THE BRITISH " INVASION - COMPLEX " SIR, —Being a Czecho-Slovakian
refugee, alien but friendly, I have had ample experience to look closer into certain historical problems which have come again into the limelight of this Tamerlanian theatre of our times. The chance and opportunity of viewing such problems from at least two points have unfor- tunately resulted from a life " between," and the new lights of revelation are disastrously burning on the explosive fuel of reality. One cannot rejoice at suddenly discovering solutions of old problems, but one cannot stop the feverishly researching run of one's thoughts.
Thus it struck me that what I should like to call the " invasion- complex " of the British people, which has been in existence for ages and has now reached a climax, is subconsciously rooted in the making of a nation who, from the very start of Hengist and Horsa, took her life and shape as invaders. Nowhere else in history can we find such an outstandingly successful example of a continuous mixture of tribes and nations with all the attractive- ness of culture and language which can only be the outcome of such a unique historical development. But still in the " sub- terranean depth " of the British mind there lurks and lingers the said complex, a collective soul's tragical conflict, a theme worthy of an Aeschylus. Embedded in it as a compensating antidote there seems to be what I dare to call the " anti-foreigner superiority complex "—but this is partly another story.
Let me assure you that insights like these cause a sympathy with and an understanding for the British people's life-and-death struggle which surpasses the average compassion.—I am, Sir,
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