TWO CHEERS FOR THE BRITISH EMPIRE.
By Paul Merkley.
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Political leaders – all of them – travel far too much. The ability to travel – to be in several places virtually at once – has seduced our political leaders into imagining that volumes of travel adds to political weight and personal credibility. But in fact, this ability to travel adds no benefit to policy making, as the principal activity involved is eating and drinking at banquets. Politicians from all over the world, much alike in their matters of their education and professional profiles, huddle together before the television lights and read statements prepared by their flunkies, and, at the end announce their intention to huddle again and again until the earth has been freed from this disease (problem, issue, etc.) These never-ending conferences, which have only become possible since the introduction of safe jet-airplane travel, are hugely expensive, inefficient, and almost totally redundant when we consider the magic possibilities of telephone, cell-phones, television, telephone conferencing, email, internet, and so on . My present point is that they take a toll on all of our senior political leaders: the system – and notably the brain –slows down out of weariness.
This is the largest part of the explanation for the fact that there is not a major political figure who has not caused damage to himself at some time on account of a “blunder” or “gaffe” – that occurs in context of travelling non-stop over several time zones.
Take the case of U.K. Foreign Minister Boris Johnson, the perennial schoolboy , who finding himself in Mandalay in the line of duty, and waiting on the side of a public event for his cue to speak, refreshed himself by reciting some lines from Rudyard Kipling’s Road to Mandalay: these introduce a British soldier who contemplates the local Burmese “wastin’ Christian kisses on an ‘eathen idol’s foot: Bloomin’ idol made o’ mud , Wot they called the Great Gawd Budd… Plucky lot she cared for idols when I kissed ‘er where she stud! On the road to Mandalay”. The embarrassing moment was caught by a British television documentary crew and broadcast within hours.
The words are just a little bit risqué, but what makes them most fun is that they imagine the thinking of Britain’s colonial master class in Kipling’s day. As the plain-speaking mop-haired Tory starts to recite the risqué poem’s verses out loud, the Foreign Office’s chief diplomat there whispers to him: “You’re on mic. Probably not a good idea”. Boris replies: “What, The Road to Mandalay?” The ambassador replies: “No. Not appropriate”. Apparently unfazed by the telling-off, Boris simply replies “good stuff.”
We live in an age of absolutism. Boris Johnson had tripped over the “imperialism” wire. The theory here is that people who once were included by conquest in Britain’s Empire experienced abuses which retarded their development as individuals and as nations.
I would argue instead that there are very few places in what used to be the British Empire where people are better cared for and enjoy more basic freedom than they did when they were part of the British Empire.
This is not an argument for re-instating the British Empire. The Brits could not do so if they wanted to. And of course they do not want to. But among the un-examined truths that intellectuals gather around and chant about is that imperialism was an unmitigated force of evil.
Within the lifetime of some very senior persons, Britain began the process of handing-over complete self-government to its most “advanced” colonies: Canada, Irish Free State, New Zealand, Newfoundland , and South Africa. This began with the Statue of Westminster, 1931 but, in Canada’s case, was not really completed until the passage of the Canada Act of 1982. Most of us consider this to have been a rip-roaring success – with the possible exception of the case of South Africa.
Further steps in the process of decolonization involved the less “advanced” colonies. The earliest chapters in this story belong to the years immediately following World War Two. Among these steps were the dismantlement of the huge Colony of India and Burma (1946-1947.) The subsequent history of these separate and distinct entities is mixed at best. Back in the 1930s, Churchill had warned against early dissolution of the Empire and did so on plausibly humanitarian grounds. Leaving India would take off the scene the restraining hand of Britain’s military and its legal system – the only force in modern history that had had any degree of success in compelling Hindus and Muslims and Sikhs to live together.
In fact, Churchill understated the human cost that would be paid.
In 1946, Britain released the residents of its Colony of India to full Independence. But the outbreak of inter-communal violence made it necessary to divide the Colony into India and Pakistan (the latter made up of predominately Muslim portions.) As Churchill anticipated, it proved impossible to persuade those inhabitants to share life together. In the first two years following the declaration of Independence roughly two million people were massacred in inter-religious conflict. About 14.5 million people lost their homes as a result of the partition.
But the good people of Pakistan, separated from the evil people of India, proved unable to live alone in peace. Down the road, a terrible civil led to the breakup of Pakistan and the creation of Bangladesh.
The part of Britain’s Empire called Burma also become a independent nation-state. and then immediately fell to military dictatorship. Down the road, an experiment in limited democracy was started up. Today’s Burma, called Myanmar, is in the news today because its government and military have undertaken to drive into outer darkness the millions of its people who belong to a Muslim minority – the Rohingya. Nothing like this ever happened on Britain’s watch.
These antagonisms are rooted in religious bigotry – and, as Churchill predicted, they were not ameliorated – indeed, they became much worse — when self-government came. In retrospect it is clear that Britain’s regime had served to restrain these antagonisms . India today has the reputation of being the world’s largest democracy. Despite the great racial and religious diversity that its Government has to deal with, a plausible case can be made that its people are better off since the Brits left. A similar case is either difficult or downright impossible to make with regard to Pakistan, Bangladesh or Burma (Myanmar.)
In the decades to follow, Britain established self government in all corners of her Empire – including all of her colonies, dependencies, and mandates — except for a few islands in the West Indies whose populations stubbornly insisted – and insist to this day – on remaining within the Empire. Among those blessed with self-government since 1945 were: Ceylon (today, Sri Lanka), Israel (in 1945, a part of the Mandate of Palestine), Singapore, Brunei, Egypt (an unacknowledged colony of Britani, until 1952) , Falkland Islands, Oman, Jordan, Kuwait, Aden (later Yemen), Bahrain, Maldives, Sudan, Gold Coast, Southern Rhodesia (Zimbabwe), Kenya, Northern Rhodesia (Zambia), South West Africa (Namibia), Cyprus, Malta, Jamaica, Trinidad, Barbados, British Honduras, (Belize), Fiji, Tuvalu, Solomon Islands, Papua New Guinea, Vanuatu and Hong Kong.
To describe the British Empire as a fundamentally anti-humanitarian force is a mindless slander. This is born out when one reviews the subsequent history of independence of these many entities.In most places, the story began well, with local political and tribal elites stepping forward and pledging to carry forth the best features of the British legacy – honest government rule of law, and respect for cultural differences –But shortly or eventually most of them slipped down to become autocracies or outright kleptocracies. (Does the name Mugabe ring a bell?)
Our governing elites are indifferent to history and are jerked around by slogans. There is, of course, no way of re-imposing Empire anywhere. Nor should anyone want to. But we should recognise that much of popular thinking about political matters is governed by slogans. There needs to be more critical thinking. And a good step in the direction of re-instating critical thinking in our universities and among our opinion elites would be to call a pause to the vilification of the British Empire.
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The Bayview Review 