Alliance

• However, viewers might find themselves with one looming unanswered question as they watch: how could this persist, at such a scale, for so long?
• The efforts of Bates and others have been invaluable – but they are a tiny subset of the overall victims.
• By and large, most sub-postmaster victims did not speak out about the injustice they faced.

• This article is part of Conversation Insights
  The Insights team generates long-form journalism derived from interdisciplinary research.
• The team is working with academics from different backgrounds who have been engaged in projects aimed at tackling societal and scientific challenges.

Sub-postmasters told they were the ‘only ones’

• I was led to believe at this meeting that I was the only sub-postmaster who was having problems with shortfalls.
• It made me feel stupid that I was the only person who had these issues.
• I confirmed that I had not done anything wrong and asked again about issues with the Horizon system.
• I was led to believe at this meeting that I was the only sub-postmaster who was having problems with shortfalls.
• Being told they were the only one not only discouraged victims from speaking out, it also planted a seed of self-doubt in many of their minds.

‘Spat on, shouted at and shunned’

• While the drama focuses on the heartwarming story of Hamilton, who received an inordinate amount of support from her local community, most sub-postmasters were not so lucky.
• Our analyses of the public inquiry statements reveal the local stigmatisation and shame that many felt.
• There are vivid accounts of sub-postmasters being spat on, shouted at and shunned.
• Those who experienced a wrongful accusation had similar negative mental health outcomes as those who were wrongfully convicted.
• Our research leads us to believe these feelings of shame and experiences of stigmatisation discouraged people from speaking out about the injustice.

Victims were unable to defend themselves

• Imagine that, tomorrow morning, you walk into work and are called into your line-manager’s office.
• They accuse you of something and tell you to gather your personal items as you are being sacked.
• This is the nightmare reality that sub-postmasters who were accused of theft and false accounting often faced.
• As one victim, Keith Macaldowie, recalled during the inquiry:
  They closed the office when they suspended me, so I couldn’t gain access.
• Overall, we found the lack of access to information that could prove the sub-postmasters’ innocence discouraged them from trying to speak out.

‘The Queen’s business’

• As one of the victims, Nicola Arch, told us:
  Working for the Post Office, it was the Queen’s business.
• The Queen acknowledges the Post Office — her face is on the stamps.
• In that era, everyone believed that it was a very prestigious company to work for, very respected … Everyone thought the Post Office could never be wrong.
• The Queen acknowledges the Post Office — her face is on the stamps.
• Despite individual appeals by sub-postmasters, Post Office managers did not challenge the leadership or organisation, and apparently believed their systems, including Horizon, were infallible.

The myth of ‘infallible systems’

• It also fuelled their self-doubt about whether this “perfect” system really could have any bugs in it.
• When injustices comes to light, often years after harm has occurred, we often hear people ask: ‘If this was going on, why didn’t they tell someone?
• Post Office employees have given evidence confirming that sub-postmasters were subject to “good character checks”.
• This alone should have raised concerns about these accusations, both inside and outside the Post Office.

For you: more from our Insights series:
COVID heroes left behind: the ‘invisible’ women struggling to make ends meet

The hidden danger of asbestos in UK schools: ‘I don’t think they realise how much risk it poses to students’

How to solve our mental health crisis

‘I’m always delivering food while hungry’: how undocumented migrants find work as substitute couriers in the UK

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Grace Augustine receives funding from the British Academy / Leverhulme Trust for her research on the Post Office Horizon IT Scandal project. Jan Lodge receives funding from the British Academy / Leverhulme Trust for his research on the Post Office Horizon IT Scandal project. Mislav Radic receives funding from the British Academy / Leverhulme Trust for his research on the Post Office Horizon IT Scandal project.

• In a globalised and fast-moving media landscape, photographs are more efficient than words.
• The notion of photography as a universal language has been around since photography’s origins and, despite criticism, remains powerful.
• Yet, even in the era of digital and AI-enhanced imagery, the idea that photography reveals the truth persists.
• Catholic propagandists disseminated real photographs of slain priests and militants, both in Mexico and abroad, as proof of federal violence.
• Some of the most powerful photographs from wartime have catalysed fierce debate on the justification of conflict.

1. Liberation of concentration camps (1945)

• Journalists have turned to the camera when words seem incapable of describing the most extreme wartime atrocities.
• This was the experience of US and British reporters covering the Allied liberation of the concentration camps at the end of the second world war.

2. “Napalm Girl” (1972)

• The image created the myth that the US was responsible when in reality the napalm had been accidentally dropped by South Vietnamese forces.
• Although Ut’s photograph did not radically transform US public opinion to the extent often assumed, it became an icon for anti-war sentiment and Ut claimed that it influenced soldiers’ decisions to abandon the war.

3. Abu Ghraib (2004)

• Photographs have played a powerful role in exposing war crimes, as in the case of the now infamous images documenting torture against detainees at the US military prison in Abu Ghraib, Iraq.
• Although written reports of abuses had been circulating for over a year, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld claimed only the images provided a “vivid realisation” of what happened.
• The image significantly damaged public perception of US foreign policy and was appropriated as a symbol of protest around the world.

Pippa Oldfield's research has previously been supported by funding from AHRC; The British Academy; Paul Mellon Centre; and Peter Palmquist Memorial Fund, among others. Lucy O'Sullivan does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

• It’s also the final film for its star, Michael Caine, as he has recently announced his retirement.
• In doing so, it marks itself as a British answer to Saving Private Ryan (1998).

Troubled homecomings

• From the troubled homecoming of Homer’s Odysseus to the spate of Hollywood films produced in the 1970s and 1980s focused on the angry and alienated Vietnam veteran such as The Deer Hunter (1978) and Apocalypse Now (1979), the traumatised ex-soldier has long been a figure of cultural interest.
• This has especially been the case in the British film industry over the last 30 years.
• Or, more recent productions focused on returning soldiers, such as Outlaw (2007), The Veteran (2011) and, of course, Harry Brown (2009).

D-Day on film

• In the modern era, however, the D-Day film of most renown is undoubtedly Stephen Spielberg’s Saving Private Ryan (1998), which starred Tom Hanks and Matt Damon.
• Intended as a homage to the “greatest generation”, the film begins with an old soldier (the titular Private Ryan) searching the graves in the vast American military cemetery overlooking Omaha Beach in Normandy.
• This was the scene of some of the deadliest fighting on June 6 1944.
• Whether or not Parker’s film goes on to have the same cultural impact as Spielberg’s award-winning production remains to be seen.

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Sam Edwards has previously received funding from the ESRC, the US-UK Fulbright Commission, the US Army Military History Institute, and the US Naval War College. Sam is a Trustee of Sulgrave Manor (Northamptonshire) and of The American Library (Norwich).

The deaths of three members of the South African Navy (SA Navy) on 20 September 2023, when a freak wave swept them off the deck of the submarine SAS Manthatisi, has put the spotlight on the organisation and its work. André Wessels is a military historian; his latest book is A Century of South African Naval History: The South African Navy and its Predecessors 1922-2022. The Conversation Africa asked him for insights.

How big is South Africa’s navy? How does it compare?

• The South African Navy has always been one of the strongest naval forces in sub-Saharan Africa.
• Egypt has the strongest navy in Africa, and Algeria is the second strongest as it has been steadily building up its naval forces.
• Thanks to its submarine capabilities, the SA Navy can be regarded as one of the strongest on the continent.

Can it protect the country’s territorial waters?

• And the navy can also do patrol work with its surface vessels (if they are able to go to sea).
• But it has a limited anti-submarine warfare capability, and is not able to project much power across long distances.
• South Africa is a maritime state, given that all its borders are on the ocean bar its northern one.

What’s its role?

• Its core business is “to fight at sea”, with its official mission “to win at sea”.
• The navy can also play a role in humanitarian relief operations, search-and-rescue operations and peace support operations.
• In the course of its history, the SA Navy has performed these and many other tasks.
• In addition, the navy has an important diplomatic role in sending warships (“grey diplomats”) on flag-showing visits to other countries.

What is the history of the SA Navy?

• The navy can trace its history back to 1 April 1922, when the SA Naval Service was established.
• This became the Seaward Defence Force in 1939 when the Second World War broke out, and the SA Naval Forces in 1942.
• It played a small but important role in the Allied war effort against Nazi Germany, patrolling the South African coastal waters.
• All cultural groups, as well as an increasing number of women, would henceforth be represented in the navy.