You remember Trafalgar, don’t you? The 1805 battle where Admiral Nelson’s British fleet captured or sank 22 out of 33 of their French and Spanish opponents, ensuring British naval supremacy for a century? In order to spare French and Spanish sensitivities, a celebration of the 200th anniversary of the battle may ignore the inconvenient fact that the Brits won:

Organisers of a re-enactment to mark the bicentenary of the battle next month have decided it should be between “a Red Fleet and a Blue Fleet,” not British and French/Spanish forces. Otherwise they fear visiting dignitaries, particularly the French, would be embarrassed at seeing their side routed.

Even the official literature has been toned down. It describes the re-enactment not as the battle of Trafalgar but simply as “an early 19th-century sea battle”.

… One (sponsor) said: “It seems remarkable that we are not saying this is Britain versus France in this re-enactment. Surely 200 years on, we can afford to gloat a bit. Not even the French can try and get snooty about this.”

[Times of London story]

(This despite the reenactment being off Portsmouth!)

So now we bring the you’re-all-winners attitude of youth soccer to our rememberance of history-changing events. And to make it worse, the French are the last nation to need a boost in self-esteem!

Technorati Tags: political correctness

This entry was posted on Monday, May 23rd, 2005 at 2:52 pm by A Senior Administration Official and is filed under Brilliant, but uncategorizable, Politically Correct ... and stupid. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.