-Caveat Lector- > Will There Always Be One? > ______________________________________________________________ > > A British journalist sees the decline of England. > > By ALAN COWELL > > THE ABOLITION OF BRITAIN: From Winston Churchill to Princess Diana. > By Peter Hitchens. > 332 pp. San Francisco: Encounter Books. $22.95. > > To mix chromatic metaphors, people questing for a golden age > sometimes put on rose-colored glasses. In Peter Hitchens's > ''Abolition of Britain,'' there's rather more rose than gold in the > depiction of a bygone age when Britons anchored by faith, deference > and shared imperial memory knew who they were and were proud of it. > > The book, a paean to High Toryism and a diatribe against everything > Tony Blair has come to evoke, takes as its points of reference two > funerals -- that of Winston Churchill in 1965 and that of Diana, > Princess of Wales, in 1997 -- to chart what Hitchens sees as > Britain's course from self-confidence to self-denigration. It's a > smart choice of historical bookends, for no other two postwar > public events have so glaringly illuminated the deep social > transformation that Hitchens, a longtime journalist on London's > conservative Daily Express (and brother of the distinctly > nonconservative Christopher Hitchens, a columnist for Vanity Fair > and The Nation) seeks to explain. > > Back then, 35 years ago, as their wartime leader, their last > British bulldog, was laid to rest, Hitchens writes, Britons > observed the occasion as a subdued, respectful nation, united in > grief, yet at ease with their class-bound traditions, their > monarchy, their church and their history -- even though the > imperial self-confidence that had sustained them through World War > II was waning. > > Fast forward to 1997 and Britain is virtually unrecognizable. At > Diana's funeral, Westminster Abbey rings to the schmaltzy > outpourings of Elton John and a politicized eulogy by Earl Spencer, > her brother. The Union Jack flies at half-staff over Buckingham > Place in place of the royal standard, an emblem of the humiliation > of the monarchy. Most tellingly, the land is secretly divided, > Hitchens writes, between participants in a media-fueled orgy of > mourning and an older generation that feels deeply troubled by such > tacky public emotion, yet does not have the confidence to say so in > face of a ''dictatorship of grief.'' > > Between 1965 and 1997, Hitchens would have us believe, a creeping > coup d'etat had taken place, a cultural revolution on a par with > Mao Zedong's, against the institutions and mores that came to > define the essence of Britishness over the centuries, from > religious faith to sexual probity to the self-image of a nation > that had fought valiantly in the name of freedom against Nazism. In > their place, he says, came suffocating political correctness, > vulgarity and the end of national self-respect. > > By the time Blair's New Labor was elected in May 1997, a few months > before Diana's funeral, the country faced a historic choice between > generations that looked past each other, between ''two utterly > different ideas of Britain'' that came down to the basic issue ''of > what kind of people we are.'' Arguably, the book's great value lies > in cataloging the most fundamental quandary of the postwar era: How > could Britain ever hope to cope with the loss of an empire without > also losing the moral values that used to support and legitimize > its status as a Great Power? > > It is tempting to compare some of Hitchens's ruminations to those > of curmudgeons on a park bench musing over the decay they see all > around. But some British baby boomers may find more of an echo than > that. In the 1950's and 60's, Britain was a gentler, more > deferential place; the churches were better attended; children did > give up their bus seats to adults; a generation was nurtured on a > history of wartime victory and imperial grandeur that had yet to be > derided as myth or oppression; most of all, the hope for > self-betterment and the ideal of self-reliance -- both of Victorian > vintage -- had not been dulled by the erosion of educational > standards and the rise of a victim ethic sanctified by the cult of > Diana. > > Equally, though, this was not what Hitchens blithely calls ''one of > the happiest, fairest and kindest societies which has ever existed > in this imperfect world.'' The deference he ascribes to earlier > Britons played directly to the interests of a stifling class > structure that relied on that same deference to keep people locked > into their place. Even Hitchens acknowledges that Britons in these > supposedly halcyon days were poorer, shabbier, less healthy. And > sometimes it is hard to know whether he is teasing. Does he > seriously believe that the advent of central heating and > double-glazing destroyed nuclear families that would otherwise > huddle like cave dwellers around a smoky hearth? Does he seriously > expect the reader to accept that Elvis Presley, virtually > single-handedly, unlocked the sexual urges of a generation of > demure British teenagers? > > But there are more substantive themes. Americans might be somewhat > bewildered to discover that in joining the Allies in World War II, > the United States accelerated the process of decline by > demonstrating to an awed nation that Britain was no longer the > global power it thought it was. His views on the morality of new > attitudes to gay sex and on the growing number of women in the > workplace will strike some as homophobic and chauvinistic. His > assault on the left as the instigator of Britain's decline is > tempered, surprisingly, by an equally vehement attack on Margaret > Thatcher for sacrificing British values to the exigencies of the > market. And there is almost an Canute-like subtext that, somehow, > the destructive forces of television, McDonald's and American > popular culture could have been held back. > > Of course, much of this comes across as hyperbole, as if the book > had been written in a state of permanent high dudgeon. That's not > really surprising. Hyperbole, after all, is the tool of the > pamphleteer and the propagandist and, as much as anything, ''The > Abolition of Britain'' is a cri de coeur, a rallying-cry from the > right designed to dissuade Britons from taking the final step > toward what Hitchens calls ''the burial of a great and civilized > nation.'' > > By that, of course, he means the abandonment of the British pound > for the European single currency, arguably the most contentious > issue facing the nation today. Characteristically, Hitchens > presents the debate about British sovereignty as anything but dry > -- far more George and the Dragon than Economics 101. ''Here at > last is a full-scale battle against a recognizable threat to our > entire way of life,'' he says, in full cry against the euro. ''It > is as if the conservative elements in society have been hacking at > a fog bank with blunt cutlasses, to all appearances attacking an > imagined foe. Suddenly, the fog lifts, and the great scaly monster > of national abolition is revealed in all its ugly menace.'' > ______________________________________________________________ > > Alan Cowell is a London correspondent for The New York Times. > > > ===== > to unsubscribe from hbe-l send an e-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] > with the following word the subject: unsubscribe > to subscribe, do the same with the subject: subscribe > <A HREF="http://www.ctrl.org/">www.ctrl.org</A> DECLARATION & DISCLAIMER ========== CTRL is a discussion & informational exchange list. Proselytizing propagandic screeds are unwelcomed. Substance�not soap-boxing�please! These are sordid matters and 'conspiracy theory'�with its many half-truths, mis- directions and outright frauds�is used politically by different groups with major and minor effects spread throughout the spectrum of time and thought. 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