Over the past twenty-five years you’ve watched your government literally invade numerous nation states, laying waste to their civil society.
And yet you have the temerity to call the bedraggled remnants of those conflicts seeking refuge elsewhere an invasion.
Perhaps if you studied history, ancient and modern, you would understand how we are connected to them. They were never asked either.
Recall that the ambition of your hero, Enoch Powell, was to become Viceroy of India. That was why he learned and became proficient in the Urdu language.
As it was, his dream was dashed by the declaration of Independence in 1947. Instead, he would watch a British barrister called Cyril Radcliffe tasked with drawing up the borders of two new states, India and Pakistan.
Across those new national borders, drawn up by a man who had never been to India, moved twelve million refugees in multiple directions, leaving behind their lands, wealth and properties.
None of them were asked about their fate. Indeed, right across Asia and Africa from east to west, none were consulted as to how their land would be carved up by the European powers.
In West Asia, the arbitrary borders of new nation states were famously drawn up by two diplomats, Mark Sykes and Francois Picot. In Africa, by competing European governments at the Conference of Berlin.
It is simply gross ignorance that you constantly repeat the mantra, “We were not asked,” without acknowledging your own history in the world.
How ironic that your hero, whose speeches you much admire, had so keenly wished to govern a foreign land, as the unelected representative of the monarch. Quite the opposite of the London Mayor you decry.
Ah, but it was not to be. In the end, he would only get to practice his Urdu whilst speaking with his constituents in old England. Some might call that blowback. Others divine providence. I’d call it divine comedy.
Last modified: 20 February 2024
