The Last Imperialist by Bruce Gilley

Author:Bruce Gilley [Gilley, Bruce]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781684512225
Publisher: Regnery Gateway
Published: 2021-09-21T00:00:00+00:00

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Alan celebrated victory at the V-E parade in Accra in 1945 by donning his feathered and medaled gubernatorial costume made of heavy wool, “designed by the Colonial Office to kill off governors in the tropics,” as he joked. What did the future of colonialism look like to Sir Alan Burns as he paraded in his lethal finery? As with the last war, nothing would ever be the same. “The lunacy of European wars, in which the white races have nearly succeeded in destroying their own civilization, has lost them, possibly forever, their scarcely questioned position of authority over the coloured world,” Alan would write.114 In addition to the carnage, the frequent appeals to liberty, democracy, and human rights by the Allies again redounded at home once the last shots were fired.115 The Anglo-American Atlantic Charter of 1941 insisted on “the right of all peoples to choose the form of government under which they will live.” It was inevitable that large numbers of young men put into a liberal organization for an extended period would return home inspired by this promise of change. “The war has generated new ideas and created a new sense of values throughout the world, and West Africa too has caught the spirit of the age,” one Ghanaian soldier wrote. Another who served in India, where independence talks were proceeding, recalled: “We saw no reason why India should be granted independence and not our African colonies, because we didn’t see much difference between India and Ghana.”116

As ever, colonialism begat nationalism which begat decolonization. It was a self-liquidating enterprise, and for those who took the long view, this had been the plan all along. One could not as a liberal country engage another area without that same liberalism seeping through. As Alan would write: “Many people believe that the clamour in British colonies for independence is proof of the failure of colonialism.… We believe it to be, on the contrary, an indication of the success of our policy, which was designed to make these people fit to govern themselves.”117

The international politics of colonialism had also shifted. The United States was willing to accede to the necessity of continued colonialism in the short-term if colonial powers promised political independence in the long term. The United States itself became a “colonial” power after the war with a mandate (now called a trusteeship) in the Pacific islands from the new United Nations. The rise of the Soviet Union as a Cold War rival also motivated Washington to support the colonial status quo. Yet this new international politics—UN involvement and a superpower rivalry—also posed problems for colonialism. If middle-class support for the colonial endeavor evaporated on the home front, then UN agitators would push for an acceleration of plans for independence while the United States, fearful of being outbid by Moscow, would throw its weight behind rapid decolonization. As Alan marched in full regalia across the parade ground in Accra that day in 1945—“the grandiloquent boast of weak men”—his own doubts were on the rise.

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