ISAS Briefs

The British are not generally prone to martyrdom. However, whenever they embraced it, their literature celebrated it. Take the charge of the Light Brigade, for instance. During the Crimean war in the nineteenth century, six hundred brave British cavalrymen rode themselves to self-destruction. That happened because a commander had issued an erroneous order. Alfred Lord Tennyson penned a paean of praise to that act of valour in a famous English poem. For that reason the unfortunate event has been indelibly etched in history. But the action itself was quite meaningless. It made no military or strategic sense. Likewise when the British voted to leave the European Union, the idea of self-destruction came to many minds. It did not, immediately, seem to make any political or economic sense. Someday, some will doubtlessly find reason in this decision, and like Tennyson with regard to that Crimean episode, praise it as an act of courage. But perhaps not quite yet.