Author: Liu Zhanxiong, focusing on emerging industries, columnist of Beijing News and Economic Observer
The recent Indians have been so powerful that Rishi Sunak has become Britain's next prime minister, the descendant of a former colonial subject, and has become the ruler of the suzerainty above all people, which is inspiring.
How did this Indian brother rise to power, what is the situation in the British political scene in the past two days, I will give you a timeline.
It is said that when Boris Johnson Jr. was the prime minister, Sunak served as chancellor, and later he fell out with Johnson and resigned in 2020.
This year, Johnson stepped down and the female Prime Minister Truss took over, which is regarded by the outside world as the rebirth of Margaret Thatcher, but this eldest sister is engaged in economic reform, and the step is too big and pulling eggs. Financial markets were in turmoil, "stocks and bonds were killed", the pound plummeted, the Chancellor of the Exchequer hurriedly changed horses, Kwarten left, and Jeremy Hunt was appointed as the new Chancellor of the Exchequer.
But markets remained volatile, and Truss slipped down to become the shortest-serving prime minister in British history. In the autumn of the country's critical survival, in order to maintain unity and stability, the other Conservative contenders withdrew from the election and guaranteed Sunak as the new leader.
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Sunak's family is also a model of class rise, his father is a doctor in a public hospital, his mother is a pharmacist, and Sunak has been helping out in his mother's pharmacy since he was a child.
The family moved from India to East Africa 60 years ago and then to mainland Britain, settling in Southampton on the southern coast of England, gradually moving from the periphery of the empire to the center.
Rishi Sunak grew up and rarely encountered racial discrimination, as a second-generation immigrant, he not only retained the national traditions of his ancestors, did not forget his roots, but also actively integrated into Europe and the United States, and became a part of the local society.
As a child, Sunak often went to Hindu temples and watched Southampton FC games on weekends to cheer on the team.
When it came time for the entrance examination, this buddy had average exam results, and the scholarship for gifted students was not examined. Sunak's parents felt that their child had to get ahead and had to attend a prestigious school, so they paid him to attend Winchester School.
With tuition fees of nearly £40,000 a year, Sunak's family is just enough to reach the middle-class threshold, although it is better than the children of the cold family, but far from the level of food and clothing, which is a big burden.
Sunak's parents' education investment proved to be the right one, and it was very important to enter Winchester School.
Everyone has seen the movie "Ace Agent", the elegant English gentleman played by Colin Firth, beats a gang of punks in the tavern, and when teaching to be a man, he reads word by word, Manners makes-man. "Etiquette makes people", this famous line is the motto of Winchester College, which is written in Latin.
Entering Winchester School is equivalent to stepping half a foot into the threshold of the upper class. Let me give you an example, Orwell, the author of "1984", although he is a hardcore leftist, he does not come from a poor background.
His father worked as a civil servant in the Indian colonial government, and Orwell attended Eton School. Eton College and Winchester College are located in the same grade, the top aristocratic children school in the country.
During World War II, Orwell wanted to do something in order to oppose fascism, so he worked for the BBC and engaged in anti-German patriotic propaganda and mobilization. Places like the BBC are not accessible to anyone, and Orwell can enter with the status of an EtonHouse alumnus.
Sunak was a second-generation immigrant who grew up in Indian culture before entering Winchester College, and was an authentic British gentleman after he came out. He continued his efforts, entered Oxford University, and after graduating at the age of 21, he worked at Goldman Sachs, a well-known investment bank. After accumulating a little work experience, I went to Stanford to study for an MBA in the United States.
At Stanford, he hooked up with a girl, Akshata Murty, who was "an Indian countryman" and talked about it. Murthy's family is amazing, with deep pockets, and India's largest IT outsourcing company is owned by her family.
Akshata's father, Narayana Murthy, known as India's Bill Gates, is worth about $2 billion.
Sunak climbed this family affair, really lucky, after getting married, he ran for office, became a parliamentarian, because he is a hardline Brexiteer, he became a rising political star of the Conservative Party, first in Theresa May's government, then as Chancellor of the Exchequer, and now as Prime Minister.
The children of the second generation of immigrants, married Bai Fumei, became the prime minister of a country, and properly counterattacked the script of Long Aotian.
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Self-effort + marriage + British tolerance and open environment, Sunak can be so successful.
England is a land of opportunity, as long as a person is willing to work hard, there is a possibility of turning over.
In addition to Rishi Sunak, there are several high-ranking Asian officials in the British top.
Sadiq Khan, descendant of Pakistani immigrants who was elected mayor of London in 2016, has a bus driver father and a tailor mother.
Saeed Javid, descendant of Pakistani immigrants, Conservative politician and former health secretary. Javid's father worked as a textile factory worker and bus driver, and his mother had no formal education before she learned to speak English and opened a small clothing store ten years after coming to England.
London attracts global talent, and heroes don't ask where they come from.
After World War II, millions of colonies migrated to Britain mainland, more than 300,000 immigrants from the Caribbean, more than 170,000 from Africa, and about 450,000 from India and Pakistan.
As citizens of the former British Empire, they do not need a visa and do not need a work permit. They are automatically entitled to a British passport. By now, almost one in five people in London is Asian and one is black or mulatto.
Britain has a tradition of embracing ethnic diversity and has long been around.
In 1905 there was a travel brochure that stated:
You see more Scots in London than you do in Aberdeen, the capital of Scotland;
You see more Irish people in London than you see in Dublin;
You see more Jews in London than in Palestine;
You see more Catholics in London than you see in Rome.
At that time, the most popular foreigners were Scots, who obtained lucrative positions, and the first governor of Hong Kong, Henry Pottinger, the senior management of the 19th-century British trade Jardine Matheson (the predecessor of Standard Chartered Bank), were all Scottish.
It can be said that the Scots were the pioneers of the British Empire, General Colin Campbell, who suppressed the Great Indian Mutiny of 1857, John MacDonald, the father of the Canadian Confederation, and Lachlan Macaulay, Australia's most important governor, all came from this nation.
There were many Scottish officials and generals in the British top, and at the peak of the Scottish elite in the First World War, an exclusive native English writer commented sourly on the political situation in 1915:
Today, one Scotsman leads the British army on the Western Front (Field Marshal Douglas Haig), another Scots commands the fleet at sea (Admiral David Betty), and the third Scots is the Chief of the Imperial General Staff (William Robertson).
The Chancellor is a Scotsman (Viscount Finley), the Minister of Finance and the Minister for Foreign Affairs (Boehner Law, Arthur Balver, respectively), the Prime Minister is a Welsh (Lloyd George), and the Minister of the Navy is an Irishman (Lord Carson).
Yet no one has yet proposed to give England local self-government!
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Today, it is not unusual for the Indian Sunak to become the British prime minister.
Some military bloggers on the Internet said that India's third brother climbed on the head of the former suzerainty, and the colonial people raised their eyebrows and exhaled, and there was a misunderstanding in this.
You see, the ancient Scots and the English fought for hundreds of years, and the two sides fought bloodily, and the movie "Braveheart" is about the Scottish folk hero Wallace rebelling against the British king. But later, the Scots reconciled and served the British Empire.
After Sunak became British prime minister, there was indeed a minority of white racists on Twitter who were dissatisfied and did not want a yellow race to rule themselves.
However, the UK has a tradition of embracing diversity.
In the Glorious Revolution, King William III of the Netherlands brought a large number of Dutch and Jewish officials to introduce the world's most advanced financial system, and London's status as a financial center was established.
Some xenophobia advocates "driving out the Dutch" and "England is ruled by Gentiles, and the country will not be a country", Daniel Defoe, author of Robinson Crusoe, wrote a satirical poem - "The Real Englishman".
Defoe turned the roots of the English to the effect that the blood of the inhabitants of the British Isle was mixed with several rounds by the Romans, the Germans at the time of the barbarian migration, and the Viking Danes, and there were no so-called pure, authentic English people in the world.
The original verse reads:
It began as a hybrid of all mankind, this is the British.
Fierce compulsion, angry desire, gave birth to a greased and powdered Bredon, or a Scottish? Whoever sows it, learn from whomever it is, yoke the heifer and plow the Roman land.
In the beginning, it was half of this half-blood, and I don't know whose name, which nationality, what language is spoken, and what the ancestral reputation is.
New hybrids were born quickly, the descendants of the Saxons and Danes.
To put it mildly, the first non-white prime minister in British politics was Benjamin Disraeli in the 19th century, and Sunak was the second. Disraeli came from a Jewish family, and in those days, Jews were not white.
If you expand the scope to non-Anglo-Saxon prime ministers, the United Kingdom has a large number of Scottish and Welsh backgrounds, and the previous prime minister, Gordon Brown (2007-2010), is a Scotsman.
Although Sunak comes from an Indian immigrant background, his resume is typical of the white elite, Winchester College, Oxford University, Goldman Sachs, and it is reasonable to have this resume background to enter the core of the British elite.
As early as a century ago, there was an Indian elite that actively Westernized and wanted to integrate into the Anglo-Saxon high society.
The well-known Gandhi looks like a ragged, like a turtle.
But Gandhi was originally educated in the West and spoke English very well6. Before becoming an anti-British nationalist leader, Gandhi wore a suit and a British gentleman's demeanor.
Then there is India's founding prime minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, who went to Harrow College at the age of sixteen. Harrow College, along with Eton College and Winchester College I mentioned earlier in this article, are among the top aristocratic schools in the UK.
Nehru talked and laughed with British high society, was proficient in European literature and law, talked to his classmates about Wilde, he stayed in England for seven years, and after returning home, he maintained a British style, suits, top hats, and furniture at home were imported from Britain.
However, in that era of racism, foreigners were not accepted into the white Anglo-Saxon system. Nehru and Gandhi, Western-educated Indians who spoke fluent English, were harmed by white supremacy.
After a hundred years of equal action, Indians and other Asian groups have finally been able to enter the house, and today even Indians are the prime minister of the United Kingdom.
From a macro point of view, the scope of the British elite has gradually expanded, absorbing the Dutch and Scots in the 18th and 19th centuries, and now absorbing non-white groups. The process of British development is the process of constantly absorbing and integrating foreign races.
Embracing all rivers, being tolerant and confident, assimilating foreign elites and making it available to me is the secret of Britain's prosperity and ranking as the sixth largest economy in the world.