Winter's assessment of British government has inaccuracies

Drew Robert Winter’s column Obama could help U.S. see its faults (SN 11/10) brings up many good points about people’s hope for President-elect Barack Obama’s upcoming presidency in reversing damaging U.S. domestic and international policies, and with this feeling I could not agree more. Many of his statements regarding Great Britain’s political history, however, are misguided and downright fallacious.

While I would agree that two-party rule has hurt the U.S., this does not mean that many of Britain’s “dozen parties” are in any way viable. Historically, like the U.S. they have had two main parties, and though currently seven parties have seats in the House of Commons, only three are considered major. Compared to Winter’s appraisal of British colonial rule, however, this inaccuracy is more than forgivable. I think that the 3.5 million Africans the British Royal African Company transported to the Americas as slaves, Mahatma Gandhi, and the millions of indigenous people the British colonizers displaced and murdered would heartily disagree with the statement that Britain could “make imperialism work!”

To make such statements glorifying Britain’s administrative prowess is absolutely absurd. While the U.S. has certainly violated its share of human rights, to hold us up against some falsified view of a country with its own closet full of skeletons is at best poor journalism, and more likely, outright fraud.

Michael Carman

history sophomore