A Thought for Thursday: Maggie

Britain's ex-prime minister Margaret Thatcher died on 8 April.

David Cameron described her as our "greatest peacetime Prime Minister” and said that she "saved Britain." Tony Blair said she was a "towering political figure." Everyone said she was (and remains) "divisive."

In the UK, parliament was recalled to debate her legacy. Street parties were organised by some to celebrate her passing.

In India, they created a sand sculpture:

Margaret Thatcher Sand Sculpture
[Source: Telegraph, April 2013]

Her death was covered at length by media across the world.

What surprised me was the strength of feeling expressed by people and the extent of the shadow she still casts over this and other countries' political life.

It's not often a person comes along that has this sort of impact. Reflecting on this week, it seems to me that the Thatcher era is destined to become a major section of history textbooks in years to come.

Civic pride

I have a wonderful little brother called Thomas, who is seven years old and attends Goostrey Primary School (left). Schools have become very important places in modern society; alongside pubs, they're the only true local "community" centres, now that church attendances have dropped. Goostrey School is currently celebrating its 150th anniversary. All the children have been involved in creating an exhibition on Goostrey's history. Today, I went to have a look.

I thought I knew quite a lot about my village. I am particularly proud to have been the person to create the Goostrey wikipedia article. How mistaken I was. There were displays on all sorts of aspects of village life, from the Victorian period to evacuees in the war to the importance of Jodrell Bank Observatory. The centre-piece was two 3D maps of Goostrey, showing the village in 1856 and again in 2006. You can see here how much it changed (below right).

Among other things, I learnt that the local viaduct was built by 150 men living in a shanty town; that the current church dates from 1798; and that, in 1959 (?), a man heroically snatched two babies from an oncoming train (his commemorative silver clock was on display).

Yet the most impressive thing about it was how the "community" suddenly coalesced in this insignificant school hall. I turned up at 2pm when the exhibition started, but already the Rev. Otley was present with a small group of elderly residents, accompanied by His Honour the Mayor of Congleton ("just call me Andy"). There was one display about Mrs Kettle, owner of a much-loved bits-and-bobs shop in Goostrey. Other parents and relatives soon turned up.

Later I was talking to my mother about whether "British identity" is threatened by internationalism and immigration. She thought it was, but I argued that actually identities become strongest when they are under threat. Goostrey is the same. There isn't really a "village community" any more. The old farming community has been swamped with rich commuters and pensioners who come and go. But as soon as village life starts to disintegrate, people panic and the identity is given new, enduring life. Last year the Rose Day celebrations became a huge event, and a scarecrow competition was held that is becoming a new tradition. There have been initiatives to improve the park and oppose a gas plant. And now, this celebration of 150 years of village life.

In a way, this new identity is artificial. The community is forced. People move to Goostrey aged 35 looking for a rural idyll, and when it looks to be disappearing they have to create it themselves. But today I developed a new affection for it. Who cares how communities are created, as long as we have them. People now start online "communities" based on their interests. Universities are becoming more important "communities" for the young adult. Is British identity under threat? No - as in Goostrey, British identity is just beginning.

Britannia rules the waves

I have decided to teach myself about the British Empire. Now I'm done with my history degree, I have the freedom to read whatever popular history books I want in my spare time. So I picked up Niall Ferguson's Empire: How Britain Made the Modern World. It's a race through 400 years of colonial history, but what fun! I expected to read all sorts of terrible stories about slave-driving and ethnic extermination, but no - Niall has taken the brave decision to make the British Empire look good. Like I said, what fun!

He acknowledges all the terrible things about the Empire, but then gives a big yawn and gets on to the more interesting patriotic stuff. Here's a few things I've learnt:

1) In 1775, the trade revenue from Jamaica was fives times greater than all the American colonies put together. There was barely any support in London for the war against the American rebels. Why shouldn't our fellow overseas Britons have their own government? And, anyway, they had no economic value to us.

2) The Boston Tea Party was not a protest against tax on tea - it was a protest against a reduction on tax that meant the East India Company decided to unload all its surplus in America rather than in Britain where excise was greater. As one American said at the time, "Will not posterity be amazed when they are told that the present distraction took its rise from the parliament's taking off a shilling duty on a pound of tea, and imposing three pence, and call it a more unaccountable frenzy, and more disgraceful to the annals of America, than that of witchcraft?"

3) In the seventeenth century, the famous East India Company (which later took control of the whole of India) struggled to compete with the Dutch East India Company, which was better organised and better financed. The solution? A merger (of sorts): the 1688 "glorious revolution", which made the Duke of the Netherlands the King of England.

4) When slave-trading in the Empire was ended in 1807, it was met with protests not from plantation oweners, but from African chiefs (!) who relied on selling Africans as slaves for their wealth. As King Gezo put it, "The slave trade has been the ruling principle of my people. It is the source of their glory and wealth. Their songs celebrate their victories and the mother lulls the child to sleep with notes of triumph over an enemy reduced to slavery. Can I, by signing a treaty, change the sentiments of a whole people?"

The fact is that this unashamedly Brito-centric account keeps surprising me. This has a lot to tell us about how far the study of history has come. When the post-colonial narrative has become the dominant one; when there are calls for an official apology from the government to descendants of slaves; when the suppressed narrative is the nationalistic one - that's when we can be proud. This book is a testimony to that progress.

To end, I thought I'd just add a little quote from 1854. It's scary because it sounds an awful lot like the attitude of the West in 2006. Do we really live in a post-imperial world?

"When the contrast between the influence of a Christian and a Heathen government is considered; when the knowledge of the wretchedness of the people forces us to reflect on the unspeakable blessings to millions that would follow the extension of British rule, it is not ambition but benevolence that dictates the desire for the whole country." (Macleod Wylie)

Britons never, never will be slaves...