I was watching Ian MacMillan on a sunday morning show on BBC 1 last weekend ( I forget the name and where the hell is the Radio Times when you need it) he makes his fortune selling naff poems in his cliche ridden accent, and he actually said something that has miffed me for some time.
It seems that there is a whole plethora of people out there who feel so ashamed of being British that they chose to deny most people the right to have an ancestral line that goes back further than the 1950's. It's all well and good when you are trying to engage with people who may have settled in England during the past 50 years or so. Almost like wiping the slate clean and giving everybody an equal starting post.
Now I know that England particularly but the whole of the UK has welcomed peoples from far and wide during the last century and I am well in favour of it. It enriches our country and for that reason alone I love it here. I would hate to live in the England of the 1940's for example. For a variety of reasons including the state slaughter of men and the fact that there were no people from the Asian sub continent and other parts of the commonwealth. It seems people just wish to shed any notion of an ancestral line longer than 50 years. And it's not the newer communities who do this. No! It's the people who like to think for other people and somehow harbour a notion of guilt particularly linked to the British Empire.
There is a widely held belief that whilst the British were building their empire, everybody in England was living in a mansion and eating cucumber sandwiches in the garden out of china pots whilst villagers danced and hit sticks in the air. The Scots were dancing around crossed swords and the Welsh were singing whilst they yanked leaks out of the ground. The harsh reality is that the majority of Brits were working in unbelievable conditions and living in squalor to pay the taxes that built a rich Britian. This in turn enabled the 300 or so people who were the British Empire to step out and start trading with the world whilst 'treading' on a few feet to say the least.
I digress. It would seem that many people need to feel like everybody is at the same starting post and I have even heard (heaven forbid) some Asian people use it in an arguement on one of the BBC forums. This surprised me greatly but then it is very easy to use this tool in an arguement as the influential peers empower you to do so. At any opportunity some idiot or other will wind up the proletariat by announcing that they have only just begun to exist. And yet, there is hardly a place on the planet where the movement of a regions peoples have not gone un-noticed.
Indeed, look at the wonder of India and look at it's peoples whose history and background is as diverse as the UK or anywhere else. Look to the lighter skinned more oriental eyed people in the North East and the differences in people from the north west and the south. Look to Africa to see evidence of people movement. Look at newer countries like NZ with its 78% British population and the Maoris. People consider the Maoris indigenous but they settled having sailed south from Polynesia centuries before the Brits got there. Is that the starting point then? The northern French are viking in decent (Norman!) The white North Africans are Euro - Arabic in decent as well as the mix of the African and Arab. The 'native' Americans moved north from south American tribes. The Russians are of viking decent but move across the country and wallow in the wonder of it's blood lines fusing from its European blood to that of China and Mongolia. India was once attached to south America, the Aboriginies were aboriginal somewhere else once upon a time. In fact all peoples are fused by blood and not dictated by geographical lines that are man made. Yet 5000 years of history and the Brits who are European ethnically speaking are only allowed to call themselves white. (Which the PC brigade felt the most appropriate name to apportion to the 650 million Europeans.) In doing so, you water down any notion of nationhood. Where did this come from?
So, now we have cleared that up, allow British people to be British. Have a Britain day and make it something that empowers all with the ability to embrace it without any PC notion of it having to be anything BUT British. Get the flags out, get the beer out but make it accessible to all. After all, Britain is ( I found this hard to believe too) the 6th greatest holiday destination in the world. (source wikipedia) as well as probably one of the top destinations for people to choose to come and work. Did you know Trafalga Square get's more tourists than Dysney Land USA and London is the worlds most visited city? Do people outside see something more than we do? Why would that be? Think about it!
There is something Great about Britain and its just a shame that its a feeling that cannot be manifested by those who feel duty bound to continually brow beat the aboriginal populous, irrespective of their tribal origins, into a notion of subservient anonymity whilst celebrating the diversity and, in my opinion, the magnificence of newer Britons. For me, this pang of political correctness is a veil to a latent racism or snobbery, outwardly portrayed to appease a none existent notion and create an appealing aura to its originator.
©SKC
