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January 05, 2006
English Speaking Peoples
I've always wondered why the UK (and Ireland), Austrailia, Canada, New Zealand (and to some degree Israel) didn't just come up with our own pact to protect Western Culture. This article makes for an exciting read. How long do you think it will be before the writer is chided as a racist?
OVER THE last few years, due to the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, many commentators have discerned the emergence of a new American empire. Some critics blame the Bush Administration, arguing that, but for Bush, there would be no crisis over American "unilateralism" or "hegemony." Others blame the end of the Cold War for "unleashing" America on the world.
Actually, American pre-eminence extends much further back--to World War II or before. It really continues a British primacy that dated back at least to 1815. During the 20th century, Germany, Japan and Soviet Russia challenged the Anglo ascendancy, but they were turned back. So today the world order bears a remarkable resemblance to the late Victorian era. Now as then, the world is globalizing, and English is its lingua franca. The United States has merely supplanted Britain as the leading power.
American primacy is not an accident of this or that administration. It reflects the special capacity of English-speaking countries to lead the world order. These "Anglo nations", or the "Anglos" as I will call them, include Britain and the chief territories that were settled initially from Britain--pre-eminently the United States but also Australia, Canada and New Zealand. What makes a country Anglo is that its original settler population came mainly from Britain. So even though a minority of Americans today have British roots, they inherit a political culture initially formed by the British. Some other countries that Britain ruled, such as India or South Africa, are not Anglo in this sense because British settlers never formed the bulk of their populations. They may be English-speaking, and their public institutions have British roots, but British culture did not form the society as it did in the Anglo countries.
Read the whole thing.
Posted by Aaron at January 5, 2006 11:44 AM
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Comments
I don't know about all of those bloody Sassenach (a.k.a. Englishmen), but the Scots deserve credit for their contributions to the alleged "Anglo" culture. :)
Posted by: Dodo David at January 5, 2006 07:55 PM