A recent example of those ubiquitous 'repost this if you agree' messages on Facebook made the case for maintaining 'English' traditions in the face of FIFA's ban on the England team wearing poppies, not being able to recite 'Baa Baa Black Sheep' without changing 'black' to 'rainbow' and having in our midst those who would wish to impose 'their' laws on us. It concluded by saying that those who did not want to accept 'English' rules could choose to live elsewhere (I paraphrase slightly - it was actually closer to 'fuck off').
It set me thinking about how people perceive the concept of ‘being English'. For the person that came up with the original post, the concept of Englishness seems to under threat and the root cause is Johnny Foreigner. In their eyes, nursery rhymes are changed so they don’t offend non-white children, Eurocrats have rendered us powerless and the imposition of Sharia law is just a heartbeat away. For the original poster, maintaining one’s English identity is a struggle in the face of impossible odds, but struggle he will and his valiant rallying cry of ‘live somewhere else if you don’t like it!’ will rival anything Shakespeare committed to paper. We English are immutable, unchanging, timeless and our Empire extends…..
Except ‘we English’ are a mongrel race formed out of centuries of invasions by European forces (the horror!) and subsequent settlement and intermarriage. The Normans, the last invaders of these shores, imposed French as the national language, but it never really extended beyond the King’s court and, although it took three hundred years, English prevailed as the mother tongue (Edward III became the first English monarch to address Parliament in English in 1362). Things change: things don’t change. And as for the Empire…well, that’s all gone and we are living with the consequences, both psychologically (hey, it’s not that long ago that the world map was still predominantly “ours” and it takes time to accept that we are no longer a superpower – please note Mr Blair and Mr Cameron!) and physically – the demise of industry and rise in immigration from the 1950s onwards. Things have certainly changed but, over time, things will work out. If…
A couple of days after the Facebook post, the infamous ‘racist mum on a tram’ video went viral: a woman berating the other passengers for being non-white and non-English, her language thoroughly peppered with expletives and throughout, her small son sat on her lap (the chilling fact is that he doesn’t bat an eyelid or get upset – he’s obviously used to it). The full extent of her bile can be seen here. Again, it made me think about Englishness. Hence…
My tips for being English
Reserve. When abroad, do not constantly bang on about being English if you are dressed in a St George’s cross t-shirt, getting loudly drunk and throwing up everywhere. That’s not being English, that’s being a dick. A return to English reserve and understatement, please! Which brings me to…
Civility. Your mother probably told you that politeness costs nothing. There is no cost in saying ‘please’ and ‘thank you’. It is part of acknowledging that there are other people in the world apart from you. And no, it is not acceptable to say ‘I’m not doing it because nobody else does’. We all have to start somewhere. Oh, and it extends to road use as well: there are other road users out there and they are all probably in just as much of a hurry as you.
Tolerance. Ok, some people worship at a mosque or a chapel or a synagogue. Fine – they have their beliefs and I have mine. Your next-door neighbour likes to dress as a Klingon. Great – it’s not your cup of tea, but he’s harmless and it’s not hurting you. Yes, there are a few idiots out there who might preach hatred, who might advocate the UK should be subject to Sharia law, who might say that we should all wear sky blue pink on a Sunday. But they are just that – a few. People have the right to speak freely in this country and that should be cherished. If you don’t like what you hear, you have the right to have your say too.
Pride. Being proud of your country of birth is a difficult thing. There is a fine line between ‘pride’ as something that helps bind a people together and ‘pride’ as embodied in jingoism or xenophobia. Being proud of your country does not give you the right to denigrate others. Pride is not about superiority.
Political correctness. “Baa Baa Rainbow Sheep” really happened, albeit only in a couple of SureStart centres back in 2006, I believe. The press (well, certain titles which are obsessed with PC) finds another story every once in a while that outrages people. Do not be outraged. In the same way that the haters and religious fanatics of all creeds are few (see above), so the PC zealots who are supposedly sucking the life out of life are also few. Anyone in their right mind is going to sing ‘Baa Baa Black Sheep’ to their little ones rather than try to crowbar the word ‘rainbow’ in there (it doesn’t even scan, for God’s sake!) or chose another colour such as ‘green’ (that’s not going to be disturbing to the kids is it?). Has anyone ever considered that ‘BBBS’ was in any way linked to race? No. You know what is right (if you are applying ‘Politeness’ and ‘Tolerance’ above) and you don’t need the sometimes bizarre worldview of PC to live by.
That’s it. I’m sure I could add more given time and more tea (oh yes, almost forgot that one! Drink tea – lots of it). My point, I guess, is that we should not lose sight of the qualities that we need in order to live together. We can choose to sit on a tram and moan about how powerless and ignored we are. We can choose to post messages on social networking sites about how our Englishness is being taken from us. Or we can actually go back to living some of the values that I recognize as quintessentially English. It might actually make the world a better place.
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