Bending Over for Uncle Sam
07.29.07 - 07:30pm
The establishment can fret all it wants but we should be asking ourselves exactly what kind of relationship it is that we want our nation to have with “America”
Amid ongoing discussion about Britain’s involvement in the disaster that is the occupation of Iraq, there is a recurring refrain: British politicians and journalists fretting about the “special relationship”.
A major theme, which cuts right across the mainstream political spectrum is maintaining a strong relationship with the United States, with Gordon Brown, who jetted off to Camp David today, reiterating yet again that Britain’s relationship with the US is the nation’s “most important bilateral relationship”. That fact is, however, that nobody in mainstream discussion ever unpacks what the “special relationship” really is and what it entails.
The assumption is that the “special relationship” with the United States is obviously a jolly good thing old chap and we’d better make sure we preserve it or we’ll be in a right pickle.
But the first thing to do when hearing this kind of talk is to stop and ask: who is the “we” in this sentence and which “United States” is it that this mysterious “we” has a relationship with? I mean, I am pretty sure that I am not part of this “we”. I have several American friends I met while traveling and working overseas and keep in touch with them fairly regularly but my relationship with them does not seem to be affected by whether our craven government shows its usual contempt for anything resembling democracy and unilaterally decides to allow the US military to use a UK monitoring station for its missile “defence” scheme.
In debate, I try to remember at some point to make the distinction between the people of a nation, generally marginalised and sealed off from any real democratic input into decision-making, and their governments and ruling elites. A shared history and values may well create the foundation of a special relationship but that should be between the peoples of the nations.
The “special relationship” the media and politicians are so interested in is that relationship which exists between the ruling political/business elites of the two nations and the British public should be asking itself whether that relationship is worth preserving at all.
Even at that level, at present it doesn’t look like that relationship is much more than street thug to Mafia don, or perhaps a whore to her client, albeit one that doesn’t get paid much. The establishment can fret all it wants but we should be asking ourselves exactly what kind of relationship it is that we want our nation to have with America.
The America-obsessed axis of Smith, Blair, Brown and Mandelson, which took control of the Labour Party in the early 1990s made a conscious decision to align the UK with the US in order to allow a fading former imperial power to “punch above its weight” in world affairs. If Britain was speaking with the same voice as America then the rest of the world had to listen.
But do we need or even want our country to punch above its weight? Why not punch at our natural weight? Sweden and Norway do and they don’t have terrorists trying to blow people up in their major cities. If endless war, the threatening and occupation of countries which have never threatened us is what we get then why would anyone think it was worth it? This whole sick notion of punching above our weight is a politician’s wet dream, a retarded fantasy which feeds off a festering and damaging nationalism. The irrationality of it is startling; working class people trapped in dead-end jobs, living in dilapidated housing, expressing a barely coherent “pride” that Britain is a world power. What’s so great about being a world power? Britain ruled a third of the world at one point and it still had people dieing in the streets and children slaving in factories.
And yet, in order for British politicians to keep their place at the high table of world affairs and mix it up with the imperial powers this nation has to keep bending over for Uncle Sam.
Absolutely right!
You know, when Orwell speculated about (what was then) the future, he thought that whether Britain aligned itself with America or with Europe would be of crucial importance (for example, in 1984 it was significant that Britain was part of “Oceania” and not “Eurasia”). I can’t remember why, but we can speculate:
Perhaps Britain and America were too seperate, geographically, for the working people of the two to unite, and the only alliance could be between the elites of the old Empire and the new. Europe is closer, historically socialist thought and class consciousness have perhaps been more influential, and popular movements would have more of a chance.
Then again, the EU is undoubtedly an institution run by and for the elite, and Germany, Denmark, Spain and numerous Eastern countries have tagged along for several Anglo-American wars.
I agree. I mean, I don’t think there are any long term solutions in the kind of European institutions we currently see. Real informed democracy and solidarity between peoples is the hope. Nevertheless, in the short term I think pressure for policy changes within the prevailing system can have positive effects.