Gove versus Hunt: Two Sides Of The Same Imperialist Coin

Two men slugging it out in the British press. One, a rabid Tory education minister, makes the plea for national patriotism when commemorating the First World War. And patriotism, as we have learned at great cost, is the last refuge of the scoundrel. Bob Dylan said that, or was he merely quoting someone else?) The other, his shadow Labour Party minister, dons his professional historian hat and calls for a moment of national reflection and respectful debate. We know all we need to know about the Tory minister. Gove is an arch reactionary masquerading under the banner of raising educational standards. Hunt we know less about, but judging from his mealy mouthed reply, he is as gutless an apologist for British imperialism as his Tory counterpart.

Not once in his respectful response did he actually name and shame British Imperialism. Instead he skirted all around the houses, citing this and that historian and throwing in to his article the notion of heroism arising from the First World War. For god sake man, call the damn thing by its correct name; an inter imperialist war that led to the brutal slaughter of countless millions of gullible young men.

The script writers of Black Adder, the much maligned TV comedy, penned some wonderful lines in the fourth series. Black Adder is attempting to expose the British Imperialist propaganda that insisted that German Imperialism was wholly to blame for the hostilities. Black Adder points out that while Britain had an empire stretching across the entire globe, German imperialism could boast just one small sausage factory in Tanganyika. Now although in reality, German imperialism was gearing up to seriously challenge British imperialism in Africa and elsewhere, Black Adder’s scriptwriters make a telling point. Britain’s empire was vast in comparison to that of Germany, and it was held in place not by some benevolent democratic force, but rather by brute military force with bloody reprisals for those that resisted.

It is an indisputable fact that as the British Empire was consolidated, it was accompanied by outright genocide against indigenous peoples, the repercussions of which are still being felt today. And then following genocide and colonial conquest, there was Britain’s wholesale and enthusiastic involvement in the transatlantic slave trade. Neither Hunt nor Gove have anything to say about these shameful pages of British Imperial history, all of which were to culminate in not one but two inter-imperialist bloodbaths. Instead one prattles on about some imagined patriotism and the other of a heroism emanating from the First World War. Historical falsehoods. Nothing but myth, illusion and nationalist propaganda. The truth is very different.

Britain’s ruling elite were determined to protect their bloody empire against incursions by the newly ambitious German imperialists. The result was bloody mayhem across Europe and after just twenty one years the mayhem resumed, only this time on a truly global scale. Of course, Britain and Germany were not the only protagonists. Imperial Russia had designs on the ancient and decaying Austro-Hungarian Empire, and the equally moribund Ottoman Empire was also up for grabs. As for France and the other Western European nations, they had their own considerable empires to protect.

Tragically, but somewhat predictably, the working classes and their respective political parties lined up behind their own imperial masters, each seduced into believing that their side was the peace loving side under threat from foreign powers. Imperial alliances kicked into operation and before long Europe’s ruling classes were once again slugging it out for global hegemony. So what really lay behind this imperialist conflict? Both Gove and Hunt seem totally unaware. Let’s educate our education minister and his hapless shadow minister.

Capitalism was entering its highest stage that of global imperialism whereby industrial capital was being supplanted, at least in the most developed capitalist countries, by finance capital. The export of capital had now, by the turn of the century, begun in earnest, and the earlier battles for territory were now revisited with renew urgency. Britain’s capitalist class understood this life and death struggle all too well as did Germany’s ruling elites. But poor Oxbridge educated Michael Gove seems totally ignorant of this imperial history blinded as he is by trite and childish notions of British patriotism, while fellow Oxbridge graduate, Tristram Hunt is either in denial or is simply too opportunist to state the blunt and ugly truth. World War One had nothing to do with an imagined British democracy fighting a ruthless German militarism, nor anything to do with British heroism, but everything to do with the British Empire seeking to hold back its German imperialist rivals.

Naturally, there is every reason why today’s politicians across Europe are eager to play down the imperialist essence of the First World War. To concede that it was a war for empire and profit is to raise the prospect that today’s wars and aggressive foreign policies are equally imperialistic. At the start of the twenty first century finance capital is still looking for new territories to exploit, while imperialism’s thirst for raw resources and cheap labour is as rapacious as ever.

Much can be learnt from the First Great Imperialist War but don’t expect Britain’s centenary commemorations to be offering any clarity. A rereading of Lenin’s, Imperialism, The Highest Stage of Capitalism, is as good a starting point as any but rest assured it won’t be on Gove or Hunt’s school history curriculum.

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