administration, its strategy
following very closely that employed by Communist insurgents in Korea and
Indochina/Vietnam. The alternative to a successful British counter-insurgency
in Malaya was not a Malayan Republic free of foreign control, but a
Chinese-dominated Communist one. Is it Panglossian to suggest that the eventual
path followed by Malaysia and Singapore—notwithstanding the very real problems
they have suffered—was preferable to the path followed by Vietnam and North
Korea over those same years, and in that sense British government actions were
successful when judged against their aims?[20]
Yet by saying that violence and even punitive
tactics were vital in preserving liberal democracy, Grob-Fitzgibbon makes a
moral judgment regarding the necessity of democracy and the place of newly
independent nations within the Western orbit. Elkins in contrast to Grob-Fitzgibbon points to the need for restorative
justice as evidenced by her participation in the lawsuit brought against the
British government by five elderly plaintiffs from Kenya’s highlands. Elkins
bemoaned the practice by the Colonial Office to destroy documents as colonies
gained independence but stressed hope that the discovery of other documents will
reveal tactics used in other former colonies such as Malaya and the possibility
for restorative justice and repairing injury.[21]
But
in Kenya, Grob-Fitzgibbon however, argues that the
relative stability of Kenya compared to other African nations points to the
success of British decolonization. He says:
In Kenya,to take another example, the atrocities Mau Mau committed
at Lari—not to mention the widespread intimidation and murder elsewhere, most
of which was suffered by black Kenyans rather than British settlers—is enough
to suggest that an alternative past in East Africa would have more probably
followed the example of Rwanda than reverted to a pre-colonial utopia. My
argument stems not from naı¨ve optimism about the recent past; quite the opposite.
It is only with a deep appreciation of how very much worse things might have
been that any notion of success can be supported.[22]
Still, the issue of a just war, especially
regarding civilians, nags at the question of British decolonization. In Malaya,
the British used the tactic of collective punishment in an effort to turn
non-combatants against the communist insurgents. Some civilians faced
resettlement into new villages to limit support for communists.[23]
Historian John Lonsdale offers the issue of just war in a roundtable discussion
regarding Grob-Fitzgibbon’s book. He admits that
all wars are dirty and contain elements that go against just war theory. While
the targeting of citizens is regrettable in insurgent warfare, it is often
almost impossible to avoid. Lonsdale explains:
Colonial emergencies could never be such potentially clean warfare;
they were ‘a-symmetric’, guerrilla, wars. Their front lines were not lines but
kaleidoscopes, scattering conflict around the subject population’s towns and
farms, under their beds and in their markets. Terrorists camouflaged themselves
as ordinary people; their tactics were sometimes designed to provoke reprisals
against the general population, in order to prove their political point.
Insurgents knew as well as incumbents that these were wars for public opinion
or ‘hearts and minds’[24]
In response, Grob-Fitzgibbon restates his
principle that “liberal imperialism can only be sustained by illiberal dirty
wars.” A liberal society needs the consent of the majority but those who break
the rules and refuse to operate within the laws of the system, then “their fate
can only be a meeting with illiberal measures. The existence of police forces
and prisons attest to this fact.”[25]
Elkins
disputes this and points to a mountain of atrocities that caught the guilty
and innocent within an oppressive scenario compounded with torture, rape, and
murder. Instead of appreciating a situation that could
be worse, Elkins repeatedly points to ethnic cleansing and crimes against
humanity. Several times, she compares the atrocities committed by the British
as comparable to the worst actions committed by Germany or the Soviet Union.
The subtitle, The Untold Story of
Britain’s Gulag in Kenya, brings up the worst carnages of the Soviet Union
under Stalin.
While
one might appreciate the fact that British colonies maintained a substance of
moderation compared to former European colonies that fell into civil wars and
chaos, one can still lament the fact that the British did not recognize that
indigenous people had valid complaints. Thomas Askwith remains a sad case of
someone who understood that the Kikuyu held reasonable complaints about
encroaching settlers and unfair treatment over the actions of the colonial
government. The refutation of Askwith, after the rejection of his
rehabilitation plans, left him a rejected and solitary figure. But Elkins
maintains that Askwith was mistaken about the inherent nature of British rule
in Kenya.[26] British rule in Kenya was
by its nature illiberal and oppressive and devised to benefit the colonial
rulers above all.
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| British Empire at its peak in 1921, picture from Wikipedia |
The membership of Malaysia, Kenya, and Cyprus in the British Commonwealth provide some validation to Grob-Fitzgibbon that there was an element of success to British decolonization. The ascendency of Jomo Kenyatta to the presidency of Kenya and his denunciation of the Mau Mau movement provide further evidence that Kenya would pursue a conservative direction. With the benefits of independence divided between “Kenyatta’s emerging oligarchy, the loyalists, and those settlers who remained in Kenya,” it appears that British influence remained.[27] But even a quick examination of the history of former British colonies reveals a tendency toward divisions and authoritarianism rather than stable liberal democracies. Malaya, Cyprus, and Kenya remain examples of countries that struggled between instability and democracy. The presidency of Kenyatta was plagued with corruption and authoritarianism and was far from being a liberal democracy. But the atrocities perpetrated by British authorities testify to the problems inherent in imperialism. Yet, it’s also evident from the court victory achieved by the five elderly victims of British brutality during the emergency that the cruelty and atrocities continue to remain a powerful memory. Elkins paints a powerful picture of a colonial power desperate to crush a native uprising with no clear plan for Kenyan independence. The horrors and tortures portrayed make for a tough read. The problem with Grob-Fitzgibbon’s argument that British anti-insurgent campaigns were a part of a decolonization plan by both the Labour and Conservative governments dating back to 1940 is any examination reveals that the British had no plans for decolonization during the post-war period. Grob-Fitzgibbon presents a helpful survey of the different post-war insurgent movements and British responses, yet the methods used were cruel and horrendous. The British appear to react to events rather than enact a plan of decolonization. While many former colonies remained with the Commonwealth, liberal democracies within these countries proved to be rare.
Kenya map from https://www.worldatlas.com/maps/kenya
Bibliography
Elkins, Caroline. Imperial Reckoning: The Untold Story of Britain’s Gulag in Kenya. New York: Henry Holt and Company, 2005.
Elkins, Caroline. "Looking beyond Mau Mau." The American Historical Review 120, no. 3 (June 2015): 852-68.
Grob-Fitzgibbon, Benjamin. "Debate: Further Thoughts on the Imperial Endgame and Britain's Dirty Wars." The Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History 40, no. 3 (September 2012): 503-14.
Grob-Fitzgibbon, Benjamin. Imperial Endgame: Britain’s Dirty Wars and the End of Empire. New York: Pelgrave Macmillian, 2011.
Jackson, Ashley.
"Review." The English
Historical Review 126, no. 523 (December 2011): 1588-90.
Kirkup, James, and Christopher Hope. "Cameron: UK Caused Many of the World’s Problems." The Daily Telegraph, April 6, 2011. https://www.newspapers.com/image/754184654/?terms=David%20Cameron%20Pakistan&match=1
Macintyre, Ben. "50 years later: Britain's Kenya cover-up revealed." Times, April 5, 2011. The Times
Osborne, Peter. "Sorry, But its not Right to Apologise." The Daily Telegraph, April 6, 2011. https://www.newspapers.com/image/754184892/?terms=David%20Cameron%20Pakistan&match=1.
"Round-Tables." Britain and the World 4, no. 2 (2011): 303-44.
[1]
James Kirkup and Christopher Hope, “Cameron: UK Caused Many of the World’s
Problems,” The Daily Telegraph, April
6, 2011. https://www.newspapers.com/image/754184654/?terms=David%20Cameron%20Pakistan&match=1
[2]
Peter Osborne, “Sorry, But its not Right to Apologise,” The Daily Telegraph, April 6, 2011. https://www.newspapers.com/image/754184892/?terms=David%20Cameron%20Pakistan&match=1
[3]
Ben Macintyre, 50 years later: Britain's Kenya cover-up revealed," Times, 5 Apr. 2011, 1. The Times Digital
Archive,
link.gale.com/apps/doc/IF0504207478/TTDA?u=lln_alsu&sid=bookmark-TTDA&xid=edf2c16e.
[4] Benjamin Grob-Fitzgibbon, Imperial Endgame: Britain’s Dirty Wars and
the End of Empire (New York: Pelgrave Macmillian, 2011), 1.
[5] Grob-Fitzgibbon,
1.
[6] Grob-Fitzgibbon,1.
[7] Grob-Fitzgibbon,
3.
[8]
Ashley Jackson, The English Historical
Review, vol. 126, No. 523, December 2011, 1589.
[9]Benjamin
Grob-Fitzgibbon, “Debate: Further Thoughts on the
Imperial Endgame and Britain’s Dirty Wars,” The Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History, Vol. 40, No.3,
September 2012, 503.
[10] Grob-Fitzgibbon,
“Debate: Further Thoughts on the Imperial Endgame and Britain’s Dirty Wars,”
509.
[12] Grob-Fitzgibbon,
Imperial Endgame: Britain’s Dirty Wars and the End of Empire, 196.
[13] Caroline
Elkins, Imperial Reckoning: The Untold
Story of Britain’s Gulag in Kenya, (New York: Henry Holt and Company,
2005),103.
[15]
Elkins, Imperial Reckoning, 121.
[16]
Elkins, Imperial Reckoning, xv.
[18]
Elkins, Imperial Reckoning, 97.
[19]
Elkins, Imperial Reckoning, 60.
[20] Grob-Fitzgibbon, “Debate:
Further Thoughts on the Imperial Endgame and Britain’s Dirty Wars,” 508.
[21]
Caroline Elkins, “Looking beyond Mau Mau,” The
American Historical Review, 120, No. 3, (June 2015), 867. https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.2307/26577260
[22] Grob-Fitzgibbon,
“Debate: Further Thoughts on the Imperial Endgame and Britain’s Dirty Wars,”
508.
[23] Grob-Fitzgibbon, Imperial
Endgame: Britain’s Dirty Wars and the End of Empire, 106.
[24]
John Lonsdale, “Round-Tables,” Britain and the World, 4.2 (2011), 333.
[25] Benjamin
Grob-Fitzgibbon, “Round-Tables,” Britain
and the World, 4.2 (2011), 343.
[27] Elkins,
Imperial Reckoning, 361.
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