Tài liệu Part 12- Britain pptx

I I 2 I I The law for th em to be dismissed . The onl y way that this can be d one is by a resolution of both Houses of Parliament, and this is something that has never happened. Moreover, their retiring age is later than in mo st other occupations. They also get very high salaries. These things are consi dere d necessary in order to ensure their independe nce from interference, by the stare or any other party. However, the result of their background and their absolute security in their jobs is that, although they are often people of great l earning a nd intelligence. so me judges app ear to have difficulty und er standing the problem s and circumstances of ordinary peop le, and to be out of step wi th general public opini on . The judg em ents and opinions that t hey give in court sometimes make the headlines because they are so spectacu- larly out of date. (The inability of som e of them to comprehend the mea ning of racial equality is one examp le. A senior Old Bailey judge in the I 980s once r ef erred to black peo ple as 'nig-nogs' and to some Asians involved in a case as 'murderous Sikhs") QUES TIONS I The publi c perc eption of British police officers has cha nge d over the last thirty years. In what ways has it changed , and wh y do you think this is? 2 It is one of the principles of the British legal system that you are innocent until proven guilty. However, miscarriages of justice do occur. How did the one s described in this chapter come about ? 3 Wh at are the main diff eren ces b etween the legal system in you r country and that in Britain?Is there anyth ing like the 'right to silence" Are there any unpaid 'amate ur' legal officers similar to Justices of the Peace? Wha t kind of training do lawyers und ergo ?Com pared with the system in you rcountry, what do you see as the strengths and weaknesses of the British system? SUGGES TI ONS 4 British people believe that there is more crime in Britain than there used to be. What reasons could there be for this? Is it tru e' Do you think of Britain as a 'safe' or 'dangerous' place? What about your own country - has crime increased there, or do peop le think that it has' 5 Many people in Britain argue that impris onm ent is an ineffective and expensive form of punish- ment. Do you agree with this view? What alternative forms of punishment in use in Britain or in your country do you think are bett er, if any' • There are many contemporary British writers who concentrate on the theme of crime and detection, among them Colin Dexter, who se book s ( such as TheDead afjericho, Last Bu s to Waodstoc k and The Wench is De od) fea tur e Inspec tor Morse. (Many of them have been adapted for television.) P DJames and R uth R end ell are two other highly respected wri ters of crime fiction. Please purchase PDF Split-Merge on www.verypdf.com to remove this watermark. 12 International relations The relationship between any c ou ntry and the rest of the worl d can reveal a great deal abou t that co unt ry. The end of e mpi re The map below shows the British e mp ire in 19 I 9, at the time of its greatest extent. By this ti me, however, it was alread y beco ming less of an empire and 1110 re of a con federa tion . At the sa me international conference at whic h Britain ac quir ed new possession s (fo rmerly German) under the Treaty of Versailles, Australia, Ca nad a, New Zealand and South Africa were all repres ent ed se par ately from Britain. The real dismantling of the em pire took place in the twenty-five years following the Second World War and with the loss of emp ire went a loss of power a nd status. These days, Britain's a rm ed forces can no longer act unilaterally, wi t hout reference to the international communi ty. Two eve nts illustrate this. First, Suez. In 1956, Egypt. without prior agreement, took over the Suez canal from the interna- tional comp any ow ne d by Britain and France. British and French I I J • £ <rio< _ ~ T ~ o Lf- "I' ~ _ -:- __ ._ ]000 (at the Equafor) © Oxford University Press °Tnm." do Cu"" . The British Empire In 1919 ~ .: , ~ ze, " tv Please purchase PDF Split-Merge on www.verypdf.com to remove this watermark. [ 14 12International relations Th eo pe ning cere mo nyof the C om - monw eal th Games in 1994. This ath let ics cont est is hel d every four ye ars. The Co mmo n we alth The dismantling of the British empire took place comparatively peacefully, so [hat good relations between Britain and the newly inde- pendent countries were established. As a result. and with the encourage- ment of Queen Elizabeth II, an international organization called the Commonwealth. composed of the countries that used to be pan of the empire, has continued to hold annual meetings. Some countries in the Commonwea lth have even kept the British monarch as head of state . There are no formal eco nom ic or poli tical advantages involved in belonging to the Com monwea lth, but it has helped to keep cultural contacts alive, and does at least mean that every year the leaders of a sixth of the wor ld's population sit down and talk together. Until quite recently it did have economic impo rtance, with special trading agreements between members. But since Britain became a full me mber of the EEC. all but a few of these agreements have gradually been dis- continued. military action to stop this was a dipl om atic disaster. The USA did not support them and their troops were forced to w ithd raw. Second, C ypr us. W hen this co unt ry left the British empire, Britain beca me one of the guara nto rs of its independence from any ot her coun try. However, when Turkey invaded the island in 1974 , British mili tary activity was restricted to airlifting the pers onn el of its military base there to safety. After the Seco nd World War and throughou t the 1950s, it was un derstood that a conference of the wo rld's great powe rs involved the USA, the Soviet Union and Britain. However, in 1962, the Cuban missile crisis, on e of the grea tesl lhreats to global peace since the war, was resolved witho ut reference to Britain. By the J 970S it was g ene rally accepted that a 'su per power' con ference involved only the USA and the Soviet Union. Despite Britain's loss of po wer and status on the wo rld stage, so me small remn ants of the empire remain. Whatever their racial or igins, the inhabitants of Gibraltar, St Helena, the Ascension Isl and s, the Falkland s/Malv inas and Belize have all wis hed to cont inue wi th the im per ial arrangement (they are afraid of being swallowed up by their nearest neighb ours). For British gove r nments, on the on e ha nd this is a source of pri de, but on the other hand it causes embar rassment and irri tation: pride, because it suggests how beneficial the British im per ial administration mu st have been; em barrassment, because the possess ion of colonial territories does not fit with the image of a modern de mo cratic state; and irritati on because it costs the British taxpayer mone y. The old imperialspiritis not quitedead. In 1982 the British gov ern - ment spent hun dreds of millions of p ound s to recapture the Falkland s/Mal vinas Islands from the invading Argentinians. We cannot k now if it would have done so if the inhabitants had no t been in favour of remaining British a nd if Argentina had not had a military dictatorship at the tim e. But wha t we do know is that the gove rn- ment 's action received enor mo us popular su ppo rt at home. Before the 'Falklands War', opinion polls showe d that the govern ment was extremely un po pular; afte rwar ds , it su dde nly beca me extremely popular a nd easily wo n the general election early in the foll ow ing year. Please purchase PDF Split-Merge on www.verypdf.com to remove this watermark. The armed f or ces The loyalty of the leaders of the British a rmed forces to the govern - ment has no t been in doub t since the Civil War (w ith t he possible exception of a few years at the beg in ning of the tw ent ieth cent ury- see chapter 2). In add ition, and wit h the excep tion ofNonher n Ireland, the arm y has on ly rarely been used to keep order wi thin Great Britain in the last 10 0 years. 'National Service' (a period of com pu lsory m ilitary service for all men) was abo lished in 1957. It had never been very popular. It was contrary to the tradi ti on al view tha t Britain should not have a large standing arm y in peacet ime . Mo reo ver, the end of em pire, tog et her with the increasing mec hanization of the military, me ant that it was more i mpo rtant lO have small, prof essional forces staffed by spec ial- ists. The mos t obviously specialist area of the m od ern military is nuclear weapons. Since the 19 50S , the Ca mpa ign for Nuclear Dis- armament (CND) has argue d, on both mo ral and econo m ic gro und s, that Britain should cease to be a nuclear power. At certain peri od s the CND has had a lot of popu lar sup port ( e- Gre en horn Com mo n). However, this support has not been co nsistent. Britain still has a nuclear force, although it is tin y co mpa red to that of the USA. The end of the 'Co ld War' bet ween the wes t and t he Soviet Unio n at the end of I 9805 caused the British gover mnen t to look for the 'peace dividend' and to reduce furt her the size of the arm ed forces. This caused protest fr om politic ian s and military professionals who were afraid that Britain w oul d I1Ql be able to meet its 'commi t men ts' in the world. These com m itments, of course, arc now mostly on behalf of the U nit ed Nat ions or the E urop ean Union. T here is still a feeling in Britain that the country s ho uld be able to make significant contributions to inte rna t ion al peacekeeping efforts. The re duc tion also caused bad feeling w ithin sections of the a rme d forces them - selves. Its three branches (the Ar my , the Royal Navy a nd the Royal Air Force) have dis tinct trad ition s and hist ori es thai it was felt we re being threate ned. The a rmy in particular was unh app y wh en several famous old regim ent s, each wi th their ow n distinct traditi on s, were forced to mer ge with othe rs. At one tim e, a nu mb er of up per -m iddl e classfamilies maintained a tradi tion down the generations of belonging to a particular r egim ent. Few er and fewe r such families exist today, However, a career in the arme d f or ces is still highly respectable. In fact, Britai n' s arm ed forces arc one of the few instit u- tions that its people admit to being proud of. Transatlantic relations Since the Second Worl d War, British governme nts have often r ef erred to the 'special relationship ' whic h exists between Britain and the USA. There have been occasional l ow point s. such as Suez (see above) and when the USA invaded t he Caribbean island of Grenada (a member of the British Co mmo nwe alt h). But generally speaking it The armed forces J I 5 T he se nio r serv ice This is a phrase some times used to describe the Royal Navy. It was the first of the three armed f or ces to be established. Traditionally. it traces its history ng ht back to K ing A lf red (see cha pter 2). Greenham Common Greenham Comm on is the Royal Air Force base in Berkshire wh ich became the focus for ant i-nuclear campaigners (mainly wo men ) in the [980s. American Cruise nuclear missiles were based there from [983 to 1991. Prot est orsat Gre enh ornCom mon Please purchase PDF Split-Merge on www.verypdf.com to remove this watermark. I I 6 12 International relations Is Br ita in really part of Euro pe? The government says it is, but look at this report from The Sunday Times of 18 April 1993. Britain bans EC medals British members of the European Commun ity monitoring mission in former Yugoslavia have been banned from a formal presentation of medals struck by the Ee to honour their bravery. The British monitors have been told that they may only receive the medals privately and keep them as mementoes. They must never wear them on their uniforms because of government rules against the acceptance of decorations from 'foreign powers'. . Many are angered by the decision (Q count the EC as a foreign power . has persisted. It survived t he Falklands War, when the USA offered Britain im portant material help , but little pub lic su pport, and regained its stre ngt h in ' 99 I dur ing the Gulf War against Iraq, when Britain gave mo re active mat erial sup por t to the Americans than any other Eur op ean coun try. Public feeling abo ut the relati on ship is a mbiguo us. On the one hand , it is reassuring to be so diplo mat ically close to the most power- ful na tion in the world, and the shared language gives people some sense of bro th erh ood wi th A meric ans. On the other hand , t here is mild bitterness about the sheer power of the USA. The re is no distrust, but r em arks are of ten mad e abo ut Britain being nothi ng m or e than the fifty-first state of t he USA. Similarly, while some ol der people r em em ber wit h gratit ude the Americans who came to their aid in two world wars, ot hers resent the fact that it t oo k them so long to get involved! In any case, the special relationship has inevitably declined in significance since Britain joined the E urope an Co mmu nity. In the wo rld trade negotiations of the early I 990S, there was not hing special about Britain's position wi th regard to the USA- it was just pan of the European trading bloc. The ope ning of the Channel t unnel in 1994 has em phasized tha t Britain 's links are now mainly wit h Eu rop e. Tourist statistics also point this way. In 1993, for the first time, it was not A merican visitors who arrived in the grea test num bers, it was the French, and there were a hnost as many Germa n visitors as Amer icans. The majority of visitors to Britain are now from E ur ope. The sovereignty of the un ion: E uro pe When the European Coal and Steel Co mmuni ty was fo rme d in 195 I , Britain th ou ght it was an exce llen t idea, but nothing to do wit h Britain! L ong years of an em pir e based on sea power meant that the traditi ona l attitude to Europe had been to encourage stability there, to dis cou rage any expansionist powers there , but othe rwise to leave it we ll al on e. As the em pir e disappeared , and t he role o f' the wo rld's policema n' was taken over by the USA, the British govern ment dec ided to ask for member s hip of the new ly- formed European Comm un ities. It t oo k more than ten years for this to be ac hieved (in 1973) . From the very stan , the British atti tude to m em ber ship has been a mbiguo us. On the one h and , it is seen as an eco nom ic necessity and a political advantage (increasing Britain 's status as a regional power). The referen du m on conti nue d mem bership in 1975 (the first in British his tor y) p ro- du ced a t wo -to -on e majority in favour. On the other ha nd , acceptance does not mean enthusiasm. The underlying attitude - that Britain is so me how specia l- has not really cha nged and there are fears that Britain is gra dua lly giving up its a utonomy . Changes in Eu rope an Please purchase PDF Split-Merge on www.verypdf.com to remove this watermark. do mes tic p oli cy, s oc ial policy or so vereignty arrangeme nt s tend to be seen in Britain as a threat ( 0) The British sausage). Throughout the J 9805 and J 990S it has been Britain more than any other member of the European Union (as it is n ow called) wh ich has slowed down progr ess tow ards furth er Euro pean un ity. Meanw h ile, th ere is a certain am ount of popular distrust of the Brussels bureaucracy. This a mb iguous attit ude can partly be explained by the fact that vi ew s about Br itain' s posi tion in E urope cut ac ross po litica l pa rty lines.There are people both for and against closer ties wi th Europe in both the main part ies . As a resu lt, ' Europe' has no t bee n p romoted as a subject for d ebate to the e lectorate. Neit her part y wishes l O raise the su bject at elect io n t ime because to do so wou ld expose divi sion s within that party (a s ure vote-loser) . I'm a good European. I believe in Europe. I believe in the European ideal! Never again shall we repeat the bloodshed of two World Wars. Europe is here to stay. Butthis does not mean that we have lO bow the knee to every directive from every bureaucratic Bonaparte in Brussels.We are asovereign nation stilland proud of it. [applause ] We have made enough concessions to the European Comm issar for agriculture. We have swallowed the wine lake, we have swallowed the butter mountain, we have watched our French 'frie nds' beating up British lorry drivers carry ing good British lam b to the French public. We have bowed and scraped, tugged our forelocks and turned the other cheek. But I say enough is eno ugh! [ prolonged applause] The Europeans have gone too far. They are now threatening the British sausage. They want to standardize it - by which they mean they'll force the British people to eat salami and bratwurst and other garlic-ridden greasy foods that are totally alien to the British way ofl tfe. [cr ies of 'hea r hear', 'right on' and 'you tell 'em, Jim']. Do you want to eat salami for breakfast with your egg and bacon? I don't. And I won't ! [massivea pp lause] They've turned our pints into litres and our yards i nto metres, we gaveup the tanner and the threepenny bit, the two bob and the half- crown . But they can not and will not destroy the British sausage ! [app lause and cheers). Not while I'm here. [tumult uo us appla use). In the wor ds of Martin L uth er: Here I sta nd, I can do no other. [ Hacker sits down. Shot of large crowd rising to itsf ee t in appreciati on] The British sausage Below is an extract from the script of the BBCsatirical comedy Yes, Prime Minister. It is pan of a speech made by James Hacker MP, in which he expresses anti-European sentiments. It isfiction, of course, but it does capture part of the British attitude to Europe. In the story, Hacker 's speech makes him so popular that he becomes the new Prime Minister! Notice how , in the speech, sover- eignty is not conn ected with matters of conventional political power, but rather with matters of everyday life and habits. (For the references to pints, yards, tanners etc , see chapter 5.) Europe 117 Up y ours , D elor s This was the front page headline of the Sun, Britain 's most popular newspaper, on I November 1990. It gives voice, in a vulgar manner, to British dislike ofthe Brussels bureau- cracy. Jacques Delors was president of the European Commission at the time . The expression 'up yours' is the spoken equivalent of a rude, two -fingered gesture. Notice how the full effect of the phrase is only possible if the French name 'Delors' is pronounced in an English way, rhyming the second syllable of 'Delors' with 'yours'. Even serious, so-called 'quality' British news- papers can sometimes get rather hysterical about the powe r of Brussels. When, in t 99 t, the British government refused to agree the social chapter in the Maastricht Treaty, The Su nday Times published an article warning that the EU might still try to impose the chapter on Britain. The headline described this possib ility as 'Ambush'. The European his tory book Sir Francis Drake is a well -known English histor ical character. In t 5'88 he helped to defeat the Spanish Armada which was trying to invade England. Or did he? Historians know that there was a terrible storm which broke up the Spanish fleet. In 1992 an EC history 'textbook' for secondary schools, written by a comm ittee of historians from every member state, was pub lished. The first version of the book decided that it was the weather which caused the failure of the Spanish invasion, the second that it was Drake. The book was published at the same time in Dutch, French, German, Greek, Italian and Portuguese. But, strangely eno ugh, no publisher for either a British or a Spanish edition could be found. Please purchase PDF Split-Merge on www.verypdf.com to remove this watermark. I I 8 12 International relations Scotla nd This was the front page of the Sun 's Sconish edition on 23 January 19 92, when it decided to support the campaign for Scottish inde pend- ence (see chapter 18). The design shows the cross of St Andrew, the national flag of Scotland. Ulster Ulster is the name often used to describe the pan of Ireland which is in the UK. It is the name of one of the four ancient kingdom s of Ireland. (The others arc Lehmer. Munster and C onnaught). In fact, the British province docs not em brace all of Ulster 's nine c oun - ties; three of its counties belong 10 the republic. The name 'Nort hern Ireland ' is not used b)' some nation- alists; they think it gives validity to an enti ty which they do not recog - nize. One of the alternative names they use is 'the six co unties' The sovereignty of the un ion: Scotland and Wales There is another reason for a distrust of greater E urop ean cohesion among politicians at Westminster. It is feared that this may no t JUSt be a matter of giving extra power to Brussels. It may also be a matter of giving extra power s to the regions of Britain , especially its different nations. Until recently mo st Scottish peop le, alth ough they insisted on man y diff erences between themselves and the English, were happy to be part of the UK. But there has always been some resen tment in Scotland about the way that it is treated by the cent ral gove rnmc m in London. In the I 980s and early I 990S this rese ntme nt increased because of the continuation in power of the Conservative pan y. for which on ly arou nd a qua rter of the Scottish electorate had voted . Opinion polls c on sistently showed that b etw een half and three- quar ters of the Scottish population wanted either 'home rule' (internal self-gov ernm ent).within the UK or complete independence. The realization that, in the EU, h om e rule. or even ind ep end ence, need not mean isolation has caused the Scottish attitude to Europe to change. Origina lly, Scotland was just as cautious as England. But now the Scottish , as a group . have bec om e the mo st enthusiastic Europeans in the UK. Scotland now has its own parliament which controls its internal affairs a nd even has the power to vary slightly the levels of i ncome tax imp osed by the UK gov ern ment. It is not clear whether complete independ ence will eventually follow, but this is the policy of the Scottish National Party (SNP), which is well r epr esented in the new parliament. In Wales, the situat ion is different.The southern part of this nation is thoroughly Anglicized and the countr y as a who le has been fully incor por ated into the English governmental structure f or mor e than 400 years. Nationalism in Wales is felt mostly in the central and northern part of the country, where it t end s to express itself not politically,but culturally (see chapter 4). Many pe ople in Wales would like to have greater co ntro l over Welsh affairs, but no t much more than so me people in some regi on s of Engla nd would like the same.Wales also now has its own assembly with re spo nsibility for man y internal affairs. The sovereignty of the u nio n: Northern Ireland In this section, the word 'Ulster' is used to stand for the British province of Nor thern Ireland ( e- Ulster). Politics here is domina ted by the historic animosity between the two communi ties there (see chapter 4). The Catholic viewpo int is kn own as 'nationalist' or 'republican' (in support of the idea of a single Irish nati on and its repub lican gov ernm ent); the Protestant view po int is know n as 'unionist' or 'loyalist' (loyal to the uni on with Britain). Please purchase PDF Split-Merge on www.verypdf.com to remove this watermark. No rt he rn Ire land I 19 II- E xtr e mi st g roups A loyalist mural U lIT EI flEEOOM FWHT n lLl IESIST ANY EIRE I lJO trEMENTIN QUR COUIIII The most well-kn own republican group is the IRA (Irish Republican Army). Seventy years ago this name meant exactly what it says. The IRA was composed of many thousands of people who fought for. and helped 1O win. Irish independence. Members of the modern IRA are also known as 'the Prcvisionals'. They are a grou p that split off from the 'official' IRA in the I 960s. They have used a name that once had great appeal to Irish patriotic senumerus. In fact, the IRA has liule supporl in (he modem Irish Republic and no connection at all with its govern- ment. The most well-known loyalist groups are the UFF (Ulster Freedom Fighters). the UVF (Ulster Volun- leer Force) and the UDA (Ulster Defence Association). A re pu blica nm essag e(ther epub li ca ns call L on d ond err y ' Derry') Alittle modern his tor y is necessary to explain the present situation. By the beginning of the twent ieth ce ntur y, when Ireland was still part of the Un ited Kingdom, the vast maj orit y of people in Ireland wanted either hom e rule or complete inde pen dence from Britain. Liberal g overnment s in Britain had accepted this and had atte mpt ed at various tim es to make it a reality. However, the one million Protestants in Ulster were violently o ppo sed to this idea.They did not want to belong to a country do mina ted by Catholics.They formed less than a quarter of the total p opu lation of the country, bu t in Ulster they were in a 6)% major ity. After the First World War the British gove rnment partitioned the country betwee n the (mainly Cat ho lic) south and the (mainly Protestant) nort h , givi ng each part so me control of its internal affairs. BUl this was no longer eno ugh for the south. There, support f or complete indep end ence had gro\vn as a result of the Briti sh gov ern- ment's savage r epr ession of the 'Easter Ris ing' in 19 16. War fol- lowed. The eventual result was that the south beca me ind ependent of Britain. Ulster, h ow ever, remained withi n the United Kingdom . with its o wn Parliam ent and Prime Minister. The Protestants had always had the eco no mic power in the six count ies ( 0- Ulster ). Int ern al self-govern me nt allowed them to take all the political power as well. Matters were arranged so that po sitions of official power were always filled by Protestants. In the late I 960 s a C atho lic civil right s movem ent began. There was violent Protestant reacti on and frequent fighti ng broke out. In 1969 British tro op s were sent in to keep order. At first they wer e welcomed, parti cularl y a mo ng the Catholics. But troop s, inevitably, often act wit hout regard to democratic rights. In the tense atm o- sphere, the welc om e disappeared. Extrem ist organizations fr om both communi ties began committing acts of terrorism, such as s hoo t- ings and bomb ings. One of these g roup s, the Provisional IRA ( 0- Extre mist group s), then started a bo mb ing campaign on the British mainland. In re spon se, the British gov ern ment reluctantly imp osed certain measures not no rmally acceptable in a modern demo cracy, such as i mpri s onm ent wi t ho ut trial and the outlawing of organiza- tions such as the IRA. The application of these measures caused resentment to gro w. There was a hardening of attitudes in both communities and support for extremist political parties increased. There have been many efforts to find a solution to 'the t rou bles' (as they are kn own in Ireland). In 1972 the British govern ment decided to rule directly from London. Over the next two decades most of the previous political abu ses disappeared, and Ca tho lics now have almost the sa me political right s as Protestants. In additi on , the British and Irish gov ern ments have devel op ed g ood relations and new initiatives are pres ented [ointly The troubles may soon be over. However, despite r ef orm s. inequalities remain. At the tim e of writing, une mp loyment a mo ng Ulst er' s Cat ho lics is the high est of Please purchase PDF Split-Merge on www.verypdf.com to remove this watermark. . that there is more crime in Britain than there used to be. What reasons could there be for this? Is it tru e' Do you think of Britain as a 'safe'. and Britain. However, in 1962, the Cuban missile crisis, on e of the grea tesl lhreats to global peace since the war, was resolved witho ut reference to Britain.