Thursday, July 7
Rule Britannia
World War IV is still being fought as events in London have shown us today. Through experience, historical memory, and without a doubt a healthy dose of cultural programming on two continents, we have acquired a profound affection and respect for the people of the UK. It is certainly a well deserved regard in every aspect from humanity's lessons in the Magna Carta onto the Royal Navy ending the Atlantic slave trade and the lonely years of fighting Nazi Germany alone onto the road to Basra just two years ago. Certainly from the Boston Massacre to the bloody suppression of the Mau Mau rebellion there are stains on that record... but at this point other, at times painful, truths emerge.
Britain's existence has to an astonishing degree been a boon for mankind.
The British will always be counted among the principal and most practical interpreters and authors of the very best the modern world has to offer ... the rights of common man, classical liberalism, capitalism, liberal democracy and a tenacious resistance to successive forms of totalitarianism.
As off the mark as Tony Blair and Bob Geldof have been about the EPRDF's cargo cult approach to government and the utitlity of money without reform, they and countless other Britons have long been friends of Ethiopia. It is clear today that the UK cares far more about the human and economic rights of Ethiopians than Ethiopia's dictators do.
The lives taken today are part of a wider struggle in a conflict between civilization and barbarism as profound as the wars against slavery, fascism and communism. Winning requires realizing there is a war on and knowing it must be won. Many take comfort that others are the targets today and mouth platitudes while others spend lives and coin in the common defense.
From the scene of a suicide bombing in England, Iraq or Israel, to massacres in North Korea, Zimbabwe or Ethiopia, battles against the modern slavery or serfdom of perverted religion and damned ideology all over the world are being waged ... against human EVIL.
Civilization will win if only we recognize she is at risk. Londoners and friends of the British all over the world understand ... the colors above can't run. And lastly ...
Rule Britannia
a poem by James Thompson
When Britain first, at heaven's command,
Arose from out the azure main;
This was the charter of the land,
And guardian Angels sung this strain:
Rule, Britannia, rule the waves;
Britons never will be slaves.
The nations, not so blest as thee,
Must, in their turns, to tyrants fall:
While thou shalt flourish great and free,
The dread and envy of them all.
Still more majestic shalt thou rise,
More dreadful, from each foreign stroke:
As the loud blast that tears the skies,
Serves but to root thy native oak.
Thee haughty tyrants ne'er shall tame:
All their attempts to bend thee down,
Will but arouse thy generous flame;
But work their woe, and thy renown.
To thee belongs the rural reign;
Thy cities shall with commerce shine:
All thine shall be the subject main,
And every shore it circles thine.
The Muses, still with freedom found,
Shall to thy happy coast repair:
Blest isle! with matchless beauty crowned,
And manly hearts to guard the fair.
# posted by ethiopundit : 7/07/2005
