Patriotism – a politician’s refuge

Gordon Brown wants us to “embrace” the Union Jack and to ape the sillier patriots in America by displaying it in our front gardens. But why do they want us to be patriotistic?

It was not so long ago – certainly within the tormented, frustrated memories of masses of under-educated children – that we were taught British history began with the arrival in these isles of the Romans. Well at least that made it easier for the people who needed to be known as teachers; rather than work at any seismographic-type research or presentation they need only instruct their famished pupils to open the allocated history book and begin to recite from Page One. A corollary of this careless policy was the assumption that history began in Britain because it was a special place, where special people were bred. Telling those kids they should be grateful to be British elevated them from their hopeless, infested poverty through a belief that to be British was best and that all other peoples of the world should be treated with sympathy – respect could be allowed to intrude only if the others kept to their place in the anthropological order of things. It worked alright – as witnessed by the pupils’ daily salute of the classroom portrait of the king and queen.

One whose portrait did not hang in the classroom, but whom the kids were often reminded of as an icon of British superiority, was Captain Scott the naval officer who led the 1910 expedition to Antarctica. Scott’s previous experience there taught him a lot about the perils in setting foot in the place and about the need for detailed, meticulous planning. He was ready to go back and this time, apart from certain scientific operations, there was no doubt about the intention of the expedition. The brochure aimed at potential sponsors put it: “The main object of this expedition is to reach the South Pole, and to secure for the British Empire the honour of that achievement”. Scott himself saw it as “…an empire expedition…by a set of men who will represent the hardihood and energy of our race”. Implicit in these declarations was that Scott’s men would be the first to get to the Pole but when he stopped off at Melbourne on the way to Antarctica he learned that the Norwegian Roald Amundsen would be in competition with him.

Scott

After landing and setting up camp at Cape Evans Scott’s men experienced a succession of emergencies which, while no lives were lost, were a grim foretaste of what was to come. The Pole party – Scott and four others – set out on 1 November 1911. They arrived at the Pole on 16 January 1912, after a journey which had all but drained them of all their resources, to find that Amundsen had got there a month before them; a black flag was there, fixed to a sledge. “Well we have turned our back now on the goal of our ambition with some feelings, and must face our 800 miles of solid dragging – and goodbye to most of the day dreams” wrote Scott. But it turned out to be worse than that. Battered by savage weather and malnourished, the five men were simply unable to get back to Cape Evans. The first to die was Taffy Evans, whose reputation was as one of the strongest in the expedition. He collapsed on 17 February and died quietly in the tent that night. The rest of them pressed on; Titus Oates could hardly walk and Scott’s feet were so damaged that he thought amputation was the best he could hope for. They had no choice but to shelter, as best they could, in the tent until the blizzard blew itself out but there was no let up in the weather.