So there I was, walking into my local village hall in a small rural village in deepest darkest Suffolk, England, when I was met with a bunch of smiling faces and welcomed into a hive of activity.
A group of people from a neighbouring village had hired the hall and were busily setting up for a ‘Burns Night’ supper and celebration, complete with bunting, flags (the red Lion of Scotland, and the Saltire, of course), bottles of whisky (the Scottish variety, naturally) and haggis ready for the oven, and what looked like some lovely English champagne (I not aware of a Scottish fizz, at least not yet)! It was a happy, attractive, energetic scene, and the work rate was predigious.
But I didnae catch any Scots twang, and there were as yet no kilts to be seen! So I asked them how many they were expecting (about 100) and how many of them would be Scots (not sure, perhaps 2 or 3!). Then I asked if any of them had any strong links to Scotland, perhaps some family background, vocational or marital ties, but none were forthcoming. So I asked them why they were so keen to celebrate an obscure poet from Ayrshire, but apart from the obvious excuse for a few wee drams and a knees-up they couldn’t really say. By this stage I was curious about their own sense of Englishness or English identity – did they do the same for the great William Shakespeare for example – but they looked a little vague, and I actually wondered if they realised he had been not just English, but perhaps the greatest exponent of the English language ever. I wondered how they might compare his input to literature and lingustics alongside that of Wee Rabbie himself (clearly no contest!).
The more I probed, the more I recognised the lack of national identity so typical of English folk, the sort of herecy that the Scots would simply never tolerate at home or abroad in matters of Scottish heritage. We talked about the lack of a national anthem for our sports teams, and they were seriously thrown by the notion that it’s the British national anthem that is sung by our sporting heroes before the game, again, another herecy in the eyes and ears of our Scots, Welsh and Irish opponents. Can you imagine the Welsh rugby team turning up at Twickenham to sing ‘God save the King’ before the game – ha, not a chance! When we got onto our British Parliament, and the fact that England is the only sovereign state in Europe without its own assembly, they really were in a muddle. I got the feeling that many wouldn’t understand the origins or the differences between the English and British flags, and yet clearly they were entirely comforatble in seeking out all sorts of interesting outlets and entertainments from foreign fields without the need to so much as acknowledge their own national roots and identity. When I mentioned that a major national newspaper had, that very morning, run a piece on those willing to flaunt the English cross of St George, describing them as latter day football hooligans, they almost nodded in agreement!
So who are these so-called ‘Little Englanders’ who renounce all things ‘foreign’ and who cultivate a hatred for our European neighbours (and their corrupt EU Ponzi Scheme, apparently)? English folk are seriously outward looking not introverted, often to the denigration and detriment of their own country, one which has lost nearly all of its noble identity and heritage. I wonder if a bit of benign English nationalism would go a long way to re-establishing pride in our great country, one which has contributed so much to global development. A stronger, better represented England would also go a long way to sorting out many of Britain’s domestic problems.
Oliver E. Cadam
