First World War: Empire and Commonwealth Troops

Lord Griffiths of Burry Port Excerpts

Monday 4th June 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Griffiths of Burry Port (Lab)]

My Lords, when we ask Ministers whether they are planning to commemorate the contribution made by Empire and Commonwealth troops during the First World War, we already know the answer. They will give a resounding yes to that question and point to their record thus far—to all the events and memorials both here and across the world, on which lots of money is spent. All we can do is simply endorse any tendency to self-congratulation that they offer, since the worthy recipient of the attention and the resource has been well testified to in various speeches this evening.

The fields from which troops were drawn have been mentioned by noble Lords one after another. When she spoke in such a debate not long ago, the noble Baroness, Lady Warsi, reminded us that it was not just Tommies but Tariqs and Tajinders too. She was echoing Mahomet Kemal Ataturk, who reminded us after Gallipoli that it was Mehmets as well as Johnnies who made the ultimate sacrifice, and that their bodies would be well looked after in the fields where they had fallen.

Incidentally, and perhaps this is a bit of a sales pitch, I was at the Sheldonian Theatre in Oxford on Saturday to hear our Parliament Choir and the Dunedin choir from the University of Otago give voice, for the first time north of the equator, to an oratorio called “Gallipoli to the Somme”. It was one of the most moving pieces of music that I have ever heard, and the presence of Indian troops, as well as New Zealanders and Australians was well mentioned in it. It will be repeated at the Queen Elizabeth Hall in the next couple of weeks, and I hope that my mentioning it at the Dispatch Box and the record in Hansard will persuade many noble Lords to attend. It is well worth it.

As we commend the Government, we must admit the distinct note of irony that occurs to some of us. These days, in our approach to the question of immigration, we have shown again and again a cold indifference to the efforts of people from what was then the British Empire—the same countries whose war efforts we want to commemorate. Crude criteria have evolved: as we heard from my noble friend Lady Kingsmill, other criteria now replace those that affected her. People cannot even attend family events or strengthen twinning relationships or other informal relationships because of the way our immigration system works against such things happening. One only has to give voice, as many have, to the word “Windrush” to capture the sense of frustration and injustice that reigns in these matters. It is disturbing that Ministers do not appear to see the connection between these actions.

Thanks are due to the people from the United Kingdom’s former dominions and colonies for the suffering that they underwent and the courage that they displayed, but surely that should not be separated from some kind of obligation to treat present-day citizens from those same lands in a fairer, more transparent and more generous manner. I do not much believe in making apologies for historic injustice or in giving thanks for the sacrificial acts of a century ago unless those apologies and that gratitude have cash value. Another way of putting that would be that we might rediscover some commitment to honour Commonwealth citizens in our day.

Once the First World War was declared, the opening and final shots were fired in different parts of Africa. I am glad that there has been ample mention of the East Africa campaign, especially the role of the porters and bearers. Some 646 died in the sinking of the SS “Mendi” in the English Channel just bringing porters from Africa. The supply lines as well as the front lines need to be remembered. The narrative of the Great War affects the acts of bravery on the front. We should not forget those who contributed their land and harvests, which were commandeered. Recruitment became commandeering as time went on, so we should try to remember the little people behind the scenes as well as all the others.

In a few weeks, I shall be going to Kenya in my ecclesiastical role. I will be asking to see a church that is named Kariokor. It is not karaoke: I do not expect to sing. Kariokor is a way of spelling “Carrier Corps”, because there are regions in Kenya and east Africa that continue to carry the name and are—not as official monuments but in their own humble way—real, lived-in monuments to a thus-far rather anonymous bunch of people without whom our front-line troops could not have operated. Let us commemorate and let us give thanks, but let us not drop our gaze from the unfashionable and unnoticed contributors to that war whose centenary currently impinges so insistently on our minds.