Hiding the truth

This year marks the 70th anniversary of Britain’s retreat from India.

However, the British Government’s comprehensive burning of all records of colonial rule is something we hear less about, and is an example of how ‘civilised’ societies can succeed in oppressing the less powerful without backlash. The method is simple and incredibly powerful: just make sure that most people don’t see what is actually happening.

This explains why the slave trade kept British soil slave-free (the injustice was kept out of sight and out of mind), used fine-sounding euphemisms (‘Africa Trade’) and reacted so violently when abolitionists started circulating pictures of what was being done to our African brothers and sisters.