Empress of Gibraltar
July 1, 1997: Hong Kong has reverted to China. The last of the jewels in the Imperial
Crown of the British Empire has been pawned.
I am sentimental about the passing of old established things. Look at this latest
event (if you can tear yourself away from the concurrent story of Mike Tyson's biting
off part of Holyfield's ear during the Heavyweight Boxing Champ fight in Las Vegas --
promoter Don King obviously starved the poor lad, as with a pit bull, to make him
meaner -- but at least Tyson didn't swallow what he ravenously chewed off).
With Hong Kong gone, what is left of the British Empire?
Well, there is a bunch of underinhabited islands thousands of miles from anywhere --
Tristan da Cunha, St Helena, Pitcairn, etc. But they don't count: they are POSSESSIONS rather than provinces.
Bermuda and the British Virgin Islands can be looked at as overseas territories, like
Guam and the US Virgin Islands are to the United States. Convenient places to avoid
income taxes, and nice places to vacation in (if they are not useful as military bases).
Hardly "colonies." Anguilla actually ASKED to be brought back under British rule --
they were being shafted by the Nevis/St. Kitts confederation (playground bullies are
bad news even when your school is very small). A drag on the British treasury (like the
Falklands) -- but you got to do what you got to do -- this place, like Pitcairn Island, is absolutely worthless to anybody at the moment, but as a good Ma you have to take
care of the ugly ducklings, and the Brits are actually quite good at that compared with
other countries that have to take care of ugly ducklings -- the French, who claim the
best record in this area, actually just contribute army police and bolster up corrupt
dictators of their own choosing (remember the Emperor Bokassa?) The Brits could
never stomach Idi Amin, but never sent in the Foreign Legion, i.e. Gurkhas in the UK's case, and that's as it should be*.
* Have the politically correct people considered the drastic effect of unemployment
among the Gurkha regiments on the economy of Nepal? What will these people do without a British
Empire to defend? They are wonderful and faithful mercenaries -- without that discipline, they will
be open tor recruitment by the crazy folk of the world. A Gurkha is very obedient and restrained,
except that once the Kukri knife has been drawn from its sheath, blood must be shed (even if only
against the Gurkha's own thumb). They are absolutely the best mercenaries in the world, and are
totally terrifying in action. What will they do now unless the British can keep them employed?
(Actually, why haven't they been deployed in Northern Ireland? IRA wouldn't stand a chance against
these chaps, except for the fact that they don't have much in the way of street smarts.)
The Falklands: Margaret Thatcher made Argentina's historic territorial claim a moot
point (at least for the near future). Besides, the inhabitants consider themselves British, not the victims of imperialism, and as far as I'm concerned it should be left up to them to decide. No way could they survive as an independent country, and they
sure as hell don't want to be Argentinians.
Northern Ireland. Tricky political situation, and a classic example of British Imperialism at its worst. I'm going to dodge this issue by saying that Ulster is
a part of the United Kingdom, so technically is not a segment of the "Empire." Will use
the same argument concerning Wales, Scotland, the Isle of Man, and the Channel
Islands -- and Northumbria, for that matter, Cornwall, or even Yorkshire. Dismantlement of
countries has to stop at some point, witness Yugoslavia.
So what does that leave us with? What is the only holding Great Britain still has that
fits the classic definition of an imperial colony? That was ceded by a peace treaty that was as bad in its own time as the Hong Kong concession in the Opium Wars or the crappy Treaty of Versailles after WWI that led to the rise of Hitler?
You got it! Gibraltar. That is the ONLY REMAINING PIECE OF THE
BRITISH EMPIRE. What would Queen Victoria have thought about this situation?
As a matter of fact, I am in favor of Britain retaining Gibraltar, even
under the EEC (Common Market), and long after the death (he is STILL dead) of Generalissimo Francisco Franco, which was a good excuse, when he was alive, for preventing a
handover as in Hong Kong. It serves a very useful function in modern society, like Monaco, the Cayman Islands, Macao (soon to go the way of Hong Kong), Switzerland
(before it lost its credibility), etc. Tangier, across the straight, used to have a free-city
status too. The world needs places like this. Hong Kong is now gone as a wide-open
wheeler-dealer place, although it will remain a money-market for people who are already rich; Singapore went under the rule of control freaks (again big money magnates who don't encourage upstarts) a long time ago. Modern society needs another
no-rules-but-British-Common-Law place to play in, so why not make it Gibraltar?
Note: all you rich Hong Kong Chinese and Anglo Taipans
who hedged your bets already by buying up Vancouver -- have you
considered Gibraltar? I'm sure it's up for sale now, and the opportunities there are tremendous. Right at
the mouth of the Mediterranean, access to all of Southern Europe and North Africa. Nice harbor facilities if you can evict the British Navy. Chris Patten is unemployed at the moment. Why not check it out? Especially if the Beijing wedding doesn't work out as you expected.
Gibraltar could be your way around EEC tariffs and the Belgian Bureaucracy, because as the LAST BASTION of the BRITISH EMPIRE (as opposed to Great Britain) it is NOT subject to Common
Market rules.