Barriers big and small

What a strange request: asking someone from the UK to comment on the value or otherwise of a concept such as 'Southasia', when we struggle with our own regional identity crisis – that of thinking beyond our tiny nation state (itself now fracturing) and imagining ourselves to be 'European'. When it comes to feeling an emotional tie, to be part of something greater than the UK, we remain for the most part Colonel Blimp, the 1930s cartoon character – dithering as to whether we are prepared to be seen outside, or still cowering inside the closet. We in the UK have not been geo-physically attached to the mainland of Europe since prehistoric times, and in intellectual terms our thinking about Europe remains worse than prehistoric. Europe means unwarranted interference with our sacred sovereignty by a distant and unelected bureaucracy – or even worse, tampering with the composition of the British sausage! We remember Agincourt as a significant historic event, not Maastricht. The only thing we grudgingly accept from Europe is the weather – thunderstorms in summer, bitter east winds in winter.

We in the UK have no conception of what it is to be a continental European, slipping smoothly and swiftly across open, apparently insignificant borders, and embracing multiple languages along the way. Leaving the UK actually means something – flying over, sailing on, or tunnelling under an expanse of sea. Moving between France and Belgium means about as much as moving from one Persian Gulf state to the next: the local licensing laws may be different, but not much else. Admittedly, leaving Austria for Italy may be more noticeable due to the multitude of mountains and tunnels, but it cannot compare with crossing the English Channel! That strip of sea represents a mental and temperamental fault-line that simply cannot be overcome. Does the Palk Strait exert the same effect, I wonder, on Sri Lankans? Or does the fact that several major languages – Tamil, Urdu, Punjabi, Bangla – straddle and blur the geopolitical borders within Southasia make a difference?