Commentator David Lucas offered this doggerel here yesterday in response to my comments on Rupert Lowe and education. I thought it worth sharing.
THE FLAG
We are told the Union flag should make us proud
But, our history was sometimes under a cloud
Germany has been made to acknowledged the Holocaust, and their children learn about its evil history
Our citizens should see our evil past, it's not a mystery.
African slaves to America
Sugar slave plantations in Jamaica
Riches plundered from India
Opium to China
Massacre in Amritsar
Torture in Kenya
Starvation in Ireland left humanity shocked
Famine in Bengal that could have been stopped
On and on the bad administration went
Is it a wonder good people make vent?
The rich made very much richer
Acting as the divine predator
Colston, Clive, Drax and Rhodes made rich
Does it surprise, there are statues to ditch?
Should our memory of Empire be celebrated?
Or should our ancestor's misdeeds be berated?
The imperial influence has been worldwide
The good and evil we should never hide
Chartist radical, Ernest Jones, said, and it is not denied
(on the Empire)
“The sun never sets, and the blood never dried.”
So when the butchers apron flies, should we have pride?
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Much bad stuff happened. We should remember what some of our ancestors did. We should also remember the good things too; it was not all bad.
“The Blood Never Dried” by John Newsinger should be taught in all schools.
The only positive thing pro empire loyalists can come up with is the Indian railway system. Strange they have a blind eye to the Bengal famines, some of which were the responsibility of Churchill.
They have a blind eye to the Irish starvation.
Which could have been averted, at least the worst consequences, if the Corn Laws had been repealed 20 years earlier.
The Peterloo massacre and the birth of the Manchester Guardian showed that the vast majority of Brits objected to those laws, and yet in certain circles you hear calls for the descendants of those working class brits who didn’t have the vote to atone for the behaviours of the upper class Brits who did.
It was casued by a refusal of the state to intervene, Corn Laws or not
It was genocide
I was at school in the 70s and our colonial history seemed to be wiped from the history I was taught. It was only when I spent a year in Africa in my late 20s that I realised that colonialism was responsible for the destabilisation of Africa and the arbitrary boundaries that often had nothing to do with the tribal areas native Africans were concerned with. Ironically though it’s my parents generation who seem more ignorant despite living through the calls for independence,the arrival of the Windrush people etc.
Also as someone of mixed UK heritage, being half Welsh and a quarter Scots, I also see the Union Jack as a flag of occupation and oppression not of unity. I remember my mum talking of the way Welsh was banned in schools,so she never learnt the language her parents spoke, also the poverty. My grandfather passed the 11+, so walked 3 miles a day over the valleys to get to grammar school, and then got a scholarship to university, which transformed his life.
Thanks, Hazel.
The oppression of Welsh, and before that Irish, and the danger to the Scottish language is all very worrying. Ireland has corrcted this. elsh is flourishing. Scotland is in trouble.
I was a mature student at Swansea 2000-2003 and lodged with a Welsh speaking family actively involved in promoting the Welsh language and encountered much more Welsh spoken than you would expect given Swansea isn’t known for being a Welsh speaking area. I sang with the Swansea Philharmonic Choir and loved how the arts are much more actively promoted as part of the Welsh culture. Unlike in England it was easy to fill the male parts with really good singers. Our after concert parties always included singing in Welsh which is a beautiful language even if my understanding is very limited!
Wales has a sad history and the Welsh can rightly be disgusted at the lack of effort to save jobs at Port Talbot. I’m glad that Plaid support is rising. The Welsh are proud of their Welshness and culture in a way us Brits can no longer identify with. My Welsh landlord lent me a book by Jeremy Paxman about how we have lost what it is to be English/British which was a fascinating read and a lot is to do with embarrassment about our colonial past.
Let me be unambiguous, I love Wales and always feel a sense of loss when. crossing the border back into England.
The same too with Scotland.
As I think we’ve noted here before, the domineering colonial instinct in the British establishment is so powerful that, having been displaced by America and China etc., it has been brought to bear on the domestic scene for some time for sure.
Colonialism is theft.
Sod football.
‘It’s coming home, it’s coming home, colonialism is coming home’.
What might be the internal propaganda quotient of the history presented in the National Curriculum?
Finding out what we REALLY got up to in our colonies, was made a lot more difficult after the British government engaged in an official large scale destruction of colonial records, on instructions from Iain Macleod, May 1961.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Legacy
That happened during the time I was receiving my secondary education, around the time I spent a couple of months as a Forces child in Aden Protectorate, just before the British colonial presence in Aden gave way to the Russian one.
As Lady Macbth found out,
“All the perfumes of Arabia will not sweeten this little hand.” – but the fascists are having a damn good try emasculating our schools, libraries and universities, to whitewash our past
Truth, even when it’s emarrassing, is very very important. That’s why “not bearing false witness” made it into the Ten Commandments.
Much to agree with
Empire is ALWAYS evil. Any good aspects are incidental. “Greek & Roman Political Ideas” by Melissa Lane (apologies broken record), Socrates, Plato et al explored the evils of the Athenian empire they knew then (knew for sure) what the problems were & yet we continue to grapple with them – 2500 years later. Humans have learned nothing. The Greek playrights grappled with the human condition – what has so-called western society learned from this +/- nothing. nothing. nothing. Daily you see imbeciles that you would not put in charge of a zebra crossing in front of a school, making decisions that are mad, bad & in many cases evil.
My Dad served in the Far East in WW2. He was at Imphal. He didnt talk about his time there much but what he said has stayed with me all my life. I am 85 years old. My best subject was history and that has stayed with me to old age. My Dad told me how those under colonial rule hated the British with a passion. That came as a surprise to him having been taught differently. As for the King or Queen over the water the idea that they were loved was pure fantasy. The colonial officials Dad described as arrogant and cruel. He spent time in India ,Burma and Malaya. The indigenous population all had the same opinion of their rulers. All this was a surprise to me as these conversations came as I was in my early years at grammar school . Our teachers history was different to say the least. The experience taught me to question everything . The British Empire in my opinion did more harm than good. Nearly all the worlds flashpoints were and are the the result of our interference. Especially ,in the Middle East. The USA is determined to repeat the colonisation. They will have to be stopped.
There is nothing like looking out of the window to find the truth.
Your Dad did that.
You listened.
Nothing was ever the same again.