Britain’s downfall, and Brexit is the flag
Technology may have made great advances but humankind has not
Perhaps it’s the juxtaposition of history and contemporary events that prompts reflection and speculation. I am riding in an Uber taxi through the streets of London, passing the great sterling attractions, Westminster Abbey, the halls of Parliament, Whitehall, Traf algar Square. I’ve been chatting with the driver who has a thick African accent, and I proffer the suggestion that Brexit is at its root an anti-immigrant stand. The driver glances in his rear view, makes a quick assessment of me, and concurs. He’s lived here for 31 years he tells me, and yet he feels apart from it. He is garrulous and talks easily. The great city is not a melting pot of cultures. It is as if people and events are caught and suspended in aspic. There are multiple solitudes in this bustling, frenetic metropolis. His is but one.
History peeps out of every nook and cranny in London. I take a short river cruise down the Thames to Greenwich to see the Cutty Sark, the famed nineteenth century tea clipper and the Maritime Museum nearby. The ship was sleek and polished and rejigged for the lucrative tourist trade. But below decks what struck me forcibly was the display of ships’ figureheads at one end of the display area beneath the Cutty Sark. Intriguing and compelling and a tad sad. The carved wooden pieces, severed from their ships forever, looked longingly out from the display, stranded on the Greenwich shore. There were dozens of them with brilliant painted eyes, there were gods and goddesses, saintly women, fabulous animals and creatures, symbolic icons that had sailed across the seven seas until somehow they had landed here with a bump, old and odd refugees from a historical past with nowhere else to go. To me they seemed to be forlorn amputees never to return to sea, never to be free again, never more to look upon foreign harbours, and open skies, and distant guiding stars.
When and if you think about it, the true motivation behind Brexit is its antiimmigrant stance. Free movement of people across the EU is abhorrent to those who voted in favour of Brexit. Cou- ple that with the tide of potential migrants from the Middle East, Africa, and Asia and you have the grand rationale for Brexit. It’s a sad f act but true. The British Empire was built on distant shores where countries were plundered and colonized. The British treasury boasts jewels and riches that are not native to the British Isles. The treasure was took by hook or by crook and the people colonized, but many of those colonized began to believe in the ideals that were part and parcel of the Conqueror’s spiel. The streets of London town are packed with people who believed and believe in those ideals, laudable as they are. However, when you pick up one end of the stick, you pick up the other too.
But the world moves on and it can’t be stopped. The world changes and the London streets are testament to a multiracial population of rich diversity and strength. Wander around Piccadilly Circus and Portobello Road and you feel the new London vibrancy, the surging colour and sound.
The British contribution to world civilization is immense. British literature and legislation provides the warp and woof of stunningly brilliant achievements. The world is richer for them and their legacy sustains us today. But within every great empire lies the seeds of its own destruction, dormant within that warp and woof. And for the British it is the hateful residue of empire that lingers and festers and ultimately destroys. And that is Britain today and Brexit is its flag. The lion is toothless now, so raise a pint at the famous Lamb and Flag in Covent Garden and toast its demise. It was a long time coming.
Odd to me that racism continues to exist — knowing how groundless and ignorant it is. You would think that everyone would celebrate the advance of civilization and condemn racism at every turn. So, what to do? Stand up for the rights of the victimized and humiliated. Expedite humane policies that help the true oppressed and deal quickly and efficiently with those who are simply breaking the queue and who are not in dire straits. Immigration policies must be fair to all.
Technology may have made great advances but humankind has not.
The ships of Empire have sailed and the figureheads are lodged for good in Greenwich. They are striking and powerful still in their mute presence — their eyes gazing across decades and centuries of times gone. They are rich and variegated in colour and shape and configuration like the living population a few miles upstream.