Great Britain, once the master of the universe, has become a Third World country. I don’t write this fact with sadness or empathy. No – I am simply reporting. Dispassionately. The tiny sliver of the globe from whence the colossus of a state once rose lies in the ruins of Empire. Urban sprawl and decrepit wreckage stretch as far as the eye can see.
Today, Great Britain produces nothing of consequence. Not even culture, which is the residue of one-time hegemonies. Even music and high cinema have been entombed. The country's face is weather-beaten. It’s foreign policy, like its domestic counterpart, has gone to where all bad things go – south. Of course all this was inevitable. It’s a warning to all empires.
I want to give Great Britain its flowers. In my view, it was – and I use the past tense to make the point – the greatest and most dominant state on earth. Greater than even the mighty United States of America. Let’s remember, America is but the historic child of England, and more broadly, Great Britain. It takes some bravery to put “great” before the name of a country. It’s so masculine it’s akin to calling it the “husband of all husbands.”
That’s how Britain saw itself. It was, by its own telling, the only “great” country on earth. The centre of civilisation, and of the moral and political universe. Greenwich Median Time (GMT) was measured from there. This effectively made Britain the international standard for time.
Everything else was east or west of there. The Middle East. Middle or east where? Far East. Far and east of where? The point is that every other location on earth was determined relative to Britain. All other regions were appendages of it. It’s not dissimilar to using the colour white as the referent for all other colours – the master colour.
This is poignant because subliminally, and obviously, if the most powerful on earth is the center of time and geography, then it dictates wherefore everything else revolves around it. I recall when I first learned that the sun never set on the British Empire. That no matter how far and where you travelled, you were still under the dominion of Britain.
Then, of course, the torrent of indexes of global domination. A big one obviously is the birthing of the United States, a baby child of Britain. The child rejected the physical domination by the parent, and even fought a war against the mother. Overthrew the mother. But who cares? The child has the immutable DNA of the mother. So, in a sense, Britain is the original parent of the most powerful country on earth today. Let that sink in. Other empires tried to birth their own colossi, but failed. Portugal’s most successful progeny is Brazil. Spain has produced a number of rickety children in Latin America. France, well, France – never produced a dominant post-colony. But French is a dominant global lingua franca.
That said, English dwarfs all other colonial languages. It’s, by far, the most spoken language in the world, and in virtually all countries of the world. Imagine that – a language from a tiny island. I remember English literature. You weren’t educated until you mastered English literature. Speaking the “Queen’s English” was a mark of great distinction, even to this day. Many Americans, for example, are in awe of
Successful foreign characters
English diction, and treat it with some inner admiration. The child still looks up to the mother in some cultural matters. British movie actors are the most successful foreign characters in Hollywood. The English are still kicking cultural ass in America more than 250 years since their suzerainty ended. British fashion still sells in America. And the English universities of Oxford and Cambridge still lord it over the globe.
What of Great Britain itself? Not much is left. Its various political units are disaggregating. Scotland and Wales are restive. As an economy, Britain has shrunk to a shell of its former self. The US sits atop with a GDP of $33 trillion. China pulls up second at $20 trillion. Poor Britain sits at sixth with $4.2 trillion, behind its former colony India at fifth with $4.3 trillion. How the mighty have fallen.
They say Britain doesn’t produce anything anymore. It only keeps other people’s money. Its infrastructure is collapsing. Crime is rampant. Its healthcare system is a shambles. The once-mighty BBC broadcaster is a pale shadow of its former self. OK, maybe the Premier League is a point of pride. But foreign players dominate it.
I am not here to rain on the English parade. After all, I am writing in English. But Britain may very soon become a Rome, or a Greece. A historic memory of a once great empire. Its allure may remain forever. But as a historic curiosity. Like Ancient Athens. And that’s OK. We won’t shed tears. Because we know very well Britain’s history elsewhere on earth.
Makau Mutua is SUNY Distinguished Professor and Margaret W. Wong Professor at Buffalo Law School, The State University of New York. @makaumutua.
