I am not one for politicians' apologies for things that they have not done. But, ever the Heir to Blair, David Cameron is. Why, then, no apology at Amritsar?
Perhaps he has been informed by that Olympic standard social climber and name-dropper, pseudo-aristocratic Kentucky Fried Chicken heir, and stalwart both of the Henry Jackson Society and of the pro-apartheid Springbok Club, Andrew Roberts.
Roberts's books are much admired by the noted polymath, George W Bush. They contain repeated misspellings of the same place names. They assume that historical figures with the same name were the same person. They repeatedly refer to the Red Army marching eastwards across Europe.
And they not only defend the Amritsar Massacre (as well as the pioneering concentration camps during the Boer War, which I doubt that he mentions to his Vorsterite restorationist associates), but even suggest that Amritsar itself is in the south of India.
Perhaps he has been informed by that Olympic standard social climber and name-dropper, pseudo-aristocratic Kentucky Fried Chicken heir, and stalwart both of the Henry Jackson Society and of the pro-apartheid Springbok Club, Andrew Roberts.
Roberts's books are much admired by the noted polymath, George W Bush. They contain repeated misspellings of the same place names. They assume that historical figures with the same name were the same person. They repeatedly refer to the Red Army marching eastwards across Europe.
And they not only defend the Amritsar Massacre (as well as the pioneering concentration camps during the Boer War, which I doubt that he mentions to his Vorsterite restorationist associates), but even suggest that Amritsar itself is in the south of India.
Cameron shouldn't apologise since it wasn't his fault. Otherwise India should apologise to itself for all the widows it burned on the funeral pyres of their husbands, and for the slaves they bought and sold before we ever got there.
ReplyDeleteIt sums up everything Niall Ferguson says about our collective "self-flagellation" that we alone are asked to apologise as if white Britons, alone among all races, bear the sins of our individual ancestors upon our collective shoulders (never mind that most of the Amritsar shooters were Indians).
We are even asked, absurdly, to 'apologise' for the slave trade-a request that is not put to the Africans who sold us those slaves.
The Boer War was caused by the British Left and its 'liberal interventionist' desire to intervene in a squabble that had nothing to do with us.
That last sentence is genuinely mad.
ReplyDelete"That last sentence is genuinely mad"
ReplyDeleteNot so.
The British Left urged the end of Splendid Isolation because of the Boers widely-publicised inhumane treatment of the native Africans (100,000 of whom joined us in fighting for their right to vote, and saved us at Mafeking).
It was the world's first liberal interventionist war (Libya is only the latest in a long line).
Read Thomas Pakenham's The Boer War for the background.
And I'm glad to see you join me in opposing the Second Boer War, fought to liberate the native Africans from Boer oppression (the precursor to Libya, Syria, Mali and every other 'liberal interventionist measure).
ReplyDeleteIt's only because of this monumentally stupid war that we lost our Empire, gave up Splendid Isolation (the cause of our entry into the First World War in support of France, and not British interests) and got our modern mass welfare state.
The welfare state was founded because the British Army performed so poorly in that war.
As Mr Hitchens once said "war is the herald and handmaid of socialism".
Oh, how right he was!
Demented!
ReplyDelete