Death Knows No Color

  The article “‘Death Knows No Colour’: The Forgotten African Soldiers of WWII” written by Lauren Brown, and published by The Scottish Centere of Global History discusses the topics of discrimination within war culture. A quote from the 1941 West African Pilot, ““To the people, death knows no colour, and, as such, rates of pay should be adjusted in that spirit.”” (Brown). This is not only how Brown chooses to title the article, but also how she begins it, using it to segway into her claim that British African soldiers who were enlisted during WWII suffered many discriminations that even in modern times haven’t been rectified.  

    In the following paragraph, Brown tells the story of a Kenyan, Eusebio Mbiuki, part of the King’s African Royals, who served active duty in the Burma campaign from 1941-1945. Upon his return, he discovered that his war gratuity was significantly less than his white counterpart. In this paragraph, Brown also brings up that many African soldiers never received payment at all. Brown continues by citing an archival document from Britain, that details how white soldiers often received as much as three times more than African soldiers. This document also describes how several military personnel, including the former head of the British army Lord Richard Dannatt, called for the British government to do a formal investigation and provide compensation to the soldiers. None of which happened. Brown then readdresses her claim.

  Within the next part of the article, Brown discusses African involvement in the war effort on an international scale, and how this involvement was downplayed by the British government and the other allied forces. Brown then lays out the demobilization process and the differences between that process for Africains and that for Caucasians. Brown follows by going into great detail on the post-war lifestyles of African soldiers, providing information on educational and job opportunities and housing. Once again Brown draws a comparison between the British African treatment and that of white soldiers, bringing up that African soldiers that had been deployed to foreign sovereignties had adopted a new worldly perspective, and no longer accepted being oppressed. This led into the topic of British propaganda in the form of lectures to East Africans, in an attempt to rewire their perspective on the war effort, and to persuade soldiers that their “reward” was the victory against Nazi fascists. The second to last paragraph describes the influx of soldiers migrating into Kenya and the effects this had on the Kenyan market system and the economy as a whole and with that the British government's interference within that. Finally, Brown concludes the article by readdressing her claim and quoting a now deceased soldier. 

    Brown uses sources to incorporate pathos and logos to tell the story of forgotten African soldiers during the Second World War. Even though she provides a thought-provoking narrative on societal equality during wartime as a whole, her persuasion tactics provide little support for evidence and her claim, she does nothing to refute counterarguments, and doesn’t address the global context of her topic.

   Brown’s use of logos and pathos, while compelling, are just cleverly worded, and don’t provide any actual substance to support her claim. The first example of this can be found very close to the start of the article, where Brown uses logos to say the following, “ From 1939 -1945, some 15,000 African soldiers lost their lives fighting for Britain.” (Brown).  Firstly, Brown doesn’t develop any context for this statement, it appeared to me to be haphazardly thrown in. This statistic also doesn’t factor in the fact that only 2% of British soldiers were African. What this also doesn’t address is the fact that these 15,000 African soldiers never received pay due to their passing in the war, and as such had no relevance to the author’s claim.  

  Pathos is used just once throughout the article where the author used a specific story of a soldier’s ' experiences to pull at the reader's heartstrings and propel her claim. An example of this is when the author brings up, “ Upon returning from active service in the Burma campaign (1941-45), Eusebio Mbiuki – a Kenyan veteran who was enrolled in the King’s African Rifles – found that his service payment, known as war gratuity, was significantly lower than the payment for white soldiers.” (Brown). While using a specific person’s name and story compels the reader to engage in empathy while reading, the lack of multiple stories produces no patterns of discrimination. This leaves the implication that pay gap discrimination was only experienced by her one source, rather than an entire group of Africans as her thesis claims. 

    Brown does nothing to address potential refutations that could negatively impact her claim. First of which would occur after the section of the article where Brown states, “ Several MPS called for an official enquiry while Lord Richard Dannatt, former head of the British Army, urged the government to provide compensation to the veterans affected by the inequality.[iii] An inquiry was not launched.  Such inaction is a disservice to the masses of Africans who fought and labored for the freedom of their colonial overlords when they themselves were not free.” (Brown) the counterargument could be made that a formal investigation didn’t happen not because of racial prejudices but because of a lack of funds.  After the war, Great Britain had accumulated a sizeable debt of €21 billion, meaning it was more than plausible that the government didn’t have the funds to produce a formal inquiry.

   Next, would be that most Africans never climbed the ranks, unlike the average white soldiers thus receiving lesser pay for having done what was considered at the time to be lesser work. Most POC in WWII weren’t active in leadership positions or in combat, opting instead to be a part of service and labor units. Their position as mechanics, cooks, and construction workers, among other forms of labor, weren’t often in a direct war zone, thus they wouldn’t receive hazard pay. This could explain one of the reasons for the pay difference. I think that  Brown would have benefited by addressing this counterargument, explaining that African soldiers were very seldomly allowed to progress in the war, and if they were they could only lead other African units, thus displaying clear segregation. This would reinforce her claim that the pay gap was due to race. 

   The topic Brown choose to discuss is affected by numerous global contexts, and she fails to address any of them. Brown begins by focussing only on British Africains, completely neglecting Africains for other countries and non-Africain POC. This is a huge demographic also affected by pay gap discrimination, but Brown fails to address it. Likewise, Brown does little to discuss discrimination from other armies outside of Great Britain. In her claim, she makes the generalization of “Africains” rather than “British Africains” so not addressing all Africains in her response was a poor choice. 

  Brown’s article brought light to a topic previously swept under the rug, but her claim was weakened by a lack of evidential support and not addressing important counterarguments and global factors. 

Works Cited 

Brown, Lauren. “‘Death Knows No Colour’: The Forgotten African Soldiers of WWII | Scottish Centre for Global History.” Scottish Centre for Global History, 11 Nov. 2020, globalhistory.org.uk/2020/11/death-knows-no-colour-the-forgotten-african-soldiers-of-wwii/.

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