IAA A07 CIVILISATION BRITANNIQUE L1
PLAQUETTE
DE TEXTES
ET
DE DOCUMENTS
ICONOGRAPHIQUES
POUR LES TRAVAUX DIRIGES
Enseignant-e-s : Mesdames André, Palma, Lux-Sterritt, Monsieur Teulié
ANNÉE 2008 - 09
Calendrier
Le Cours Magistral sera assuré par quatre enseigna nts qui se répartiro
nt les
répartiront
séances comme suit :
. séances 1, 2 et 3: Madame Sterritt
. séances 4, 5 et 6 : Madame
Mada me Pal ma
. séances 7, 8 et 9: Monsieur Teulié
. séance 10 , 11 et 12: Madame André
A) The Birth of a Nation? A few landma rks
in early modern English history
(Cours magistral : Madame Lux-Sterritt)
IAA A07 CIVILISATION BRITANNIQUE L1
ANNÉE 2008 - 09
WEEK 1
1536 – Princess Mary to her father King Henry VIII
'The confession of me, Lady Mary, […] in which I do now plainly and with all my heart
confess and declare my inward sentence, belief and judgement, with due conformity of
obedience to the laws of the realm […]
First I confess and acknowledge the king's majesty to be my sovereign lord and king, in
the imperial crown of this realm of England; and do submit myself to his highness and to each
and every law and statute of this realm, as it becomes a true and faithful subject to do; which I
shall also obey, keep, observe, advance and maintain according to my bounden duty with all
the power, force and qualities with which God had endued me, during my life.
I do recognize, accept, take, repute and acknowledge the king's highness to be supreme
head on earth, under Christ, of the church of England; and do utterly refuse the bishop of
Rome's pretended authority, power and jurisdiction within this realm, formerly usurped,
according to the laws and statutes made on that behalf, and by all the king's true subjects
humbly received, admitted, obeyed, kept and observed.
And I do also utterly renounce and forsake all manner of remedy, interest and advantage
which I may by any means claim by the bishop of Rome's laws, processes, jurisdiction or
sentence, at this time or in any way hereafter, by any manner of title, colour, means or cause
that is, shall or can be devised for that purpose.
I do freely, frankly and for the discharge of my duty towards God, the king's highness and
his laws, without other respect, recognize and acknowledge that the marriage formerly had
between his majesty and my mother, the late princess dowager, was by God's law and man's
law incestuous and unlawful.'
Questions:
1) l. 1: Why did Mary refer to herself as “Lady Mary” and not as “Princess Mary”? what was
Mary trying to do by addressing her father in such a way?
2) l. 2-3: Mary emphasised her “due conformity of obedience to the laws of the realm”: can
you find this elsewhere in the text? Why was it especially important at that time?
34) l. 9-10: “I do recognize … the king's highness to be supreme head on earth, under Christ,
of the church of England”: comment upon this statement using the text and its context.
4) l. 10-11: “utterly refuse the bishop of Rome's pretended authority … within this realm,
formerly usurped”: who did Mary call the “bishop of Rome”, and why did she use that title in
her renunciation of his authority? Is this present elsewhere in the text?
IAA A07 CIVI LISATI ON BRITANNIQUE L1
ANNÉE 2008 - 09
WEEK 2
Queen Elizabeth I’s Speech to her Troops at Tilbury, 1588
My loving people, We have been persuaded by some that are careful of our safety, to take
heed how we commit our selves to armed multitudes, for fear of treachery; but I assure you I
do not desire to live to distrust my faithful and loving people. Let tyrants fear, I have always
so behaved myself that, under God, I have placed my chiefest strength and safeguard in the
loyal hearts and good-will of my subjects; and therefore I am come amongst you, as you see,
at this time, not for my recreation and disport, but being resolved, in the midst and heat of the
battle, to live and die amongst you all; to lay down for my God, and for my kingdom, and my
people, my honour and my blood, even in the dust. I know I have the body but of a weak and
feeble woman; but I have the heart and stomach of a king, and of a king of England too, and
think foul scorn that Parma or Spain, or any prince of Europe, should dare to invade the
borders of my realm; to which rather than any dishonour shall grow by me, I myself will take
up arms, I myself will be your general, judge, and rewarder of every one of your virtues in the
field. I know already, for your forwardness you have deserved rewards and crowns; and We
do assure you in the word of a prince, they shall be duly paid you. In the mean time, my
lieutenant general2 shall be in my stead, than whom never prince commanded a more noble or
worthy subject; not doubting but by your obedience to my general, by your concord in the
camp, and your valour in the field, we shall shortly have a famous victory over those enemies
of my God, of my kingdom, and of my people.
Questions
1) L. 5: “I am come amongst you, as you see, at this time”: Why was it important that the
Queen met her men at that time? What did it prove?
2) L. 9-10: “I have the heart and stomach of a king”: Why did Elizabeth depict herself as
a “king”?
3) L. 10: “and of a king of England too”: Why did Elizabeth add “a king of England,
too”?
4) L. Can you fin in the text any examples of the Queen’s rhetoric of motherly love and
mutual trust with her subjects? Why was this so important at that time?
5) L. 18-19: Elizabeth did not refer to Spanish soldiers as simply the enemies of her
country, but as the “enemies of my God, of my kingdoms, and of my people”: why
such an enumeration, please explain.
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ANNÉE 2008-09
WEEK 3
Protestation of Parliament, May 1641
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10
15
We the knights, citizens and burgesses of the Commons House in Parliament, finding to the
grief of our hearts that the designs of the Priests and Jesuits, and other adherents to the See of
Rome, have of late been more boldly and frequently put in practice than formerly, to the
undermining and danger of the true reformed Protestant religion in His Majesty's dominions
established; and finding also that there hath been, and having just cause to suspect there still
are, even during the sittings in Parliament, endeavours to subvert the fundamental laws of
England and Ireland, and to introduce the exercise of an arbitrary and tyrannical government
by most pernicious and wicked counsels, practices, plots and conspiracies; and that the long
intermission and unhappier breach of Parliaments hath occasioned many illegal taxations,
whereby the subjects have en prosecuted and grieved; […we] have therefore thought good to
join ourselves in a Declaration of our united affections and resolutions and to make this
ensuing Protestation :
I, A. B., do, in the presence of God, promise, vow and protest to maintain and defend, as far
as lawfully I may, with my life, power and estate, the true reformed Protestant religion
expressed in the doctrine of the Church of England, against all Popery and popish innovation
within this realm, contrary to the said doctrine, […] and further, that I shall in all just and
honourable ways endeavour to preserve the union and peace betwixt the three kingdoms of
England, Scotland and Ireland, and neither for hope, fear or any other respects, shall
relinquish this promise, vow, and protestation.
Questions
1) Explain the meaning of lines 1-3: ‘finding …formerly’: what does this refer to?
2) Explain the meaning of lines 6-7, ‘endeavours to subvert … tyrannical government’: what
does this refer to? Can you find other elements of accusation against Charles I’s rule in the
text?
3) Explain lines 17-19 ‘preserve the union …protestation’: what events does this allude to,
and what is the message of this promise?
B) The rise of the notion of liberty
in 18th century England
(Cours magistral : Madame Palma)
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Introduction : The age of Enlightenment, a general description
Text 1 (week 4) : Kant's What is Enlightenment?
questions : 1) "self-incurred tutelage", "have the courage to use your own reason" : do you think, when reading this text, that
Kant considered all human beings as endowed with reason? Explain and give examples.
2) Did Kant promote the use of reason only because he was concerned about people's "laziness and cowardice"? (see lines
19-20, explain and develop).
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Immanuel Kant
Thomas Paine
Jean Le Rond d'Alembert
The Queen of the Night (Mozart's opera "The Magic Flute")
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I. Political liberty : the end of autocratic rule, the development of democracy, the emergence of
the notions of individual liberty and equality
Text 1' (week 4) : The second Treatise of Civil Government, John Locke
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questions : 1) According to John Locke, what are the key values upon which society must rest?
2) Is liberty necessarily limited in society? How? Why? Quote and develop.
John Locke
Charles de Secondat, baron de
Montesquieu
>>>>>>>>>>><<<<<<<<<<<
Emergence of the notion of equality and the first feminist claims
Letters on Education, Catherine Macaulay
A famous radical historian, Macaulay demanded equal rights for girls and women in a pioneering book
entitled Letters on Education published in 1790:
"The great difference that is observable in the character of the sexes, Hortensia, as they display themselves in the
scenes of social life, has given rise to much false speculation on the natural qualities of the female mind (..). It is a
long time before the crowd give up opinions they have been taught to look upon with respect (..) it is from such
causes that the notion of a sexual difference in the human character has with very few exceptions, universally
prevailed from the earliest times (..) The difference that actually does subsist between the sexes, is too flattering
for men to be imputed to accident (...) among the most strenuous asserters of the sexual difference in character,
Rousseau is the most conspicuous, both on account of that warmth of sentiment which distinguishes all his
writings and the eloquence of his compositions : but never did enthusiasm and the love of paradox, those enemies
to philosophical disquisition, appear in more strong opposition to plain sense than in Rousseau’s definition of this
difference. He sets out (..) that Nature intended the subjection of the one sex to the other, that consequently there
must be an inferiority of intellect in the subjected party (..) (Macaulay, Letters on Education, 203)".
"Yes, Hortensia, I do not know one European government who could be safely trusted with the care of education
(...) for what fetters can bind so strongly, or so fatally, as those which are fastened on the mind ? (Macaulay, Letters
on Education, 19)".
"all those vices and imperfections which have been generally regarded as inseparable from the female character, do
not in any manner proceed from sexual causes, but are entirely the effects of situation and education (Macaulay,
Letters on Education, 202)".
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Mary Wollstonecraft
Mary Astell
Catherine Macaulay
>>>>>>>>>>><<<<<<<<<<<
Emergence of the notion of equality and anti-slavery activism : Josiah Wedgwood's cameo
>>>>>>>>>>><<<<<<<<<<<
Political liberty and sovereignty : Napoleon or the French menace
Anti-Napoleonic caricature
II. Economic liberty : the rise of the notion of free trade, the development of political economy
and the industrial revolution
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Text 2 (week 5) : an extract from a letter by Anne-Robert-Jacques Turgot to the Abbé Terray (1773)
and an extract from Adam Smith's Inquiry into the Origins and Causes of the Wealth of Nations
(1776)
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questions : 1) What was the physiocratic school in economics? What links can you establish between this French movement's
views and Adam Smith's analysis? Quote from the text.
2) What sort of economic system do Turgot and Smith promote? Give details and examples from the texts.
3) What is the name of the system they denounce? How did this system work? What were its flaws according to these
theoreticians?
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III. Liberty in aesthetics and arts
Reflections on taste
Francis Hutcheson
Joshua Reynolds
Involvement in political causes
William Wordsworth
The famous Romantic poet wrote a sonnet in the memory of Toussaint L'Ouverture, a black rebel who
led the insurrection in Saint-Domingue in 1791 and died in France in 1803 :
Though fallen thyself, never to rise again,
Live and take comfort. Thou hast left behind
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Powers that will work for thee; air, earth, skies;
There's not breath of the common wind
That will forget thee; thou hast great allies;
Thy friends are exultations, agonies,
And Love, and man's unconquerable mind.
Wordsworth also wrote a poem for Thomas Clarkson, a famous British anti-slavery activist :
Clarkson! it was an obstinate Hill to climb:
How toilsome, nay how dire it was, by Thee
Is known,—by none, perhaps, so feelingly;
But Thou, who, starting in thy fervent prime,
Didst first lead forth this pilgrimage sublime,
Hast heard the constant Voice its charge repeat,
Which, out of thy young heart’s oracular seat,
First roused thee.—O true yoke-fellow of Time
With unabating effort, see, the palm
Is won, and by all Nations shall be worn!
The bloody Writing is for ever torn,
And Thou henceforth wilt have a good Man’s calm,
A great Man’s happiness; thy zeal shall find
Repose at length, firm Friend of human kind!
William Blake illustrated a book by John Gabriel Stedman, a British-Dutch soldier, published in 1796,
entitled The Narrative of a Five Years Expedition against the Revolted Negroes of Surinam.
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Text 3 (week 6) : an extract from Edmund Burke's Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of our
Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful (1757)
questions : 1) When Burke undertook the writing of his Enquiry, was the sublime a new notion or had it been already
studied?
2) What is the effect of the sublime on reason? Would you say that the sublime hinders the faculty of reasoning? Quote and
explain.
3) In what way does the celebration of the sublime come in contradiction with the values extolled by the Enlightenment era?
What artistic movement does the sublime herald?
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Edmund Burke
Joseph Mallord William Turner, "The
Devil's Bridge"
Joseph Mallord William Turner,
"Fishermen at sea"
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Henry Fuseli', "the Night-Mare"
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C) Times of Progress
(Cours magistral : Monsieur Teulié)
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IAA A07 CIVILISATION BRITANNIQUE L1
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ANNÉE 2008-09
WEEK 7
« The Nineteenth Century », Fraser's Magazine, April 1864.
Perhaps it may not be unprofitable to afford brief study to the question. What is the Spirit of the
Nineteenth Century? How does it differ from that of other times. And is it on the whole worthy of either
the laudation or disparagement with which it is commonly treated?
On the face of the matter appears a fact, which yet is often curiously overlooked both by
eulogists and depreciators. The Spirit of the Age is not singular but dual. We have had two generations
since the century began. There is Nineteenth Century Père and Nineteenth Century Fils; and they are as
different from one another in principles, opinions, manners, and costume as fathers and sons usually
contrive to be. Praise or blame adressed vaguely to both, must usually be unjust to one or the other. Let
us try to draw the portraits of these two characters, so as to mark such differences as clearly as we may.
Men and women who enjoyed their youthful prime in the first quarter of this century, must have
been as little imbued with what we commonly think of the Spirit of the our Age, as any generation in
history. With the few exceptions of salient men like Shelley, who held ultra free opinions, and were
socially outlawed for holding them, the time was to the last degree conservative. The retreating wane of
the great French Revolution carried men's minds back further than they had gone for long years
towards Absolutism in politics and traditionalism in religion...Nearly all which constitutes the most
living life of our time was then unknown. Scientific theories and discoveries, and philantropic schemes
occupied no space compared to the theatre and the card-table. Social science, proper, was then unborn.
The principle of association, with all its machinery (so familiar to us) of commitees, patrons,
secretaries, subscribers, meetings, and reports, was a little known as the omnibuses which each society
resembles in purpose and noise, and which are as common as such societies now. It is needless to point
out the familiar changes brought by Telegraphs, Steam, Chloroform, the Penny Post, and Photography,
which if we could deduct from our present modes of existence, they would collapse like nadar's balloon.
These outward differences typified the inward between our father's lives and ours. They were
emphatically slow lives, in the cant sense of being driven-not precisely like « dumb » cattle, but cattle
who must read, write, and talk more in twenty-four hours than twenty-four hours will permit, can never
have been known to them, nor the curious sort of ache, somewhere between head, chest and stomach,
which comes of such driving.
Questions?
1/ What kind of inventions introduced « familiar changes » in the lives of the Victorians?
2/ What is to be regretted about pre-industrial era ?
3/ What does the other think about the French revolution?
4/ Why is famous poet Percy Shelley mentionned?
5/ What is his opinion on associations.
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IAA A07 CIVILISATION BRITANNIQUE L1
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ANNÉE 2008-09
WEEK 8
Joseph Chamberlain, Speech in Birmingham, April 1870.
Don't let us have one system for the town and another for the country. Don't let us have England
parcelled out like a chessboard into educational squares of black and white, so that a mere change of
residence may discharge a parent from the performance of his duties, and may deprive his children of
their highest privileges. I appeal to the sense of justice and to the patriotism of his great meeting that,
whilst using all your exertions to secure the blessings of education for your own children, you should
not forget those millions who are outside the influence and intelligence of these great centres of
population, who cannot make their voices heard in assemblies like this, and whose children will lose all
the benefits of this reform if you do not take up their cause and plead for them. In agricultural districts
the School Boards will be formed of farmers or their nominees. I am not going to say that farmers are
worse or better than any other class of men; but I do say that, unfortunately and mistakenly, they believe
their interests are opposed to the spread of education; they think, and there they are right, that the spread
of education will raise the rate of wages; and they think, and there I do not agree with them, that in
consequence of this their interests will suffer. One thing is certain, that if education became general, we
shall no longer find Dorsetshire labourers contented – I will not say contended, but compelled – to work
for 9 s. a week, and a taste of meat when something happens to a sheep on the farm. And I venture to
think when all children are at school we shall no longer find little boys of nine years of age leading the
plough from four o'clock in the morning till six o'clock in the evening, like that poor little lad of whom
we read the other day, that he was found dead from exposure to cold and from hunger at the close of
this terrible task. But because they believe it is their interest to oppose the spread of education, you will
have farmers in the agricultural districts over which they have control protesting against the spread of
compulsory education. I venture to say that the history of all permissive legislation is a history of
failure, counterfeit and sham.
Questions?
1/ Why is Chamberlain against permissive legislation as far as education is concerned?
2/ Explain the expression « the spread of education ».
3/What will be the effects of the spread of education, according to him ?
4/ What differences do you see between cities and rural areas at that time?
5/ What means does he use to convince his audience?
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IAA A07 CIVILISATION BRITANNIQUE L1
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ANNÉE 2008-09
WEEK 9
Duke of Wellington, Letter to J.W.Croker, 6 March 1833.
The revolution is made: that is to say that power is transferred from one class of society, the
gentlemen of England, professing the faith of the Church of England, to another class of society, the
shopkeepers, being Dissenters from the Church, many of the Socinians1, others Atheists.
I don't think that the influence of property in this country is in the abstract diminished. That is to
say that the gentry have as many followers and influence as many voters at elections, as they ever did.
But a new democratick influence has been introduced into elections, the copy holders and
freeholders and leaseholders2 residing in towns which do not themselves return Members to Parliament.
These are all dissenters from the Church; and are every where a formidably active party against the
arstocratical influence of the landed gentry. But this is not all. There are Dissenters in every village in
the country; they are the blacksmith, the carpenter, the mason, etc., etc. The new influence established
in the towns has drawn these to their party; and it is curious to see to what a degree it is a dissenting
interest. I have known instances of a dissenting clerk in the office of the agent in a county of an
aristocritical candidate making himself active in the canvass of these Dissenters to support the party in
the town at the election. Then add intimidation and audacity which always accompany revolutionary
proceedings; occasioning breach of promise to vote for the aristocratical candidate and forcing some to
stay away to guard their property and have the history of many unsuccesful contests in counties.
That which passed here, passed in Northamptonshire, Gloucestershire, but most particularly in
the Scotch and Irish counties. The mischief of the reform is that whereas democracy prevailed
heretofore only in some places, it now prevails every where. There is no place exempt from it. In the
great majority it is preponderant.
To this add the practice of requiring candidates to pledge themselves to certain measures, which
is too common even among the best class of electors; and readiness of candidates to give these pledges;
and you will see reason to be astonished that we should even now exist as a nation.
Questions?
1/ What is Wellington's vision of democracy?
2/ What is the « new democratick influence »?
3/What picture does Wellington give of British election ?
4/ What is the link between religion and class according to him?
D) " The Masses, Unity and Diversity"
(Cours magistral :Madame André)
1 The Socinians were a religious group that emerged in the 16th century.
2 A copy holder holds land in accordance with a feudal system; a freeholder holds land or property in absolute possession;
a leaseholder holds property by lease.
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Evelyn Waugh, Put Out More Flags, 1941 - « The First
Days of War »
It was half a mile to the village down the lime avenue.
Barbara walked because, just as she was getting into the car,
Freddy had stopped her saying, « No petrol now for gadding
about. »
Freddy was in uniform, acutely uncomfortable in ten-year-old
trousers. He had been to report at the yeomanry headquarters the
day before, and was home for two nights collecting his kit,
which, in the two years since he was last at camp, had been
misused in charades and picnics and dispersed about the house
in a dozen improbable places. His pistol, in particular, had been
a trouble. He had had the whole household hunting it, saying
fretfully, « It’s all very well, but I can get court-martialled for
this, » until at length the nursery maid found it at the back of the
toy cupboard. Barbara was now on her way to look for his
binoculars which she remembered vaguely having lent to the
scout-master.
The road under the limes led straight to the village ; the park
gates of elaborately wrought iron swung on rusticated stone
piers, and the two lodges formed a side of the village green ;
opposite them stood the church, on either side two inns, the
vicarage, the shop and a row of grey cottages ; three massive
chestnuts grew from the roughly rectangular grass plot in the
centre. I was a Beauty Spot ; justly but reluctantly famous, too
much frequented of late by walkers but still, through Freddy’s
local influence, free of charabancs ; a bus stopped three times a
day on weekdays, four times on Tuesdays when the market was
held in the neighbouring town, and to accommodate passengers
Freddy had that year placed an oak seat under the chestnuts.
It was here that Barbara’s thoughts were brought up sharply
by an unfamiliar spectacle ; six dejected women sat in a row
staring fixedly at the closed doors of the Sothill Arms. For a
moment Barbara was puzzled ; then she remembered. These
were Birmingham women. Fifty families had arrived at Malfrey
late on Friday evening, thirsty, hot, bewildered and resentful
after a day in train and bus. Barbara had chosen the five saddest
families for herself and dispersed the rest in the village and
farms.
Punctually next day the head housemaid, a veteran of old Mrs
Sothill’s regime, had given notice of leaving. « I don’t know
how we shall do without you, » said Barbara.
« It’s my legs, madam. I’m not strong enough for the work. I
could just manage as things were, but now with children all over
the place… »
« You know we can’t expect things to be easy in war time.
We must expect to make sacrifices. This is our war work. »
But the woman was obdurate. « There’s my married sister at
Bristol, » she said. « Her husband was on the reserve. I ought to
go and help her now he’s called up. »
An hour later the remaining three housemaids had appeared
with prim expressions of faith.
« Edith and Olive and me have talked it over and we want to
go and make aeroplanes. They say they’re taking on girls at
Brakemore’s. »
« You’ll find it terribly hard work, you know. »
« Oh, it’s not the work, madam. It’s the Birmingham women.
The way they leave their rooms. »
« It’s all very strange for them at first. We must do all we can
to help. As soon as they settle down and get used to our
ways… » but she saw it was hopeless while she spoke.
« They say they want girls at Brakemore’s, » said the maids.
In the kitchen Mrs Elphinstone was loyal. « But I can’t
answer for the girls, » she said. « They seem to think war is an
excuse for a lark. » It was the kitchen-maids, anyway, and not
Mrs Elphinstone, thought Barbara, who had to cope with extra
meals…
Benson was sound. The Birmingham women caused him no
trouble. But James would be leaving for the Army within a few
weeks. It’s going to be a difficult winter thought Barbara.
These women, huddled on the green, were not Barbara’s
guests, but she saw on their faces the same look of frustration
and defiance. Dutifully, rather than prudently, she approached
the group and asked if they were comfortable. She spoke to
them in general and each felt shy of answering ; they looked
away from her sullenly towards the locked inn. Oh dear, thought
Barbara, I suppose they wonder what business it is of mine.
« I live up there, » she said, indicating the gates. « I’ve been
arranging your billets. »
« Oh, have you ? » said one of the mothers. « Then perhaps
you can tell us how long we’ve got to stop. »
« That’s right, » said another.
« D’you know, » said Barbara, « I don’t believe anyone has
troubled to think about that. « They’ve all been too busy getting
you away. »
« They got no right to do it, » said the first mother. « You
can’t keep us here compulsory. »
« But surely you don’t want to have your children bombed, do
you ? »
« We won’t stay where we’re not wanted. »
« That’s right, »said the yes-woman.
« But of course you’re wanted. »
« Yes, like the stomach-ache. »
« That’s right. »
For some minutes Barbara reasoned with the fugitives until
she felt that her only achievement had been to transfer to herself
all the odium which more properly belonged to Hitler. Then she
went on her way to the scoutmaster’s, where, before she could
retrieve the binoculars, she had to listen to the story of the
Birmingham schoolmistress, billeted on him, who refused to
help wash up.
As she crossed the green on her homeward journey, the
mothers looked away from her.
« I hope the children are enjoying themselves a little, » she
said, determined not to be cut in her own village.
« They’re down at the school. Teacher’s making them play
games. »
« The park’s always open, you know, if any one of you care
to go inside. »
« We had a park where we came from. With a band
Sundays. »
« Well, I’m afraid I can’t offer a band. But it’s thought rather
pretty, particularly down by the lake. Do take the children in if
you feel like it. »
When she had left the chief mother said : « What’s she ?
Some kind of inspector, I suppose, with her airs and graces. The
idea of inviting us into the park. You’d think the place belonged
to her the way she goes on. »
Presently the two inns opened their doors and the scandalized
villahe watched a procession of mothers assemble from cottage,
farm and mansion and make for the bar parlours.
1/ Ascertain the exact circumstances depicted in this extract
in terms of time and place
2/ What are the main fault-lines of pre-war British society
which are highlighted in this excerpt ?
3/ How does the author manage to bring them out ? (pay
special attention to spatial arrangements and linguistic devices).
4/ What received ideas about war-time Britain does this text
challenge ?
5 / What changes does the text suggest the war brought about ?
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27
Sallie Westwood & Parminder Bhachu, New Society, 6 May 1988
For many white British readers the phrase « the Asian family » probably conjures up a whole series of images
culled from all the usual sources from which common sense knowledge of « others » is built up in Britain. These
range from media-produced panics about Asian families from Malawi being housed in five-star hotels to stories
from neighbours and friends in the pub about the shocking way in which « they » treat their daughters. But
popular images of the Asian family, like so many commonsense constructs, are often highly selective, prejudiced
and riddled with contradictions.
Even the term « Asian » is misleading. It was a colonial invention used to describe people of Indian descent
(for a long time part of the Indian diaspora) who had been transported as indentured labourers or encouraged to
settle as traders in the British colonies. Not only does the term not refer to people of Japanese, Chinese or South
East Asian descent as it does in North America, but few « Asians » in Britain identify with the term in any
meaningful way.
They prefer, for the most part, to see themselves as people of Indian, Pakistani, or Bangladeshi origin, or
identify themselves as black people and as Punjabis or Patels – anything but the catch-all « Asian ». We use the
term by convention here, not by choice, And if « Asian » suppresses cultural diversity, the term « Asian family »
performs a double conjuring trick : within it also disappear the many types of Asian family structure, specific
religions, cultures and migratoy patterns alongside the great variety of family life found here. This variety is
itself a part of the diversity that characterises Britain.
The supermarket image of the British family beams from cornflake packets and the banks. It is an image of a
white middle class family, a wife and husband, and two children, a boy and a girl. This, it suggests, is a normal
family and black families of Asian or Afro-Caribbean descent, one-parent families or extended families are all
abnormal. It is not surprising, therefore, that the image of Asian families should revolve around some interesting
contradictions. There is the shopkeeper family committed to business and profit – a definite part of eighties
Britain. Alongside, there is the vision of the patriarchal family : rigid, authoritarian and belonging to a former
time.
Either way, Asian women are cast in the role of victims of an oppressive family system. Such a caricature is
developed in opposition to an account of the British family which posits it as open and non-patriarchal. It is a
convenient fiction and one that totally ignores, first, the power relations of all families, second, that Asian
families are British families and third, that Asian families are a major source of strength and resistance against
the racism of British society, a racism that often erupts into the living room of Asian families in the form of
racial harassment.
For anyone who cares to look, popular images do not match the reality. It is clear that Asian families show
similarities and differences across as wide a range as others in Britain and that racism, class relations and the
importance of gender and generation all have a bearing upon how families are formed.
1/ Explain why identity can be described as a « construct » ?
2/ What processes are involved in the construction of an identity ?
3/ For what reasons is the term « Asian family » objectionable and dangerous ?
4 / What does it tell us about British society in the 1980s ?
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Ian Bell, “The Scottish Parliament adjourned on 25th March 1707, is hereby reconvened” , The
Scotsman, Thursday 13 May 1999
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David Steel could not resist it. Five years to the day since the death of John Smith, nobody
thought that he should. It was, said Sir David, Presiding Officer of Scotland’s first democratic
parliament, the start of a new sang. That and more.
Dr Winifred Ewing, 69, mother of the house, had already reminded us of what was being
done. In the capital’s grey Assembly Hall, just after 9:30am, to a half-empty chamber, she
uttered the simple, astonishing truth: “The Scottish Parliament adjourned on 25th March 1707,
is hereby reconvened.”
History is memory. This moment was memory reclaimed, a right restated, a truth
reaffirmed. The nation of Scotland, with all its thrawn suspicions, numberless confusions,
apathy, clumsy rivalries and disparate hopes, had remembered.
We began again on a May morning in Edinburgh, high on the Mound, with 35 white roses,
a clenched fist, 129 members sworn in with a measure of honest dissent, a Labour Party
honouring John Smith’s promise and a strange kind of ease. This, said the language of ritual,
is what we do, ours by right, and this is how we do it. The fact was woven in neat, white
letters into the very uniforms of the hall’s polite, patient staff: “Scottish Parliament”.
But then, suddenly, many strands came together. The clenched fist was Tommy
Sheridan’s, affirming on behalf of the Scottish Socialist Party and a long tradition for a
democratic socialist republic. The white roses were on the lapels of the Scottish National
Party. The power was with Donald Dewar’s Labour, the novelty with Britain’s first Green
parliamentarian, the democratic question with the Liberal Democrats, the new argument with
the new Scottish Tories. Whatever else home rule may come to mean, it has already given
articulacy to Scotland’s diversity.
Hence, perhaps, the sense of relaxation. Whatever the tensions over pacts and deals,
whatever the storms to come, the bitterness and the arguments, Scotland’s parliamentarians
seemed content yesterday just to celebrate, to be themselves.
Mr Dewar entered the forecourt of the Assembly Hall and, as usual, failed to co-operate
with the photographers. Alex Salmond of the SNP was as ebullient as nature intended. By
lunchtime David McLetchie of the Tories was in a pub in a Royal Mile close, listening hard,
as promised, to the people, in this case some young men from an Edinburgh housing scheme.
This is what we are; this is what we do. Mr Salmond spoke for the collective strength of
the SNP when he said, before swearing the oath: “For the Scottish National Party
parliamentary group, loyalty is with the people of Scotland, in line with sovereignty of the
people.”
Before that, Mr Dewar, following Dr Ewing, had seemed almost to efface himself, he
whose creation this parliament had been. Jim Wallace of the Lib Dems took his place after Mr
Salmond, but made no objection to monarchy or ordained allegiances. But then came Denis
Carnavan, the socialist from Falkirk West that “new” Labour could not silence, recording that
he owed a duty first and above all to the people of Scotland.
It became what the glib call a defining moment: almost one third of Scotland’s first
democratic parliamentarians put on record their belief that sovereignty resides, as old doctrine
and the Claim of Right once supported by Labour says, with the people of Scotland, not with
the Crown. Mr Carnavan said it; the SNP said it; Robin Harper of the Greens said it; Mr
Sheridan of the SSP said, loud and clear, that he took his oath under solemn protest and
offered the clenched fist.
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An antique gesture from another Scotland, in some books, but yesterday there seemed
nothing odd in that. The reconvened parliament, for all the blond wood and desktop
computers, the 21st-century procedures, the pagers and the mobile telephones, was itself an
antique revived. The idea, if not the entity, had proved unkillable. Scottish Labour, under
orders, male and female, to dress with due sobriety, finally seemed proud of itself. The SNP at
last seemed a reality rather than a rhetorical device.
Mr Dewar is there for the sake of his own belief and for John Smith’s promise. Mr
Canarvan is there for his principles, Mr Sheridan for his people, Mr Salmond for a new
nation, Mr Harper for the planet, Mr McLetchie for the Union. Scotland is represented, male
and female, from a 69-year-old to a 25-year-old. In the closes, wynds and pends off the Royal
Mile, new politics, a new democracy, came to an old city and an old country.
It is too easy now to be cynical. On the Mound yesterday something new did happen, just
for once, without self-consciousness, from beneath the weight of history, with a sense of
honest purpose. This process will take us only where we want to go. Just for once, we cannot
say that we have seen it all before. Yesterday, for a moment, Edinburgh was the only place in
the world to be.
Under the Television lights, the SNP’s white roses had a yellowish hue, and we could not
all remember every word they were meant to invoke. No matter. The flowers were a
Nationalist gesture that might, just once, have done for all. Hugh MacDiarmaid (Christopher
Murray Grieve) wrote of the little blossom 65 years ago, in another Scotland, in the same
Scotland:
The rose of all the world is
not for me
I want for my part
Only the little white rose of
Scotland
That smells sharp and
Sweet- and breaks the
heart
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1/ What specific event does this newspaper article focus upon ?
2/ Identify the various symbols of the Scottish Nation which are present in the text ? What do
you think of the tone of the article ?
3/ How does the journalist justify the idea that the Scottish Parliament should be
« reconvened » ?
4/ Could there have been any objections to this decision ? Are they apparent in the text ?
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