As I mentioned in one of my recent blogs, I have been working in conjunction with the German Foreign Office through their Teutonically entitled ‘Sports Cooperation Programme’. Sorry, that is an unfair (indeed, nonexistent according to spellcheck) adjective, but it rather highlights for me the difference that one hundred years has made in who I am, where I am and what I am doing. Especially in a royal week, the inherent prejudice in my comment would have seemed somewhat unusual to an early Edwardian, certainly to a Victorian, who were only just coming to terms with the rise and rise (and hence rivalry) of their erstwhile protestant friends in the new(ish) Germany.
One of the most prominent ways in which this growing, unnecessary rivalry manifested itself was in the colonial ambitions in Africa. As Captain Blackadder once memorably put it, “the British Empire at present covers a quarter of the globe while the German Empire consists of a small sausage factory in Tanganiki (sic). I hardly think we can be entirely absolved of blame on the imperialistic front”. To which Lieut. George responds, “mad as a bicycle!” Which of course reflects the speed of change in the relationship which came to so comprehensively influence British history, education, football, holidays, adverts, hockey, newspapers, comedy, diet, even the names of our royal family, in the twentieth century.
One hundred years on and I, an Anglo Saxon of course, find myself working and living with Germans in Africa. And loving it. Not only do we share common values and perspectives, we both also obviously care about international development, not least through sport. And this despite some obvious challenges at home. Whilst much of the remainder of Europe, significantly and yet sometimes blissfully irreverently signed up to European union, has spent recent years behaving as if there were no tomorrow, our Teutonic relatives have, I believe, set an example of how to behave fairly and justly within a contract; a trait we British usually like to lay our beach towel on. I see no sign of the other Triple Entente allies here, certainly not for anything other than copper.
Thank you, Ralph, Ursula and Isolde, for letting me be part of your programme, and I hope you can link up more with the symbiotic work that the UK, through DfID and UK Sport, are doing in Zambia, as you have already with the Norwegians here. We share similar ambitions for international development and for sport, both for sport’s sake and for the use of it as an educational tool for those growing up today, with much less than we had. I know we both learnt a lot from the lessons of the twentieth century, and the prognosis for the twenty first century is that our cooperation and understanding is just as important now as it was absent then.
Posted in 2013 (before Brexit)
Scholey.com 