Tracing Tony Blair’s steps

     Most people are aware of the term that Winston Churchill coined to describe the feeling in Europe during the Cold War. What may surprise some people is that he first used the term, “Iron Curtain,” at a speech at little Westminster College in Fulton, Mo on March 5, 1946. Churchill said, “From Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic, an iron curtain has descended across the Continent. Behind that line lie all the capitals of the ancient states of Central and Eastern Europe.”
     It is because of this famous speech that GCSU was able to present a lecture entitled “The Foreign Policy of Tony Blair” by Fullbright-Robertson Visiting Professor of British History Dr. Richard Coggins, Tuesday, Nov. 13 in Arts and Sciences.
     “This has become a sort of tradition the last ten years or so,” said Dr. John Fair at the presentation, who also had Coggins come speak to his Modern Britain class.
     Coggins, who got his Bachelor of Arts and doctorate at the University of Oxford, spent the hour lecture delving into the specifics and motivations of the past ten years of British foreign policy, mostly staying on the topic of former Prime Minister Tony Blair.
     Coggins themed his lecture by saying that he wanted to examine “how Britain has come to find its place in world after the Cold War.”
      The lecture was very topical, touching several times on the present war in Iraq and its popularity—or lack thereof—in Britain and around the world.
     “The War in Iraq is as divisive in Britain,” Coggins said, “as it is in the United States.”
     While Coggins focused on Blair’s fairness and apparent desperate attempts to help the poor nations of the world, he was not afraid to point out some of the former Prime Minister’s glaring hypocrisies. Coggins did not back down when questioned about the “distance between the rhetoric and the reality” regarding the debt cancellation and eventual cuts of aid to African nations.
     “When does the G8 Summit ever talk about Africa,” Coggins said, in Blair’s defense. Though, he was well aware of Blair’s shortcomings. “Blair has exhibited an odd hubris in trying to bring peace to every part of the world.”
     The latter part of that statement was essentially the overall message of the lecture. Coggins tried to make everyone in attendance understand that Blair tried to bring an idea of “ethical and moral purpose” to the scene of national politics. Coggins went on and on about how Blair always insisted that “genocide can never be a purely internal matter” and that help should be given wherever it can be.
      Ever since the famous “Iron Curtain” speech, the Fulbright Commission in London selects a Visiting Professor of British History each year for Westminster a small, liberal arts college in Fulton. The professor is assigned to the Department of History and is expected to teach courses in British history and Western Civilization.

Posted by Colonnade Archives on Nov 30 2007. Filed under News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry