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This royal throne of Kings, this sceptred isle,
This earth of majesty, this seat of Mars,
This other Eden, demi-paradise,
This fortress built by nature for herself
Against infection and the hand of war,
This happy breed of men, this little world,
This precious stone set in the silver sea,
Which serves it in the office of a wall,
Or as a moat defensive to a house
Against the envy of less happier lands;
This blessed plot, this earth, this realm,
this England…
William Shakespeare
British Pavilion
- updated May '02 by Anne Gilbert
The British Pavilion group is but a fledgling:
this month May '02 we reached an age of nine months old. We are not very
large in number; there are only 46 British Aurovilians, and this figure
includes children.
In 1997 two articles (see links on this page)
were published in Auroville Today, displaying the findings of a small
group of British Aurovilians who had started exploring what it meant to be
British, but after that things remained quite dormant.
When I took up the work of coordinator for the
group around a year ago, I did wonder what kind of response I would
receive. Generally speaking, Auroville's British residents are not overtly
'British', nor are we sitting together as a group in the community or
seeking out each other's company. So I have been nicely surprised during
this very short journey to discover that we do have a shared sense of
identity and enjoy indulging occasionally in our 'Britishness'..
An English summer garden party, February 10 '02
On the 10th February 2002 we organised a British Tea
party and invited the Second Secretary of the British High Commission in
Chennai, David Abbott, to join us. The venue for the occasion was Valerie
and Michael's garden in the centre of Auroville. At the time the monsoon
season was not long past, and so the grass was green enough to conjure up
images of an English lawn. The weather was delightfully cool too at that
time of the year. We brought with us fruit cake, apple pies and other
cakes and sandwiches (mostly home made) and Valerie supplied us with
abundant tea.
A multi-ethnic, multi-cultural, vibrantly alive high-tech society
Mr. Abbott, our young guest and representative from
the British High Commission informed us that what we had perhaps earlier
considered British was not today's official line of the British
Government. The image of Tony Blair's New Britain is of a multi-ethnic,
multi-cultural, vibrantly alive high-tech society.
Explorations thus far
In our rare excursions last year into exploring
together the essential makeup of Britishness we had looked mainly at the
development of national characteristics up to the present. Of course we
were very well aware that we were only beginning to scratch the surface of
the British personality; what we had were mainly superficial, merely
surface habits and idiosyncrasies, and some of the phenomena that we felt
had been influential in shaping these British characteristics. We would
have to take a much deeper journey if we were to discover the Soul of
Britain.
On 'Britishness'
Here are some conclusions from the group:
-
Beginning with the land itself, we agreed that
the British have a strong feeling for 'Britannia', our motherland.
Our love for "our green and pleasant land" of Blake's poetry
runs deep into our collective psyche. As an island country there is an
aspect of security added to our feelings for the land, because over
two millennia we have felt comfortably snug and safe on our island
home, surrounded by its living fortress, the sea.
-
The element of water must have played its
part too in shaping our Britishness. Not only is there the sea (and
Britain has been a great seafaring nation in the past), but also as
everyone knows the rain pours down a lot on the British Isles,
resulting in the wonderful greenness of the British landscape.
-
Britain was one of the first nations to reach true
nationhood. We are freedom-loving people, and the concepts of
individualism and democracy grew and prospered in Britain. Although
very much involved initially in the odious trade of slavery, Britain
was the first to condemn and ban it.
-
In her formative years (up to the middle of the
eleventh century) Britain suffered many invasions, some of them brutal
and genocidal. But after some time the invading people were
integrated into the community, thus creating a richer blend of
society. Many persecuted peoples have found shelter and a new home in
Britain over the centuries, and many continue to do so, which is why
we have a Britain today which is very different to that of our
forefathers.
-
A sense of 'justice and fair play' is
another attribute of the British character, which gains expression in
the popular idiom, "what is and what is not considered to be
cricket". Perhaps Magna Carta, the document that the English
Barons forced King John to sign and seal in 1215, played a key role in
the development of our sense of justice and fair play. Magna Carta
came to be seen as an important document defining the English
constitution, and was the forerunner of the American Declaration of
Independence and the famous 'Rights of Man' of the French Revolution.
-
The two things over recent centuries for which
Britain is most widely known are the Industrial Revolution and
the British Empire. The former marks the most fundamental
transformation of human life in the history of the world recorded in
written documents. For a brief period it coincided with the history of
a single country, Great Britain. An entire world economy was thus
built on, or rather around, Britain, and this country therefore
temporarily rose to a position of global influence and power
unparalleled by any comparable state before or since, and unlikely to
be paralleled again in the foreseeable future. It was only when other
countries followed Britain's example and industrialised, that our
unique position in this regard came to an end.
-
As regards the British Empire, in history
the period was short-lasting, little more than two hundred years, but
during that time Britain created the largest Empire the world has yet
known. At its zenith in 1920 over 600 million people were ruled from
Whitehall, London. It had its beginnings in the East India Company, a
trading company active in the Far East. After the loss of its American
colonies in 1783, with American Independence, Britain then refocussed
much of its interest and energies on other colonial ventures. However,
at the end of the Second World War an exhausted Britain handed over
virtually all its colonies, in most cases in an atmosphere of
reciprocal goodwill, and was instrumental in forming what is now known
as the Commonwealth.
-
The Commonwealth, which was born out of
the ashes of the Empire, is founded on a unique principle of identity
without regard to the political or ideological compatibility of its
members. The principle simply is one of a voluntary reconciliation
between Britain and almost all of its decolonised territories, under
the auspices of an institution for collective cooperation. Its
strength lies in its hugely international nature, and in its
membership, which embraces some of the largest and smallest countries
from every continent. What the Commonwealth stands for above all is
adherence to democracy and the rule of law.
-
Finally we must not forget the immense wealth of
English literature, which had its beginnings in an earlier form
of English, as in the poetry of Geoffrey Chaucer. The crowning
achievements of the English renaissance are the works of the
poet-playwrights working in London between 1550 and 1650 led by
Marlowe, Shakespeare, Jonson, and Webster. Sri Aurobindo has written
extensively on English poetry in 'The Future Poetry'. The English
language is now recognised as the world's lingua franca, and must be
considered one of our greatest gifts to humanity; though in typically
self-effacing manner we rarely draw attention to this, or to some of
our other great contributions, tending instead to dwell more on our
failures and shortcomings as a nation!
Radical changes
During the second half of the last century the face
of Britain changed immensely, and continues to change. As in other
countries, it has become increasingly difficult for many of the older
generation to reconcile themselves with the new Britain, as they still
have a deep attachment to the Britain they grew up with, and their
forefathers before them. The whole structure of British society has now
changed radically; as Mr. Abbott mentioned, British society is now multi
ethnic, and the culture is no longer singular, - it is plural indeed.
Creating a new world..
It is a very exciting time in the history of our
country, and Planet Earth as a whole - a time to create a new world out of
the ashes of the old. It will be a time of great upheavals and the wars of
the 21st century are projected to be cultural wars..
This is where Auroville's International
Zone has an important role to play. It is through our experimentation and
research experiences regarding the British soul, and through our
relationships within the Zone that we will have the opportunity to find
the way forward to the new world of tomorrow.
For when we feel secure in the knowledge
of who we are, we will no longer feel threatened by other cultures.
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