English Identity

A sense of national identity, a knowledge of who you are and where you come from, seems to be essential for the psychic health of any society. Just as adopted children, however happy with their adoptive parents, long to know about their roots, people who have no pride in their collective past will not be able to deal with the present or the future with unaggressive self-confidence.

Of course, all national identities are problematic. But Englishness seems to be particularly anomalous. The English have tended to use the terms English and British synonymously. They were the boss nation, the dominant culture, and the Celts were merely colourful add-ons to the prevailing English. These add-ons had charming accents and were very good at things like making porridge, booze and male voice choirs , but Celtic nationalism itself - a sense of belonging to a separate “race” - was regarded as somewhat childish. On a par with all those boring Yorkshiremen who say “I’m a Yorkshireman and proud of it”, Celtic nationalism was regarded as the sort of bombast you get from people with a rather deserved inferiority complex. English felt that to be born English was to have won first prize in the lottery of life. In fact, they were so convinced that theirs was the dominant culture that they scarcely bothered to talk of “Englishness” itself.

Things, however, have changed. The English have woken up to the fact that the Scots and the Welsh increasingly call themselves “nations”, not regions, as we have always called them. Well, if Scotland is a nation, and Wales is a nation, and Ireland is a nation, what is England? The English, having been boss nation for so long - first over all other Britons, and secondly over much of the world - do not know what they are more.

And this matters very much, especially in an increasingly globalised world. Globalization does not lead to an ironing-out of national characteristics: it leads to a stronger desire than ever to huddle together for safety. If that instinct is denied or repressed, it will reappear - not as a healthy pride in one’s national and cultural identity - but as something poisonous, xenophobic and aggressive. Lacking a sense of what being English now consists of, the former boss nation is far more likely to express its sense of loss through hatred of others. If the English begin to feel hard done by - why, for example, are the Scots getting much higher subsidies from the State than the English? Why are ethnic minorities allowed to criticise the English but if they reply in kind they’re being racist - their sense of grievance may turn out to be very dangerous.

The way to avoid this danger is to help the English appreciate that one can be proud of English history, culture and inventiveness without being arrogant. Multicultural education must not be used as an excuse to criticize everything English in order to build up the self-esteem of incomers, or to assuage a sense of post-imperial guilt.

It is believed that England is anomalous. Most other nations promote their traditions far more vigorously. Not out of sentimentality, but because they expect significant political and economic returns from it. There is a thesis saying that ruling elites invented synthetic traditions, and exploit them as instruments of social control, which is now widely accepted in England. Therefore, attempts to celebrate their national traditions are often viewed with suspicion. Some observers also reject cultural nationalism on the grounds that other loyalties have stronger claims on us. One obvious candidate is religion. But for centuries, warring tribes who were nominally of the same faith have used theological differences to sanctify their hatred towards each other. Even today, where strong religious convictions survive, they're often linked with national grievances. Meanwhile, the secular majority found other outlets for the emotions once channeled into sectarianism and nationalism.

For some, the vacuum is filled by class solidarity - Marxists assert that the proletariat has no country. Meanwhile, feminists often reject patriotism because of its association with patriarchy, arguing that women of different nations have more in common with each other than with their male fellow-citizens. Other people identify most strongly with their age-group. (At the trial following a big anti-Vietnam war riot in Chicago, one defendant, when asked his nationality, declared "I am a citizen of Woodstock Nation" to applause from the gallery.)