Anglosphere emerging?
Somehow, it did seem apt that on the day France and Germany celebrated 40 years of friendship with ceremonies at Versailles, the British Foreign Secretary, Jack Straw, flew to Washington for talks with the United States vice president and secretary of state. We have now reached a divide, a point where France and Germany are vowing to prevent a war with Iraq, while George Bush and Tony Blair are planning to state publicly that Saddam has defied UN Security Council resolution 1441.
All this as the troop build up in the Gulf continues. More US and British soldiers arrive each day and now the Australians are on the way. So, what is one to make of this growing split between the EU allies and major parts of the English-speaking world?
Last Sunday, Andrew Sullivan, writing in The Sunday Times (registration required), said that Tony Blair, far from being the president's poodle, is using his relationship with Washington to place himself at the centre of world governance and thereby to re-establish Britain as a world power. "When he huddles with George Bush at Camp David at the end of this month, he will be the most powerful British prime minister since Churchill at Yalta," wrote Sullivan, who then went on to add this observation:
"The man who came to power promising to make Britain a central power-broker in Europe has, by chance or design, done something rather different. By resisting the empty rhetoric of the hate-America left, Blair has made Britain a power-broker on a far grander level. We have the beginnings of an Anglo-American entente — what some in Washington are calling an 'Anglosphere' — that could wield enormous influence for the good in the years and decades to come."
So what exactly is this "Anglosphere" Sullivan refers to, and where does the notion come from? It was given its most thorough exposition in a paper presented by James Bennett to the Foreign Policy Research Institute in 2001. Called "An Anglosphere Primer," the document outlines the concept and suggests ways in which it could develop. Bennett sees the Anglosphere, as a "network civilization", not an alliance determined by borders. At the core of the Anglosphere are the United States and the United Kingdom, while Anglophone regions of Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Ireland and South Africa are powerful outliers. The Caribbean, Oceania, India and parts of Africa make up the frontiers. And the concept?
"The Anglospherist school of thought asserts that the English-speaking nations have not only formed a distinct branch of Western civilization for most of history, they are now becoming a distinct civilization in their own right. Western in origin but no longer entirely Western in composition and nature, this civilization is marked by a particularly strong civil society, which is the source of its long record of successful constitutional government and economic prosperity. The Anglosphere's continuous leadership of the Scientific-Technological Revolution from the seventeenth century to the twenty-first century stems from these characteristics and is thus likely to continue for the foreseeable future."
An important point to note about Anglospherism, says Bennett, is that it is not to be confused with the racialist idea of Anglo-Saxonism, which relied on assumptions of an Anglo-Saxon race, and sought to unite racial "cousins."
It's a stimulating paper and well worth reading, and if, as Andrew Sullivan states, the idea has currency in Washington, it might be useful to have an understanding of the "Anglosphere".
Diarist of the day: Alec Guinness, 23 January 1996"Today there is much fuss about Harriet Harman, of the Shadow Cabinet, sending her 11-year-old son to St Olave's School in what the media describe as 'leafy' Orpington. Presumably it is not very leafy at this time of year. Part of the trouble is that the boy has to take and exam and face an interview. Without such things I can't see how the school would know in what form to place him. Neither do I see why all the emphasis is placed on Ms Harman's decision; presumably her husband should have had at least 50 per cent say in the matter, and perhaps Master Joseph may have his views on education."
