As a Brit living in America, this isn't my favorite time of year. This weekend I'll be expected to celebrate what, from my point of view, was a catastrophic military defeat. Imagine living in Vietnam and having to smile benevolently every year as millions of Vietnamese hold a huge party to celebrate the fall of Saigon. That's how I feel about Independence Day.
It's always astonished me how little sensitivity Americans display toward their former colonial masters. Nazi Germany was, by any measure, a far more loathsome enemy than the British Empire -- yet most Americans would be hard pressed to identify what V-E Day is, let alone celebrate it. Why can't you extend the same tact and magnanimity to Britain that you display toward Japan? You haven't even bothered to nominate a day to celebrate America's Cold War victory over Russia, yet on July 4 you crow over the defeat of our tiny little island like Yankees fans at the conclusion of another successful World Series.
I'm not asking you to politely refrain from mentioning the War of Independence for fear of offending us -- though that's a courtesy you extend to almost everyone else -- but do you really have to let off fireworks? Couldn't you make do with a parade of some kind?
What makes July 4 a particularly galling holiday is that one of the principles on which the War of Independence was fought was that there should be no taxation without representation. Now, I wholeheartedly endorse that principle. It's the very basis of democracy. Yet it's a principle that America has singularly failed to uphold.
As a non-U.S. citizen earning my living in New York, I'm in exactly the same position as the American subjects of King George III: I'm obliged to pay taxes on pain of imprisonment, yet I'm not allowed any say in the composition of the government. I'm forced to hand over money to a state I have no control over. I'm taxed but I can't vote. It's an outrage! I ought to make my way to Boston right this minute and start tossing tea into the harbor.
Not all my fellow countrymen feel the same way. Last year British journalist Jonathan Freedland published a book called "Bring Home the Revolution: How Britain Can Live the American Dream." Freedland spent four years in Washington as a correspondent for the Guardian, and he concluded that Britain needed to become much more like America. In particular, he thought Britain ought to become a republic; that is, abolish the royal family.
How anyone can spend four years in Washington -- Washington! -- and retain their faith in the American political system is a mystery to me. As Roy Cohn said, it's the world capital of cutthroats. But to recommend that Britain jettison its royals -- he's barking mad! Freedland's got it completely arse over tit, poor fellow. It's obvious that, far from Britain following America's example, America needs to become much more like Britain. In particular, you need to immediately set up your own monarchy.
I mean this in all seriousness. It's one of the reigning orthodoxies of our era that Britain's class system, buttressed by the monarchy, is without any redeeming virtues. Not so. If class were the sole determinant of success in Britain that might be true, but it isn't. Being a member of "the lucky sperm club," as it's called, can be an advantage -- but it's only one factor among many, and not a very powerful one at that.
The crucial difference between Britain and America isn't that one is class-bound, the other a perfect meritocracy. Having spent four years here, I'd say American society is every bit as stratified and hierarchical as our own. (Has it escaped your notice that both the leading presidential candidates are the scions of powerful patrician dynasties?) The difference is that we acknowledge that who your parents are and where you went to school affects your life chances, while Americans stubbornly maintain that the only determinants of success are hard work and natural ability.
The fact that we Brits recognize the importance of luck in the equation means we don't take successful people all that seriously and -- more importantly -- we don't regard the unsuccessful as beneath contempt. In the United States, by contrast, where everyone is mistakenly believed to have an equal chance, the lucky few with all the money and power are worshipped like deities and the rest are dismissed as losers.
This, then, is my argument in a nutshell: The British monarchy ameliorates the extreme outcomes dictated by late 20th century capitalism; it's a constant reminder of the key role that chance plays in shaping the outcome of our lives. After all, what could be more absurd than making a member of the lucky sperm club the head of state? If America, too, had a royal family, perhaps Puff Daddy wouldn't be treated like a hero -- merely a very lucky guy -- and Rudy Giuliani would be a little nicer to those whom fortune hasn't smiled upon lately, such as poor, British Tina Brown.
Last autumn a friend I was at Cambridge with became the executive producer of ABC's revamped "Fantasy Island." (He's the son of a well-known Hollywood actress -- shock!) I pitched him a story idea that involved a group of desiccated British expats whose fantasy was that America had lost the War of Independence. For one precious day, they'd be able to live in an alternative present in which Americans still paid taxes to the British government and still doffed their caps and tugged their forelocks whenever one of us entered the room.
Unfortunately, "Fantasy Island" was put on hiatus before this idea could bear fruit -- but it would have made a cracking episode. This Monday I intend to take some comfort in that fantasy, as your rockets light up the sky and darken my horizon.
