ABSTRACT
T H E REVOLTI NG PERIPHERY In May 1960 the former Brit ish Prime Min ister, Clement Art lee, opined in a lecture at Oxford that, 'There have been many great Empires in the history of the world that have ri sen, flouri shed fo r a time, and then fallen .... There is only one Empire where, without external pressure or weariness at the burden of ruiing, the ruling people has voluntarily surrendered its hegemony over subject peoples and has given them their freedom .... This unique example is the British Empire' (Empire Into Commonwealth, 1961, p. 1). Here was a classic statement of the liberal Commonwealth tradition or imperial mission; decolonisarion as the honourable fruition of Briti sh deliberati on and benevolence. However, it could be argued, that British policy simply reacted to evencs in the colonial 'periphery'; decolonisation was determined not by British official s and politicians but by the colonial peoples themselves in the guise of nationalist movements. The Bri tish faced incense violence in territories such as Malaya, Kenya and Cyprus and, virtuall y everywhere, colonial rule crumbled far quicker and decolonised states took forms unforeseen by Briti sh planners [101[.
