What would I have done, I was asked recently on Radio 5 Live, if I had been offered something in the New Year's honours list? I would try to follow the example of my grand-father, I replied. If the honour had a "BE" in it, I would have to reject it. But if a knighthood were bestowed on me, I would accept it gracefully.
My grandfather, Dr Ahmadullah Khan, was a medical officer in the British army. He saw action in Burma and China. For his services to the empire, he was given both an OBE and a knighthood. Al-though he wasn't in a position actually to reject it, he was, according to family history, quite ashamed of the OBE. But he was proud of being a Knight Bachelor - so much so that he translated the "sir" into Urdu as sardar ("leader"), which eventually became the family surname.
My grandfather was proud of his knighthood because it embodied the ideal of the British gentleman. To be a knight is to be a part of an ancient British tradition and to be accepted as an equal and integral part of it. But the honours associated with the Order of the British Empire, created in 1917, reduce you to a subject status. As a "Commander" or "Officer" or "Member" of the "British Empire", you are a subject of the imperial will.
The Most Noble Order of the Garter was created in 1348. The idea of the knight goes back further. We think of the knights' role in the Magna Carta, which planted the seeds of what became representative government and democracy. We think of the Knights of the Round Table and we associate knighthood with chivalry and service. It is both goodly and godly, connected to justice and compassion.
Unlike empire, which was real and painful, knighthood is all about mythology. And mythology, unlike real history, can be reworked and reshaped. The chivalrous knight never actually existed, but that does not matter. In T H White's novel The Once and Future King, knighthood is portrayed as a quest for perfection, a search for a higher and better order of national life. It is an ideal that must always be quested for, and is therefore available for anyone to work towards. Stories about knights are stories about the dream of becoming something better.
There is one personal difficulty for me. Did it not all start with Christian knighthood and the knightly Orders of the Crusades? Did they not wish to eradicate Muslims? I can leap this hurdle by arguing that Christian values describe ideals that are integral to all religious traditions as well as all ethical world-views.
Myths are useful because we can recast them for our own time, press them into service to suit ourselves. I can see no reason why a modern knight should not have ideals as high and ambitious as his mythical medieval predecessors, even though they may be different ideals, more suited to a multicultural, democratic society. Yes, please, give me a knighthood.
