Book on the Bloody Reality of the British Empire

John Newsinger, The Blood Never Dried: A People’s History of the British Empire (London: Bookmarks Publications 2006).

John Newsinger is the senior lecturer in Bath Spa University College’s school of History and Cultural Studies. He’s also a long-time contributor to the conspiracy/ parapolitics magazine Lobster. The book was written nearly a decade and a half ago as a rejoinder to the type of history the Tories would like taught in schools again, and which you see endless recited by the right-wing voices on the web, like ‘the Britisher’, that the British Empire was fundamentally a force for good, spreading peace, prosperity and sound government around the world. The book’s blurb runs

George Bush’s “war on terror” has inspired a forest of books about US imperialism. But what about Britain’s role in the world? The Blood Never Dried challenges the chorus of claims that British Empire was a kinder, gentler force in the world.

George Orwell once wrote that imperialism consists of the policeman and soldier holding the “native” down while the businessman goes through his pockets. But the violence of the empire has also been met by the struggle for freedom, from slaves in Jamaica to the war for independence in Kenya.

John Newsinger sets out to uncover this neglected history of repression and resistance at the heart of the British Empire. He also looks at why the declining British Empire has looked to an alliance with US imperialism. To the boast that “the sun never set on the British Empire”, the Chartist Ernest Jones replied, “And the blood never dried”. 

One of the new imperialists to whom Newsinger takes particular exception is the right-wing historian Niall Ferguson. Newsinger begins the book’s introduction by criticising Ferguson’s 2003 book, Empire: How Britain Made the Modern World, and its successor, Colossus: The Rise and Fall of the American Empire. Newsinger views these books as a celebration of imperialism as a duty that the powerful nations owe to their weaker brethren. One of the problem with these apologists for imperialism, he states, is their reluctance to acknowledge the extent that the empires they laud rested on the use of force and the perpetration of atrocities. Ferguson part an idyllic childhood, or part of it, in newly independent Kenya. But nowhere does he mention that the peace and security he enjoyed were created through the brutal suppression of the Mau Mau. He states that imperialism has two dimensions – one with the other, competing imperial powers, which have driven imperial expansion, two World Wars and a Cold War, and cost countless lives. And another with the peoples who are conquered and subjugated. It is this second relationship he is determined to explore. He sums up that relationship in the quote from Orwell’s Burmese Days.

Newsinger goes on to state that

It is the contention here that imperial occupation inevitably involved the use of violence and that, far from this being a glorious affair, it involved considerable brutality against people who were often virtually defenceless.

The 1964 film Zulu is a particular example of the type of imperial history that has been taught for too long. It celebrates the victory of a small group of British soldiers at Rourke’s Drift, but does not mention the mass slaughter of hundreds of Zulus afterwards. This was the reality of imperial warfare, of which Bush’s doctrine of ‘shock and awe’ is just a continuation. He makes the point that during the 19th and 20th centuries the British attacked, shelled and bombed city after city, leaving hundreds of casualties. These bombardments are no longer remembered, a fate exemplified by the Indonesian city of Surabaya, which we shelled in 1945. He contrasts this amnesia with what would have happened instead if it had been British cities attacked and destroyed.

He makes it clear that he is also concerned to celebrate and ‘glorify’ resistance to empire, from the slaves in the Caribbean, Indian rebels in the 1850s, the Irish republicans of the First World War, the Palestinian peasants fighting the British and the Zionist settlers in the 1930s, the Mau Mau in the 1950s and the Iraqi resistance today. He also describes how radicals and socialists in Britain protested in solidarity with these resistance movements. The Stop the War Coalition stands in this honourable tradition, and points to the comment, quoted in the above blurb, by the Chartist and Socialist Ernest Jones in the 1850s. Newsinger states ‘Anti-imperialists today stand in the tradition of Ernest Jones and William Morris, another socialist and fierce critic of the empire – a tradition to be proud of.’

As for the supporters of imperialism, they have to be asked how they would react if other countries had done to us what we did to them, such as Britain’s conduct during the Opium War? He writes

The British Empire, it is argued here, is indefensible, except on the premise that the conquered peoples were somehow lesser being than the British. What British people would regard as crimes if done to them, are somehow justified by supporters of the empire when done to others, indeed were actually done for their own good. This attitude is at the very best implicitly racist, and, of course, often explicitly so.

He also attacks the Labour party for its complicity in imperialism. There have been many individual anti-imperialist members of the Labour party, and although Blair dumped just about everything the Labour party stood for domestically, they were very much in the party’s tradition in their support for imperialism and the Iraq invasion. The Labour party’s supposed anti-imperialist tradition is, he states, a myth invented for the consumption of its members.

He also makes it clear that the book is also concerned with exploring Britain’s subordination to American imperialism. While he has very harsh words for Blair, describing his style as a combination of sincerity and dishonesty, the cabinet as ‘supine’ and Labour MPs as the most contemptible in the party’s history, this subordination isn’t actually his. It is institutional and systemic, and has been practised by both Tory and Labour governments despite early concerns by the British to maintain some kind of parity with the Americans. He then goes on to say that by opposing our own government, we are participating in the global fight against American imperialism. And the struggle against imperialism will go on as long as it and capitalism are with us.

This is controversial stuff. When Labour announced that they wanted to include the British empire in the school history curriculum, Sargon of Gasbag, the man who wrecked UKIP, produced a video attacking it. He claimed that Labour wanted to teach British children to hate themselves. The photo used as the book’s cover is also somewhat controversial, because it’s of a group of demonstrators surrounding the shot where Bernard McGuigan died. McGuigan was one of the 14 peaceful protesters shot dead by British soldiers in Derry/London Derry in Bloody Sunday in 1972. But no matter how controversial some might find it, it is a necessary corrective to the glorification of empire most Brits have been subjected to since childhood, and which the Tories and their corporate backers would like us to return.

The book has the following contents:

The Jamaican Rebellion and the Overthrow of Slavery, with individual sections on the sugar empire, years of revolution, overthrow of slavery, abolition and the Morant Bay rebellion of 1865.

The Irish Famine, the great hunger, evictions, John Mitchel and the famine, 1848 in Ireland, and Irish republicanism.

The Opium Wars, the trade in opium, the First Opium War, the Taiping rebellion and its suppression, the Second Opium War, and the Third Opium War.

The Great Indian Rebellion, 1857-58, the conquest of India, company rule, the rebellion, war and repression. The war at home, and the rebellion’s aftermath.

The Invasion of Egypt, 1882, Khedive Ismail and the bankers, demand for Egyptian self-rule, the Liberal response, the vast numbers of Egyptians killed, the Mahdi’s rebellion in the Sudan, and the reconquest of Egypt.

The Post-War Crisis, 1916-26, the Irish rebellion, 1919 Egyptian revolt, military rule in India, War in Iraq, and the 1925 Chinese revolution.

The Palestine Revolt, Zionism and imperialism, the British Mandate, the road to revolt, the great revolt, and the defeat and aftermath.

Quit India, India and the Labour Party, towards ‘Quit India’, the demand for the British to leave, the final judgement on British rule in India and the end of British rule.

The Suez Invasion: Losing the Middle East, Iranian oil, Egypt and the canal zone, Nasser and the road to war, collusion and invasion, aftermath, the Iraqi endgame.

Crushing the Mau Mau in Kenya, pacification, the Mau Mau revolt, war, repression, independence, the other rebellion: Southern Rhodesia.

Malaya and the Far East, the First Vietnam War, Indonesia 1945-6 – a forgotten intervention, the reoccupation of Malaya, the emergency and confrontation.

Britain and the American Empire, Labour and the American alliance, from Suez to Vietnam, British Gaullism, New Labour, and the Iraq invasion.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Lyra McKee and the Return of the Troubles in Northern Ireland

Yesterday Mike reported the death of Lyra McKee, a crusading journalist in Ulster, who was shot dead during rioting at the Creggan estate in Derry. Police had been despatched their to search for arms and ammunition that it was feared would be used by Republican terrorists, hoping to commemorate the 1916 Easter Rising with a return to violence and bloodshed.

Mike makes the point that there are no reasons good enough to justify murder, and that 21 years after the Good Friday agreement there must be a commitment instead to friendship. Power must once again be restored to the Stormont Assembly, and the people of the Six Counties should be shown that the Irish border will remain open, whatever Britain’s relationship with the EU is like.

He states that the best way to shut down violence is to remove the cause for it. But Tweezer has instead stated that ‘nothing has changed’. Well, problems with a political cause need a political solution, and so he asks May squarely why nothing has changed.

See: https://voxpoliticalonline.com/2019/04/19/journalist-shot-dead-in-northern-ireland-21-years-after-good-friday-agreement-why/

I think we all know the reason for that. Devolved government in Northern Ireland has collapsed through a failure of the two coalition parties to cooperate. And Tweezer has increased insecurities over the Irish border through her determination to hold on to power at the expense of a proper Brexit deal or alternative government, that could find one. And she is being propped up by a Loyalist party with very extreme views, linked to political corruption and terrorism.

The people of Ulster and the British people need and deserve better.

One of the problems Jerry Adams faced in selling the Good Friday agreement to the Republicans was that to many of them, it was simply a return to the situation before the Troubles. Northern Ireland had a devolved assembly, but it’s government was taken over by Westminster after the Troubles broke out. And there was a ‘hard border’ with Eire. Now that the government of the Six Counties is once again in the hands of Britain and there is again a prospect of a hard border returning, it is not surprising that anxiety among the Nationalist community in Ulster is rising and that dissident Republicans are seeking to exploit this and begin the terrorist campaign again.

It’s time this was stopped before it began, as Mike said. It’s time there was a renewed commitment to making democracy work in Northern Ireland, no hard border with Eire, and Tweezer and her wretched Brexit scheme out from No. 10. And preferably Corbyn in, who was never a supporter of terrorism, and had the respect of all the parties in Northern Ireland. And we need this immediately, before more innocents are killed.

Lobster on Secret State Anti-Labour Smears in National Archives

Editor Robin Ramsay has added another update to the ‘View from the Bridge’ section of the conspiracy/parapolitics magazine Lobster, for issue 77, Summer 2019. Amongst the other news and comments is a piece ‘IRD and Fake News’, about the the depositing of 2,000 IRD files in the National Archives. The Beeb’s correspondent, Sanchia Berg, covered it in an article, ‘”Fake News” – sent out by government department’ on the BBC News website.

The IRD – Information Research Department – was a section of the British secret services set up during the Cold War to produce disinformation, black propaganda and psy-ops against the Russians and any other enemies of Britain, real or perceived. Berg in her article states this is the first time the IRD’s own forgeries have been revealed. Ramsay doubts that’s the case, as there were other forgeries in the possession of Colin Wallace, a whistleblower on the government’s dirty tricks during the war against the IRA in Northern Ireland. Others were also sent to Ramsay himself. He states that it was unclear, who concocted them, IRD or MI5. Most seemed to be aimed at foreign journos, who wouldn’t be able to tell if they were authentic or not. He also states that most of them were intended to portray the IRA as a front for the Soviets.

Ramsay gives an example of this black propaganda in his piece, though he acknowledges that it’s a poor copy. It’s a poster for a vigil to commemorate the victims of Bloody Sunday in Derry. The poster is real, but has been altered to include the names of the Labour MPs Merlyn Rees, Stan Orme, David Owen,  Tony Benn and Paul Rose.

See: https://www.lobster-magazine.co.uk/free/lobster77/lob77-view-from-the-bridge.pdf

This just adds more information that the secret state has been smearing the Labour left, with the connivance of the British media, for a very long time. In the case of MI5, such smears go back to the Zinoviev letter in the 1920s. It’s very clear that you cannot believe anything the papers or the British state says about Jeremy Corbyn and the Labour party.

Other items of interest in the recent update include Ramsay’s own comments attacking Boris Johnson’s criticism of the Bloody Sunday inquiry, and evidence that the Americans knew Iran, rather than Libya, was responsible for the Lockerbie bombing. Oh yes, and there is also evidence that they also knew that the Red Army, rather than being a ruthlessly efficient machine ready to roll over the West, was a drunken shambles. But that was suppressed because it didn’t fit the established narrative of the Soviet threat.

Tories’ Karen Bradley Insults Innocent Victims of the British Army in Northern Ireland

Yesterday Mike also put up a piece about Karen Bradley, the current Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, who seems determined to wreck the Tories’ chances of retaining any support in Ulster. They are supposed to be the Conservative and Unionist Party, but you wouldn’t know it, considering the contempt she appeared to show the innocents killed by the British army during the Troubles. Bradley declared that the people killed by the army were not crimes, constituted only 10 per cent of the deaths during the Troubles, and that the police and military fulfilled their duties in a dignified and appropriate way. This naturally caused outrage, as there is plentiful evidence that they didn’t. She then made matters worse by trying to clarify her comments by saying that where there is evidence of wrongdoing, it should be investigated. This appears to contradict her earlier comments, which suggests that there is no such evidence.

Mike therefore put up a series of tweets by Clare Allan, which list some of the unarmed protesters gunned down by the army during Bloody Sunday. Mike makes the point that he doesn’t know the details behind each incident and so is not saying it should be given legal weight. But it is clear that Allan herself believes they were killed illegally, and this shows the reason for the outrage Bradley’s comments have caused.

https://voxpoliticalonline.com/2019/03/08/supporters-of-the-jewish-labour-movement-respond-to-this-sites-critique-with-abuse/

Bloody Sunday is one of the most infamous events in the Troubles. It was when the  British army shot an unarmed Roman Catholic civil rights demonstration. The army has claimed in its defence that it believed that IRA terrorists were hiding amongst the demonstrators and were preparing an attack. This might be true, but it seems that many of those shot were unarmed, non-violent demonstrators. And it has left a long and bitter memory. Nearly two decades ago I went to an art exhibition in one of the pubs in Cheltenham, showing the works by some of the students and graduates of the art school there. It was avant-garde, conceptualist stuff. One of the pieces consisted of the portraits of seven demonstrators killed at Bloody Sunday covered in lead as a comment on their deaths.

As for the police, the army was originally sent in because the RUC, dominated by Protestant loyalists, was too brutal. There is also evidence that the British government embedded SAS troopers in with regular soldiers, who then acted as death squads against Republicans. I have also heard stories from non-sectarian relatives, who grew up in Ulster, that some of the squaddies’ attitude to ordinary Roman Catholics was less than ‘dignified’ and ‘appropriate’. But people there felt they could not speak out, because if they did, they’d be put in the Maze as a ‘Fenian’.

I am very much aware that the police and armed services risked their lives to maintain peace in the province, and that if they had been removed without a peace agreement, the violence and bloodshed between Nationalist and Loyalist would have been even more horrific. But this does not alter the fact that there are serious questions still to be answered about the conduct of the police and British army during the Troubles. And as we’ve also seen, the recent car bomb in Londonderry shows and the uncertainty about the Irish backstop and Brexit shows that the peace is still very delicate. Mo Mowlam and Jeremy Corbyn performed a considerable achievement in bringing about peace in the Six Counties. A piece Bradley and the Tories seem willing to destroy with their tactless and ill-considered remarks.