Social Claims in the Shadow of the Fallen

Abstract

This chapter examines the left’s attempts to mobilize the wartime ‘moral economy of sacrifice’ in support of its vision of a just post-war order in the colony. Focusing on the immediate post-war moment, it examines how the campaigns of strike action and political protests led by socialists and trade unionists in the colony relied heavily on egalitarian notions grounded in the wartime experience. It also considers the response this provoked from conservative forces, which sought to counter the left’s rhetoric by stressing the ‘fraternity of arms’. Finally, it assesses the place of indigenous workers in these debates, asking how the left reconciled its use of an egalitarian language, drawn in part from the experience of the war, with its ambiguous attitude toward any erosion of European hegemony in the colony.