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[leeroy]

A ramble...

Back during my backpacker days, it was customary (at a backpacker "gathering", perhaps sitting round a fire in a desert while a neo-hippy played Bobs Dylan and Marley) for each member of a different nationality to rant about their country.

Typically, this rant would extoll how good it was. I've heard about how sexually liberated Australian girls are, about how New Zealand is better than Australia, how most Canadians are much cooler than their Southern Cousins and how Slovenia is a beautiful place with mountains and beaches really close to each other.

Mexicans have told me how their food is the best of all Spanish speaking countries, Russians (yes, there are Russian backpackers!) about how the only 'good' vodka is indeed inside Russia. The Irish ones, naturally, talk about how beautiful their hometown is and how friendly the Irish are. I now know that the Danes are the best of the Scandinavian nationalities - and that the Dutch have The Best Idea when it comes to European integration, and that the problem with the English is that they are too shy.

Yet I (nor any other English person that I've ever heard) have never spoken for very long about the beauty of the English countryside or the feeling of being in a rural pub with a pint of bitter and a roaring fire. I'll happily discuss the problems with England until the cows come home, but I've never felt comfortable saying "England's great!", or even, "This aspect of England is quite nice" to people from other countries.

In terms of being 'openly patriotic', the English pale behind virtually all other nationalities. (Yes, there are the football hooligans, but let's look past an obvious minority for a second).

In my classes, my students frequently go on about how the food/women/weather/climate in their country is "the best". London is nothing in comparison to their home cities, you see. In fact, England is a terrible place, and English people are awful. They have no qualms in calmly stating this to me as a fact. A Russian student has told me, in all seriousness, that our political system is "a mess". Chinese students tell me London is "dirty" (but I know what they do to our school toilets!) and a French student that English people are arrogant. For the most part, though, it is funny listening to their complaints - and sometimes I join in.

If I were in Spain, learning Spanish, and my teacher asked me how Madrid was, I'd say it was beautiful. Irrespective of how I actually felt, this is what I would say. What I wouldn't do is start complaining about the Paella, and how I miss my steak and kidney pie. I wouldn't start on a tirade of "things that are better in my country" - for such things would seem innappropriate to me, regardless of whether or not I truly believed them.

So why the lack of patriotism?

Are English people genuinely ashamed of being English? There is plenty to be ashamed about - but most countries have their fair share dodgy history.

Perhaps there is a feeling of "quiet superiority" amongst the English - we know we're the best so there's no need to ram it down other people's throats.

Or maybe, for most, it's the simple fact that 'being English' simply doesn't matter to the average bloke living in Southampton.

Any medium-sized conversation with a Latin American will contain numerious references to their home country, evidently 'being Brazilian' is an integral part of the average Braziliano's identity.

If we consider our 'identity' to be a composite of things that we 'are' and things that we 'aren't' - then I could say that I am

Young
Middle-class (but poor!)
White
Male
Hetero-sexual
An English teacher
(Oh yeah! And I'm English!)

(I hope the equally important 'am not's are implicit here)

My nationality is simply not important to me - it's not something I consider on a regular basis. A Chinese person might be insulted if you suggest that the Chinese government behaves in a hostile way towards Taiwan - by insulting his country you are in turn insulting him. 'The fact that they are Chinese' seems to be a very big deal to most Chinese students here, in fact. Rarely does a sentence (well, phrase or semi-complete clause) leave their lips that does not have "China" or "Chinese" embedded in it. It seems that for Chinese people, their nationality makes up a fair old percentage of their total identity.

Go ahead, say anything you like about England - I'll either agree with you or shrug my shoulders. You can call the Queen a prostitute if you want, complain about Blair being Bush's lap-dog, say the food is rubbish, or the people ugly, I don't really care. Most (young) English have a similar view on things, they have very little national pride, and allocate a similarly little amount of 'personal identity' to being English. A slander on England isn't a slander on us personally, so why should we be bothered? Perhaps we are too individual, or something...

What does it mean to be English? It's certainly not "Afternoon tea on the lawn" any more. Perhaps the reason English people don't attach much importance to their nationality is because there is very little solid within "England" or "English culture" that we can connect to.

Phew! Did you read all that?

[Capergirl]

All right, how many cups of coffee have you had today, Lee? (j/k) I am just on my way out but will be interested to see the responses to this one. I know quite a few Canadians who are teaching in England at the moment and they certainly have a lot to say about the things you mentioned in your post (and others).

P.S. My father likes to remind me that I am not an "English teacher" but a "teacher of English".

[khmerhit]

OooooffF...it's a bit early in the morning for all this, Leeroy. I get it, you're trying to narrow down your thesis points, and you want us innocent bystanders to help you out. Good thinking.
Are you at the school of oriental and asian studies?

Here is my take-- the younger and weaker the country, the more its patriots pipe up. We Canuckistanis, for instance, blow our own horns a lot when abroad. The noise we make is in inverse proportion to the inferior feeling we grow up with as a second or third tier nation living next to a Leviathan. It's just a lot of noise, really, we know it's not true that we live in the "greatest nation in the world." Does that make any sense? The Chinese, for instance, appear to be really patriotic, but at root they are insecure, since they come from a recently colonized nation where most people are very poor.

Now, Brazilians--- I'm not sure about them. You said

[lagerlout2006]

The fog man---you forgot about the FOG...You have best fog going...You can say to people---You have smog but we have fog...

And funny...the English are funny....Did I mention the fog...(See I am not as funny as the English---proves my point.) Pass the warm beer!

[Steiner]

[Lanza-Armonia]

I've gotta agree on all accounts to Leeroy abar one thing. I DO enjoy afternoon cream teas. There's nothing I like more than a scone, jam, butter, sweet tea alongside a smooth honey thereinwith.

I'm not British by brith but in a way I'm glad I am now British. Although 'we' were a$$holes throughout history, we seems to be driving a lot of world issues and anything bad that happens, feck it, blame it on Bushy! I;m tired now but I'll post more on this 2mro

End of...

LA

[Lanza-Armonia]

PS..... Largy? What is this myth about warm beer? No such thing!!!

LA

[Mouse]

Yes, I read all that, Leeroy, and I did a fair amount of head-nodding as I went. I'm Welsh, actually, and coming from a small, weak and oft-forgotten country next door to the infamous England, I usually can't help but pipe up with the difference... I wanted to say that I only did it 'now and again' but I suspect that I do it quite regularly (though I usually manage to avoid commenting on the occasional mention my country gets on such subjects as 'sheep')... Anyway, good post: I'll have a think and get back to you. (Did you notice how almost the entire comment of this post is me stating that I'm Welsh?)

[dmb]

khmerhit,

"insecure"

"recently colonized nation where most people are poor"

Are you refering to Scotland?

[leeroy]

[dmb]

It's not supposed to be funny. I'm Scottish.

[leeroy]

That's why I was....

oh, never mind.

[Mark-O]

Leeroy, you really should read 'The English' by Jeremy Paxman - it goes into this very subject in detail.

He basically arrives at 2 conclusions for what you said about the (lack of) English patriotism. From memory, I will try to summarise:

(1) The english are a confident, self-assured nation that are content in the knowledge of having been one of the most important countries in history with a once sprawling empire. History talks on behalf of the country and its people, and thence a quiet patriotism prevails for the english, often mistaken for a lack of patriotism.

(2) The english are retreating from the once prevalent confidence and self-assurance that gave rise to their patriotism due to a 'fall from grace' with respect to its dissipated empire. The shifting of sands has been a big blow to the english ego and has resulted in the english perceiving themselves as a mere island once again. Destroying this infallible image the english had of themselves has resulted in a lack of patriotism.

Personally, I think this apparent lack of patriotism has only really manifested itself in more recent generations. The past 100 years have seen two World Wars that were both very significant and ego-stroking events for the english. It's safe to say that patriotism was at an all-time high around these years. Consequently, my parents' generation were war-born children and they still have a (somewhat diluted yet fairly strong) sense of patriotism bred into them. However, evidently, that dilution hasn't been significant enough to reach much of my generation. Blair tried to resuscitate the old 'Rule Britannia' bollox for the sake of his 'New Labour' (*cough*) campaign - what has happened to that since? A mere fart in a hurricane.

I don't feel at all patriotic, to the extent that true patriotism perplexes me - it is not something I can fathom or grasp. Like you Leeroy, I was astounded by the apparent abundance of patriotism I would experience from both fellow travellers and locals alike. If I'm honest with myself, then I was actually ENVIOUS that I didn't have the passion in me for where I lived that these people did.

From what I can gather from the concept of patriotism, then it appears to be a sense of pride derived from the identity of one's country's land and its heritage/history. I'd go as far as to say that I am proud of England for its involvement in World War 2 - if ever there was a war to fight, then that was one to be in. Other than that, there are just too many times we have fought wars and colonised and acquired countries (i.e. Hong Kong) through shameful and dishonorable means that that pride cannot surface any further than this admission of words.

[Sara Avalon]

How about the melting pot theory? A lot of Canadian or even British folk have roots or ancestors from other countries (Russia, Germany, France, India..). Most don't identify themselves as truly English, but a product of a nomadic lifestyle.

I've given up trying to identify myself as part of a political boundary. It's much more relieving believing that the globe is my home. Sure beats divided loyalties.

[Slim Pickens]

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