Military Orientalism: Eastern War through Western Eyes

In 2011, the Foreign and Commonwealth Office formally acknowledged that it held records of local colonial administration that had been removed from their repositories prior to independence and eventually transferred to the United Kingdom. These records are in the process of transfer to the National Archives. Using records released as part of the transfer so far, this article analyses the process of assessment, destruction and removal of local administrative records in Malaya prior to independence in 1957, and North Borneo and Sarawak prior to their incorporation into Malaysia in 1963. Due to the survival of unusually detailed lists of the records held in the North Borneo and Sarawak registries and their fates, a comparative analysis of two parallel processes can be undertaken that sheds light on the physical practicalities of the selection, removal and destruction process: in short what survived and why. This article also assesses the extent to which this process was managed from the metropole or locally, how the process changed over time and how the colonial officials who undertook this work understood, justified and rationalised what they were doing.