Some British Tories are attempting to conflate American anger at British Petroleum with anger at Britain itself.
No.
These British Tories are every bit as rational as are their brethren in political shrill, our own Republicans. We Americans are not angry at Britain, we are angry at a British oil company.
Like all nations, Britain's history is a very mixed bag. Yesterday's Guardian, one of the world's great newspapers, features two articles that highlight that conflicted British history. On the one hand, Britain finally is admitting the illegality of the 1972 Bloody Sunday massacre, in Derry, Northern Ireland. On the other, a war crimes tribunal in The Hague just convicted two former Serbian officers of genocide in Bosnia. Without British leadership, that genocidal Serbian regime might not have been toppled, and it certainly wouldn't have been toppled before the genocide in Kosovo had grown to be even more devastating. No student of history should fail to acknowledge both the horrors perpetrated by Britian, through many centuries, and its many acts of genuine greatness. Nor should any student of history fail to acknowledge that Britain is far from being alone in having such a mixed record. The United States certainly also has one.
On personal levels, I can say that I have traveled extensively in Britain, and love everywhere I've been. From Kent to Cumbria and from Cornwall to Northumberland, not to mention much of Northern Ireland and Scotland, I have reveled in British hospitality, pre-history, history, art and architecture, and the endlessly gorgeous countryside. And despite its occasional outbursts of tension, there is no city anywhere more wonderfully multicultural and muti-racial than London.
Long before I ever visited Britain, I had read every word written by Shakespeare, every play by whom but for The Two Noble Kinsmen I have seen in professional productions, some many times over, including on three separate visits to Stratford. An environmentalist blog friend recently told me she has read all of Dickens, and my reaction was awe and envy. I have read but seven of his novels, although I hope to finish the canon. I've been to Jane Austen's home and grave. I've read so much British poetry that I'm guessing I'm one of the few living Americans actually to have finished Byron's Don Juan and Wordworth's The Prelude. My favorite poem is the American Brit T.S. Eliot's The Four Quartets, and I consider William Blake to have been not only a genius, but a genuine mystic.
My list of all-time favorite bands includes The Beatles, the Rolling Stones, Pink Floyd, Fairport Convention, The Who, Led Zeppelin, Eric Clapton's various efforts, The Clash, and Dire Straits. Perhaps only the Grateful Dead and Hot Tuna join them in my personal pantheon.
I actually love British food. I happily could eat fish and chips and mushy peas, with sticky toffee pudding for dessert, every day for the rest of my life. I would snack on wine gums.
There are few human constructions on earth that I consider more sacred than London's art museums. If I could own a handful of the world's greatest paintings, one certainly would be a Turner.
I consider Alfred Hitchcock, David Lean, and Carol Reed to have been among the greatest of all film directors.
I could go on and on.
I love British culture. I love British people. I love British landscapes. I love Great Britain.
I despise British Petroleum, and its previous incarnation, Anglo-Iranian. It has nothing to do with Britain, it has to do with British Petroleum. I despise Royal Dutch Shell, but I love Holland. I despise Exxon, but I love the United States. Notice a pattern, here?
These Tories can try all they want to turn American anger at British Petroleum into anger at Britain. But doing so is sleazy and dishonest. I don't care one bit about BP's shareholders. I don't care if they're from Britain, the U.S., or any other nation. They were attempting to profit off death and destruction, and they are now getting exactly what they deserve. Immoral and amoral greed transcends national boundaries. It's not about nations, it's about one multinational corporation. It's not about humanity, it's about the human capacity for what we call inhumanity. It's about the human capacity for a destructiveness beyond the capabilities of any known non-human living beings.
The Tories who are attempting to turn this disaster into an international political incident are no better than those personally responsible for this disaster. They deserve an equal amount of disdain. Which is not a criticism of Great Britain any more than criticism of BP is criticism of Great Britain. You Tories may now control Britain's government, but you are not Britain itself. Nor is British Petroleum Great Britain itself. Some of us can make the distinction. And we will not let you get away with your attempt to raise your own reputations by dragging down Britain's. I love Great Britain. I loathe British Petroleum.