From the anarchist newspaper ‘Revolt!: Incorporating Spain and the World’, London, May 1, 1939. The author, Reginald Reynolds self-identified as a socialist rather than an anarchist, but was in frequent dialogue and collaboration with anarchists, also having married the socialist-turned-anarchist Ethel Mannin in 1938

Not only is our “democracy” as autocratic as a fascist state in its dealings with the vast majority of those subjected to its rule: it is also as brutal and as barbarous. Hitler and Mussolini have suppressed the freedom of the press. So does our Government in India and the colonies, the moment the press endangers British rule by telling unpleasant truths.

Freedom of Association is denied in the fascist countries. So it is also in many parts of the British Empire. In Kenya, for example, legislation forbids more than five “natives” to meet together except for religious purposes! And when the people, very naturally, formed “religious” societies to get over this difficulty a ruling was given which meant, in effect, that a meeting was not religious unless a white man was present.

We read of imprisonment in Germany and Italy, often without trial or after sentence by a secret tribunal. In India, under the Labour Government of 1929-31 some 60,000 persons were imprisoned within a period of about eight months for political “offences,” and of these many were condemned by secret tribunals whilst hundreds were not tried at all but imprisoned or put in concentration camps for an indefinite period with no charge brought against them. Many of these “detenues,” as they were called, were sent to the Andaman Isles — our Indian equivalent of the French “Devil’s Island” — an unhealthy spot where many died of disease.

* * *

The laws that restrict the liberty of the African Negro are unequalled in any part of the world. They vary in different parts of Africa, but everywhere they are to be found. In South Africa and certain East African colonies the following “passes” must be carried on occasion by every Negro:

Identification Pass.

Travelling Pass.

Six Days Special Pass.

Monthly Pass.

Daily Labourer’s Pass.

Day Special Pass.

Night Special Pass.

Trek Pass.

Location Visitor’s Pass.

Lodger’s Permit.

Poll Tax Receipt Pass.

Exemption Pass.

Unless he is carrying the appropriate passes, the native is liable to summary imprisonment. Forced labour is still common in many of the colonies. In Kenya the law prohibits the making to present any organisation being built approved by the Government — that is to prevent any organisation being built up (though secret organisations still continue in spite of all such legislation).

* * *

Hitler imposes a “collective fine” on the Jews. He learnt it from the British, who have used this method for years in India and are now using it in Palestine. When an Arab village is “collectively fined” the military and police impound all the livestock. Those who can afford to, buy back their beasts from the Government. Those who have no money lose them — that is to say, they lose their only source of livelihood, though they may be completely innocent of the “crime” for which they are being punished. Nobody knows or cares. But the children deprived of their food, are left to starve and the parents become beggars or bandits.

* * *

The case of Palestine is an up-to-date instance of imperialism and its logical consequences. We have seen that it is as bad as fascism, if not worse. Indeed, if there is any important difference between the two systems it is that the subject peoples seem to hate imperialism a great deal more than the people of the fascist countries hate fascism! Disarmed and helpless as they are in most of the colonies, they are continually agitating and striving to organise themselves against their foreign masters.

Some colonies are better, some worse. That depends on climate and other factors — especially the suitability or otherwise of the colony for Europeans’ settlement. Certainly it has nothing whatever to do with whether the colony is a “mandate” or not. But the “best” colonies have been shown up badly during the last year or two. The West Indies, for example, where the Governor (Sir Murchison Fletcher) got the Sack for showing a little human sympathy — a rare and highly improper thing for a colonial official to show. He actually said that “an industry has no right to pay dividends at all unless it pays a fair wage to labour.”

Things got so bad in Trinidad that a Commission was sent out to discover why starving people revolted. This Commission discovered that 43% of the people were illiterate, that men earned from 2/6 to 2/9 per day on the plantations, and that the strike leader, Uriah Butler, was “a fanatical Negro who made speeches of an inflammatory character.” They censured a police inspector for hesitating to shoot innocent persons, recommended flogging for any man caught twice robbing an orchard, and criticised the Governor for showing some sympathy to empty bellies. Among the signatories of the report was Sir Arthur Pugh, a former T.U.C. [Trades Union Congress] President.

(The above extracts have been taken from Reg. Reynolds’ latest pamphlet, “The Colonies, What Next?” [note from the editors of ‘Revolt’])

Excerpt from ‘Reg. Reynolds Answers’

“As to the statement that ‘the land should belong to those who till the soil,’ I neither accept it nor see its relevance to Emma Goldman’s case. Ideally speaking, the land should ‘belong,’ in my opinion, to the whole community — since all wealth comes out of it. But if I accept Emma’s statement, then the land in Palestine should have belonged to the Arab peasant; and the Arab landlords had no right to sell it to Jewish immigrants who dispossessed these Arab tenants. That is the only sense I can make out of Emma’s statement, unless she means that the land belongs to whoever can grab it — i.e. that it belonged first to the Arab fellaheen but now belongs to those who pushed the Arab off. ‘Finding is keeping’ is a good motto for conquistadores and imperialists, but not, I should have thought, for Anarchists.”

– Reginald Reynolds

From ‘Spain and the World’, September 16th, 1938