In 1944, during the Second World War, my paternal and maternal grandfathers in Kenya, Mukanzi Miheso and Indonde John, were conscripted by the British government to fight in Burma (present-day Myanmar).
They were shipped there under conditions reminiscent of the transatlantic slave trade (which the British eternally congratulate themselves for abolishing). Black conscripts were crammed below deck on unsanitary ships for a long, difficult, painful voyage. Food was controlled and rationed by the white people above deck. Many went hungry, others contracted diseases and some died en route, including more than 1,000 on a troopship sunk by the Japanese.
My grandfathers were among the lucky ones who returned alive to Kenya after the fighting was over. The colonialists paid one for his service with a piece of Kenyan land that they had stolen earlier as part of the British occupation; the other was given a few shillings with which he, too, bought land.
