[MUSIC] Magna Carta is generally seen as a positive influence on history. Whether it's from charters on through to women's suffrage. Protestors and people making positive change have often cited Magna Carta. As the result, we tend to look at the great charter as a positive influence in those histories. However, Magna Carta also has a dark side. So for example, when land was being appropriated from indigenous peoples. Often settlers would argue that they had the law on their side, the law of property. And that primitive peoples, as they were being described at the time, simply didn't have, didn't have a concept of property ownership. So therefore couldn't really claim any ownership of the land that they occupied. This goes back to an older argument, actually, around Magna Carta. Magna Carta itself does, along with The Charter of the Forest, protect what's called commons. That is, land that's communally worked and owned. But by the time we get to the 19th Century that changes. And it's almost with a Bible in one hand and Magna Carta in the other that people take land from indigenous peoples. Let's take the Canadian example. In 1763, the Royal Proclamation was made. Which is perhaps the most important statement of British policy towards native peoples in North America. The proclamation called for friendly relations with, what we might call now, aboriginal people. Ignored that there had been great frauds and abuses in land dealings in the past. And they want to rectify that by suggesting that from today onwards, only the Crown could legally buy native people's lands. The problem is that not only had abuses occurred before the proclamation. But historians have subsequently found out that abuses also continued afterwards. So for example Magna Carta was used in British Columbia to wrest fisheries from native tribes from the 1870s onwards. Fishing rights that had belonged to Native Canadians were now being taken by corporations who were setting up salmon fisheries. And were exploiting the rivers to the full potential. The old ownership was challenged, and it was challenged using Magna Carta in the court. It was challenged on the basis that property could not belong to the native in this way. The fisheries were open for exploitation to all. The law, and freedom under the law were being applied to benefit the powerful over the less powerful. So we see that Magna Carta can be used on the one hand, just as the Bible was used on the other, to prevent people from owning common land. And for that land or fisheries or other natural resources to be taken into the control of large businesses. Of course, there is an older model at work here as well in terms of Magna Carta supposedly protecting enclosure of common land. Especially in conjunction with the Charter of the Forest. However, enclosure happened across Europe including in Britain. And was often a brutal experience in which Magna Carta clauses that referred to commons were ignored. And the emphasis was put on property ownership. As well as in terms of legal powers Magna Carta also has a cultural dimension. In terms of the idea that somehow Magna Carta makes England special. And that has been used by political elements to claim a connection back to Anglo-Saxon times. As if Magna Carta itself had not been a Norman document, but rather had reflected earlier values. And those values are often referred to, especially by the extreme right in Britain. In parallel to those claims of Anglo-Saxon supremacy. And even going back as far as Tacitus. There is a similar development that happens in the United States around nativism. And the idea that somehow Magna Carta imbues supremacy amongst settlers who understand that they have law on their side. This leads in turn to, I believe, the notion of Magna Carta being the document of the English speaking people. Which is almost I think translation of that nativism. Rudyard Kipling, the foremost poet of the British Empire and writer of The Jungle Book wrote two poems about Magna Carta. The first in 1899 in which he despaired of the outbreak of the 2nd Boer War. He ensured the poem was printed simultaneously in America and Britain because he wanted to influence US public opinion in particular. The issue at the time was that the British were attempting to almost destabilise the Cape colonies. And Boer's were concerned about the rising numbers of what they describe as outlanders. British immigrants who were beginning to move into the territory. And therefore the Boer government decided to deny those outlanders the vote. And Kipling responds with direct reference to Magna Carta. He says upon, cruel in the shadow, crafty in the sun, far beyond this border shall his teachings run. Sloven, sullen, savage, secret, uncontrolled. Laying on a new land of evil in the old. Long-forgotten bondage, dwarfing heart and brain. All our fathers died to loose he shall bind again. And the he in the poem is John. And he's making a direct parallel between King John and the Boer politicians. And what he's saying there is that England had fought for those rights including the right to vote and the Boers are denying them of that. And of course that is a direct appeal to the United States and the United States public opinion and democracy in particular. That this was really an issue particularly driven by Sir Cecil Rhodes to establish a new British colony seems to be missed in poem. Kipling's even more affronted by the idea that the Boer's are making a border religious appeal and denying people the vote. Magna Carta can be seen to be binding the empire together, whether it's in Africa or India. A legal historian, Harold Dexter Hazeltine, in 1917, said with the growth of the British Empire during the last 300 years the principles of the Charter have spread to many of the political communities. Which have owed or which still owe allegiance to the mother-country. This concept of empire and law and allegiance, ends up being expressed in a lot of the constitutions. Actually, that, that are formed after the fall of empire. So, a number of former countries that belonged to the British Empire, adopt constitutions that are directly influenced by the Magna Carta. And again, this is used often as an argument about the influence of Magna Carta. But actually it's the influence of the British Empire. And the very fact that the law is codified around this ancient document. The interpretation of Magna Carta at different points in history is interesting but there's also another level of or layer of interpretation going on here. Which is actually people then look back on events that were inspired by Magna Carta, and change the story again. So for example, Michael Portillo, a former Cabinet member of the Conservative government, has written about Stanley Baldwin's speech of 1975 called Torture Freedom. And then, and Portillo claims that Baldwin was making that speech in response to European fascism. So, Baldwin makes, basically makes the point that Kipling does in some of his poems, that Magna Carta is about protecting the people from the mob. On one hand, and from the tyrant on the other. sort of the king on one hand and the populus on the other. That somewhere in the middle Magna Carta protects democracy. Now that notion that Portillo's suggesting there, I think is a much clearer construction. And what he's doing is looking back to '35 and Baldwin's speech and placing in Baldwin's speech things that are simply not there. What's much more relevent to Baldwin in 1935 is the demand that is coming from India for constitutional change. What's being offered by parts of the Conservative government at that time is limited devolution. And indeed and for some parts of the conservative government it's no change. And therefore, there's an argument within the Conservative Party and Baldwin is very much more on the side of gradual change. But he says, and he basically lectures the Indians who arrived to be, to hear this speech that they're not ready. They're not mature enough. They're not prepared for taking control of their own lives. So, basically, what I'm arguing is, the way we look at the past, the way we construct the past depends upon who we are. And we have to take that into consideration when we look at history. And we have to decide where our biases are, and what, what areas we're looking at. So in this section what we've tried to do is think about the dark side as well as about see, the positive influences of Magna Carta. What have been the negative? And how have that shaped history? How has that shaped history? How has that developed in a way that means that Magna Carta is not just simply inspiration for good in the world. But it may also justify some actions that we now consider less good. Drawing on the work of J.C. Holt, we've tried to suggest that Magna Carta is neither a good thing or a bad thing in itself. But rather takes, is part of a history of an argument. And that different sides have used Magna Carta in different ways to justify their positions. And that goes right up to the present day. What we want you to do now is to look at the video of Tim Berners Lee talking about the internet. Tim Berners-Lee was actually responsible for the development and some say the invention of the World Wide Web. Berners-Lee here is talking about dangers that the internet faces and he wants to see a Magna Carta for the internet. After watching the video think a little about what you might want a Magna Carta for. We'll be asking you, in the final week, to think of a clause that you would like to see inserted into a modern Magna Carta. You'll have the opportunity of watching others who have gone through this exercise and have contributed. This is a chance for you, as we said right in the beginning. To join this argument.
