Brexiting. A series on being English. # 04
The superior English Mind (Jenny and her shotgun)
This conviction is ingrained so deeply in the English mind that 'a foreigner' is being considered an inferior being, just by the mere fact that he or she has not been born and raised in England proper. Anyone familiar with Agatha Christie's Poirot detective stories remembers how the English invariably put Poirot away as "a foreigner" and therefore, ipso facto, a person who, by his nature, is incapable of understanding what is going on.
During my studies in England, I stayed with some students in a country house run by an old lady who, in her younger and more vulnerable years, had been raised in India. There, she had learned to fend for herself and had become a good shot.
I happened to stay over at her colonial house at the time when a tunnel was being dug under the Channel that would connect England to the Continent. Mind you, the Continent is where a motley lot of "foreigners" live - all monkeys in their own ways. Jenny was raging about it all the time. She cried she would take her gun and position herself at the English side of the tunnel in Folkestone, "and shoot them Continentals back to where they belong". Fortunately, she was called away to rescue a part of India before she could pierce the skins of dignitaries and the first tourists with her loads of lead shot.
There is also a famous story about an English senior officer at the Battle of Waterloo, Lord Uxbridge. All of a sudden, his leg took shrapnel from an exploding cannonball at the Battle of Waterloo on 18 June 1815. He was so baffled that the monkey continentals would be able to hit him, that he cried out "By Gosh, I'm hit!" upon which Wellington replied in equal astonishment "By God, so you are!" For in the mind of the English aristocracy at the time, people on the European continent were incapable of anything, really, compared to the English, that is. There is a whiff of Wooster and Jeeves in this exchange, don't you think so, too?Anyway, this kind of think still reigns supreme in the corridors of Oxford and Cambridge and the Houses of Parliament. Students are educated in the glory of The Empire and how superior and wonderful it all was. Didn't they control, in 1895, 25% of the Earth' land mass and all of the seas? Didn't they control The Raj with its 300 million inhabitants with only 9.000 administrators? (Real answer: no.) Didn't they need send only one diplomat to do a Zulu king in in spite of tens of thousands of warriors? (No.)
The notion of the possibility of having something comparable to a prime minister of Europe who is not an English gentleman educated at Oxford, like all of the British prime ministers have been, is abhorrent to the English elite and therefore being ruled from Brussels is absolute anathema. It explains the insults that Nigel Farage shouted at the first leader of the European Union, Van Rompuy, in his infamous speech in the European Parliament on 24 February 2010. He was reprimanded and fined. When interviewed about it, later, Farage felt "absolutely right" about it. And maybe Nigel was right, if not for the sole reason that Rompuy had been chosen because he was acceptable to everyone, having no ambitions nor any form of personality that would touch anyone.
And that is the real reason we got Brexit.
The funny part of it is that the English prove their superiority from time to time. A fine example is how they persuaded the Scots to stay in the union of Great Britain even though it was only in favour of English interests and against their own Scottish interests. As an anecdote, a description of that event follows here below.
The funny part of it is that the English prove their superiority from time to time. A fine example is how they persuaded the Scots to stay in the union of Great Britain even though it was only in favour of English interests and against their own Scottish interests. As an anecdote, a description of that event follows here below.
Proof of the superiority of the English Mind over Scots
The English do not think they are superior just to 'Continentals' as we, other Europeans, are called. They also consider themselves superior to the peoples of the realms of the Great British Empire outside England proper. The idea that Scottish people are equal to real English subjects of 'our beloved English Queen', is difficult to grasp for an Englishman, especially those educated at Oxford University.
Recently, a Scottish referendum on independence from England was held on the 18th of September, 2014. Polls had shown the vote was leaning toward independence. To the English, Scottish independence is intolerable. They have been fighting it incessantly for seven centuries. So, the English in London decided something needed to be done to make sure Scotland would stay in the British realm. If you have not been educated at Oxford, you may never guess what they did. They simply sent three bigwigs, all educated at Oxford, David Cameron among them, to Scotland to convince them to stay under English rule.
Just three bigwigs sufficed to convince enough people in Scotland to vote "No" to the question whether Scotland should become an independent country. The prime minister of Scotland, Nicola Sturgeon, and her people had not been to Oxford and so were no match. The University of Glasgow does not provide the knowledge of centuries of diplomacy, duplicity and perfidy as Oxford does.
One of the standard tricks bigwigs use, is to scare the bejesus out of people. Horrible things would happen to their income, pensions, mortgage obligations, welfare and well-being, if the Scots would leave the all-beneficial Kingdom of Great Britain. All figments of fantasy, of course, but brought with the right words, in professional parlance: 'pressing the right buttons' on television, radio and in newspapers, it always works to convince the wavering and the undecided. And so Scotland remained chained to Westminster's Albion, thanks to just three English bigwigs who were in Scotland for just ten days or so.
I consider this definite proof of English superiority.
Recently, a Scottish referendum on independence from England was held on the 18th of September, 2014. Polls had shown the vote was leaning toward independence. To the English, Scottish independence is intolerable. They have been fighting it incessantly for seven centuries. So, the English in London decided something needed to be done to make sure Scotland would stay in the British realm. If you have not been educated at Oxford, you may never guess what they did. They simply sent three bigwigs, all educated at Oxford, David Cameron among them, to Scotland to convince them to stay under English rule.
One of the standard tricks bigwigs use, is to scare the bejesus out of people. Horrible things would happen to their income, pensions, mortgage obligations, welfare and well-being, if the Scots would leave the all-beneficial Kingdom of Great Britain. All figments of fantasy, of course, but brought with the right words, in professional parlance: 'pressing the right buttons' on television, radio and in newspapers, it always works to convince the wavering and the undecided. And so Scotland remained chained to Westminster's Albion, thanks to just three English bigwigs who were in Scotland for just ten days or so.
I consider this definite proof of English superiority.
The Philosopher of Culture
June 11, 2017.
June 11, 2017.
No comments:
Post a Comment