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<div style="background:#fff;border:#bbb dashed 1px;padding:5px"><a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=460530" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none"><div style="margin:10px 0"><strong>0038 Why I'm ashamed of being British</strong></div><div style="margin:10px 0">It was so easy being a British child<br>in the 1930s: <br>everything was – or so it seems to memory’s <br>selective mind - so ordered: <br>how old was I, when I stopped<br>raising my school cap<br>(‘Don’t just touch it, Michael; <br>lift it! ’) to, not just staff at school, <br>but anyone to whom my parents talked<br>or who had talked (‘My, hasn’t he grown! ’<br>as if this was some personal achievement) to me, <br>or more likely, over my head, as I<br>shifted from foot to foot, <br>trapped in a grown-up world<br>of politenesses; which however <br>my mother loved and rightly<br>as one now raised in her station<br>from being polite to customers<br>in grandma’s terrace front-window shop<br>where homemade cooking was the income<br>now that the cotton dust had got to grandpa's lungs; <br>but now the wife of a man retired<br>at thirty-eight, stone-deaf…</div><div style="margin:10px 0">The history books at school were slender – since<br>we’d won every war – or if some foreigners thought<br>we hadn’t, it had all the same brought out great courage, <br>incredible bravery which was a lesson to us all, <br>fortitude and leadership and deeds<br>‘ surpassing the call of duty’. We’d even<br>won wars in places which technically weren’t ours, <br>called The Empire; over which we ruled<br>because we did it better than the natives; <br>because we were born to rule..</div><div style="margin:10px 0">And we were taught by haunted heroes who’d fought<br>in the war to end all wars – the PT instructor<br>had a face like camouflage, white, greenish, brown and red, <br>where he’d been mustard-gassed; our heroes<br>were still close to us, although<br>they didn’t talk about it much. That was<br>another lesson in how to be British.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Geography was happy natives<br>(only the National Geographic Magazine<br>photographed their tits, and then only if brown) <br>moving export crops, balancing trade<br>and the occasional water-pot – which was always full.<br>And the sun never set on those red bits on the map<br>which were the British Empire…</div><div style="margin:10px 0">How easy it was to be proud of being British, <br>and to take for granted<br>that gift of birth, our birthright<br>which, unearned, we would seek<br>to earn anew by living up to it..</div><div style="margin:10px 0">But then, haven't all of us, by some<br>trick of space-time unexplained by Einstein, <br>lived, as a child, in better times – or at least, <br>if any didn’t, we never heard of them; <br>or if we did, it was because the missionaries<br>were putting all that right, if we just simply<br>put a penny or two in their box, and here’s a flag to pin <br>on your jacket like some painless medal..</div><div style="margin:10px 0">* * *</div><div style="margin:10px 0">So, no more nostalgic trips now down that memory lane; <br>let’s start from now and work backwards<br>on why I’m currently ashamed, after all these golden years, <br>to be British; and despite <br>all that there is left of those things of magnificence –<br>fair play, free speech, freedom itself, <br>not yet quite worn away</div><div style="margin:10px 0">I’m deeply ashamed this week<br>that three British subjects, <br>despite Habeas Corpus, Magna Carta, and the rule of law, <br>were handed over – and in irons –<br>without due process of laws promptly promulgated<br>by reason and humanity; and<br>if they did indeed steal a million each on paper<br>yet never charged here, where it occurred, <br>we can guess that it’s because<br>such unearned money is<br>the game of all financial deals, <br>in City circles, as in other countries…</div><div style="margin:10px 0">I’m deeply ashamed as of last year, <br>that after a history of ‘responding to a request’<br>and just defence of the oppressed, <br>we made a pre-emptive strike<br>in the oily name of exporting democracy<br>while our governments at home<br>confuse democracy with ‘spin’; we are the spun<br>in the woven lies of history.<br>We have dirtied the name of democracy.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">I’m deeply ashamed, as of this decade, <br>that we have found no way<br>to enable our uncontrolled immigrant population<br>to feel as proud of being British as are<br>Americans of being American; <br>ashamed that politicians<br>put party over conscience; <br>ashamed that – yes, young and old alike -, <br>we have lost respect for others<br>both in action or the lack of it; <br>that ‘neighbour’ is now a mere<br>geographical location; <br>that we apologise for or demean our religious sense<br>in a world where those we fight<br>are more religious than are we; <br>and last of all, I’m ashamed<br>that one day soon we may become<br>ashamed of being British.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"></div><div style="margin:10px 0">(Please read Tara McHale's poem on the same theme, it's a group effort - or add your own!))</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br /></a><br />poem by <a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/by.php?a=Michael+Shepherd">Michael Shepherd</a><div class=q>
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<script type="text/javascript" src="//s7.addthis.com/js/300/addthis_widget.js#pubid=citatepedia" async="async"></script><div style="display:inline-block" class="addthis_sharing_toolbox" data-url="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=460530" data-title="0038 Why I'm ashamed of being British de Michael Shepherd" data-description="It was so easy being a British child
in the 1930s: 
everything was – or so it seems to memory’s 
selective mind - so ordered: 
how old was I, when I stopped
raising my school cap
(‘Don’t just touch it, Michael; 
lift it! ’) to, not just ..."></div>
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