If one does not confront the basic truths of one’s national identity, one will not be able to trace a path forward. Everything becomes a fiction, a narrative designed to block any kind of self-examination. There is lots of talk about gaslighting these days, but the foundational component of gaslighting begins far from the corridors of power. The British have been gaslighting each other and themselves for generations. This is the personal propaganda cycle that colonialism instigates. It creates a false hierarchy of superiority rooted in fictions about magical personal and national prowess.