British History and the Ruling Class.
Like many English speaking kids of my generation, I went to school, and at school, I got taught history. And it was something along the lines that we, the British, ran the largest empire the world has ever known, an Empire that encircled the globe and brought peace and enlightenment to a myriad of warring tribes and prevented widows in India from throwing themselves onto their husband's funeral pyres as the custom was then. In effect, we - the British - created the modern world as we know it. If we never invented civilisation in the first place, then we took what the Greeks and Romans left us and created Civilisation.02 - which the rest of the world runs on today.
Well, that is what I was told, but I have done my own researches since leaving school, and have reached somewhat different conclusions. Like most myths and legends that persist into modern times, there is some basis in the truth that keeps this legend going - but there is an awful lot that gets left out of the 'official version' of history. The official version is heavily edited by the Ruling Class that sells it to us.
Now, most of you, I guess, are Americans. So you may not be up a lot of European history , any more that we pay attention to certain bits of your national mythos. But let us go for a bit that most people all around the world have heard of and are familiar with. Abraham Lincoln. Yeah, him. You know, the guy who fought the American Civil War to abolish slavery.
Like I said, the Official Version of History, the National Myth, is that Lincoln fought The Civil War ' to free the slaves' right ? I mean, this is what people who were twice my size and more than twice my age told me when I was at at school. i have 'known' this fact since Ii was little. it has gotta be right, huh?
In fact it is dead wrong. What the Yanks like to call The Civil War is really called the American Civil War for a start. See, we had one of our own in England, and ours was a bit earlier than theirs. but anyway - Abe Lincoln never game a damn about the slaves. He wanted to preserve the Union, to stop his country for breaking up, end of story. He used the slaves as a means to an end.
"but that's an outrageous claim!" I hear you say. "Who says so apart from you?" Actually, Abe Lincoln said so himself.
My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and is not either to save or to destroy slavery. If I could save the Union without freeing any slave I would do it, and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone I would also do that. What I do about slavery, and the colored race, I do because I believe it helps to save the Union; and what I forbear, I forbear because I do not believe it would help to save the Union.
So there. I bet they never explained that to you when you were at school. If they have in recent years, well I guess they have decided to fess up - the quote is out there and won't go away. but be honest, how much BS on a national and a local level have you bought and never really looked at? The fact is they never told me the half of it.
Lets go back to that 'barbaric Indian custom' called Suttee. The one we 'noble Brits' put a stop to during the British Raj. Any idea why widows in India did this? BTW, for any Americans here who are confused, when I talk about Indians , I mean the people who live on that bit of Asia that you find when you turn right at Afghanistan and head south. If you turn left to head south, you are coming at it from the other direction, but still - just go south, Ok, and that is India.
Now, a wealthy widow of the time was most unlikely to find another husband and would lose her self sufficiency. With her husband dead, she would lose her identity in society and her life was not worth living any more; it was more economics and social attitudes that drove her to commit suicide rather than grief and mourning.
In outlawing this custom though, the British Raj did not fix the underlying cause, they merely stuck a band aid solution over the social symptoms.
In Africa, the British ruling class went in and drew some lines on the map. They drew the lines to suit themselves, without any regard for local situations, customs and events. It was basically to decide what bit belonged to them and what bit belonged to the French or Belgians, that sort of thing. And this meant that two opposing tribes whomay have been at war with each other were now having to get along as part of the same British colony. maybe there was not this situation , but the canny brits in charge would see to it that one faction could be played against the other in an attempt to 'divide and rule' - and as a direct result of this policy, we get the massacres in places like Rwanda today.
You want to talk about the situation in the Middle East - the fact that the Israelis and the Palestinians are at each others throats, and wanna know why? Well, again, the short answer is 'Because the British Ruling Class was involved.' the fact is , the british negotiators promised the Arabs a bit of a favvour if they helped to win the war, but at the same time, also promised the same bit of land to the Jews. like an unscrupulous hotelier that double books a room , thenscrams when both parties confront each other waving their own bits of paper, the british government is nowhere to be seen when it comes to sorting this unholy mess out.
But sadly, it does not end there. See, if you get taught your history in school, you get taught that we in Britain can vote, and have Trial by Jury, and have got proper drains and Democratic government, and all because the Ruling Class is really enlightened.
Like I said, the myth is able to go on becuase there is an certain element of truth in it.
Men like Wilberforce and Newton did abolish Slavery, and we do have votes, and proper drains, and stuff like habeas corpus in Britain, and we did abolish slavery throughout most of the world - but that is only because The Working People and a few others outside the Establishment fought for it every inch of the way.
See, I might be Briish - I am English, even, but I see The Establishment in a slightly different way to how it gets presented in the history books and in the media. I am Working Class, Blue collar, and so, in some respects, Ii have a different history to recount and a different perspective on the history books and on the media.
When dave Cameron wants to say "We are all in this together", i get the sense that although we live in the same country and speak the same language, that we are actually not in the same position , and definitely not in it together in the same way as he thinks.
And it is not that my position is all laid out for me, I have to discover it for myself by sifting through the evidence that is arranged to deliberately throw me off the scent. But *my* history, mr. cameron , is drawn from such stuff as the Tolpuddle Martyrs, the Peterloo Massacre, and the Match Girls Strike, rather than the battles of Waterloo and Agincourt.
Oh, they happened to, but not the way you think. So, although I am British , I have my own take on British history and on world events as a result. Just like the native North Americans have their own take on what happened at the battle of the Little Big Horn that is a bit different from the official version that is pesented in school books and hollywood movies.
But my view looks forwards to the future as well as back into the past.
From Mr. Cameron's position, the way to help the developing countries of the world is ' Give Them Aid'. that's right, let our people talk to their people, we hand over cash and we let them decide what to do with it, within the limits of the agreement we signed that will clearly reflect what *we* want.
My take is that ordinary people at grass roots on both ends of the deal should do the talking. bypass the governments in both lands and get together via an NGO like Amnesty International or Traidcraft.
Ok, we are gonna need Cameron and Co at some point , but this is only because he has the power to tear up the treaties that he signed that are helping business corporations that promise subsidies to western corporations and exploitation to the rest of the world.
I say
Scrap UK/US and EU farming subsidies that help the rich nations at the expense of the poor.
Re write the rules on international trade with the interests of the poorer, not the richer trading partners in mind , and
Aim at creating a more equal society at home instead of a free market that simply lets social inequality grow and increase.
Also , that although the USA portrays itself as a meritocracy, it could easily become the sort of place where the rich get richer and the poor get poorer, the sort of place where if your daddy went to college, then so will you, and if they didn't, well tough luck , but you won't either. you don't need to have dukes and earls to have a Class system in society. large amounts of money, unevenly distributed, will give you much the same effects.
Yes, the world today does run on Civilisation .02, largely given us by our English speaking Victorian forbears. However, I think its time we rolled out Civilisation.03 , and had a system that was more about people than about profits and less emphasis on priviledge for the few and poverty for the many.
Well, that is what I was told, but I have done my own researches since leaving school, and have reached somewhat different conclusions. Like most myths and legends that persist into modern times, there is some basis in the truth that keeps this legend going - but there is an awful lot that gets left out of the 'official version' of history. The official version is heavily edited by the Ruling Class that sells it to us.
Now, most of you, I guess, are Americans. So you may not be up a lot of European history , any more that we pay attention to certain bits of your national mythos. But let us go for a bit that most people all around the world have heard of and are familiar with. Abraham Lincoln. Yeah, him. You know, the guy who fought the American Civil War to abolish slavery.
Like I said, the Official Version of History, the National Myth, is that Lincoln fought The Civil War ' to free the slaves' right ? I mean, this is what people who were twice my size and more than twice my age told me when I was at at school. i have 'known' this fact since Ii was little. it has gotta be right, huh?
In fact it is dead wrong. What the Yanks like to call The Civil War is really called the American Civil War for a start. See, we had one of our own in England, and ours was a bit earlier than theirs. but anyway - Abe Lincoln never game a damn about the slaves. He wanted to preserve the Union, to stop his country for breaking up, end of story. He used the slaves as a means to an end.
"but that's an outrageous claim!" I hear you say. "Who says so apart from you?" Actually, Abe Lincoln said so himself.
My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and is not either to save or to destroy slavery. If I could save the Union without freeing any slave I would do it, and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone I would also do that. What I do about slavery, and the colored race, I do because I believe it helps to save the Union; and what I forbear, I forbear because I do not believe it would help to save the Union.
So there. I bet they never explained that to you when you were at school. If they have in recent years, well I guess they have decided to fess up - the quote is out there and won't go away. but be honest, how much BS on a national and a local level have you bought and never really looked at? The fact is they never told me the half of it.
Lets go back to that 'barbaric Indian custom' called Suttee. The one we 'noble Brits' put a stop to during the British Raj. Any idea why widows in India did this? BTW, for any Americans here who are confused, when I talk about Indians , I mean the people who live on that bit of Asia that you find when you turn right at Afghanistan and head south. If you turn left to head south, you are coming at it from the other direction, but still - just go south, Ok, and that is India.
Now, a wealthy widow of the time was most unlikely to find another husband and would lose her self sufficiency. With her husband dead, she would lose her identity in society and her life was not worth living any more; it was more economics and social attitudes that drove her to commit suicide rather than grief and mourning.
In outlawing this custom though, the British Raj did not fix the underlying cause, they merely stuck a band aid solution over the social symptoms.
In Africa, the British ruling class went in and drew some lines on the map. They drew the lines to suit themselves, without any regard for local situations, customs and events. It was basically to decide what bit belonged to them and what bit belonged to the French or Belgians, that sort of thing. And this meant that two opposing tribes whomay have been at war with each other were now having to get along as part of the same British colony. maybe there was not this situation , but the canny brits in charge would see to it that one faction could be played against the other in an attempt to 'divide and rule' - and as a direct result of this policy, we get the massacres in places like Rwanda today.
You want to talk about the situation in the Middle East - the fact that the Israelis and the Palestinians are at each others throats, and wanna know why? Well, again, the short answer is 'Because the British Ruling Class was involved.' the fact is , the british negotiators promised the Arabs a bit of a favvour if they helped to win the war, but at the same time, also promised the same bit of land to the Jews. like an unscrupulous hotelier that double books a room , thenscrams when both parties confront each other waving their own bits of paper, the british government is nowhere to be seen when it comes to sorting this unholy mess out.
But sadly, it does not end there. See, if you get taught your history in school, you get taught that we in Britain can vote, and have Trial by Jury, and have got proper drains and Democratic government, and all because the Ruling Class is really enlightened.
Like I said, the myth is able to go on becuase there is an certain element of truth in it.
Men like Wilberforce and Newton did abolish Slavery, and we do have votes, and proper drains, and stuff like habeas corpus in Britain, and we did abolish slavery throughout most of the world - but that is only because The Working People and a few others outside the Establishment fought for it every inch of the way.
See, I might be Briish - I am English, even, but I see The Establishment in a slightly different way to how it gets presented in the history books and in the media. I am Working Class, Blue collar, and so, in some respects, Ii have a different history to recount and a different perspective on the history books and on the media.
When dave Cameron wants to say "We are all in this together", i get the sense that although we live in the same country and speak the same language, that we are actually not in the same position , and definitely not in it together in the same way as he thinks.
And it is not that my position is all laid out for me, I have to discover it for myself by sifting through the evidence that is arranged to deliberately throw me off the scent. But *my* history, mr. cameron , is drawn from such stuff as the Tolpuddle Martyrs, the Peterloo Massacre, and the Match Girls Strike, rather than the battles of Waterloo and Agincourt.
Oh, they happened to, but not the way you think. So, although I am British , I have my own take on British history and on world events as a result. Just like the native North Americans have their own take on what happened at the battle of the Little Big Horn that is a bit different from the official version that is pesented in school books and hollywood movies.
But my view looks forwards to the future as well as back into the past.
From Mr. Cameron's position, the way to help the developing countries of the world is ' Give Them Aid'. that's right, let our people talk to their people, we hand over cash and we let them decide what to do with it, within the limits of the agreement we signed that will clearly reflect what *we* want.
My take is that ordinary people at grass roots on both ends of the deal should do the talking. bypass the governments in both lands and get together via an NGO like Amnesty International or Traidcraft.
Ok, we are gonna need Cameron and Co at some point , but this is only because he has the power to tear up the treaties that he signed that are helping business corporations that promise subsidies to western corporations and exploitation to the rest of the world.
I say
Scrap UK/US and EU farming subsidies that help the rich nations at the expense of the poor.
Re write the rules on international trade with the interests of the poorer, not the richer trading partners in mind , and
Aim at creating a more equal society at home instead of a free market that simply lets social inequality grow and increase.
Also , that although the USA portrays itself as a meritocracy, it could easily become the sort of place where the rich get richer and the poor get poorer, the sort of place where if your daddy went to college, then so will you, and if they didn't, well tough luck , but you won't either. you don't need to have dukes and earls to have a Class system in society. large amounts of money, unevenly distributed, will give you much the same effects.
Yes, the world today does run on Civilisation .02, largely given us by our English speaking Victorian forbears. However, I think its time we rolled out Civilisation.03 , and had a system that was more about people than about profits and less emphasis on priviledge for the few and poverty for the many.