In praise of the British Empire.

So I was stuck at the arse-end of Southern Thailand without a book to read and so ended up reading the History section of the Malaysia/Singapore/Brunei guidebook I had in far greater detail than I normally would. Coming after Vietnam/Laos/Cambodia which were sorry tales of French Imperial atrocities (carried out within living memory) and enthusiastic American bombing and chemical warfare campaigns the history of British involvement in Malaysia and Singapore made for quite undepressing reading. Lots of free-trade, bargaining, and infra-structure building, and less of the brutal genocidal put-downs of the natives that characterised other Imperial power's Asian history. Okay, there was a bit of that (after all you cant expect everyone to respond well to having the higher ideals of the British Empire forced upon them) but generally it was not too horrendous. I think it is high time the British Empire and the East India Trading Company was rehabilitated (I think that Neil Ferguson wrote a book recently praising it but we need some big movies to do the same...after all if Gladiator and 300 can make the Romans and Spartans look good even though they were both extraordinarily brutal despotic regimes then anything is possible...the closest thing we have so far is Master and Commander but that was marred slightly by having an Australian twat in the main role) and became more than a pantomime and slightly effeminate villain in the Pirates of the Caribbean movies. Who's with me?! Say it once and say it loud...I'm British and I'm proud... whilst simultaneously being rather modest and ever so slightly guilt ridden.

The white statue is Stamford Raffles, the lieutenant-governor of Java, located on the spot where he first set foot on the island of Singapore which he took over (in exchange for cash and a life pension to the sultan and local chieftain...no inappropriate violence) and turned into a major free-port, trade centre and safe haven on account of the very efficient and law-upholding British presence.

The other photo (which is not at all tacky, touristy or stupid) shows some tacky tourist idiot next to a statue of Captain Light who founded a free port on Penang in northern Malaysia. No picture of Light could be found at the time it was made so it was modelled on the features of his son William who founded Adelaide in Australia. Busy family.