Richard
Beeston, Diplomatic Editor
BRITAIN’S colonial legacy around the globe is so damaging
that Jack Straw devotes much of his time as Foreign Secretary
trying to undo its malign influence.
In
controversial remarks published this week, Mr Straw said that
Britain was to blame for many of the world’s current crises,
ranging from the Indian sub-continent to the Middle East and Africa.
“There’s
a lot wrong with imperialism,” he told the New Statesman
magazine. “A lot of the problems I have to deal with now
are a consequence of our colonial past.”
Mr
Straw, who described himself as a “democratic socialist”,
contradicted the views of Robert Cooper, one of his own senior
diplomats, who coined the phrase “liberal imperialism”
to describe recent military interventions by the Government in
Kosovo, Sierra Leone and Afghanistan.
“India,
Pakistan — we made some quite serious mistakes,” Mr
Straw said. “We were complacent with what happened in Kashmir,
the boundaries weren’t published until two days after independence.
Bad story for us, the consequences are still there.” He
also singled out Afghanistan, “where we played less than
a glorious role over a century and a half”.
He
blamed Britain for many of the troubles in the Middle East, where
the Government is pressing without success the search for peace
between Israelis and Palestinians and possibly preparing for a
war against Iraq this winter.
“The
odd lines for Iraq’s borders were drawn by Brits,”
said Mr Straw. “The Balfour declaration and the contradictory
assurances which were being given to Palestinians in private at
the same time as they were being given to the Israelis —
again an interesting story for us but not an entirely honourable
one.” His most provocative remarks concerned Zimbabwe, where
Britain has been locked in a dispute with President Mugabe over
the seizure of white-owned farms and the violent intimidation
of the opposition.
Mr
Straw said that he had had “huge arguments” with Mr
Mugabe, but added: “However, when any Zimbabwean, any African,
says to me land is a key issue . . . the early colonisers were
all about taking land.”
Michael
Ancram, the Shadow Foreign Secretary, said that Mr Straw was missing
the point and should save his criticism for Mr Mugabe rather than
the people suffering in his country.
“Jack
Straw is fantasising. When did his ‘huge arguments’
with Mugabe take place? Have they been clandestine? The people
of Zimbabwe have not heard them and neither have we,” he
said.
“When
and how does he intend to raise the game against the tyranny of
Mugabe in Zimbabwe?” he said. “He is all spin and
no action. The suffering people of Zimbabwe deserve better.”
Lord
Wallace of Saltaire, the Liberal Democrats’ foreign affairs
spokesman, said that he agreed with Mr Straw’s views on
the British Empire, but also strongly supported the concept of
liberal imperialism when it meant intervening to save lives in
conflicts like Kosovo or Sierra Leone.
“We
are stuck with far too many problems inherited from our imperial
past,” he said. “But I disagree with Jack Straw on
the concept of liberal imperialism. There is a real problem in
dealing with weak and failing states around the world . . . Liberal
imperialism means doing the right thing for the right reasons.”
William
Dalrymple, a writer on both India and the Middle East, said that
Britain must shoulder much of the responsibility for today’s
conflicts in Palestine and Kashmir.
“I
think Straw has a point,” the author of White Mughals and
From the Holy Mountain said.
“There
were some positive aspects of Britain’s relations with India.
But there is no doubt that the speed, clumsiness and chaotic withdrawal
from India and Palestine left the seeds for the modern conflict,”
he said.
