Exit wounds of Empire
Photo: © IWM (K 14435) A member of the Malayan Home Guard mans a check point during the Malayan Emergency (1948 - 1960). On display in Emergency Exits: The Fight for Independence in Malaya, Kenya and Cyprus (17 October 2025 to 29 March 2026).
Daniel Nelson
What have Malaya, Kenya and Cyprus got in common? They were all the scene of end-of-Empire independence struggles against Britain.
And all were termed “emergencies” by the British authorities to avoid use of the word “war”, which would have invalidated insurance policies for European settlers; facilitated the use of new, wide-ranging colonial powers; and would have suggested the three countries were out of control.
In Kenya the key issue was land ownership - by local people or White settlers; in Malaya it was whether communism would be the future form of government; in Cyprus it was about Greek and Turkish nationalism.
It’s surprising how few Brits have any knowledge of these conflicts that ran from the late 1940s until 1960, affected millions of people and involved tens of thousands of British troops so soon after the joyful welcoming of peace at the end of the Second World War.
Part of the reason for the amnesia is Britain’s self-serving motives, which were far from the “civilising mission” of Empire and the generosity of shouldering the White Man’s Burden: some colonial officials, for example, thought that the potential loss of Malayan tin and rubber would cripple the British economy. Another reason is the brutality of some of the colonial responses, which included torture in Kenya, the forced resettlement of 500,000 people in Malaya, and widespread use of detention without trial.
London’s embarrassment over its motives and actions accounts for “Operation Legacy”, Britain’s secret removal or destruction of sensitive documents about the struggles.
Now the Imperial War Museum has put an unsentimental spotlight on the three battlegrounds in a new exhibition, Emergency Exit: The Fight for Independence in Malaya, Kenya and Cyprus. It’s fascinating and devastating, showing that the move from colonial rule to independence was frequently not peaceful and that “there was as much violence at the end of Empire as in its formation”.
It’s an exhibition that requires careful scrutiny, though it is enlivened by about 50 photographs, newsreels, posters, postcards, notebooks and interviews, including the reactions of contemporary Britons.
The exhibition helps fill a gaping hole in our collective memory, and also points out that some of the methods used in these conflicts - such as the “hearts and minds” approach to guerrilla wars and mass-scale villagisation were later used in other conflicts around the world, such as Vietnam.
Emergency Exit: The Fight for Independence in Malaya, Kenya and Cyprus, free, is at the Imperial War Museum, Lambeth Road, SE1 6HZ until 29 March. Info: IWM
+ 28 February, Emergency Exits Discussion Day, 2 - 7pm, £30