“Asia, Your Asia”: Reflections on Orwell and Asia

In February 1941 in the midst of the German blitz on Britain, George Orwell published his political pamphlet The Lion and the Unicorn: Socialism and the English Genius, a slim volume of about 120 pages which begins with a reflection on patriotism in the modern world entitled “England Your England.” The latter phrase indicates a characteristic Orwellian combative turn; referring to William Ernest Henley’s “England, My England,” a popular and oft anthologized Victorian hymn to England, he replaces emotional warmth with critical distance and proposes a second person rather than first person stance. Patriotic sentiments were prevalent of course in England in 1941 and Henley’s verse returned in its original meaning that year in composer Ralph Vaughan Williams’s “England My England: a choral song for baritone soloist, double chorus, unison chorus, and orchestra.” Orwell, however, while applauding his countrymen’s ability to rally around the flag in times of crisis, was no mere chorus singer and denounces the conservatism, excessive respect for class differences, and hypocritical attachment to Empire which he believed riddled mainstream English patriotism. Patriotism was fine and necessary under the circumstances, he told his readers, but without socialist reforms this England was not quite yet his ideal England.