What makes an English person?
What make an English person?
The word English is used here in a broad traditional sense, it can be substituted for Scottish, Welsh, or Irish but it is in this definitive old sense as used to denote the common make up of Great Britain. It has been said that the English are a mongrel race made up of many European influences over thousands of years. This may be true but the important thing to note is that the make up and assimilation of different influences occurred over a long slow period of time, time that allowed for similarities of nature, modes of expression, dress, custom and languages to develop into a broadly recognise common view. Apart from the actual location of the English people i.e. those based in the province part of England, the most obvious thing that separated the peoples of GB internally was the adoption of local accents wrapped around an English ‘tongue’. Although the Irish, Welsh and Gaelic languages still persist as a part of local custom, the predominate everyday spoken working language is English with accents. Similarities of dress, work, habits, common history and culture practice gained over a period also formed the mode of being English, matched by the adoption of sport and politics. What football team, cricket team or political party one supported focusing on the home ground, county or country, helped defined one as English as indeed actually being born in England.
Unfortunately the English are dying out. It has become common to see on all government and public forms, the whole gamut list of ethnic origins. Within this, one sees British being used as the denomination for anyone born in Britain or acquiring British nationality, English as a racial tag is increasingly not used and presumably not encourage to be used as a defining racial tag, in order to support the Politically Correct view of the UK being a multi racial society. This fostered image of a multi racial society is patently untrue. England as other provinces are not multi racial, to be so would require an equality of numbers which there is not, an obvious look of being a homogeneous population which has latterly diminished and is fosters by a multi racial pretence that we are all now the same under the British tag. This ignores the new generated cultural and racial differences of recent years. As one MP enquired, ‘raised doubts as to which cricket team they support? Who do they bat for when it is their innings?
England begot the English over hundreds of years establishing a common ancestry that matured slowly to develop the world identity of being English. Expansion of the population took place and was stimulated by a number of social and economic shifts natural to the influencing periods. The character of the English may have come from the divers European influx over this time but it took on the mantle that bound them to the eventual English identity. The core features of the English were strong and vigorous enough to accommodate the assimilation of many European extracts and this process of assimilation catered for ‘non-Caucasian’ too (not a accurate pale skin term).
Up to the 1950’s the process of population expansion by immigration was very slow. Slow enough not to make any real impact on the perceived English identity and allowed scope for adequate integration for the new people to meld into the English way of life so that their children need not feel the pull of a racial cultural identity that was never wholly theirs. Today the children of these people, if they see them selves free of the tenuous ethnic culture origins are born and bred English and may well know who to bat for.
Coming from a place that had a huge influx of Irish after the potato famine with a grand father who was Irish, with my own father who was first generation born in England and me being the second, does not mean that I can claim any actual affinity to Ireland or the Irish. I am not English with an Irish tinge I am English through and through. In a similar vain I have come across Chinese, India, and African looking people who likewise see them selves as rightly being English. The Scottish, Irish and Welsh would perhaps consider themselves to be of their type first and maybe British but not necessary English yet they are locked into the English record.
Now however and for the past 40 years with an active immigration policy, the country (without being asked) had allowed unknown thousand of legal and illegal immigrant into the country at a rate that has been far too fast to allow any meaningful assimilation. And whereas Caucasian may have a better chance of blending in should they desire, the non-Caucasian have a much more difficult task. A task not made any smoother for them without the aid of preparatory indoctrination.
How can any assimilation take place without some basic knowledge of the ‘adopted’ country? We have not insisted on them speaking English, not introduce cultural education, not appraised them of the legal observation they have to comply with, not encouraged them to adapt and crucial erroneously undermined and blatantly ignored our own standards to accommodate foreign mores that have been given preference over our own. This gives raise to Political Correctness to mould the majority to the minority.
The insidious nature of PC has blinded politicians to what actually is developing within the country and fostered an assumption that all will be well in the long run as the English with their generally tolerant ways will accept some measure of discomfort, dislocation and make allowances. That the policy intention of importing the new immigrants was to bring some skills and cheap labour to become economically active and integrated was superficial. It assumed they would find their own way and disperse around the UK. This approach went against the nature of human beings, they invariable, when placed in a strange situation, seek to group in areas that are or can be made familiar resulting in identifiable ghettos. That this has occurred should be no surprise and that the impetuses to maintain a familiar culture that subsequently isolate the next generation from the surrounding host results in discomfit and uncertainty of identity.
Politicians and policy makers do not live in the new encampments and have continually chosen to overlook the expanding separate culture within the country. They have been active in suppressing any concerned views and vigorous in not wishing to challenge their own perpetuating perception. A few MP’s have tried to illuminate growing issues of splintering diversity but the force of parliamentary pressure has made them shrink away. As a show of solidarity and confidence in the social environment, senior politicians talk to the ethnic leaders and are given a story line of comfort that stops them from looking closely at what actually is happing in the new communities. There may be little attempt at integration, no desire, and an inordinate pervasive link to maintain old cultural connection and habits within the new communities that ignore the reality of being in a new ‘home’?
Not wanting to challenge attitudes of PC has on many occasions filtered down to local councils and stifles debate, resulting in the raising of such dangerous action as not allowing the flying of the English flag, or not celebrating Christmas or changing the word Christmas to ‘holiday’ etc to avoid upsetting / disturbing / offending the newer nationals.
So today we have a crisis on out hands, how do we recover, reconnect and foster the Englishness of England. It is no use relying on the clichéd strap line of the country being multi racial as if those sentiment said often enough will forestall any fracturing of the social structure. This is England and on a English population numerical basis it should demand that if it offers succour and a space at the table to immigrants, that certain responsibility are to be taken on board, fundamentally to be prepared to adopt England with all that it might imply including its language, culture and way of life. Resources should be applied to insure that the opportunity for active integration takes place; failure to do so will inevitably result in an ultimate clash of cultures and a fracturing of the euphemistic multi racial society.
Is it now no wonder that we do not know who these new people would be likely to bat for when it comes to their innings?
P 4.7.05
The word English is used here in a broad traditional sense, it can be substituted for Scottish, Welsh, or Irish but it is in this definitive old sense as used to denote the common make up of Great Britain. It has been said that the English are a mongrel race made up of many European influences over thousands of years. This may be true but the important thing to note is that the make up and assimilation of different influences occurred over a long slow period of time, time that allowed for similarities of nature, modes of expression, dress, custom and languages to develop into a broadly recognise common view. Apart from the actual location of the English people i.e. those based in the province part of England, the most obvious thing that separated the peoples of GB internally was the adoption of local accents wrapped around an English ‘tongue’. Although the Irish, Welsh and Gaelic languages still persist as a part of local custom, the predominate everyday spoken working language is English with accents. Similarities of dress, work, habits, common history and culture practice gained over a period also formed the mode of being English, matched by the adoption of sport and politics. What football team, cricket team or political party one supported focusing on the home ground, county or country, helped defined one as English as indeed actually being born in England.
Unfortunately the English are dying out. It has become common to see on all government and public forms, the whole gamut list of ethnic origins. Within this, one sees British being used as the denomination for anyone born in Britain or acquiring British nationality, English as a racial tag is increasingly not used and presumably not encourage to be used as a defining racial tag, in order to support the Politically Correct view of the UK being a multi racial society. This fostered image of a multi racial society is patently untrue. England as other provinces are not multi racial, to be so would require an equality of numbers which there is not, an obvious look of being a homogeneous population which has latterly diminished and is fosters by a multi racial pretence that we are all now the same under the British tag. This ignores the new generated cultural and racial differences of recent years. As one MP enquired, ‘raised doubts as to which cricket team they support? Who do they bat for when it is their innings?
England begot the English over hundreds of years establishing a common ancestry that matured slowly to develop the world identity of being English. Expansion of the population took place and was stimulated by a number of social and economic shifts natural to the influencing periods. The character of the English may have come from the divers European influx over this time but it took on the mantle that bound them to the eventual English identity. The core features of the English were strong and vigorous enough to accommodate the assimilation of many European extracts and this process of assimilation catered for ‘non-Caucasian’ too (not a accurate pale skin term).
Up to the 1950’s the process of population expansion by immigration was very slow. Slow enough not to make any real impact on the perceived English identity and allowed scope for adequate integration for the new people to meld into the English way of life so that their children need not feel the pull of a racial cultural identity that was never wholly theirs. Today the children of these people, if they see them selves free of the tenuous ethnic culture origins are born and bred English and may well know who to bat for.
Coming from a place that had a huge influx of Irish after the potato famine with a grand father who was Irish, with my own father who was first generation born in England and me being the second, does not mean that I can claim any actual affinity to Ireland or the Irish. I am not English with an Irish tinge I am English through and through. In a similar vain I have come across Chinese, India, and African looking people who likewise see them selves as rightly being English. The Scottish, Irish and Welsh would perhaps consider themselves to be of their type first and maybe British but not necessary English yet they are locked into the English record.
Now however and for the past 40 years with an active immigration policy, the country (without being asked) had allowed unknown thousand of legal and illegal immigrant into the country at a rate that has been far too fast to allow any meaningful assimilation. And whereas Caucasian may have a better chance of blending in should they desire, the non-Caucasian have a much more difficult task. A task not made any smoother for them without the aid of preparatory indoctrination.
How can any assimilation take place without some basic knowledge of the ‘adopted’ country? We have not insisted on them speaking English, not introduce cultural education, not appraised them of the legal observation they have to comply with, not encouraged them to adapt and crucial erroneously undermined and blatantly ignored our own standards to accommodate foreign mores that have been given preference over our own. This gives raise to Political Correctness to mould the majority to the minority.
The insidious nature of PC has blinded politicians to what actually is developing within the country and fostered an assumption that all will be well in the long run as the English with their generally tolerant ways will accept some measure of discomfort, dislocation and make allowances. That the policy intention of importing the new immigrants was to bring some skills and cheap labour to become economically active and integrated was superficial. It assumed they would find their own way and disperse around the UK. This approach went against the nature of human beings, they invariable, when placed in a strange situation, seek to group in areas that are or can be made familiar resulting in identifiable ghettos. That this has occurred should be no surprise and that the impetuses to maintain a familiar culture that subsequently isolate the next generation from the surrounding host results in discomfit and uncertainty of identity.
Politicians and policy makers do not live in the new encampments and have continually chosen to overlook the expanding separate culture within the country. They have been active in suppressing any concerned views and vigorous in not wishing to challenge their own perpetuating perception. A few MP’s have tried to illuminate growing issues of splintering diversity but the force of parliamentary pressure has made them shrink away. As a show of solidarity and confidence in the social environment, senior politicians talk to the ethnic leaders and are given a story line of comfort that stops them from looking closely at what actually is happing in the new communities. There may be little attempt at integration, no desire, and an inordinate pervasive link to maintain old cultural connection and habits within the new communities that ignore the reality of being in a new ‘home’?
Not wanting to challenge attitudes of PC has on many occasions filtered down to local councils and stifles debate, resulting in the raising of such dangerous action as not allowing the flying of the English flag, or not celebrating Christmas or changing the word Christmas to ‘holiday’ etc to avoid upsetting / disturbing / offending the newer nationals.
So today we have a crisis on out hands, how do we recover, reconnect and foster the Englishness of England. It is no use relying on the clichéd strap line of the country being multi racial as if those sentiment said often enough will forestall any fracturing of the social structure. This is England and on a English population numerical basis it should demand that if it offers succour and a space at the table to immigrants, that certain responsibility are to be taken on board, fundamentally to be prepared to adopt England with all that it might imply including its language, culture and way of life. Resources should be applied to insure that the opportunity for active integration takes place; failure to do so will inevitably result in an ultimate clash of cultures and a fracturing of the euphemistic multi racial society.
Is it now no wonder that we do not know who these new people would be likely to bat for when it comes to their innings?
P 4.7.05
posted by Renot at 7:05 am
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