Sixty Joyless De-Britished Uncrowned Commonpoor Years (1949-2009)

Elizabeth II Vice-Regal Saint: Remembering Paul Comtois (1895–1966), Lt.-Governor of Québec
Britannic Inheritance: Britain's proud legacy. What legacy will America leave?
English Debate: Daniel Hannan revels in making mince meat of Gordon Brown
Crazy Canucks: British MP banned from Canada on national security grounds
Happy St. Patrick's: Will Ireland ever return to the Commonwealth?
Voyage Through the Commonwealth: World cruise around the faded bits of pink.
No Queen for the Green: The Green Party of Canada votes to dispense with monarchy.
"Sir Edward Kennedy": The Queen has awarded the senator an honorary Knighthood.
President Obama: Hates Britain, but is keen to meet the Queen?
The Princess Royal: Princess Anne "outstanding" in Australia.
H.M.S. Victory: In 1744, 1000 sailors went down with a cargo of gold.
Queen's Commonwealth: Britain is letting the Commonwealth die.
Justice Kirby: His support for monarchy almost lost him appointment to High Court
Royal Military Academy: Sandhurst abolishes the Apostles' Creed.
Air Marshal Alec Maisner, R.I.P. Half Polish, half German and 100% British.
Cherie Blair: Not a vain, self regarding, shallow thinking viper after all.
Harry Potter: Celebrated rich kid thinks the Royals should not be celebrated
The Royal Jelly: A new king has been coronated, and his subjects are in a merry mood
Victoria Cross: Australian TROOPER MARK DONALDSON awarded the VC
Godless Buses: Royal Navy veteran, Ron Heather, refuses to drive his bus
Labour's Class War: To expunge those with the slightest pretensions to gentility
100 Top English Novels of All Time: The Essential Fictional Library
BIG BEN: Celebrating 150 Years of the Clock Tower

Sunday, 20 January 2008

Join the Anglosphere Consortium!

An initiative whose time has come, thanks to Churchill's Parrot and Sunlit Uplands. Sir Winston Churchill, of course, believed in the fraternity of the English-Speaking Peoples, so he would no doubt approve of any effort that furthers the coming together of English-speaking countries and their citizens.

The 'Anglosphere' is not so much an idea as a reality, for any Anglophone who walks and talks in cyberspace is automatically part of this linguistic-cultural bounded universe called the Anglosphere. Everyday we communicate with each other and become more interconnected through interfaces such as Hotmail, Facebook, Blogger, Google...and a multiplicity of other forums and information-sharing tools that can be collectively referred to as the 'Network Commonwealth'. James C. Bennett has written extensively on this concept, and so I defer to his expertise, but the thinking is that we are still in the early stages of this new network civilization, whose interconnectivity and cooperation across all fields of human activity will only accelerate in the years to come. We ain't seen nothing yet.

The notion that we were somehow headed for a borderless multicultural world is simply not the case, other than in a global economic sense. The international business language is English, but that's where it stops. Countries are not going to dispense with their culture and language just because of business, nor should they, nor will their citizens. Although some sovereignty has devolved to transnational regulatory organizations such as the WTO and World Bank; a world economy and world markets do not mean we are eventually headed for world government. If anything, civic states and their national borders are becoming even more emphatically pronounced, such as in the United States (domestic security), Russia (territorial integrity), China (sphere of influence), Canada (Arctic sovereignty), etc., and in Europe where the elites busily diminish internal borders, their populations stand opposed.

It is far more likely in the 21st century, that nations will maintain their borders, but seek greater cross-border institutionalization and cooperation where it is culturally contiguous to do so, to fight cybercrime and other foreign threats, or just to bond in ways previously unimaginable. It is already happening in the Anglosphere between our police forces, defence forces, intelligence agencies, medical researchers - to an extent not replicated elsewhere. This will only continue and accelerate. We can either let this reality overtake us, or deliberately embrace our fate. You can do your bit by joining the Anglosphere Consortium today!

1 comments:

Anonymous said...

My Dear Sir,

A sterling treatise on the realities of our times and the rationale behind our Consortium. Your participation in, and advocacy of this effort are appreciated tremendously!

Cheers,

Charlie
www.churchillsparrot.com