...As a result, not only does British imperialism receive exaltation and eulogy, but the postcolonial melancholia that afflicts public political culture is premised on the idea it was built on virtue and the diligence, strength, and courage of British people.
“If we are going to sin, we must sin quietly.” This advice, from the attorney general of colonial Kenya to its governor, Evelyn Baring, when stipulating the forced labor policies in detention camps in Kenya in the late 1950s, became a motto for Britain’s intervention in its colonies. This line encapsulates the central argument to Ian Cobain’s recently published The History Thieves, which sets out the history of state secrecy and its vital importance in shaping the public image of the nation.
The apogee of the secret state in purposefully hiding information from the public in the postwar period was necessary for sculpting an official narrative about British imperialism and its war efforts divorced from the truth of its brutality. Imperialists were often all too aware that if the true nature of their mission was exposed it would also undermine the image of liberal democracy that was deployed to distinguish the West from authoritarian regimes.
Cobain’s book demonstrates the function that secrecy played in allowing the British state to maintain a veneer of accountability and transparency. To peek behind this veneer is to see the atrocities committed during wars of decolonization, the secret deployment of British troops in various theaters of war, the colonial files hidden in secret archives, the cover-up of state-sponsored death squads in Northern Ireland, and the obstruction of justice through secret courts...