ResPublica researcher Dwayne Menezes enters the debate on curbing drunkenness in modern British culture
Oh, what a
wonderful course this discussion on drunkenness in British culture has taken! Indeed the real problem with Britain today is the lack of self-respect in so many of its people and, as I have grown tired of repeating, one reason for this is that our history textbooks do such an appalling job at identity-formation among our youth, even though this, in most countries, is one of the main purposes behind including history in any national curriculum.
Having grown up in one of the last vestiges of empire in a land that used to be the jewel in its crown, I was, as most of my friends were, raised on a strict academic diet of British literature and history. Though British rule of India, having been deemed undesirable, had long been terminated, hardly anybody I knew wished to completely give up their cultural Britishness. The reason was not, as has often been supposed, the magic associated with adopting the culture of the ruling power and thus becoming 'like' the ruler, but a recognition that much of it was actually immensely rich and inherently valuable, something which we should forever cherish, even make our own.
What did we associate with Britain? "A host of golden daffodils...fluttering and dancing in the breeze"; rolling hills and meadows dotted with furry sheep and fluffy cows that makes one wonder, "What is this life if, full of care, We have no time to stand and stare"; and a very, very polite world of ladies and gentlemen, where drinking more than two pints of gin and tonic on a particular evening would mean you've only won the affections of a Lydia Bennet (in
Simon's words, "make of that what you will"). Most importantly, Britain was a land of ingenuity, industry, great learning in and contributions to the arts and literature, the humanities and sciences, and above all, a land where at least some had the courage to stand up for what is right even when the powers of the world were against them (thank you, dearest Wilberforce).
The empire lasted as long as it did because even in its remotest parts, there were people who genuinely believed, on the basis of the last few points I mentioned above, that Britain was the epitome of civilisation that had something to offer even to a land as rich, glorious, ancient and in no way inferior as India. This tiny island off the coast of Europe continues to exercise disproportionate influence across the world (though certainly not as much as it once did) primarily because it still produces now and then a Baroness Cox and because of people like my family and friends, who, living far, far away, continue to sigh as my favourite Indian poet Michael Madhusudan Dutt did over a century ago:
“Where man in all his truest glory lives,
And nature's face is exquisitely sweet;
For those fair climes I heave impatient sigh,
There let me live and there let me die.”
Why do we view Britain with such respect? Go and ask any random person on the street of Mumbai who has been to an English school (there is nothing elite about going to an English language school there) if they've heard of Jane Austen, Enid Blyton and Percy Shelley, and take a guess what their response would be. Many might even have read their works in school. Some might even give you an hours-long discourse on British history, their favourite British monarchs and the most well-fought British wars. And yet, in the country where it all started or happened, in the country where many of the figures I venerate lived, there are ever so many who don't even know who they are. In the town by the English Channel in which I first lived after moving to Britain, many white British boys thought Shelley was how an Indian like me mispronounced "shell", Austen lived in a "stuck-up" world, "Blyton... who is he? or she?", and that the good old first Duke of Wellington I revere so much was only the name of a pub. Grievous, I say; grievous!
What is even worse is the changing perceptions of Britain in the world. When I was recently touring a certain part of the former empire, I asked people what came to their mind when they first thought of the British, and all I heard was, "beer and football". Ask someone living on the coasts of Spain and Portugal what comes to their mind when they first think of an Englishman, and let me know if you get a different response. How ever did the image of the English gentleman that seemed so prevalent in the early-1900s be replaced by the image of an English drunkard by the turn of the century, I have no idea. Who is to blame? I don't know.
As part of an Indian family that has struggled against many odds to preserve some sort of pre-1947 Britishness, I find it a complete betrayal of my trust, the trust of my family, and the trust of the many people like me in the Commonwealth, that instead of teaching Britain about Britain, preserving Britain, and offering us the Britain we seek when we come to it, the British governments seem intent on engaging in the vain and endless pursuit of pruning the odd branches through punitive measures, rather than dealing with the root problem. Schools in every town and village of this country must educate Britain about the Britain my school in India educated me about. Once Britain perceives itself right, and expects the right things from itself, even if its problems are not eradicated at once, it will make the soil far more fertile for policies like those Adam suggested to work.
To weave my longwinded story into the fabric of the debate: Raising minimum prices on alcohol won't, in my opinion, for reasons already mentioned in previous posts, reduce the incidence of binge-drinking among those who often find themselves binge-drinking. It will instead be more likely to stop people like me who don't care too much about alcohol anyway from buying alcohol or even that second pint at a pub, which I guess would affect the industry as a whole (presuming there are many like me). I do think drinking is much more of a social problem and we need to urgently rethink our understanding of our own history, historic behaviours and national traditions, i.e. address the issue of self-respect, which, as I have expressed earlier, I see as a direct outcome of shabbily designed history lessons.
To go on another tangent once again, how should we fix our history syllabus? Remind people that defeating Hitler, as great as it was, was not Britain's finest hour. Sorry, Churchill. Remind people that this was the land of the Magna Carta. This was the land where the son of a butcher rose up to be one of its most important cardinals. This was the land where a man from Hull, despite his frail health, led the first successful campaign against slavery. This was the land where, even in its prime, a 24-year old became the Prime Minister. Remind people that this was the land where even recently, the daughter of a grocer and the son of a circus-manager could become Prime Ministers. This is NOT the land of drunkards. This is the land of ingenuity, industry, moral courage and class mobility. Remind your people of your history, or let the Indians remind your people of your history. The British, rich and poor, have repeatedly overcome the odds against them in the past and have been successful and certainly can do it again.