(Photo: Norman B. Leventhal Map Center at the BPL/flickr)

British news is quite influential in the United States, especially with respect to international affairs. British news about international affairs also quite naturally sometimes deals with India, which is a very important country internationally.

Something quite peculiar sometimes happens when the British press deals with India, however. One occasionally comes across a news article hinting about British benevolence during the colonial era. Often this may take the form of a local Indian purportedly speaking to the reporter about how he or she missed life under the British Raj.

Strangely, this doesn’t seem to happen much with that other great former British colony (the United States). British media is far more familiar with American culture than with Indian culture. Yet nobody in the British media ever mentions Americans missing life as a colony. British rule in India being much harsher than British rule in the thirteen colonies, one would think that Americans everywhere would be talking about how good life was before independence. But, strangely enough, this never happens. Indeed, in my time in the United States, I’ve never met an American who thought things were better under British colonialism.

Nor have I ever met a real-life Indian who thought things were better under the British. Of course, one rarely talks about these topics with Americans and Indians. But it does show the ridiculousness of the concept of benevolent colonialism.

–inoljt, http://mypolitikal.com/

The 2008 Summer Olympics were some of the most exciting Olympics ever. Riots in Tibet, protests on the Olympic torch relay, an earthquake in Sichuan – for reporters, it was a wet dream. There was even a war to cover. As the Opening Ceremony commenced, the whole world got to see Vladimir Putin and George W. Bush, seated together, awkwardly discussing the Russian army’s advance into Georgia.

The sporting events themselves were also pretty nice to watch.

The 2012 Olympics? Not so exciting. There were been no wars this time. Nor any interesting protests (although Mitt Romney did manage to insult the United Kingdom). Was there even an Olympic torch relay?

Even the sports were less interesting; Michael Phelps is no longer winning eight gold medals.

Of course, there’s a good reason why these games were so much relatively less interesting. The host of the 2012 Olympic Games is the United Kingdom, which has been a very boring country ever since losing its empire. Since then the U.K. has happily bubbled along as a wealthy European country which has studiously avoided doing anything that would make news. The London Olympics have thus been reduced to a mere sporting event.

In 2008, the host was China. And China is a very interesting country; it constantly makes the newspaper headlines. A lot of people have very strong feelings about China, something that isn’t the case for the United Kingdom. In 2008 both China and its varied opposition were determined to politicize the Olympics. They were extremely successful. The Olympics were thus quite memorable.

The Olympic committee should decide to hold the next games in India or Russia. Or better yet, Israel. A Jerusalem Olympics would be very, very interesting.

–inoljt, http://mypolitikal.com/

I recently had the pleasure of watching my first Bollywood movie, a title called Lagaan: Once upon a time in India. The movie’s plot was fairly conventional yet unconventional at the same time. India is straining under the rule of the evil British Empire. A rebellious young man with striking green eyes attempts to defy the British. How? By beating them in a cricket match! The local village quickly forms a cricket team, the British team is defeated, and the local village’s crushing tax burden is reduced for the next several years.

There were some fairly interesting things about this movie (with respect to politics). The movie, for all its dislike of the evil British Empire, still seemed to have some yearning that the British respect India. Perhaps the most obvious example of this occurred when the main British generals praised the skill of the Indian cricket team.

The movie also had a strong message about equality of castes, an issue that continues to plague India. The main character adds an untouchable onto his team for the untouchable’s skill at throwing the ball, despite the very strong resistance of the rest of the team. Unfortunately, the untouchable (Kachra) didn’t seem to play that well. Somehow, despite his skill at throwing the ball the British were able to always hit it; also at the end of the movie, he apparently failed to hit the ball when a lot was riding on his ability to do so. (A note of caution: apparently Wikipedia says that he was more of a service to the team than my recollection of the movie).

In any case, it seemed that despite the movie’s vocal advocacy of equality of castes, the person of lowest caste was still treated somewhat poorly. This is especially true given that an upper-caste person advocates for Kachra; why didn’t the untouchable advocate for himself? Or why wasn’t Kachra a main character rather than a mere side character? One guesses that having an untouchable as a protagonist in a Bollywood movie would be like having an Asian as a protagonist in a Hollywood movie; unheard of!

It was also interesting to see the United Kingdom portrayed as the bad guys. Most Americans are used to seeing the British as those tea-drinking people with funny accents. A lot of the scenes in which the British generals abuse the Indian farmers in Lagaan are not meant to be humorous. But for me, at least, (with the influence of American culture) it was sometimes hard to fully square the fact that British people with their funny accents could be evil. I say this with lightheartedness, but it does reflect the strength of American perceptions of the United Kingdom.

Nevertheless, there was one fact that did bother me: seeing the British flag fly over places where it definitely should not have been flying. To see a battalion of soldiers march into an Indian village, proudly flying the British flag, was quite disconcerting. So was seeing a British general with no knowledge of India talk proudly of India being Britain’s. What in the world was Great Britain doing there? How did what was happening in India have anything to do with Great Britain? To have the British flag over so many places where it had no business being seemed quite unnatural. It brought home the fact that Great Britain should not have ruled over so many peoples that it had no connection to nor empathy with.

–inoljt, http://mypolitikal.com/

On May 7th of 2010, the United Kingdom held a general election to determine its new prime minister. While the Conservative Party gained a number of seats, this was not enough to ensure a majority. Fears of a hung Parliament subsided, however, when the Conservatives joined with the Liberal Democrats to form a governing coalition.

Here is a map of the general election:

This map indicates the number of seats won by each party in the general election. Red – the traditional color for socialism – is the color of the leftist Labour Party; blue the color of the conservative Tories; yellow the color of the Liberal Democrats.

Like other countries, the United Kingdom does not vote homogeneously. Certain regions are more loyal to one party; other regions to another.

Take, for instance, three distinct parts of Great Britain: Scotland, Wales, and Southeast England. The voting patterns of all three reveal some fascinating things about the country:

As the map above indicates, Labour dominated Scotland, winning a total of 41 seats to the Conservative Party’s paltry single seat.

Several factors lie behind Scotland’s strong pro-Labour vote. There used to be a time when the Tories could rely upon a substantial bloc of Scottish voters, mostly in the rural North. Under Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher’s term, however, pro-market reforms led to the disintegration of Scottish industry – and to this day Scotland remains hostile to the Conservative Party.

Former Prime Minister Gordon Brown’s Scottish heritage also helped him in the region. Indeed, in Scotland Labour did even better than the previous general election, winning 2.5% more of the vote.

A comparison of Labour’s performance in Wales provides evidence of this. Like Scotland, Wales constitutes a Labour stronghold; in 2005 Prime Minister Tony Blair led his party to win 30 seats out of 40 total (the Tories won 3). In 2010, however, the Conservative Party gained five seats in this Labour base. In Scotland support for favorite son Mr. Brown may have boosted Labour fortunes; this was not the case in Wales.

Mr. Brown’s Scottish heritage did not help him everywhere. In the South East England region the Labour Party received a pummeling from the Tories; they lost 13 seats, leaving Labour with a grand total of 4 seats. The Conservatives took 75 seats. Clearly, Mr. Brown’s appeal was limited here; it is possible that his being Scottish had something to do with this.

An examination of Southern England reveals yet more regional differences:

This map illustrates the division between Southern and Northern Great Britain. Southern England has always constituted the Tory base; Northern England the Labour stronghold.

A number of fascinating socioeconomic reasons lie behind this. Historically, Southern England was – and still is – the richest, most “snobbish” part of the United Kingdom. Indeed, the South East region constitutes the richest part of the country, apart from London. It is from this region that the Conservative Party draws its main strength.

Northern England, Scotland, and Wales are different. The forces of the Industrial Revolution have influenced their history quite profoundly; for decades their economies relied – too much, in hindsight – upon the factories, steel mills, and coal mines unleashed by industrialization. The death of Anglo-Saxon manufacturing, however, hit this region hard and left it poorer than the South.

The Industrial Revolution also catalyzed conditions ripe for socialism and left-wing politics. It created an urban proletariat – and, indeed, the Labour Party was formed to represent this class. Today these places still vote heavily for the Labour Party.

Indeed, to this day Labour constitutes the party for the working class – despite Mr. Blair’s rebranding of New Labour. This is a role the Democratic Party no longer truly holds, its grasp of the white working class torn apart by racial politics. Great Britain is still homogeneous enough to avoid this. Class still matters in the United Kingdom, far more than it does in the United States.

(Note: All images derived from BBC News.)

–Inoljt, http://mypolitikal.com/