English Day
English Day.
In a speech this year, G. Brown floated the idea of having a special day established to celebrate England as in St George’s day. This would be something similar to the day celebrated by the Welsh, Irish and Scots. This suggestion raised some irritation as it was labelled as being a show of past imperialism, nationalistic and xenophobic, given that the county had supposedly gone down the road of believing it was now a multi culturist country. The idea he raised was perhaps too narrow in that the other nations do make some attempt to recognise their saint’s day if not with a ‘bank holiday’ they do take an interest in it as an occasion, the English have actively not.
Any cursory examination of the state of the UK would lead to a view that although there are a large number of non indigenousness people living in these isles one could not say that it was a multi cultural society. The nearest the UK came to this would have been with the close ties between the Scottish, Welsh, Irish and the English. By no stretch of the imagination could it be said there is the same level of integration occurring with and between the new accumulations of people.
In some ways to denigrate the idea of having English day, was an attempt to continue to conceal the fact the UK is not a multi culture society and to keep fostering the illusion of multi culturist and ‘integration’, integration that is not occurring, so for those detractors having a special English day would not be helpful.
Each of the four nations have a ‘patron saint’ – St Andrew, St Patrick, St David and the English have St George but the English have not marked their day by way of a celebration, these St days also indicate the Christian style background of the nations.
I would much prefer to have an English day but failing that would settle for a British day to celebrate the four nations as UK and what it has achieved, what it stands for and who we are. We of the UK are a four-nation creation that has allowed into our mist others that come from completely different nations with different social connections. It was hoped that the new immigrants would want to take advantage of their new home and adopt the same sense of belonging to a proud country and begin to call them selves English, Scottish, Welsh or Irish, dependant on where they live, wrapped up in a British mantle. This though is not the case, far from it.
There is ample evidence that the many of the newer arrival do not hold any respect for the host nations, do not want to adopt assimilation, preferring to keep and flaunt their own cultural laws, language, and insulate themselves away from the flux of the surrounding way of life. In some cases there is a slight shift towards recognising the country that they are in and this is with the use of the prefix tag of ‘British’, a tag that is also being used to force a perceptive change that overrides the national description of the historic four nations.
The increasing use of a prefix identifiable national tag, that is being adopted like saying ‘British’ African, Indian, Pakistan, muslim and Chinese etc – now also covers as far as public document is concerned, any person that may have considered themselves to be English, Scottish, Welsh, or Irish. they are now counted as British instead.
This re-branding by PC pressure has increased and is driven by the desire assume that multi culturist is an actual fact within the social fabric of the UK and can supersede nation identify built on the idea that the UK has been created from mongrel backgrounds which therefore can absorb immigrant without any conflict of nation identity. If more people had seen this trend and objected then this re-branding could have been forced to fade away. It was not until the event of the London bombs in July 05 did the state wake up to the fallacy of their own creation. Too much has been done to subordinate the traditional of our nations, not enough done to protect their image, particular with the English and it has allowed too much erosion of their own cultural identity to pander to multi culture mores.
Continuing to add this ‘British’ tag by recent immigrants and ‘indigenous’ ethnics only makes the transition of ‘belonging’ much harder. It also adds more weight to highlighting the difference between people of different cultures and portrays a confusing message, why be here if they do not want to adapt and adopt if by inference somewhere else is better? Knowing ones cultural heritage is one thing but living it out of the environment that has not nurtured it is futile.
So let’s have a celebration day for all those that want to belong to England, let’s have an ENGLISH day and be proud of it as part of Great Britain PLC.
Now whether it is St George’s day 23rd April, which may happen by default (and is a day also celebrated by other counties) or May Day a particular socialist labour day of May 1st, or the particular English event of the 15th June 1215 the signing of the Magna Carta is all open to debate but whatever day, it should be celebrated!
This date of 15.6.1215 topped a BBC recent survey so it does show some element of strength for claiming a commemorative day however it may be more prudent to recognise the contribution that all of the nation of GB have provided and have a national day, one that would also allows the new foreigners that wish to exercise their given right to belong to GB to hopefully claim some ownership of it as well. Choosing such a unified commemorative day though would be more tortuous than simply going for either of the two dates that world best signify an English day, 23rd April or 15th June. Two other options that could be useful, we could go for all Saints day 1st November which incorporates all the essence of a Christian sense that is the majority backdrop of GB people or create a European Union day.
The difficulties that have arisen over the issue of identify and a cultural sense will not go away. Separation tendencies may increase dramatically when the pressures on social systems and the economy get tough, at such a time the ethnic minority that are intent on standing out from assimilation will attract vitriolic interest. It is their own best interest to want to be seen to be a part of their new nation and join in, not try to change the majority for their needs. In the meanwhile we need to counter the erosion of Englishness and give our historic identity greater precedence over any attempt to circumvent what it is to be English. It is to be valued for if we do not we will be submerged into a morass of alien dictates
P17.10.6
© Renot 2005-2006
In a speech this year, G. Brown floated the idea of having a special day established to celebrate England as in St George’s day. This would be something similar to the day celebrated by the Welsh, Irish and Scots. This suggestion raised some irritation as it was labelled as being a show of past imperialism, nationalistic and xenophobic, given that the county had supposedly gone down the road of believing it was now a multi culturist country. The idea he raised was perhaps too narrow in that the other nations do make some attempt to recognise their saint’s day if not with a ‘bank holiday’ they do take an interest in it as an occasion, the English have actively not.
Any cursory examination of the state of the UK would lead to a view that although there are a large number of non indigenousness people living in these isles one could not say that it was a multi cultural society. The nearest the UK came to this would have been with the close ties between the Scottish, Welsh, Irish and the English. By no stretch of the imagination could it be said there is the same level of integration occurring with and between the new accumulations of people.
In some ways to denigrate the idea of having English day, was an attempt to continue to conceal the fact the UK is not a multi culture society and to keep fostering the illusion of multi culturist and ‘integration’, integration that is not occurring, so for those detractors having a special English day would not be helpful.
Each of the four nations have a ‘patron saint’ – St Andrew, St Patrick, St David and the English have St George but the English have not marked their day by way of a celebration, these St days also indicate the Christian style background of the nations.
I would much prefer to have an English day but failing that would settle for a British day to celebrate the four nations as UK and what it has achieved, what it stands for and who we are. We of the UK are a four-nation creation that has allowed into our mist others that come from completely different nations with different social connections. It was hoped that the new immigrants would want to take advantage of their new home and adopt the same sense of belonging to a proud country and begin to call them selves English, Scottish, Welsh or Irish, dependant on where they live, wrapped up in a British mantle. This though is not the case, far from it.
There is ample evidence that the many of the newer arrival do not hold any respect for the host nations, do not want to adopt assimilation, preferring to keep and flaunt their own cultural laws, language, and insulate themselves away from the flux of the surrounding way of life. In some cases there is a slight shift towards recognising the country that they are in and this is with the use of the prefix tag of ‘British’, a tag that is also being used to force a perceptive change that overrides the national description of the historic four nations.
The increasing use of a prefix identifiable national tag, that is being adopted like saying ‘British’ African, Indian, Pakistan, muslim and Chinese etc – now also covers as far as public document is concerned, any person that may have considered themselves to be English, Scottish, Welsh, or Irish. they are now counted as British instead.
This re-branding by PC pressure has increased and is driven by the desire assume that multi culturist is an actual fact within the social fabric of the UK and can supersede nation identify built on the idea that the UK has been created from mongrel backgrounds which therefore can absorb immigrant without any conflict of nation identity. If more people had seen this trend and objected then this re-branding could have been forced to fade away. It was not until the event of the London bombs in July 05 did the state wake up to the fallacy of their own creation. Too much has been done to subordinate the traditional of our nations, not enough done to protect their image, particular with the English and it has allowed too much erosion of their own cultural identity to pander to multi culture mores.
Continuing to add this ‘British’ tag by recent immigrants and ‘indigenous’ ethnics only makes the transition of ‘belonging’ much harder. It also adds more weight to highlighting the difference between people of different cultures and portrays a confusing message, why be here if they do not want to adapt and adopt if by inference somewhere else is better? Knowing ones cultural heritage is one thing but living it out of the environment that has not nurtured it is futile.
So let’s have a celebration day for all those that want to belong to England, let’s have an ENGLISH day and be proud of it as part of Great Britain PLC.
Now whether it is St George’s day 23rd April, which may happen by default (and is a day also celebrated by other counties) or May Day a particular socialist labour day of May 1st, or the particular English event of the 15th June 1215 the signing of the Magna Carta is all open to debate but whatever day, it should be celebrated!
This date of 15.6.1215 topped a BBC recent survey so it does show some element of strength for claiming a commemorative day however it may be more prudent to recognise the contribution that all of the nation of GB have provided and have a national day, one that would also allows the new foreigners that wish to exercise their given right to belong to GB to hopefully claim some ownership of it as well. Choosing such a unified commemorative day though would be more tortuous than simply going for either of the two dates that world best signify an English day, 23rd April or 15th June. Two other options that could be useful, we could go for all Saints day 1st November which incorporates all the essence of a Christian sense that is the majority backdrop of GB people or create a European Union day.
The difficulties that have arisen over the issue of identify and a cultural sense will not go away. Separation tendencies may increase dramatically when the pressures on social systems and the economy get tough, at such a time the ethnic minority that are intent on standing out from assimilation will attract vitriolic interest. It is their own best interest to want to be seen to be a part of their new nation and join in, not try to change the majority for their needs. In the meanwhile we need to counter the erosion of Englishness and give our historic identity greater precedence over any attempt to circumvent what it is to be English. It is to be valued for if we do not we will be submerged into a morass of alien dictates
P17.10.6
© Renot 2005-2006
posted by Renot at 5:27 am
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