Guy Aitchison (Bristol, OK): Brown has been accused by leading historians of glorifying the Empire as part of a strategy to foster unity in the British Isles and legitimise current imperial adventures in Iraq and Afghanistan. The criticisms, reported by yesterday's Sunday Herald, were made by Scottish author William Darlymple and Oxford's Maria Misra as events across the country mark the 60th anniversary of Indian independence and the 150th anniversary of the Indian Uprising . Visiting Africa in 2005 Brown said "We should celebrate much of our past rather than apologise for it. And we should talk about British values that are enduring because they stand for some of the greatest ideas in history: tolerance, liberty, civic virtue, that grew in Britain and influenced the rest of the world. Our strong traditions of fair play, of openness, of internationalism, these are great British values." According to Misra this is misguided as an attempt to foster British identity since it alienates those descended from colonial subjects and lends ideological support to the idea of empire. The challenge seems to be one of engaging honestly with Britain's imperial past without glossing over the more unsavoury details (Vron Ware suggested on OK that Commonwealth Day might provide an opportunity to do so). But is this kind of historical engagement really possible when the stated aim is as ambitious and politicised as that of Brown's, namely to engender a stronger sense of British national pride?
Tom Nairn's latest blog on the Council of the Isles takes a similar view of Brown and Empire to the historians of imperialism. He damns the UK's present imperial delusions, seeing them as part of a doomed attempt to shore up whatever "cut-and-paste identity can be scrambled together":
"Readers have got used to Westminster's chieftain jetting to the oddest places all round the world, invariably demonstrating that the UK still counts as a ‘world player', has ‘clout', etc. Foreign Minister Miliband has recently returned to the charge, reminding addicts nothing has changed, really. The content of ‘really' is straightforward: the break-up of ‘Britain' continues, unlikely to be diverted by peripheral delusions and floundering... "
