Anticolonialists have their myths too

Much is now being made of the evils of empire. As a child of empire I bridle. I acknowledge the wrong and injustices of colonialism, the racism, and the greed too. I accept that a re-balancing of history was due. It’s good that the darker side of the picture has now moved into the light.

But from my own boyhood experience I know that mixed among the aims of empire there were also idealism, principle, and a belief in the betterment of those we governed. And success: there were things to be proud of. The roots of my mix of pride and shame about empire are the impressions a white boy in Africa formed of the continent on which our forefathers had landed. I cannot ignore, as some anticolonial opinion does, the situation they came to.

What is now Zimbabwe (for instance) was not a stable, peaceful and kindly society. It was the front line of an immense and violent land-grab by one tribe — the warlike Matabele — from another, the peaceful, pastoral Mashona already settled there.