We are Pretty Shabby Now

There has been a fair bit of tongue-in-cheek nation bashing going on in the bloggosphere of late.
And it's all well meant.

I think as a global community, we don't put as much store by our national identitiies as we once did. We're less eager to die for King and Country, or the Star Spangled banner, than once we were.

Of course. We all know eachother a lot better.

At one time that sea crossing from Dover to Calais could well be fatal.
And that was the only connection we Brits had with our nearest neighbours.

But stereotypes only become stereotypes because there is something there to latch on to, something we know is true.

And, yes, we Brits do live in the past. A past where we still own the world.
And that's something I'd like to explain.

My mother is not British- she only got her British passport recently.

She said to me recently; The saddest thing about the way Britain is today, is looking at what the British once were.

True.

Americans come here expecting land of thatched cottages, stately homes and polite conversation.
They find a land of tower blocks, motorways and chavs.

And deep down, it must scare them.
It is barely a hundred years since this country was the ONLY superpower, towering above the rest of the world in a way that America doesn't even today.
And yet look how we have fallen.

The legacy of any empire is a mixed bag.
But only two Empires in history have shaped the world that followed to such a huge extent.

At the turn of the twentieth century, it was Admiralty policy that the British Navy exceed the second and third largest Navies in the world. And that was considered realistic.
Eight of the Ten richest men in the world, were British.
Three quarters of the world's iron goods were made here.
Two thirds of the world's firearms were made here.

London was the world's largest city.

Life Expectancy was the highest in the world.

Most of the greatest scientific discoveries over the previous hundred years had been made by Brits.

And the way Victorians felt about their country was arrogant, but true.

The statue of Boudicca on the Embankment carries the inscription 'Regions Caesar never knew thy posterity shall sway.'

Cecil Rhodes- a controversial figure, but certainly a man of vision, even if now we see some of that vision as warped stated 'To be born an Englishman is to win first prize in the lottery of life.'
And that was true, then, in terms of simply being born in England in those days gave you opportunities others did not have.

In the early nineteenth century, a schoolboy was asked by his teacher in exasperation; 'Do you not want to learn how countries are made?'
He replied. 'No. I'd rather make one of my own.'

In 1842, he carved a stretch of the North Borneo coast out for himself and became Rajah of Sarawak. His descendants reigned till the second world war, as the 'Great White Rajahs'

Of course, we can look back on all of this with unease. As we do. Often rightly.

But so much once came from these islands.
At one time this actually was a country which actually created enterprise, independence of thought and the courage to go out into the great wide world and do great things.

John Locke. William Shakespeare. John Stuart Mill. Adam Smith. James Cook. Ernest Shackleton. David Livingston...
Could go on for ever, couldn't I?

It isn't now.
And that's sad.

Moving on from those values and maturing as a society shouldn't have made us throw the baby out with the bath water.
But we have.
And now we are just a pretty shabby little country.