Proceedings of the Symposium, "Strangeness from abroad: cultural representations of otherness in Great Britain (17th-20th centuries)"

Résumé du document

After the French Revolution and the Independence of the United States of America, written constitutions became more numerous. In 1820, forty-eight constitutions had already been drafted. Thirty years later, eighty more written constitutions was counted in the world. At the end of the twentieth century, written constitutions were almost universal, as a symbol of evolution of a more organized world. They proclaimed general ideals, being a mark of identity, a sort of emblem or anthem. In these constitutions, a persistent tension could be observed, due to their transnational character, which transcended oceanic boundaries. They represented the self-image of a particular nation. Linda Colley argued that it is "less something we have than something we are". They are deployed as stories about the nations.

The fact is that there is no written constitution in Britain, which is resisting to this trend and can even be qualified as being "hostile" to it, remaining aloof from this new constitutional tendency. To show their disdain, they qualified them of "Paper Constitutions", humiliating the countries who have drafted them. This term was used in the 1970's. Linda Colley made a parallel with bills, which were only substitutes for real gold, as well as with corsets, which deformed the woman body as constitutions do with the political body.

Payne, a conservative leader in 1973, has been hugely criticized for having wanted a constitution he could have held in his pocket. According to Linda Colley, a constitution does not stand in the pocket, but in the heart. When referring to written constitutions, she uses a rhetoric field of horror, comparing it to "monsters" or "savage and deformed creatures". She even makes a parallel with Frankenstein by Mary Shelley, arguing that it was a British conservatives' critic of written constitutions.

Extraits

[...] Proceedings of the Symposium, "Strangeness from abroad: cultural representations of otherness in Great Britain (17th-20th centuries)" Session Foreigners and the fashioning of the Self (17th-18th century) Linda Colley: Britain written constitutions: othering and not othering, 1780-2000 During the First Session, Linda Colley chose to talk about written constitutions and Britain. What she has observed is that Britain has not always been hostile to written Constitutions, even if the words used to describe it were quite humiliating. If Charters could be considered as written constitutions, it was not less the case for the colonial constitutions written by Britain under the Empire. [...]

[...] However, racism was hugely present in stadiums, which limited their tentative for socializing. Pak-bashing and white backlash The term Pak-Bashing appeared in 1955-6. It is about anger, violence and even physical assault. There were three reasons for that: the concentration of migrants, the Asian docility and the fact they were considered as unfashionable. A hybridisation of nicknames could be noticed: “Pakie “Bradistan” or “Pakford” (as a hint to the Bradford riots). In these fives points, Olivier Estèves and Philippe Vervaecke showed how invisible the Asian community was in Britain. [...]

[...] Britain is consequently in decline. Richard Davis argues here that Britain needs a comparison, a “good enemy” in order to make its decline less significant. Today, both countries are overtaken by other powers. Their obsession with performance will lead to self-deception. [...]

[...] She argues that the absence of written constitutions reflects British Exceptionalism. The evanescence of many written constitutions in Britain even reflects political stability, which is not the case of every state which has drafted a written constitution. Many critics have been made at this time, one of them being the fact that constitutions have been made by a small part of the population for most countries, which means that they have only been drafted by the elites, and not by the people. [...]

[...] By the way, Linda Colley emphasizes the fact that the English constitution is not the British constitution. Writing Constitutions for others Linda Colley has also noticed that British and English Exceptionalism has influence the spread of their texts elsewhere. Indeed, most constitutions have derived from British ideals. This is the case of South American independence texts for instance. She makes a parallel between France and Britain when talking about Napoleon who imposed constitutions on Italy, Germany and many other European countries. [...]