Britain has always been multicultural? Tell that to Hereward the Wake.

Once again the media deals with history in the way it knows best: using lies and ignorance. This week, they report that the fact that 7 Yorkshiremen have possible genetic links to North Africa clearly shows 'People of African origin have lived in Britain for centuries'. Of course, the article goes on to debunk itself, explaining that the scientific study in question found that all of the individuals shared a single ancestor. Nontheless, it does mark the latest incident in a heretical trend.

Indeed, in this historically-ignorant age, such sentiments are commonly expressed. It is accepted knowledge that Britain has always been multi cultural - after all 'wot about the Romans an' stuff'. Such sentiments are, however, the territory of imbeciles. Along with the Romans, people often cite the Norman conquest as an example of 'multiculturalism'. But which part are they citing? The part where the peasentry of England remain stable while only the aristocracy are dispossed, perhaps? Or do they prefer to look at the arbitrary forest law, a law which was wielded like a club against the common man? Maybe they'd prefer to discuss the slaughter of hhousands of innocents and the depopulation of chunks of the country?

To anyone who knows a thing about historical truth, The Norman Conquest was horrendous for the English. This is why, for centuries afterwards, the deeds of (spirited but ultimately doomed) English Rebel Hereward the Wake were recited in the taverns, and, even into the fourteenth century, preachers commonly used the conquest as a prime example of divine punishment. If the Norman conquest is an example of multiculturalism, than so too must the British Empire and the Nazi concentration camps. After all, did the British Empire not intoduce Caucasians to parts of Africa and Asia? did the Nazi camps not contain large numbers of Jews, Slavs and Roma?

Of course, this is not to say that multiculturalism is automatically a bad thing (although its lack of medieval precedent would make it seem a little unnatural). However, what it does show is that the flowers of history are too precious to be abused for cheap gain by petty tax collectors and office clerks who disguise themselves as noble leaders. In truth, there is no precedent for what is going on in this strange kingdom today, and it is a great wrong to try and make one. One of the greatest ills of the Middle Ages, an ill from which the mentality of the medieval man was slowly escaping, was the fear of innovation and the rabid desire to create false precedent. It saddens me that we are so ready to repeat the wrongs of the Middle Ages, yet so slow to emulate its virtues.

technorati tags:Medieval, Hereward, the, Wake, multiculturalism, BBC, Nazis, British, empire, England, Normans