Welsh nationalism

[calimero]

King Biscuit time - you seem to be suggesting that a concern for the future of the Welsh language equates directly to nationalism. In reality there is a clear distinction between the two. I don't myself have any nationalistic fervour or passion as such, in fact I actively dislike nationalism for all the damage it has done, usually to small, powerless nations. Similarly I don't think that the vast majority of the 500,000 or so first language Welsh speakers try in any way to ram it down peoples' throats. Socially, legally and politically this is more or less an impossibility anyway - how can a small minority whose language still does not have equal status in the eyes of the law ram it down anyone's throat other than in pissed-rant moments down the pub!

Personally I've always liked the fact that I was brought up and educated bilingually more than the actual fact that I can speak Welsh. I feel that I have benefitted so much from this and I love the two languages equally. How could I not when there is much beauty in both - Shelley, Peake, Blake etc. on the one hand Dafydd ap Gwilym, Waldo and the Super Furries on the other. It doesn't always have to be a case of one or the other, and the fact that I'm passionate about the Welsh language doesn't detract in any way from my love of the English language and people.

However the fact that the Welsh language is under real threat of extinction cannot be denied or ignored. If local people can't afford to live in the areas which have traditionally sustained the language, and worse if they can't find jobs there (which is the current situation) then the langauge will die. I don't know the answer to this extremely complex problem, but I know that burying our heads' in the sand, pretending that the language is doing fine just because there's a phoney industry centred around S4C and the Assembly in Cardiff and apologizing for being concerned will not help anyone.
Bilingualism is one of the coolest things about living in Wales I think, but its existence is not automatic or guaranteed. Raising peoples' awareness of the problem isn't 'ramming it down their throats', it's just part of a defence of rights which are inalienable and an intrinsic part of Welsh identity.

 

[Callie]

Being in Wales at uni (sorry this is slightly off subject) the language barrier is sometimes a problem. Where i work we have recently been learning to speak some Welsh to show customers that we're trying! I have to admit though I'm too scared to speak to anyone in Welsh in case i miss pronounce something. Oh and my boss was teaching me a little poem/song thing about two dogs who lose their shoes in the woods. Dau gi bach?

 

[johnwisehammer]

"Surely using the word "Celtic" to mean Welsh, Scots, and Irish is as bad as using the word "British" to mean English?"

In what way? Celtic is an explicitly ethnic term (and a very loose one that, like you say, applies to Basques, Corsicans, Cornish as well) but nobody's trying to dissolve English peoplehood or culture into it nor trying to use it as a justification for political union (well, maybe about 30 loons that go to summer conferences on the Isle of Man, but you see what I mean).

 

[ICB]

JohnWH: You made your historical point about the origins of a British identity very eloquently in an earlier post, as I said. Sadly you failed to address any of my questions about alternative descriptors and reinventing usage. Can we not progress?

There are some interesting inferences in what you say.

You ponder whether I am happier with a British identity because it was not designed to suppress English identity, yet you acknowledge my distaste for displays of an English identity and criticise that as well.

You also say you are happy that there is a rediscovery or re-exploration of English identity. Why would this be necessary if it hadn't been far more successfully supplanted by 'Britishness' than the 'Celtic' identities have been? Do you want people to find reasons to be proud to be English again?

You claim that Mike has a deeply ingrained sense of British because of the context of his use of the word foreign but you seem to see this in a negative way, as somehow indicative of the success of the original campaign, rather than as something that's potentially positive because it crosses contemporary barriers.

I'm sure you appreciate that the idea of a Celtic ethnicity that extends all the way up Europe's Atlantic coast is a massive over-simplification and really little more than romantic mythologysing in the present day.

One of the more encouraging things about genetic research is that it has started to demolish a lot of these ethnic edifices.

To answer your questions, yes I dislike all badges but I recognise their usefulness as rallying points when people are oppressed. Who oppresses the English? The rise of the George Cross as a direct reaction to the proliferation of other badges including that of the EU. It's indicative of a new rise in Nationalism and I dislike Nationalism in all its guises.

If national identities are to be meaningful and useful in the future then they will have to be freed from ethnic asscoiations, one way or the other. Flag-waving, tub-thumping and repeated reference to the crimes of history doesn't look to me like the best way to this end.

 

[ICB]

By amazing coincidence I got sent this email today which shows that Britishness has a lot going for it

Only in Britain... can a pizza get to your house faster than an ambulance.

Only in Britain... do Supermarkets make the sick people walk all the way to the back of the store to get their prescriptions while healthy people can buy cigarettes at the front.

Only in Britain... do people order double cheeseburgers, large fries, And a DIET coke.

Only in Britain... do banks leave both doors open and chain the pens to the counters.

Only in Britain... do we leave cars worth thousands of pounds on the Drive and put our junk and cheap lawn mower in the garage.

Only in Britain... do we buy hot dogs in packs of ten and buns in packs of eight.

Only in Britain... do we use answering machines to screen calls and then have call waiting so we won't miss a call from someone we didn't want to talk to in the first place.

Only in Britain... are there handicap parking places in front of a Skating rink.

3 Brits die each year testing if a 9v battery works on their tongue.

142 Brits were injured in 1999 by not removing all pins from new shirts.

58 Brits are injured each year by using sharp knives instead of screwdrivers.

31 Brits have died since 1996 by watering their Christmas tree while the fairy lights were plugged in.

19 Brits have died in the last 3 years believing that Christmas decorations were chocolate.

British Hospitals reported 4 broken arms last year after cracker pulling accidents.

101 people since 1999 have had to have broken parts of plastic toys pulled out of the soles of their feet.

18 Brits had serious burns in 2000 trying on a new jumper with a lit cigarette in their mouth.

A massive 543 Brits were admitted to A&E in the last two years after opening bottles of beer with their teeth.

5 Brits were injured last year in accidents involving out of control
Scalectrix cars.

and finally.........

in 2000 eight Brits cracked their skull whilst throwing up into the toilet!

Don't we have a lot in common

 

[johnwisehammer]

"Sadly you failed to address any of my questions about alternative descriptors and reinventing usage. Can we not progress?"

Why do we need alternative (really, true) descriptors? What need would they fill? What's the point of trying to reinvent usage if it just legitimises the original mission?

"You ponder whether I am happier with a British identity because it was not designed to suppress English identity, yet you acknowledge my distaste for displays of an English identity and criticise that as well."

There's no inconsistancy there at all - "British" identity is a lie while English identity is still a bit fuzzy in many ways. I just don't see why you are so sneery about people who choose to explore English identity - and in fact, your sneering at them does exactly what the BNP (!) and NF would like - that Englishness becomes the reserve of the far right.

"You also say you are happy that there is a rediscovery or re-exploration of English identity. Why would this be necessary if it hadn't been far more successfully supplanted by 'Britishness' than the 'Celtic' identities have been?"

Because "British" hasn't supplanted "English" in content at all - it's a synonym, a rebranding, not a different concept.

"Do you want people to find reasons to be proud to be English again?"

No, I don't really understand national pride at all, but I'd like English people to think more closely about what it means to be English and British, and then we might get somewhere (and preferably, for all of them to magically agree with me, but obviously that's not going to happen).

"You claim that Mike has a deeply ingrained sense of British because of the context of his use of the word foreign but you seem to see this in a negative way, as somehow indicative of the success of the original campaign, rather than as something that's potentially positive because it crosses contemporary barriers."

There's a difference between surpassing boundaries and just moving them; I think it's a case of the latter. You seem to be in this bizarre state of having a definition of "British" that is entirely contemporary and completely divorced from its continuing purpose, origin and meaning.

Obviously ethnicity is scientifically meaningless - much more like the "imagined communities" of whathisname than any sort of 'knowledge' because it's self-identification. Which is what pisses me off about it being used as justification for Britain's existence.

"I dislike all badges but I recognise their usefulness as rallying points when people are oppressed."

Well, I think you're wrong to dismiss culture and identity as something that's only valuable to look at when people are endangered.

Who's advocating a nationality based on ethnic assumptions? Personally, I'm in favour of hyphenated identity that matches national/cultural ancestry with present identity. There's plenty of "Asians" that are far more Scots than I am! So what's wrong with Pakistani Scots, for instance? (Apart from the fact that Scottish Scots looks a bit funny, as does English English).

The crimes of history? Bollocks. The divorce of peoples from their culure, language and history is ongoing and to say "ah, well, it's too late now, they all might as well speak English and have their identity totally formed by the state" is simply to collude in it.

Still no comment on the absence of ridiculing Jamaican Englishmen.

 

[johnwisehammer]

PS That last one uses British in the sense of citizenship, not identity. Obiovusly the two are discrete.

We can all find examples of the word British being used but it doesn't make it mean anything more or less legitimate, just like we can all find lots of examples of people being called "niggers".

 

[William of Walworth]

I haven't been back to my old North Wales haunts for ten years but I anticipate getting nto this thread within that time - it's an excellent one.

 

[ICB]

Oh dear.

Why do we need alternative (really, true) descriptors?

That's what I asked you, because of your wholesale demolition of British identity.

What's the point of trying to reinvent usage if it just legitimises the original mission?

Whether there's a point to reinventing usage or not is not the point, it is reinvented constantly, that's how language works. I have no interest in legitimising your conception, or mine, of the "original mission", if the diffuse set of various powers and interests and the colonial imperialsism that they collectively participated in can be seen is such generalised conspiracy-implied terms.

I just don't see why you are so sneery about people who choose to explore English identity - and in fact, your sneering at them does exactly what the BNP (!) and NF would like - that Englishness becomes the reserve of the far right

I don't sneer at those actually wanting to explore English or any other identity. I don't see why you are so sneery about those wanting to explore British identity. BNP, NAZI (socialist), so what? Your point about us preventing Englishness being the preserve of the far right surely applies to Britishness.

I don't really understand national pride at all, but I'd like English people to think more closely about what it means to be English and British, and then we might get somewhere (and preferably, for all of them to magically agree with me, but obviously that's not going to happen).

Agreed on all points, just checking the common ground with that one.

There's a difference between surpassing boundaries and just moving them; I think it's a case of the latter.

I'm not clear what you mean here, is the use of the word 'foreign' in that context regrettable or inaccurate as far as you are concerned?

You seem to be in this bizarre state of having a definition of "British" that is entirely contemporary and completely divorced from its continuing purpose, origin and meaning.

Do I? That's funny, I don't feel like I am. I rather thought we were exploring the definition of these things.

So do you want to throw the word away and disapprove of my position and the use of the word foreign in the earlier context or do you want to admit that there may be some malleability in what you call this continuing meaning and also its purpose, whilst not forgetting its origin? (How could we with you around? 3rd post in a row banging on the same drum)

I think you're wrong to dismiss culture and identity as something that's only valuable to look at when people are endangered.

I didn't say that and you're bright enough to know it.

Who's advocating a nationality based on ethnic assumptions?

Plenty of people, as you know.

I'm in favour of hyphenated identity that matches national/cultural ancestry with present identity.

Surely composite rather than hyphentated, but I know what you mean.

There's plenty of "Asians" that are far more Scots than I am! So what's wrong with Pakistani Scots, for instance?

I don't really understand why you ask this but if you mean semtantically, nothing if you hold dual-nationality.

The divorce of peoples from their culure, language and history is ongoing and to say "ah, well, it's too late now, they all might as well speak English and have their identity totally formed by the state" is simply to collude in it.

Agreed, I'm interested as to where I said this was my agenda.

Still no comment on the absence of ridiculing Jamaican Englishmen.

Frankly I find your presumption and implications throughout this post (and previous ones) insulting.

My brother-in-law and very close friend is a 'Jamaican Englishman', although I'm sure he would never describe himself that way. They happen to be coming to stay this weekend, it's his birthday. He knows my views on flags/badges/nationalism and he knows my deep respect and love of his cultural heritage.

For that matter I have Irish, Cornish, Welsh and French lines in my immediate family.

You're obviously very well informed , nay erudite, why don't you read other peoples' posts a little more attentively and re-read my comments on the principle of charity?

[ 22 November 2001: Message edited by: ICantBelieve ItsNotBetter ]

[ 22 November 2001: Message edited by: ICantBelieve ItsNotBetter ]

 

[ICB]

That last one uses British in the sense of citizenship, not identity. Obiovusly the two are discrete

Yes they are distinct, but related and you couldn't have a citizenship without some form of associated identity, yet in your earlier post you said

"British" identity is a lie

??

[ 23 November 2001: Message edited by: ICantBelieve ItsNotBetter ]

 

[belzub2]

In what way? Celtic is an explicitly ethnic term

What about the linguistic term "Celtic" to mean the family of Indo-European languages identified as Celtic? What about the archaeological term "Celtic" to mean a distinctive style of art that arose in Iron Age Europe?

(and a very loose one that, like you say, applies to Basques, Corsicans, Cornish as well)

Actually, that's not what I said (or meant) - what I did mean was that most current usage of the word is inaccurate and historically unsound.

but nobody's trying to dissolve English peoplehood or culture into it nor trying to use it as a justification for political union (well, maybe about 30 loons that go to summer conferences on the Isle of Man, but you see what I mean).

I accept that certain people might have attempted to do the same with 'Britishness' and 'Celticness', why does that make the use of the word "British" any less flawed that the use of the word "Celtic"?

 

[Space Girl]

The Welsh language is more alive today than it has been for years, Preseli school I believe is now teaching all subjects in Welsh only, any non-Welsh speaker in the area have to go to st.Clears school, which is miles away! I don't know if that is a good thing or not!
But surely to keep the language alive the people who have the advantage of it being their first language should at least speak it correctly otherwise it will get bastardised.

 

[Belle]

Not all welsh people pretend to like 'cool cymru' bands! I am from Wales and I can't stand Catatonia, Stereophonics (mono-phonics)or the Manic Street Preachers. I hated them when I lived in Wales and I hate them now. I get insulted when I tell people where I am from and they assume I like these "bands."
I do think that I wouldn't hate them as much if they didn't profess to this whole Welsh nationalism thing, which gets right down my throat considering we all come from the same landmass.
The worst thing is, someone with my opinions cannot get on either in Wales or England, because the Welsh don't like it when you criticise their nationalism and well, the English just don't like the Welsh. Or they just feel that they are superior? So I come to England and get stick from the people I have been sticking up for all my life!!
The only potency Catatonia have for me is the fond memory I get when I wake up in the morning and thank the lord I no longer live in Wales. It is far easier to be an open-minded Welsh person outside of Wales than it is inside.

 

[ICB]

Belle: nice perspective in your post

someone with my opinions cannot get on either in Wales or England

You get on fine with me though

 

[johnwisehammer]

Okay, then:

You say we need to find new descriptors of Britishness; I ask why; you say "because I asked". I'm asking why you think it's important to have such a concept. What desireable purpose does it serve?

Colonialism isn't a "conspiracy", it's a plan, it's something that's done perfectly openly and through legal channels.

Englishness has a legitimate core that can be reconciled with democratic values. Britishness doesn't, like "Aryan", it's a fucking madey-uppy, no good word that does very few people any favours.

I'm not saying Mike's use of the word foreign is or isn't regrettable in this context, necessarily. I'm drawing (trying to) the distinction between what you were saying (that British "positive because it crosses contemporary barriers") and what it actually does - just moving those barriers a couple of hundred miles west to keep people in or others out.

I'd be perfectly happy if British was never used as a cultural/national descriptor and only used as an attribute of citizenship. "you couldn't have a citizenship without some form of associated identity". You certainly can in the sense you create a citizenship (which is an attribute of statehood, not anything cultural or identity-based) and then create an identity to attach to it.

When you say "dual nationality", do you mean dual citizenship or "mixed" nationality?

I'm certainly not going to bother trying to defend ethnic-based citizenship or using "Celtic" as a basis for political union or action simply because I don't believe in either of them. I think you both must be confusing me with someone else.

I'm really curious why it is that Welsh and Scots who display their national symbols are "twats" while you haven't said the same thing about English of Jamaican "origin". Your brother-in-law should self-indentify whoever he wants - but why do you seem to have such an interest in making sure people identify as British (or as a new word that means the same thing)?

"Some of my best friends are English".

 

[creamofsumyungai]

Well some people are as proud of their Welsh blood as their German, American or Czech blood. Some people go overboard and freak out. You have to regard the fine line.

 

[pk]

Oh, dear. As always pk has to be the voice of sense.

*sigh.

Reason to hate Wales.

Reason to love Wales.

Catatonia were second-rate pub-rock fronted by a caterwauling fishwife

LMFAO!!!

 

[belzub2]

Britishness doesn't, like "Aryan", it's a fucking madey-uppy, no good word that does very few people any favours.

I think you'll find it comes from a Celtic (har har har) word used to describe the Britons and their language. How is that as "madey-uppy" as "Aryan"?

 

[johnwisehammer]

<slaps forehead>

Not word, "concept as a value-free definition of identity" then. Aryans were a bunch of people from the Indian subcontinent, IIRC.

Jesus.

 

[ICB]

You say we need to find new descriptors of Britishness; I ask why; you say "because I asked". I'm asking why you think it's important to have such a concept. What desireable purpose does it serve?

I didn't say we needed new descriptors, I asked you whether you thought we needed them or whether we should try to adjust or adapt the descriptors we already have. The latter seems the more realistic course to progress on.

I think it's important to have such a concept because there are interests, language and a landmass that we all have in common. I hope this is illustrated by my examples and that in others' posts.

Having had a chance to chat about this over the weekend it transpires (as suspected) that my b-in-l thinks and talks of himself as "British Afro-Carribean" and sees "Jamaican Englishman" as petty, devisive and indicative of a serious misunderstanding of the issues.

This may lead you to conclude that he is in some way a victim of the conspiracy to inculcate Englishness via Britishness. However, he would reject this and suggest that he and others (myself included) do not use British in that way and are well aware of the origins of the word and the Union.

You seem confused about the relationship between a cultural/national descriptor and an associated identity to the point where you contradict yourself in your last post. The whole way in which you talk about it again implies some over-arching intelligence or conspiracy behind the whole campaign, (who creates a cultural/national citizenship and then (seperately?) an identity ot attach to it?) which I think is silly.

I don't know what you mean by "mixed nationality". Nationality is distinct from heritage and ethnicity as far as I'm concerned. Dual nationality = two passports (or equivalent recognition on registers of birth, marriage, death, tax, etc.), multiple nationality = more than two passports (or equiv.).

Welsh and Scots who display their national symbols or engage in other flag-waving/tub-thumping are not such twats (for doing so) as the English who do it and in turn those of Jamaican, Pakistani, etc.. origin are less twatish than the Welsh or Scots who do it. This is for the reasons outlined earlier (history of oppression, statement of belonging, etc.). However, I still think that e.g. African Americans who go around wearing Africa symbols are twattish in the same way, just less so by degree.

I don't have an interest in "making sure people identify as British" and of course my b-in-l will decide what he is most comfortable with and why. My point is that he (and many others like him) may have something valid to impart to people with your attitude if you will only listen.

"Some of my best friends are English".

That must be nice for you.

REAL GREAT BRITAIN

Union Jack and Union Jill
Back up and down the same old hill
Sell the flag to all the youths
But who swallow the bill
"Murdoch she wrote"
Him have his hands in the till
Blairful of Thatcher
Stuck on the 45
The suits have changed
But the old ties survive
New Britannia Cool
Who are you trying to fool?
Behind your fashion-tashion I see nothing at all
Care for the community
Cuts the nation into three
Rich pickings for the first
Bottom third you'll never see
While middle England keeps swinging it's loyalty
No concern for the future
Just with dead royalty
So will the Real Great Britain step forward
This is the national identiy parade
Shoe gazer nation forever looking backwards
Time to reject the sixties charade
Not enough schools
Not enough homes
Just phoney care in his millenium dome
More Prime cuts than beef on the bone
And there's too many questions you're not answering tone
Union Jack and Union Jill ...
So will the Real Great Britain step forward ...

Asian Dub Foundation

I'm interested in all of us (in Britain)trying to work this out together. To do this we need to be aware of all our histories and heritages but not see them as immovable obstacles to progress, which is all I can presently take from your characterization of "British". Can we still not move this on to discuss what the alternatives are and why people feel as they do about the appropriateness of Britishness?

 

[editor]

On a more simplistic note, you can't really blame Welsh folk for waving a Welsh flag around when there's some flag waving to be done: the British flag contains the red cross of St George, the white cross on a blue background of St Andrew and the red diagonal cross of St Patrick - and not a single mention of Wales whatsoever!

This is because by the time the flag was dreamt up Wales was already (legally, at least) 'united' with England.

I think a nice red dragon right across the Union Jack might look rather fetching...

 

[ICB]

I agree with the point about the unrepresentativeness of the Union flag Mike (and pointed out on a thread a few weeks ago). It's a shit flag anyway and at least the Welsh flag is cool

I wonder whether the rise in popularity of the George cross, on car bumpers, number plates, in living room windows, is in part a response to the resrugence of flag-waving encouraged by devolution. I think there's more uncertainty and insecurity about the English identity at present.

 

[johnwisehammer]

"While middle England keeps swinging its loyalty"

Well, quite.

"I'm interested in all of us (in Britain) trying to work this out together."

Look, this is the heart of your problem. What is there to work out? Can Orthodox Jews and Neo-Nazis 'work it out', or is it just time for the Neo-Nazis to fuck off?

'This may lead you to conclude that he is in some way a victim of the conspiracy to inculcate Englishness via Britishness.'

Ask yourself the alternative question: why is it that white Englishmen are so keen for nonwhites to call themselves British and not English?

Citizenship = attribute of the state; nationality = cultural/ethnic/national/fuzzy-edged identity, not necessarily anything to do with the state. You're saying that nationality is something you get from the state - so what are Jews, Kurds, Palestinians? They have a distinct nationality but no state to derive it from. You're confusing the state and nation-state.

"I think it's important to have such a concept because there are interests, language and a landmass that we all have in common."

We only have a 'common' language and landmass in common because England colonised us! Why do we need a common word to describe ourselves just because we live (not share) in the same part of the world?

So there we have it. a line of superiority and right to have a national and cultural identity, as decreed by you: Pakistanis => Welsh and Scots => English. Why do you equate expressions of my identity with tub-thumping? What is it that you have to lose?

Is it because I is white?

 

[johnwisehammer]

"British Social Attitudes" published today by Sage. Excerpt, The Guardian, p.8:

'A declining number of people think of themselves as British. In England 47% describe themselves in this way (compared with 63% in 1992) and 41% think of themselves as English (31% in 1992). In Scotland 82% describe themselves as Scottish (72% in 1992) and only 13% as British (25% in 1992).'

 

[Belle]

I Cant Believe Its Not better: Good to know that there's someone else out there who wants to get on with me!!!!!
Love ya

 

[ICB]

Edited to say Belle, you are very welcome and provide an excellent case in point of the subtleties and greyness (as opp. to B&W) of the discussion.

JohnWH:

"While middle England keeps swinging its loyalty"
Well, quite.

Well quite what? Hardly a point well made, not a point at all in fact. Perhaps the interesting point is that there is a "middle Britain" at the heart of the problem ADF are talking about, not a "middle England" or perhaps you think the apathetic elements of the Scottish and Welsh "middle classes" are above reproach?

"Look, this is the heart of your problem."
Listen, look, what I mean to say is you've gone a bit Tony there haven't you?

"What is there to work out?"
Identity. Why me and many others want to call ourselves British and emphasise commonality, but you (and others) don't want them to.

"Can Orthodox Jews and Neo-Nazis 'work it out', or is it just time for the Neo-Nazis to fuck off?"

And by the same line....Can Palestinians and Orthodox Jews work it out or is it just time for the Palestinians to fuck off? Your point being what? How do you get the Neo-Nazis to fuck off? Are you another who thinks that the idea we can defeat the fucks in face to face debate is just a "liberal fantasy" and that we should therefore outlaw them, intern them, etc.?

"why is it that white Englishmen are so keen for nonwhites to call themselves British and not English?"
I'm not sure which "white Englishmen" you are referring to here, perhaps it's all of them? I'm interested in what people do call themselves, why and what others (like you) construe from it, and why.

I (unlike you) have no particular agenda or axe to gind on this other than wanting to see more harmony and understanding, less divisiveness.

"You're saying that nationality is something you get from the state - so what are Jews, Kurds, Palestinians?"
They are Jews, Kurds and Palestinians. If you mean what is "Jewishness", "Kurdishness" and "Palestianishness" then the answer is different and immensely complex in each case. One difference is that Jews have a nation state whereas the others do not. Another would be that "Jewishness" conflates racial/ethinic identity with religion in a much stronger way than the others.

"You're saying that nationality is something you get from the state"

Where? Nationality is clearly an inherited property of the citizens of nation states. "Kurdish" isn't (yet) a nationality (where's the nation?), although we might agree that it should be. It is a racially/ethnically derived identity. Someone who comes to the UK as an asylum seeker and becomes a British national has a British nationality that doesn't negate or remove their "Kurdishness".

For the same reason one can be a British Jew (or an English Jew if you prefer) whilst having only a UK passport. However, you cannot be a British Israeli unless you hold dual-nationality.

A British Afro-Carribean would be inaccurate in describing themselves as a "Jamaican Englishman" unless they held dual-nationality. "English Jamaican" likewise and seems, from anecdotal evidence, to have too much weighting towards a parochial English identity on the one hand (vs British or European) and a parohical Jamaican identity on the other (vs Carribean or Afro-Carribean). It all depends on the facets of ones heritage and identity that one chooses to emphasise. The broader the category the more inculsive, by necessity.

So there we have it. a line of superiority and right to have a national and cultural identity, as decreed by you: Pakistanis => Welsh and Scots => English.

No again you (deliberately?) misread me. What I said was that there is a hierarchy of understandability or of justification on the basis of former wrong-doings, where twattish waving of flags is concerned. This doesn't remove the silliness of the whole thing, just means that it is more natural for some people to engage in the silliness than others.

Why do you equate expressions of my identity with tub-thumping?

I don't. I equate flag-waving and badges with tub-thumping. My concern is that your understanding of your identity seems retrograde. A more appropriate quote from that lyric would be

"Shoe gazer nation forever looking backwards"

since I can't seem to get you to progress the debate beyond your original point about the origins of Britishness (as opposed to its current and future use). This idea of "britishness" that you have is radically over-simplified and actually does a disservice to your fellow Scots as well as the Welsh and Irish.

The British Empire, and the consequent understanding of Britishness, had massive involvement from powerful and influential Scots, Welsh and Irish throughout its grwoth and decline. These people were hugely influential in the aims and methods of empire and English attempts to play down their part has recently been highlighted and partially redressed by academe in London, Dublin, Edinburgh, Cardiff and elsewhere.

The real disctinction was a "class"/power one between those involved in empire, of whatever nation, who were of the ruling class and had capital/power and those, of whatever nation, who were their victims, or at least disposable resources in the great game.

So I once again encourage you to move the debate forward.

Do you want to see an end to the use and usefulness of a "British" identity?

Would you replace it with anything?

How would you propose to bring about the changes that you see as desirable, including changing the way people think about and use this word at present?

I can't help feeling that had I slagged off Britishness royally and gone in for a bit of talking-up Englishness you would have been just as obstreperous.

I don't really understand the relevance of the quoted statistics. Do you feel this lends weight to your argument somehow? Perhaps you need to define your argument a little better first.

Personally I find those statistics, or at least the implied changes in attitude, a cause for concern, since I believe they are driven by a resurgence of nationalism.

[ 26 November 2001: Message edited by: ICantBelieve ItsNotBetter ]

 

[Leon]

Editor:

St David's flag is included in the Union Jack to supposedly represent Wales. Its very subtle though, almost marginalised you could say.

[ 26 November 2001: Message edited by: Leon ]

 

[johnwisehammer]

The point about why 'Middle England" is used and why 'Middle Britain' never is that it's a supposedly uncontroversial (you can't even see it when it's being discussed, apparantly) usage of England and Britain being interchangeable.

You want to work out your identity? Fine - go ahead. I just don't see why you have to drag other people into it. Why are you so keen to subsume Scots, Welsh, Irish into your identity? You arguing a totally bonkers line here - that 'we' can have any identity we like, so long as it includes English people and that an identity that includes English people is somehow desireable.

Why target the Scots or Welsh? Why not look for common identities with the French or Dutch (far closer in religious, economic and linguistic terms)? What's the political motivation you're working towards?

Why is it that you equate diversity with divisiveness?

There's no need to search for compromise between Neo-Nazis and Orthodox Jews because Neo-Nazis are simply wrong. There would be no possible compromise that did not legitimise Nazi ideology.

"I (unlike you) have no particular agenda or axe to gind on this other than wanting to see more harmony and understanding, less divisiveness."

What's my agenda, then? Harmony and understanding cannot be achieved if there's an unequal balance of power and a refusal to acknowledge the other's right to exist and express itself.

"Nationality is clearly an inherited property of the citizens of nation states."

No, it's not. You're simply wrong here because nations predated states. The nation-state is a form of state but not all states are nations. For fifty-ish years there wasn't a meaningful Estonian or Slovak state. Does this mean that the Estonian and Slovak nations simply did not exist and then reappeared after 1991?

I can buy a Panamanian passport tomorrow. Does that make me part of the Panamanian nation? In quite a few East European states, for instance, there are seperate boxes for citizenship and nationality, so you can be full Serbian citizen and a Hungarian national.

Nationality's a fuzzy concept, an 'imagined community' but it's usually loosely based around ideas like common histories, commony myths, a common language, a shared identification with particular pieces of land, common religions. States are just mechanisms for the execution of power.

"A British Afro-Carribean would be inaccurate in describing themselves as a "Jamaican Englishman" unless they held dual-nationality. "

What gives you the right to tell people how they can describe themselves? What about Albanian Macedonians? Inuit Canadians? Armenian Azerbaijanis?

"Shoe gazer nation forever looking backwards" = "I don't know why those Jews/Pakistanis/Armenians/Chechens/Zulus don't stop whinging about the past and just get on with things. After all, it's not as if it affects anything today, is it?"

"Do you want to see an end to the use and usefulness of a "British" identity?"

There's no usefulness in the term as a marker of personal/collective/national, as far as I (and 82% of Scots apparantly) am concerned, just in the context of statehood. English people can call themselves just whatever they like but don't imagine that the people you're including would include themselves - like "Yugoslav" withering away until only some Serbs would use it.

"Would you replace it with anything?"

No. There's nothing for it to stand for.

 

[inflatable jesus]

ICB

Interesting that you quoted that ADF lyric. I always understood it to be talking about the rather chauvanistic uses of symbols of British nationalism. In particular the use of union jacks within the mid-nineties indie/ britpop period.

Personally, I found the whole Britpop/ britart / britlit, cool britania bollocks to be beyond preposterous. Kind of a last hysterical push at creating a new and relevant meaning of Britishness in the face of devolution which clearly signalled the end of Britain as a political unit.

I'm interested in all of us (in Britain)trying to work this out together. To do this we need to be aware of all our histories and heritages but not see them as immovable obstacles to progress

I'm interested in what you mean by this and in particular what you would regard as progress. For me the end of the use of Britishness as a national identity is an inevitability and something I would regard as progress.

I also dont see how you could possibly not see the relevance of JWH's statistics to this debate. I think it shows quite clearly how quickly this view of national identity is becoming outdated.

To talk about this in terms of a 're-surgence of nationalism' makes very little sense. It's merely substituting one nationalism for another. However, I think that you equate english nationalism with something more distasteful for some reason.

IMO I think that if progress is to be made, then English people have to begin to look meaningfully at what it means to be English.

Then perhaps we can start looking at how little any nationalism can actually do for us.

 

[ICB]

IJ: Yes, that's the gist of the lyrics, and what they ask is for the 'real great britain' to step forward and I'm asking us to consider that as something that is still a possibility.

IJ/JWH: In seeking to defend people that use 'British' as being entitled to call themselves whatever they like I seem to have been tarred with the brush I started off holding, accused of prescribing what others can or can't call themselves.

I suggested that there can be positive aspects to being British and good reasons for people to want to call themselves that and it was against this notion that axes were ground.

Nationalism is more on the political agenda in all parts of the UK, hence a resurgence (stats for Plaid Cymru/SNP support?).