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October 27, 2005
Ties That Bind
Slowly but surely, Britain is disowning her children and grandchildren. It is a sad, sad day when ties of blood, culture, and history become meaningless. A recent article in the Times (shared with me by my Australian friend Peter) notes that the British government is proposing to end the scheme under which Commonwealth citizens with a British grandparent are allowed to enter and settle in Britain. This is the latest move in a long sequence where Britain has turned her back on those countries she created and bequeathed her rich legacy and culture too. The dominions (Canada, Australia, South Africa and New Zealand) would not exist without Britain. Neither would many African states, nor the states of India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh, nor many island states, Singapore included. That's over a third- maybe almost half- of the world's population who live in a country created by the British Empire. We are the children and grandchildren of the British Empire. Just because we have grown up and left to seek our own fortunes doesn't mean she should lock us out of the house- and worse, in favour of the neighbours that she has long fought with and hated: the rest of Europe. The fact is, Britain owes as much to her colonies as we owe to Britain. Britain became the world's biggest economy and is still the capital of finance, because of her Empire- the imperialism of free trade, as us historians refer to it. Her wars were fought with Gurkhas and Sepoys; her ships built with Canadian lumber; her dining tables laden with curry and tea from India, spices from the East Indies, fruit and sugar from the Caribbean; her people dressed with Antipodean wool; her goods built with Malayan tin and rubber. English is riddled with words from the colonies ("jungle", "pyjamas', "loot", "shampoo", "amok", "junk", caddy", "scoff", "slim", "trek", "commando" and "rogue", just to name a few off the top of my head). If it weren't for the heroics of the citizens of the Empire, Britain would have lost both World Wars. One reason for the Empire, interestingly, was to contain Europe. Countries such as Gibraltar, Cyprus and South Africa were added to the Empire for largely strategic reasons. How ironic, then, that we are now being jettisoned in favour of the very people we were brought in to defend against- people with whom Britain has waged war upon for hundreds of years. We are called the Commonwealth for a reason. We are supposed to be in this together. We were given the vote in Britain for a reason, after all- we were British. I decry this sad state of affairs where we are neglected and treated like foreigners in the very country who created us, and the day that the Commonwealth loses its meaning in Britain is a dark, sad day for those of us who cherish our history and appreciate the ties that bind Britain and her former Empire together. Posted by pj at 12:35 PM
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Permit me to say this - that was my sentiment when I was maybe 13 or 14. I too used to think that it would be splendid to return to an enlightened form of Rule Brittania. After all, British colonies turned out into the US, Australia or maybe Malaysia, which weren't too bad. By comparison, the French Empire spawned angry Vietnamese and Algerians, while the one substantial Dutch Empire split in an acrimonious war.
But I grew out of those fantasies, much the same way I outgrew my Transformers. The reality is that history tends to move in a linear fashion, away from where we are. And we cannot quite be sure if it is really "forward motion - it's simply that we cannot be still. I don't buy the words of prophets like Marx - there's just no way to perfectly predict the future of Earth.
If we are to look at the Empirical proof, we will see that the Roman Empire, once it fell apart, could never be made whole again. That is why Mussolini's grandiose designs were never taken all that seriously in most places - because Italy's claim to contemporary greatness in the 20's and 30's were plainly laughable. As it turns out, the country which DID have the means - and the will - to build a great European Empire in that period was Germany. In the intervening 1,500 years, things had moved so far ahead that what was once inevitable (Victor Roma!) was now virtually child's fantasy.
Perhaps a comparison of Ancient Rome and the British Empire may not be fair, in part because the aftershock of Rule Brittania are still tangible, and within living memory. England is still ruled by its line of Kings, English is actually still growing as an international language, and there is still a rather tattered Commonwealth, a vestige of the institutions of Empire that once held sway in India House and Lancaster House.
But the truth is, things have never been the same since Suez. They had been moving along, but I think Suez was the watershed event, that woke everyone to the fact that it was definitely over, for good. It wasn't a mere American conspiracy - the threats of Russia, emergent Arabism followed by Islam and the nationalistic pride of the Indian subcontinent probably meant that the centrifugal forces would be irresistable.
And America, certainly was as much rival (if not foe) as it was friend. Energetic, vigorous and charged up with an infusion of immigrants, it has long since claimed Britain's place at the head of the table. And what of China and India rising? Even the great colonies of Canada and Australia may yet grow to greatness, owing to their proximity to the new growth circles, while Albion remains saddled with its slow-growth European neighbours (excepting Eire).
Toynbee made note of the idolization of the ephemereal past, and used Ancient Athens and Renaissance Venice as examples. When Atlee spearheaded the redirection of British energies back towards itself, he was merely reflecting what the British people wanted badly - a break from Empire. I think since then, the leadership have been heeding the Toynbee lesson to not look too wistfully towards its romanticised past.
And they have. From dismantling the Empire currency system, to making a move towards Europe, they have had to be realistic. On the same wavelength, Australia has moved closer to Asia and Canada towards the US. The realistic part is that in order to maintain its Commonwealth as a powerful institution, Britain would have had to exert itself as the leader. Within Europe, it's e pluribus unum.
In this mode of thought, vestiges of Empire are simply thought of as ungainly luxuries of not insubstantial cost. Like the Lord opening his castle to summer gawkers and lodgers, Britain is "closing" its special access doors to the Kingsmen from across the seas, because it wants to profit. Clearly, it sees easy immigration for sons and daughters of the Empire as a drag, whatever the reality of the cost-benefit analysis may be. Maybe it is simply fashionable.
They have tried to keep the benefits of Empire, by maintaining its status as a pre-eminent financial center, and London's cultural and media leadership. Every country has an instrumental attitude - to maximise its interests no matter what. It is only bright eyed - bushy tailed sentimentalists like you and me who might hold the Brits responsible for well-being of the spawns of Empire. As far as I can tell, they really don't care. And they may be right.
Wei Yi spoke on October 27, 2005 05:05 PMDude, seriously! Your comment is longer than my entry!
PJ spoke on November 4, 2005 03:15 PM