[?]ir Alan Burns Flays The UN

[?]ine Years of Nonsense...

[?]ir Alan Burns Flays The UN Trusteeship In A New Book

A Review By “ Distroff ”

yf ANY New Guinea residents will rl remember Sir Alan Burns as the head of the 1950 United ations Visiting Mission to the icific Trust Territories.

Even a superficial acquaintance Lth him made it clear that any semblance of Burns to Blimp did )t extend beyond the pink cheeks id portly form.

The polite ambassadorial facade asked a keen mind, and did not ways quite subdue a razor-edged ngue, which —to the secret glee attending District Services offi als —occasionally operated to the scomfiture of the uncomprehend g Chinese and ineptly-critical lipino delegates in the visiting am.

Then there was the social opca m at Rabaul, when, asked by the en Administartor (Col. J. K. array) what he (Burns) would do a situation where the home gov nment repeatedly rejected the Iministrator’s most urgent re ests.

Sir Alan replied tartly: “Resign— I did.” Presumably a reference to his celebrated row with the Colonial Office over the hanging of Africans convicted of ritual murder follow ing the funeral rites of Sir Ofori Atta, of the then Gold Coast, in 1943.

With more than 40 years in the British Colonial Service, Burns is also a shrewd and articulate ob server of the colonial scene, who has published several books on his experiences.

He concluded his official career

with nine years as Britain’s Per manent Representative on the United Nations Trusteeship Coun cil, and from this post he retired a few months ago.

He is therefore uniquely qualified to bear witness to the hypocrisy and malice that have characterised the “anti-colonial” campaign waged (chiefly against Britain, France, Belgium and Australia) under the guise of the UN Trustee ship System. And he has done so, with a vengeance, in his latest book, which blends documented facts, forthrightness and acerbity, in a manner calculated to make ears redden in that overturned tea-pot flanked by the tall glass house on Manhattan’s First Avenue.

In Defence of Colonies (Allen and Unwin, London, 1957) should be prescribed reading for all P-NG officials, and, additionally, for all UN fans.

The book is divided into three parts, of which the first deals with

t•- e general attack on British “colonialism” and the achievements r? British colonial administration. : includes a scathing commentary the workings of the United : ons, and some merciless .3 lysis of American muddled inking and double standards; Indian and Latin-American hypo ; .isy; and the emotional racialism petty Afro-Asian states; and the nauseating cynicism of Russian im lalism. Each has a chapter, with copious footnotes.

The second part examines specific claims made by other nations to certain British colonies and posses sions such as Aden, Cyprus, the Falkland Islands and Gibraltar.

The third offers some conclusions.

Propaganda Medium

QAYS Sir Alan in his preface; “When in 1947 I accepted the appointment of United King i Representative on the Trustee ; Council of the United Nations, did so in the hope that my colonial experience would be of •. me value in that body, and that work of the Council would be ' ’ elp to the people of the Trust ritories. Nine years in this office npietely disillusioned me. The steeship Council and the Fourth :mittee of the General Assembly which I have also served as :ed Kingdom Representative) too much concerned with the

political and ideological conceptions of ‘colonialism’ to be of any prac tical assistance to the people of de pendent territories.

“I believed in 1947, as I still be lieve, that some kind of inter national body is necessary, but the United Nations in its present form, and with its present approach to

world problems, is a disappoii merit, and does little good. Varii specialised Agencies have done cellent work, but some of tlr existed before the United Nath came into being, and could contii their useful work even if United Nations Organisation Wv to disappear. (Continued Next Pa

“I do not suggest that the United ations should be abolished, as, if has not done a great deal of good, has not done much actual harm, cept in colonial matters. Here, ►wever, material damage is done attempts to disrupt the orderly tvance of dependent peoples to If-government and indepen nce . . .” [n his analysis of the attack on itish “colonialism” generally, Sir an points out that whilst in some ses criticism is due to deliberate stility and malice, in many in mces it springs from emotion ther than reason, has its roots history or in racial feeling, and such is cleverly exploited by the issians. 3e goes on to demonstrate that lilst the objections to “colonial i” are narrowly concentrated on 3 long-established overseas onies of the West European wers, there are many newer ms of colonialism, inside inde ident nations, and with much s savoury characteristics, fhe victims of Soviet expansion 1 absorption are certainlv less ee” than the inhabitants of Brit colonies. The indigenous lerindians have no greater a share the government than have the >ple of British dependent terri ies, and in many cases have far 5. The people of Central Asia ler Soviet domination, the in enous inhabitants of America, Nagas of India, are as truly “de ident people” or “colonials” as ise who live in overseas colonies.

It is difficult ... to understand y countries which have expanded oss oceans, bringing under their tection backward people and ling them towards civilisation, sperity, and self-government,

should be classed as brutal im perialists: while on the other hand, nations which have expanded across continents, engulfing and sometimes almost exterminating backward peoples in the process, are subject to no such stigma. In their own case, the Americans believe this ex pansion to be fulfilment of a ‘mani fest destiny’.”

The “anti-colonialism” of the Asian countries is easier to ex plain, in Burns’ view, than that of the USA and the Latin-American countries, since it stems largely from strong racial feeling and from re sentment of the long-standing European domination of the world, of which the overseas colonies are the surviving symbols.

All of these colonies are held by nations of European stock, and the rising nationalism of dependent peoples, as well as the “anti colonialism” of the independent Asian nations, expresses the revolt of the coloured races against the whites who have held so much power during the past four cen turies.

Those who declaim loudest against racial discrimination in the colonies are themselves the leading practitioners of “colour complex in reverse”. The people of the most backward countries, including those that have won national indepen dence, tend to identify themselves emotionally with the people of colonial areas. Much of the present

[?]pua was represented at an Asian Assembly [?]Moral Re-Armament in the summer capital [?]he Philippines in April by Mahulu Mark, [?]man of the Ealaba Council in Milne Bay. [?]s here seen being presented to President [?]a, who recently succeeded President Mag [?]y.

stility to colonialism is, m fact, 5 to the feeling that coloured onials are regarded as inferior Iheir white nilers. (Burns points ; that this feeling has been a so

Sfni 1 ? 6

,iL p 0 3,?

causes of the Amencan

oiuiionj . . , . ,

It is this feeling which preits coloured peoples from recogj££ admitting any of th 6 adugh they themselves may have ived great benefits from colonial members 0f or two aao colonial

nle could remember the tvraSnv

1^ meclded

iblishment of Brhish rule in ca aM Asia%iev were erateful what i enough to b? membe?s of the tish Empire m emoers ot tne 'o-day, however, much of this is jotten, and the words “Empire” [ “Colony” have become rather eputable, even in Britain itself.

Alan adds that in future years, lumber of independent nations Dughout the world may well atute their success and stability the influence of British instituis and tradition, in the same way the British to-day acknowledge ir debt to ancient Rome, and to it they learnt under Roman ocation.