I am reminded that this year will mark the 300th anniversary of the Act of Union that created Great Britain. There are those that would like it to also be the last, a subject I’ve written about extensively in the past. Indeed this desire seems to be spreading both North and South of the border:
devolution was supposed to defeat nationalism. That was what George Robertson, the former chief of Nato, famously said would happen: devolution would kill nationalism ’stone dead’. Not so. For England increasingly feels the intrinsic unfairness of devolution. Now John Reid, a Scottish Home Secretary, presides over a department that has limited powers in his own constituency of Airdrie and Shotts. Soon Gordon Brown will move into 10 Downing Street, to make laws on health and education that have no play in North Queensferry, where he lives. Meanwhile, a nation ashamed of the Iraq war tries to shake off culpability by turning to the SNP.
Me? Well, I still stand by the words I wrote in my very first post at teh old site, now to be found here:
Great Britain was founded in 1707, nearly three hundred years ago. The anniversary approaches. Are we doing anything about it? Let’s be proud to be British, and remember that we are also English, Welsh, Scottish or whatever. Let us look to the future and be proud of our heritage, not look to the past and try to bolt the doors.
I’d like to celebrate the foundation of this great nation. Look to the future, a liberal, tolerant, open minded society that truly does live and let live.
Given that this useless Government appears to be doing and planning absolutely nothing, anyone got any ideas?
January 11th, 2007
Posted by
MatGB |
Britain, patriotism, Liberal Britain, England, Devolution, History |
7 comments
How could I resist linking to this? Jonn Elledge:
conspicuous displays of British patriotism are most likely to come from boozed up sports fans and UKIP politicians. Perhaps this is the biggest challenge to liberal patriotism: our national icons have been hijacked by the right … None of those things of which Britons are supposed to be proud relate to my experience of this country. John Major’s warm beer on the village cricket green sounds suspiciously like a world that vanished decades before I got round to being born … I’m not saying that there isn’t much in Britain’s history to be ashamed of: Suez, Dresden, and the fact we unleashed both the concentration camp and Jim Davidson on an unsuspecting world, to name but four.
He goes on to list a few of the things that he is proud of. As a flag waving liberal socialist, I guess I ought to contribute a few ideas as well. How about…
June 16th, 2006
Posted by
MatGB |
liberalism, Britain, patriotism, Liberal Britain |
8 comments
Was planning to do a post on mis uses of the term ‘multiculturalism’ (by both sides), but Robert Sharp has done a pretty good one already:
Communities living side-by-side, not integrating, becoming ghettos, that in turn become no-go areas for the police and ordinary citizens. Cultures and ethnicities living side-by-side without integration or communication is not what I would call multiculturalism… just antagonism. Multiculturalism has to imply a certain degree of integration, assimilation, and above all, a process of change for it to be something to value.
To me, multiculturalism is the ability to have a friend who’s muslim, another who’s jewish and to chase after a girl whose grandmother came from Africa. We learn from those who move here, just as they learn from us, we take on board the bits we like, condemn the bits we dislike (forced marriages anyone?) and the new communities do the same with us. Eventually, they merge together, so differences in religion mean as little to us as the differences in denomination now do mostly everywhere (except Northen Ireland of course).
This vegetarian isn’t likely to be buying a kebad any time soon, but my local Thai place does a damn fine tofu based thing I can’t pronounce. I like that. Still can’t figure out how to cook the stuff though…
December 27th, 2005
Posted by
MatGB |
Liberal Britain, multiculturalism |
6 comments
