In Search of the Special Relationship

Once upon a time, when I was growing up, my teachers used to tell me that Britain is America’s best friend in the world. I always thought that the feeling was mutual. Until I moved to Britain…

There’s a term that gets tossed around the media called the “Special Relationship,” but I can tell you from experience, the only time I’ve ever felt “special” in the UK was on those frequent occasions when the British would speak to me as if I were mentally retarded. They would slow down their speech, ask me if I needed sentences repeated, tell me to look up words in the dictionary…it was more like bullying really.

I once had an English guy spend 45 minutes trying to convince me that he was 37^th in line to the throne. True story. He would have continued for another 45 minutes if I hadn’t held up my iPhone with the Wikipedia entry (for the actual 37^th in line to the throne) and asked, “Have you had some work done?”

To be fair, my Norwegian friend was completely egging him on by convincing me that in Norway it wasn’t unusual to go to a bar and meet a member of the royal family.

My response: “This isn’t Norway…this is Brixton.”

I remember relating these tales to friends back in New York and one of them exclaimed, “Wow! England sounds like a hostile place for foreigners.” To which I responded, “Not foreigners, just Americans.”

The truth is, in Britain, it’s a national pastime to “take the piss” out of all other countries.

You see, the British are, in actuality, a very bored species.

Their weather may be terrible but it is also predictable. They never have earthquakes, hurricanes, tornadoes, or tsunamis to keep them busy.

They don’t have crazy politicians like Michele Bachmann or Herman Cain purely for entertainment purposes. Granted, the House of Commons is a zoo, but at least British politicians don’t resort to using the Bible as their only source of reason in passing laws. “God told me to” doesn’t fly in this country.

Just a few decades ago, they were ruling half the world. Now, imagine a world where the US has absolutely no influence any more, and is instead being told what to do by an independent Puerto Rico, and you’ll understand exactly where all this frustration is coming from.

I once heard an Englishman equate the rise of US hegemony to “being beaten at chess by a special needs child.”

Humor is the British way of dealing with their boredom. You can get offended if you want to, but where’s the fun in that?

You really just need to learn how to put the British in their place.

For example, I like to use a mock advertising catchphrase that goes something like this: “The United Kingdom: Embracing Mediocrity Since 1945.”

Don’t worry about being offensive. One thing I learned by living in the UK is that you can say whatever you want about the British and they won’t get offended…because they think they’re superior.

So, for example, a plausible response to “Britain never loses any wars” is “I seem to recall a round of ass-whipping at Yorktown.”

Now, here’s where you have to be careful. There are guidelines on how to properly take the piss out of the British. Rule #1 is you must have an intelligent comeback (although the country has its fair share of morons, stupidity is generally frowned upon in Britain, particularly in the humor department). Rule #2 is you have to be original. No one wants to hear another Australian convict joke in Australia, and no one wants to hear another joke about bad teeth in Britain. And this goes for both sides. If the British have to resort to fat jokes to take the piss out of America, I am genuinely unimpressed. I mean, there’s so much material there… And besides, the British hold the obesity world cup for Europe so it’s not like we’re all that unusual in that respect.

Rule #2 is especially important if you’re going to bring up the American Revolution. Americans seem to think that the British care about the American Revolution as much as we do. I hate to break it to you, but they really don’t spend that much time thinking about it. And it’s not just because they…um…lost. You see, to us it’s our entire identity, taking up a full third of our history curriculum. The declaration of independence is on our freakin passports. I mean we defeated the bloody British Empire! No one ever defeats the British Empire! And even if they do, there’s always a rematch. Of course we’re going to have fireworks…

But to the British, it’s just one of a series of wars they happen to have been involved with in the 1700s, in between fighting the French (like three times), colonizing India, circumnavigating the Pacific Islands, and shipping the convicts off to Australia…

For a complete history of British battles in the 1700s click here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/british/timeline/empireseapower_timeline_noflash.shtml

Fun fact: Australia was only populated after the British realized that they couldn’t keep sending their convicts to an independent United States. As it turns out, between 1718 and 1776, over 50,000 convicts were transported to Virginia and Maryland. And the state of Georgia was specifically set up as a penal colony. (The obvious question here is…why not Canada?) Anyhoo…

The American Revolution takes up about a paragraph in British history books (and this is a best-case-scenario, some will just skip it altogether). Most people are barely even aware that the US was ever even part of the British Empire to begin with.

As a matter of fact, the #1 grievance I’ve consistently heard from the British regarding the American Revolution was not Bunker Hill or Yorktown – those were fair game…but the fact that we wasted all of that precious tea! What did the tea ever do to us?

There is actually no limit to how much you can underestimate the British obsession with tea. I once casually brought up the debts that the British owed us from various enterprises (such as Blenheim Palace and World War I) and was promptly met with, “We want the f**king money from the f**king tea you threw in the f**king harbour!” Irony of ironies…the guy who said this now works for Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs, a successor to the same British tax collecting ministry that was responsible for levying the taxes on the tea in the first place. True story.

I once made the mistake of inviting my British friends to Thanksgiving. It was kind of like the original Thanksgiving where the British came and wreaked havoc on the Americans.

One of them had the audacity to bring up the injustices that were done to the Native Americans. The rest of the conversation went like this:

“That wasn’t us! That was you guys! That was the British!”

“Wait a minute…at what point do the British stop being the British and start being the Americans?”

“My guess is sometime around July 4, 1776.”

Well…at least they were helpful enough to carve the turkey.

If the British “accidentally” refer to America as “the colonies,” don’t lose it just yet. What you can do instead is “accidentally” remind them that were colonized by Denmark. At least our former colonial masters take themselves seriously. That usually shuts them up for a few minutes…but only for a few minutes.

Then they’ll make an inflammatory comment about America’s nasty habit of invading helpless countries, which is fair game – we do have a nasty habit of invading helpless countries. However, we learned this from our ancestors, who generally join in these invasions…willingly. The usual response is: “At least we’re good at it.” To which you will respond: “You’ve just had more experience.”

Occasionally, we’re interrupted by a Canadian or an Australian and one of us will say, “Let the adults talk.”

This can go on for hours with neither side willing to concede defeat. Until someone finally decides to end this useless debate and brings up the French…

And then we all go and have a beer. The British will mercilessly hurl insults at American beer, but that’s also fair game. Americans often agree with them.

I imagine that this is also how White House-Downing Street relations play out, albeit on a grander scale.

But this brings me to the larger problem. And that is our love-hate-triangle with Britain and France. You see, the French bankrolled our war of independence and gave us a third of our landmass. The British, on the other hand, shat on us for 200 years and then burned down the White House. If you had a choice of who to pick as your “best friend,” which one would you choose?

I guess linguistically we have more in common with the British (although that’s debatable) but that can’t be all there is to it.

I’m not defending the French. I’m just sort of wondering at what point the alliance shifted so drastically. I mean, when did this so called “special relationship” start?

It’s a valid point, no?

Don’t answer that.

So naturally, I went investigating.

The first thing I did was narrow down the scope. It couldn’t have happened before the British burned down the White House because that’s just unforgivable. You don’t just burn down a country’s White House. It’s just not done. And it couldn’t have happened after World War I because we were shipping war supplies to the Brits until we officially joined the war. So that leaves us with a time frame of 1814-1914.

After scrolling through Wikipedia, it finally hit me. It was the Pig War of 1859!

Wait…what? (sorry, PARDON)

The Pig War (also known as the Pig and Potato War) began on June 15, 1859 after an American farmer living on an island found a pig eating his potatoes and accused it of being a British pig. So he did what all patriotic Americans do…he shot it. It was actually an Irish pig but that didn’t stop this incident from escalating into an all-out war. No, I’m not making this up.

You see, in 1846, the United States and the British Empire signed “The Oregon Treaty” dividing the Oregon territory and British Columbia amongst themselves, and establishing the American-Canadian border at the 49^th parallel (latitude), likely without even consulting Canada. However, the treaty was more vague in reference to the islands off the coast of Vancouver, one of which is the island in question.

After the pig was shot, the American offered to pay the Irishman a sum of $10 but the Irishman demanded $100. While they were arguing, the British sent three warships to the island. Three warships…for an Irish pig! And the Irish think the British didn’t care about them…The Americans reciprocated by sending their own army. Both sides were under orders not to fire a single shot. According to Wikipedia: “For several days, the British and U.S. soldiers exchanged insults, each side attempting to goad the other into firing the first shot, but discipline held on both sides and thus no shots were fired.”

Eventually, negotiations began and both sides agreed to joint military occupation of the island with a “British camp” being set up on one end and an “American camp” on the other.

During the years of joint military occupation, the bored British and American soldiers “had a very amicable mutual social life, visiting one another’s camps to celebrate their respective national holidays and holding various athletic competitions. Park rangers tell visitors the biggest threat to peace on the island during those years was ‘the vast amounts of alcohol available.’”

Finally, the Germans got involved. Yes, the Germans! A commission was set up in Geneva (Geneva!), and in 1872, after a year of arbitration, the commission voted in favor of the United States.

“On November 25, 1872, the British withdrew their Royal Marines from the British Camp. The Americans followed by July 1874.”

There’s just one minor detail that we’ve missed out here and that is the Canadians. The Canadians, who were furious with the Oregon Treaty, “were once again upset that Britain had not looked after their interests, and Canada sought greater autonomy in international affairs.”

And they’re still seeking…

Today, the Union flag is still hoisted daily over the British camp by American park rangers.

For more on the Pig War of 1859, click here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pig_War

What the Special Relationship is really about is a pitiful attempt at one-upmanship. We are two pathetic countries that somehow managed to wield influence on the world stage and are now competing to decide which one of us is more pathetic than the other. It’s a fierce competition. And very entertaining.

Acknowledgements: I just wanted to thank all the people anonymously mentioned in this post for all the laughs. And to thank my favorite Luxembourger for bringing the Pig War to my attention. Excellent find.