Making Britain history

Rudyard Kipling, Britain’s national bard, once wrote: “If you can dream—and not make dreams your master,/ If you can think—and not make thoughts your aim;/ If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster/ And treat those two impostors just the same”. These lines, with their deep-rooted pessimism about the human condition and the impotence of human enterprise, and yet a defiance towards the misfortunes of life as well, are quintessentially British. Don’t make dreams your master-they won’t come true; don’t make thoughts your aim-good intentions are not enough; meet with disaster as with triumph, for to meet it is the human condition. Stiff upper lip, but don’t expect utopia at the end of it all.

Of all the many ways of telling Bob Geldof apart from Kipling- the beautiful English prose of the one as opposed to the foul-mouthed ramblings of the other, the self-aggrandisement of one as opposed to middle class humility of the other- the import of the above lines is perhaps the simplest. One can not imagine the sainted Bob writing those lines. The sentiments are too reactionary, too pessimistic, too damned…Tory.

This is no doubt why David Cameron has appointed the man best known for “Make Poverty History” to advise the Tories on globalisation. As the Times reports, David himself has left such sentiments far behind:

‘He added: “This summer, millions of British people took part in the Make Poverty History campaign. A new generation of concerned citizens want prosperity for themselves and progress for the poor — whether living on the other side of the street or the other side of the world.
“Modern, compassionate Conservatism means responding to their demands.”’

Want is one thing, however, and achievement of that want quite another. This debate has been raging for at least two centuries, since the days of Edmund Burke, grandfather of modern conservatism, and his greatest enemy, Tom Paine. Tom Paine believed it was only the malice of kings that prevented an end to poverty. Edmund Burke, ever the sour Englishman (or Irishman), warned that it was a natural part of human existence, and that any attempt to abolish it would be fool-hardy in the extreme.

His warnings were ignored by the French and Russian revolutionaries, to disastrous effect. It is distressing to see the leader of the Tory party following the lead of rampaging revolutionaries, and failing to heed Burke’s words as well.

For all the aid lavished upon Africa, economic growth there has been stagnant or worse for the past twenty years. This is due largely to the corruption found in most all governments there, which appropriate the aid sent by the West and the fruits of the African peasantry’s own labour alike.

The corruption to be found in Africa is no accident. This year, the Sudan will be receiving $57m from the EU, the Congo $45m. Western aid is positively a reward for bad governance.

Native corruption –sustained by generous Western aid contributions- is the reason for African poverty, not a lack of Western assistance.

Bob Geldof demands that the Western world give aid. He forgets to inquire if the Western world has any more left to give. It is already struggling under tax rates that take around two fifths of every working man’s income. The fruits of the Thatcher years squandered, Britain is no exception to this rule, and it is not the rich alone that pay. Everyone that earns a living already labours under tax rates of around 40%.

Britain has felt the pinch from to its burdensome taxation. The old “workshop of the world” now exports far less than it imports. Last year, incomes fell as a result of galloping taxation.

The drive to eradicate poverty, to Make it History, has not done so. It has, however, made a few other things history. It has Made British Industry History. It has Made British Prosperity History.

If we continue to attempt the impossible, we shall Make Britain itself History.

Kipling, Burke and Salisbury would have understood this. Paine, Robespierre and Geldof did not. Nor does the modern Conservative party.

Posted by Alex Zeka on Thursday, December 29, 2005 at 06:23 AM in British Politics
Comments (6) | Tell a friend

Comments:

Posted by Martin Hutchinson on December 29, 2005, 11:01 AM | #

Add Pitt and Liverpool to your list of good guys, but otherwise, I wholeheartedly agree. What splendid stuff! I can’t stand the tendency of politicians to take people like Geldof and Bono, whose life work is trashing national culture, and bring them in to pretend they’re doing something useful about Africa. Africa needs all money sources to the corrupt governments cut off, and some simple programs like an old age pension scheme, delivered directly to Africans over 70, that will stop the contuinent’s galloping population increase in its tracks. (and YES, stopping African population growth is an ESSENTIAL activity for a wealthy non-African government.)

As for Cameron, I am getting fed up with these leftist publicity stunts. IF he wimps out on his promise to take the Tories out of the EPP, then we will know finally what he is; there will be no further doubt of which we can give him the benefit.

Posted by Truth Be Told on December 29, 2005, 12:26 PM | #

The below Kipling stanza from ‘The Ballad of the Young British Soldier’, is still evocative after 100 years, if melodramatic and a touch rough:

“When you lie wounded on Afghanistan’s plains,
And the women come out to cut up your remains,
Jes roll to your rifle an’ blow out your brains,
And go to your God like a soldier.”

Kipling fell out of favor for his enthusiastic support of WW1 which hurt Europe’s soldiers so badly. Glad to see he may be returning to higher currency. Gunga Din and Riki Tiki Tavi are other good ones.

Mr. Bush may find it appropriate, considering Afghanistan has been called the graveyard of Imperial Ambitions. Great Britain and the Soviet Union could not tame it. Likely the US will leave it unconquered as well.

Posted by Al Ross on December 29, 2005, 12:35 PM | #

Kipling’s work is surely to be admired but in his personal life he was, by virtue of his enthusiastic practice of Freemasonry,more of an internationalist than his ‘Bard of Empire’ literary output indicated. Masons no doubt have many virtues, charity being among the foremost, but their internationalism, even though it is admirably elitist, would not, I imagine, possess much resonance among this blog’s fellow-travellers.

Posted by Alex Zeka on December 29, 2005, 01:34 PM | #

Kipling may have been, as you say, an internationalist, but he was also personally an honest and patriotic man. His verses still sum up the old British bulldog spirit to a t.
Besides, don’t forget, the man was a popular poet: he should be properly compared to the Bob Dyalns and, yes, Geldofs.

Posted by Phil on December 29, 2005, 02:14 PM | #

Alex,

You are a fabulous addition to this blog. The fact that young men in this country can still harbour such thoughts gives me hope for the future. If only more men your age could think the way you do. I am not even 30 and I sound like an old man already!

I do have the odd quibble about your post. Its nothing major. But when you say:

Native corruption –sustained by generous Western aid contributions- is the reason for African poverty, not a lack of Western assistance.

Corruption cannot be the ultimate cause. There is no dearth of corruption in China. There was no dearth of corruption in South Korea when the US left after the Korean war (and some would say there still isn’t). Taiwan has plenty of corruption.

The problem of African IQ ultimately goes to the heart of everything that’s wrong with Africa. Unfortunately, there’s no solution to low IQ. As IQ is about 80 percent heritable, even an improvement in African diets and hygiene would only raise their IQ from the 70s to the low 80s (if that). Blacks in the West have a first world diet (and significant white admixture) but are still crime prone and mostly poor (and if not poor, its usually because they are beneficiaries of Government largesse or because of sporting achievements).

The Geldof cult has nothing to do with African poverty. It has to do with the Geldof cult. The people who rally to these “causes” in our time are bourgeoise bohemians. Their morality is false and their vanity knows no limits. They are coarse vulgarians but ultimately a product of the vulgar society that we have become. The worshipping of vulgarians like Bono and Geldof is a reflection of our decadence. There is no escaping that conclusion.

The generation that produced Kipling and men of his type may well have been from Mars. Contemporary Britain has almost nothing in common with them.

Posted by Phil on December 29, 2005, 03:06 PM | #

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