The British government has apologized for not commemorating the black and Asian soldiers who died in World War I for the British Empire. These estimated 116,000 victims were previously not named or even commemorated at all. This did happen with white victims.
“I would like to apologize on behalf of the current and then governments,” said British Defense Secretary Ben Wallace in Parliament. He spoke of “profound racism”. According to Wallace, there is no doubt that prejudice has played a role before. He also said that he regrets that the apologies have been delayed.
Independent research
Research into the commemoration of killed war soldiers recently showed that the fallen soldiers from Africa and the Middle East were “unequally commemorated”. The research was carried out by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission, which is committed to equal commemoration of the war dead in the two World Wars, regardless of rank, background or religion.
The investigation was initiated in response to the documentary Unremembered from 2019. It revealed mass graves in Kenya and Tanzania, former colonies of the United Kingdom, into which the bodies of Africans had been dumped. That happened without any form of commemoration, states parliamentarian David Lammy, who was involved in the documentary at the time.
The fallen soldiers were not given a tombstone or other memorial as this was seen by the administrators as a waste of British public money. A governor of a British colony said in 1923 that “the average aborigine would not understand or appreciate a tombstone,” the report said.
Dignity
In his speech, Wallace said the British government will take action to rectify past events. For example, the archives are searched for the names of the victims and how local communities want to see them remembered.
“I am glad that the men who were taken from their villages and forced to fight for the British Empire can now regain their dignity,” Lammy said at the BBC.
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