Whose Remembrance? A scoping study of the available research on ex-colonial communities and the experience of two world wars

第一次世界大战期间，成千上万的东非人被征召加入非战斗人员的航空母舰军团，以支持英国在非洲对抗德国人的战役；到1917年10月，将近29,000人死于“疾病或事故”。一支大约有10万人的中国劳工队主要来自英国殖民地威海，而一支超过55000人的埃及劳工队则分别在西线和中东地区为英军提供必要的支援。南非土著劳工团为非洲和欧洲提供了大约7万名工作人员，其中616人死于1917年2月21日他们的船Mendi号在英法海峡相撞后沉没。在第二次世界大战中，成千上万的非洲人和成千上万的印度人在北非、意大利和缅甸与英军一起服役，当时大量的原材料也从西非运往英国。这些事实在今天的英国鲜为人知。历史学家追溯了大英帝国殖民地人民对两次世界大战的看法（包括那些自愿或被征召入伍的人的亲身经历）、这些未来国家独立运动的发展以及从这些国家移民到联合王国的模式之间的连续性。英国还开展了进一步的工作，探索对这段早期历史的认识在处理“英国性”概念和其他问题方面所起的作用，这些问题既存在于移民产生的社区，也存在于“东道国”社区。然而，对殖民地参与这些冲突的情况仍然普遍缺乏了解，这表明在这方面仍有余地进行更多的工作。这样的工作将提供一个更好的历史视角框架，以便向他人展示这些社区，并加强社区自己对其遗产和身份的认识。帝国战争博物馆涵盖了自1914年以来英国和帝国/英联邦参与的冲突的各个方面，其藏品包括大量的个人回忆、文物和艺术品、电影和摄影作品——其中相当大一部分记录了殖民军队的经历以及战争对前殖民地“后方”的影响。博物馆的几位策展人已经发展了这一领域的专业知识，并向外部开放给新的观众。博物馆——目前BME观众在其游客档案中代表性不足——决心继续其已经开始的工作，以便使这两个世界大战中鲜为人知的方面得到更大的重视。博物馆将与一个由学术和社区历史学家组成的顾问小组协商，进行审查，该小组将为调查人员提供指导。他们将对文学和其他媒体作品（电视和广播纪录片、网站等）进行调查，以确定哪些领域已经完成了工作，更具体地说，哪些工作仍有待完成，以描绘“殖民地”参与两次世界大战的历史，并发展当今社区对这段历史的理解。为今后的工作确定的主题将不限于那些来自曾经的殖民地的人和前帝国权力的居民之间的交往，而且还包括社区内和社区间关系的历史。例如，将探讨“印度”社区的印度教徒、锡克教徒和穆斯林组成部分之间的关系，或加勒比和非洲社区之间的关系。它还将涵盖现在在英国的来自殖民世界部分地区的社区，如越南和菲律宾，这些地区从未受到英国的统治，但仍受到世界大战的影响，这将是有益的。

During the First World War, tens of thousands of East Africans were drafted into a non-combatant Carrier Corps to support the British campaign against the Germans in Africa; by October 1917, almost 29,000 of them had died of 'disease or accident'. A Chinese Labour Corps of some 100,000 men drawn largely from the British colony of Weihai and an Egyptian Labour Corps, with over 55,000, were at the same time providing essential support to British forces on the Western Front and in the Middle East respectively. A South African Native Labour Corps provided some 70,000 personnel for service in both Africa and Europe, 616 of whom died when their ship, the Mendi, sank following a collision in the Channel on 21 February 1917. Many tens of thousands of Africans and hundreds of thousands of people from India served with the British forces in North Africa, Italy and Burma in the Second World War, when vast quantities of raw materials were also sent from West Africa to the UK. These facts are little known in Britain today.Historians have traced continuities between the perception of the two World Wars by the peoples of the colonies of the British Empire (including the lived experiences of those who volunteered or were conscripted for service), the development of independence movements in those future nations and patterns of migration from them to the United Kingdom. Further work has also been done in the UK to explore the role played by awareness of this earlier history in dealing with notions of 'Britishness' and other issues both among the communities deriving from such migration and in the 'host' community. Continuing widespread lack of understanding of the colonies' participation in those conflicts nonetheless shows that there remains room for very much more work in this area. Such work will provide a better framework of historical perspective for the representation of these communities to others, and strengthen the communities' own perception of their heritage and identity.The Imperial War Museum covers all aspects of conflicts in which Britain and the Empire/Commonwealth have been involved since 1914, and its collections include extensive holdings of personal reminiscences, artefacts and works of art, film and photography - a very considerable proportion of which documents the experience of colonial troops and the impacts that the war made on the 'home fronts' of former colonies. Several curators at the Museum have developed expertise in this field and have engaged externally in opening it up to new audiences. The Museum - where BME audiences are currently under-represented in its visitor profile - is determined to continue the work it has already begun so that this lesser- known aspect of the two world wars is given greater prominence. The review will be undertaken by the Museum in consultation with an advisory panel of academic and community historians who will provide guidance to the investigators. They will undertake a survey of literature and other media productions (television and radio documentaries, websites etc) to identify areas where work has already been done and, more particularly, where work remains to be done to draw out the history of 'colonial' participation in the two World Wars and to develop present-day communities' understanding of that history. Topics identified for future work will not be restricted to those relating to dealings between people originating in one-time colonies and the inhabitants of a former Imperial power, but to the history of intra- and inter-community relations as well. For example, relationships between the Hindu, Sikh and Muslim components of the 'Indian' community, or between the Caribbean and African communities, will be explored. It will also be instructive to cover communities now in Britain that originate from parts of the colonised world such as Vietnam and the Philippines that were never under British rule but which were still affected by the World Wars.