Britain’s lost fingers －イギリスの失われた指－

Unless you’ve had 12 pints of beer, you are probably able to touch the end of your nose, even with your eyes shut.  This is apparently because the brain creates a powerful image of the body, and can judge where different parts of it exist in space.  If you are unfortunate enough to have a piece of your body cut off, you may feel itchiness or pain from the phantom body part because the brain refuses to believe that its image of the body is wrong.

In much the same way, citizens of a country develop a powerful sense of their country’s “body”, or self-image.  Thus, people believe that “British people drink tea,” or “British people wait patiently in queues.”  But this may just be a phantom image in the minds of the country’s citizens.  These body parts may be shrivelling or have long since fallen off.  Britons may no longer love tea so much or wait patiently in queues.

“British people are pragmatic, not radical.”  Britain has long had an image as being very stable, politically conservative, and a little boring.  If French people are unhappy about something, they come out onto the streets and protest.  Italian prime ministers change so often that it is hard to remember their names.  Britain, by contrast, has been seen as pragmatic.

But is this still true?  We voted for Brexit.  And now the British Parliament cannot find a compromise.  Perhaps British politics has become as radical as French politics.  Perhaps soon British prime ministers will change so often that we can’t remember their names.

It is not so bad to be politically boring.  The last three years of political instability, in-fighting and chaos has been interesting.  I wonder if it is too late to stick back on the fingers we have cut off?

Vocabulary:

a pint – a unit for measuring liquid – a large glass of beer is drunk in a pint glass in Britain

itchiness – a tendency to feel an uncomfortable sensation on the skin

phantom – ghostly; not real

to shrivel – to wrinkle and become smaller, especially due to a lack of moisture

pragmatic – dealing with things sensibly and realistically, not on ideology

radical – extreme; advocating fundamental or complete change

in-fighting – conflict within a group

chaos – a lack of order; extreme uncertainty