<The British, unlike the French, educated themselves out of an empire.>
I'm not so sure it's that simple.
We need to define 'the British'. If you mean the political system run by parliament in Westminster, it's true that that government and the voters in Britain no longer have an empire.
But take a broader view. The effects of British colonisation and empire are still in place in most places such as Hong Kong, Kiwiland, Australia, Canada, USA, Singapore, Gibraltar, India, South Africa and other parts of Africa, across the Pacific islands, the Caribbean, the Falklands, Seychelles, Norfolk Island, Pitcairn [a dozen or two people still there] ...
The tentacles of British influence are in China [via USA influence], Japan [via USA victory and influence], Germany [Marshall Plan and NATO influencing much of the rest of Europe].
English [or the barbarian American version] rules the internet, international business, and is growing in leaps and bounds as people see English as the key to the modern mercantile world. The silly Indians in a fit of nationalistic stupidity are keeping the bad parts of the British [Karl Marx] while ditching the good [the lingua franca], although young people are resisting that because they know English is the way to get money from American companies.
The British-derived USA economic system is swooping around the world and the technology from those companies is being demanded everywhere. Those demands tie those countries to the British-based international system of commerce.
The empire has morphed and infiltrated everywhere. A simplistic old Roman Empire or Mongolian model based on murder and military is not the way to run a modern empire. You, me, and people like us around the world are running the empire now, in English, via the internet and the USA legal and military system. We don't need Whitehall.
"The British" more widely defined as those who inherited the empire [me, you, and hordes of us around the world] are running it and profiting from it and extending it around the world, into communist China [CDMA] and into cyberspace.
We are unstoppable. We are everywhere. Everyone is welcome [even the French and Tahiti].
Mqurice
PS: Being part French, I suppose I've already colonized them...hahaahah!! Nobody can escape. |
