A denial of greatness

By Sarah Maid of Albion

The number 2012 bus rolled into the Bird's Nest stadium in Beijing and out pored a ramshackle group of people, of varying shades and ethnicities, who proceeded to perform what appeared to be a waddling dance, whilst pretending to wave their rolled umbrellas at the bus. All the diversity quota selected figures from a Common purpose wet dream were there, a black man with dreadlocks, an a Asian in one type of turban and a black woman in another type, hers in a shade of canary yellow only seen on women recently arrived from Lagos, and usually at the front of an NHS queue.

Amongst them were a smattering of white people, but they were clearly there merely to make up the ethnic mix rather than as a representation of the historic, native, population of London, a group whom the Guardianista approved organisers seemed almost embarrassed to acknowledge.

The requisitely diverse dancers were then replaced by a mixed race girl who won the X-factor and went on to have some hits in the USA, who, together with an ageing rocker sang a sanitised version of “Whole Lotta Love”. This was supposed to represent London as we inherit the Olympic torch.

After the show with which the Chinese had just entertained the world, the British performance at the Olympic handover ceremony was cringingly embarrassing, not even redeemed by the village hall amateurishness of its effect, as the politically correct message was obviously deliberate.

The only respite from the grinding awfulness of the show came in the beautiful, if androgynous, form of the worlds second most famous living Briton, David Beckham, who obediently kicked a ball into the politely applauding if perplexed audience. Never was the Essex born Adonis's habitual expression of self effacing embarrassment so fitting, and no doubt so widely shared.

Was that the best we could do? Was that how London, for centuries the greatest city on earth, is now to be portrayed, is it how we, who live here want our city to be portrayed, indeed, as London is the capital of our nation, is that how we, the British, want our nation to be portrayed. Is that really how we want the world to think of us?

It was certainly how the politically correct guardians of our image wish to portray us, in their self hating desire to reinvent everything that was once viewed as British. Who can doubt that at the centre of planning for what one is reluctant to refer to as "the show", was a desire to flick a large 'V' sign at British history, because certainly there was no evidence of British history, or indeed London's history on show in Beijing on Saturday.

What does it say about us as a country? More importantly what future has a nation which has rejected its past?

What was the purpose of Saturday's excruciating performance? Will it attract visitors to Britain? Will it attract investment? I doubt it.

Do tourists come to Britain to “embrace our multicultural society” or do they come in search of our heritage and our history.

Apart from the relatively small number who come here for that noisy, crime infested and overcrowded street party going on this weekend, overwhelmingly they come for the later and not the former.

They come looking for a London steeped in white European history, a London of palaces and Christian churches, of Shakespeare's Globe, Tower bridge and a living story richer than almost any other city on Earth. They come to the city which houses the mother of parliaments, the essential birthplace of democracy and the form of law most widely adopted throughout the world.

People from across the word come to visit that capital of a nation from which more that is good and noble and more which has benefited mankind has flowed than any other. They came to the land which was the leader in bringing an end to an international slave trade which had existed for millennia, a land from which was responsible for more advances in medicine, science and human knowledge than almost any other, and to experience a culture which has had more impact on the world than any other, overwhelmingly for the good.

London as a city in its own right and as the capital of our great has given great things to the world, and it is a travesty that the real London was not celebrated this weekend. Gangsta rap and zoo nation do not represent London, they do not represent Britain, they are symbols of what is being done to us, but not of what we are.