There’s no such thing
as a foreigner.
Like most sound bites, of course, it would have to be expanded
for the sake of argument. ‘Foreigner’ is not an absolute term, but a relative
one. People who come from London are foreigners
to me because I wasn't born in London.
Welsh people are foreigners because I’m English and they’re not. (And isn’t it
interesting that the very term ‘Welsh’ comes from the Anglo-Saxon for ‘foreigner?’)
Nonsense, right? The concept of ‘foreign’ is defined by the concept of the
nation state. So if the Scots have another referendum and choose to break from
the UK,
Scottish people will become foreigners. OK, that’s that settled.
But it still disturbs me greatly that one of the contenders
for the Tory Party leadership in Britain,
Andrea Leadsom, today claimed that she truly believes that Britain can become
‘the greatest country on earth.’ Now we really are into the realm of nonsense.
How does one define ‘the greatest country on earth’? The
richest country? The most powerful country? The country to which the rest of
the world looks up? The country which the rest of the world fears?
This is supremely childish language. It’s the language of
the jingoist, the egoist, the right wing extremist. I thought we’d moved on from
that sort of thing after the fascist movement in Europe was finally defeated in
1945 and the League of Nations created. Why
would I or any other intelligent person want Britain to be the greatest country on
earth? What we want is for Britain
to be a safe, peaceful, happy, tolerant, prosperous place to live. You don’t
have to be the greatest country – whatever the phrase means – to achieve that.
Was Germany
a good place to live in the late 1940s after the Nazis’ aim to be the greatest
country on earth had been thwarted? Would it have been a good place to live if the Nazis had won? For some maybe, but think of the darker consequences. And I’ve read that Denmark
routinely comes top of the life satisfaction surveys. Does Denmark ever
strut some childish aspiration to be the greatest country on earth? So who is Andrea Leadsom
trying to impress? Or who is she trying to kid? Why are senior politicians so ready to hold themselves up to ridicule by all but those who can't see or think beyond the flag? Maybe it's because an awful lot of people like to delude themselves that they are superior to foreigners.
Meanwhile, Tony Blair today answered the suspiciously mild criticism
of him in the Chilcot Report by claiming that the world is a better place for
his decision to slaughter hundreds of thousands of innocent foreign civilians
(not mention a few hundred non-foreign service personnel whose families are not
very happy.) Good; now we can rest easy.
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