Saturday 11 November 2017

Brexit is our history`s legacy

For Simon Jenkins to state that "we should not be remembering but forgetting", and that "memory sustains ongoing disputes", is absurd (Too much remembering causes wars. It`s time to forget the 20th century, 09/11/17). Admittedly, Remembrance Day has become something of a "synthetic festival", and many schools`history syllabuses are skewed towards Hitler, but that simply means, as ever, our history is being manipulated by governments and their agents. An accurate and balanced view of the past, in all nations, would encourage co-operation, whilst discouraging nationalism, and promote fairness rather than bigotry.
   Take British history: the manipulated version of our history exaggerates differences with our neighbours, and suggests the existence, as Martin Kettle recently wrote, of a "tradition of exceptionalism", but there was nothing "exceptional" about our trading in slaves, seizing and looting colonies whilst committing the most awful of atrocities, entering wars unnecessarily, and exploiting workers (Protestantism is on the wane, yet the Reformation sowed the seeds of Brexit, 27/10/17). Britain behaved as barbarically as all the other imperial powers. That same history not only painted an inaccurate picture of World War II, with "Britain alone" defeating the nazis, and enjoying a "glorious" post-war aftermath when European ties and immigrants were not needed, it simultaneously bred arrogance.
      Whilst a country like Germany is prepared to face up to its past, acknowledging that people need to be told the truth about their history, and learn lessons from it, Britain continues to hide millions of historical files away from the prying eyes of historians, unable to deal with unpleasant truths about our nation. Luther didn`t "nail delusions of greatness into the English soul", our distorted history did, and Brexit is its true legacy!
  There is no need to "find closure on the 20th century", but the "remembering" must be of the truth!

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