CULTURE The Conversation
GETTY^ IMAGES“In Spain, Britain’s constitutional
monarchy and parliamentary
democracy were seen as the
best guarantee of stability”
particular, Langton is very eloquent on the role of the present
queen in acknowledging the significance and the dignity of the
Australia’s Indigenous population as citizens of her realm.
What is the view of the British empire in Singapore?
It’s a very different story. While people in nations around the
world have been removing emblems and statues of imperial
rulers, in Singapore they actually have two versions of a statue
of Stamford Raffles, who founded the British colony in 1819.
This tells you something very remarkable.
This year, to mark the bicentenary of its founding, four
new statues depicting other people who helped make
Singapore – Chinese, Indian and Malay – were erected
alongside the newer Raffles figure. This is a statement in
sculpture that Britain’s contribution was free trade and the
rule of law for everyone of all races. They’re clear that this
was an enormous gift, and imperial history is, on balance,
seen as a ver y positive part of Singapore’s present prosperit y.
But – and this is very important – what’s clear about the
Second World War narrative for both Australia and Singapore
is that the turning point was the fall of Singapore in February- That changed everything. Britain had loudly promised
that Singapore would be defended until the end, and that it
would be protected along with Australia. The failure of the
British to be able to keep their militar y promises is, really,
the central lesson that both nations took from the war.
It changed their view of Britain forever, and they took two
things from it: that Britain on its own was not able to shape its
own future or the world around it, and that Britain on its own
- without its allies, the Soviet Union and the US – could not
keep its promises. It’s a very different view of the Second World
War from the one most people in Britain grow up with and were
taught about in school.
That’s an interesting point. How is British history presented
in the education systems of these countries?
The situation in Spain is particularly interesting in this
context. First of all, they’re very clear that it wasn’t the English
who defeated the Armada, but the weather! But they also really
do believe in the persistence of what’s called the ‘Black Legend’
[a sustained distortion of a nation’s history by those outside it].
In their case, it was the Elizabethan propaganda of the 16th
century about the inquisition of Spain – stories lauding the
heroic, buccaneering English, perpetuated in the 19th century
by the poems of Alfred, Lord Tennyson. They believe that
these works have coloured everything since – which has a
certain amount of truth in it.
The other element of Spanish history that’s fascinating
is that, as it emerged from the Franco dictatorship in 1975,
the examples of Britain’s constitutional monarchy and parlia-
mentary democracy were seen as perhaps the best guarantee
of stabilit y. The Spanish are, therefore, ver y distressed by
what are often seen as the current crises of British democratic
procedure and breakdown of parliamentary traditions.
Spain, of course, has its own experience with referendums,
having had its own independence referendum (since declared
illegal by Spain’s constitutional court) in the autonomous
community of Catalonia in 2017. So it is very concerned about
how to combine parliamentary democracy with a referendum.A statue of Stamford Raffles, the British statesman who founded
Singapore in 1819. “Imperial history is, on balance, seen as a very
positive part of Singapore’s present prosperity,” says MacGregor