In September of 1990, I was a naive student entering a year abroad to study at the École de Commerce in Strasbourg. It was an international school.
I remember being confronted by Arab students, mad at Britain joining the UN coalition of allied forces defending Kuwait against the Iraqi invasion. As a result, I learned about the hatred that existed amongst many countries about interventionism by Britain and their allies.
When one has been brought up thinking that one’s country had brought railways and innovation to other parts of the world, and had thought of one’s country as having saved the world from nazi rule, it was hard to hear the other side of the argument.
I remember comedians like Eddie Izzard making jokes in San Francisco that if you’re American traveling abroad it’s safer to tell people that you’re Canadian.
Often the people claiming that there are good people on both sides seem to be the ones offended when their own missteps in foreign policy are criticized.
The truth needs no defending. To be afraid of awkward truths about one’s good intentions gone awry is to be closeted off from reality. This is not healthy, certainly not for a country that thinks it’s the leader of the free world.
As for Harley, let us not forget, he cheered on the insurrectionists on January 6th 2021. Few but a handful of pseudo intellectuals had even heard of CRT before this year. It seems like an attempt to obfuscate the embarrassment of a failed coup, in my humble opinion. I say humble, because I learnt a lot from my Arab friends that year back in 1990 and my own country’s mixed bag of accomplishments.
PS: if you’re reading this thinking “Go back to your own country”, then just know that I’m already making plans to move to Canada. So glad I held on to my British passport. Cheerio :)
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