GOOD OLD UK
The British islands won their place in history driven by a complex mixture of highly talented people - travellers, researches, thinkers, builders - and a crude ruthless way of ruling. A very small island, compared to other territories on Earth, managed to move all around the World, set their flag where their armies stood, imposed their ways, increased their wealth and made believe the world it was something to be admired. The fact is that the UK´s mind moves easily between extremes and within a context tightly framed. It is a society that allows open minds and individual drive, hence the laws of gravity, the Encyclopaedia, the ideas that launched the French revolution and quenched the Russian revolution, the short skirt, vote for women, outstanding literature and poetry, social revolution made by music, the industrial revolution and, in general, it is a society that permits its peoples to think and to be. All that, as far as their people rigorously abide by the coexistence norms they have set for themselves. You can walk a London street all painted in green and walking backwards and nobody bothers you, but step one millimetre outside the norm and the Calvary falls. This complex mix of wide individual liberty and tight social limits, have made the inhabitants of Great Britain, a great people.
But, as history has it, this complex interesting mind applies only indoors; abroad it was a different story. The complexity of their ways took a different form when settling elsewhere. The United States, South Africa, India and Australia even today carry the burden of an extreme, inhumane racism planted in their lands by British conquerors and colonists. If any good came from a dark period filled with the most horrid violence were Mandela, Ghandi and Martin Luther King. In history, the British Empire left a trace of bloody imposition and divisions among peoples only detained by extraordinary powerful Human souls. The Industrial revolution, in turn, which gave them an economic leadership in the World for a while, was built on the same formula: open minds and freedom indoors and a ruthless whip in the colonies from where all products that made their riches came. Even indoors, a life widely reported by great literature files, show that their own people had to submit to the well known "upstairs-downstairs" state of society which took for granted that only a few had the right to have it all. That is their history.
Today, as the World ensembles to deal with an order needed to protect the entire Humanity prospects for the future, led in recent years by wise governments in the United States and in China, the UK faithful to its complex formulas, stands mid-way between its peoples wants and needs - England, Scotland, Whales, even Irelands - and their ways of ruling. Driven by the idea of past grandeur that permitted them hold many strings all over the World, its rulers and, above all, its peoples have a choice whether to add their uncountable talents to the World stream in order to change a situation that stood by an abyss, or keep holding the notion of individual rule for individual power. Life moves only forwards. The British interesting mind and their double home formula of freedom and discipline could be a vivid useful input to the worldwide reorganization, just as far as the ancient "abroad" formula of some of their rulers is kept at bay by the only ones that can do it: the British people.
These days these islands that managed to set their presence all over, and that contributed and contribute to the World progress in so many ways - Prince William´s leadership in Conservation made him a Rider of Change - are about to debate whether to stay or leave the European Union, the Brixit. The fact in itself is contradictory. The moment political frontiers are put aside, the geographical undeniable fact is that the UK is part of Europe. Placed at the very north of the Globe, should they decide to move on alone, the unexpected surprises climate change is still to give may make for them a very lonely place. Holding on to power they are used to, may be a tricky game and the way it is handled will define whether it becomes a step forwards or a boomerang. Their history shows stubbornness in their ways of ruling: past process in India and South Africa illustrate it well. Imposition by force was their tool that translated to today technology world takes some new forms. They should have in mind the many times in the past that tool has been transformed into a boomerang.
I do have a special attachment, it is fair to confess, to the UK. Being my stepmother British and having my grandfather studied there Naval engineering, they brought early to our lives the shinning side of a brilliant society; the English I know was learnt in Cambridge; and my children studied at a British-Colombian school. All that, searching for their open mind, curiosity, discipline, order, keen humor and cultivated minds. But when it comes to their ways of ruling British People need to decide what they want to be or not to be ... in a World that has already taken a step forwards for the sake of Humanity. So, that they may continue referring - as they always and proudly do - to GOOD old UK. / Silvia Davila MM, EarthPIpol, Oct 22, 2015 (c)
