2 - Africa, Decolonisation and Human Rightsin the 1950s

Summary

Chapter 2 examines how far ideas of human rights were taken up by activists and protest organisations during their campaigns over the end of the British empire in Africa and the creation of the apartheid regime in South Africa. The chapter begins by assessing the impact of African questions on Britain, emphasising the significance of moral – as opposed to political - concerns. The two main sections of the chapter are, first, a detailed discussion of the handful of individuals (in particular Eileen Fletcher) who criticised Britain’s brutal handling of the ‘Mau Mau‘ rebellion in Kenya and, secondly, an analysis of the first phase of the anti-apartheid movement, a campaign which more fully embraced human rights. The chapter concludes by looking at how the emergence of independent African states in the 1950s created new human rights concerns for activists, in particular over the oppression of ethnic minorities.