The staff of the Guyana National Bureau of Standards − hard-working, rational people − for the last few years have been trying to persuade the rest of us to comply with the law, move into the modern era and adopt the metric system that they say 96% of the world is using or in the process of converting to. Their efforts have never been received with any great enthusiasm by the populace, and even before the current phase, two previous attempts to introduce metrication failed.
Well last week their mission received a setback of sorts. The European Union finally backed down on metrication in the UK and said that the right of the British to use imperial weights and measures would be enshrined in EU law, and that doing this would not damage the European single market. So the Brits will be able to go on using their quirky pints and miles and pounds and ounces and troy ounces, although in the case of dry weight sales they will have to show the metric equivalents as well. Had this not been done, Britain would have been required to abandon imperial units by the end of next year, and it does not take much to imagine the howl of beer-filled fury that would have reverberated in pubs across the land when the regulars were served a half-litre of bitter instead of their customary pint.
There have been different suggestions put forward as to why the EU changed direction in this matter. After all, Britain signed the instrument which committed it to switching to the metric system as far back as 1980, and yet a whole generation later, and despite education and public campaigns, metrication has still not taken root in all its aspects. The EU Commissioner for the Single Market was quoted by the Daily Mail as saying the reason for the move was that the 27-member bloc had decided to end “myths” that “the EU was banning the pint and that this was part of a wider plot against Britishness.” It might be noted that the European Union had postponed the final move imposing full metrication on two previous occasions, probably because of the resistance of the UK population, resistance which acquired a very public profile after 2001 with the ‘Metric Martyrs.’
The first of the ‘martyrs’ was Steve Thoburn, who refused to use metric weight when selling bananas in a market in Sunderland, and he was followed by others who received great public support, including of a monetary kind to cover the costs of the consequent court cases. Presumably the eurocrats (as they are known in the UK) finally recognized that the number of ‘martyrs’ was not in decline, in addition to which, as noted above, they themselves admitted that what the British did in their local commercial transactions would really not undermine the economic arrangements of the EU as a whole. At the larger level of the single market, of course, Britain is in compliance.
Others have suggested that the EU was also influenced by the fact that the US too has been resistant to metrication. There it is voluntary not compulsory, of course, although the federal government is charged with the responsibility to help in the conversion. Where precision is required, such as in the military, medical and scientific fields, the metric system is employed, but elsewhere Americans in many areas continue to use their customary units, which historically derive mostly from imperial units although they do not always carry the same values.
But just why are people – and not just Guyanese – so hostile to changing to the metric system, despite the fact that it is on the statute books, is taught in schools, and its benefits of logic and consistency are so self evident? The answer was suggested by Warwick Cairns and Derek Pollard writing for the BBC last week: “For many people changing one way you measure things seems to be much more than a simple practical step,” they said. “This is because at the heart of every system of measurement lies a whole way of seeing the world.”
They explained that the metric system had its origins in revolutionary France, but because of the hostility of the citizenry to it, Napoleon had to abandon it. It was only reintroduced later and accepted because “the full force of the law” was employed. Nevertheless, they wrote, even today in French street markets “people still ask for their pommes in livres – even though the livre is now a nominally metric one of 500g.”
They went on to give the example of Japan, which introduced metrication in 1924, and then had to re-introduce it in 1966, although again, despite the fact it is technically against the law, “large areas of life continue to operate in Shakkanho [the local system of measurement].”
So it is worth the GNBS and the Ministry of Commerce taking notice of what is happening in the world; where international transactions and particular fields of endeavour are concerned, the metric system holds sway, which is as it should be. But where internal trade and measurements are involved, there can be an altogether a more relaxed approach, because these have historical roots and are a form of cultural expression. Here too, after decades of teaching the metric system in the schools, mothers still send their children out to buy a pint of rice and rural people still use ‘rods’ for distance measurement, deriving from the ‘roods’ the Dutch used when they were here.
Of course, the GNBS will bring forward the eminently valid argument that it is trying to protect consumers from exploitation by vendors, and that this is much easier with a standardised system of measurement. However, they do have some room for compromise. They could, for example, look at the option of giving a ‘pint’ of rice a standard metric value, so it could still be used in common parlance as is the livre in France today without transgressing the law. The matter of other imperial weights is more problematic, largely because of the legal situation. However, one does wonder if customers are not getting short-changed by some traders in any case, because the former are asking for their items in imperial weights, and the latter are only allowed metric scales. The buyers, therefore, have to trust the sellers to do an honest conversion.
In fairness to the GNBS, as implied above, they do not possess the power to allow the imperial system to co-exist alongside the metric one, because they are bound by the law making the latter the legal system of measurement. Any alteration in this would require the Minister to amend his order. They could, perhaps, ask shop-keepers to put up a notice showing the conversions for a few basic weights and the prices for these, so customers would have a handy reference point, and would be less likely to be given short weight.
With globalisation comes more homogenized societies, and perhaps it is this that citizens are partly resisting when they oppose metrication. In any event, if societies with more effective enforcement at their disposal have failed to convert their peoples, it is unlikely that GNBS will fully succeed – at least not in the short to medium term. In the longer term it is always possible that metrication will gradually seep into the world’s consciousness and it will be universally adopted at the local level. In the meantime it looks as if accommodations with the public where internal transactions are concerned, might have to be made. As such, perhaps the GNBS would refrain from lecturing us that 96% of the world is using or converting to the metric system; it is only true for the purposes of international exchange. For the rest it is simply not true.
