British National Identity
BRITISH NATIONAL IDENTITY
What is national identity in postmodern Great Britain?
21st century Europe. Postmodernism. European Union. Capitalism. Fragmentation. In search of a new identity. Divided and together facing the rest of the world. History turns to be an invaluable source for the researchers to tackle properly the term. But history was written by the conquerors. The truth is probably in-between.
In The importance of not being English, David McDowall states that national identity nowadays might have different perceptions.
“A Canadian recently touring Britain discovered, in his own words, ‘There’s no such thing as the British, only English, Irish, Welsh and Scots.’ Ethnic minority communities apart, there is considerable truth in his remark. The sense of difference is more than 1,000 years old and dates from when Anglo-Saxon invaders from the European continent drove the Celtic people out of what we now call England and into what we now call Ireland, Scotland and Wales. In fact, almost one in five of today’s British is not English.
The English habit of considering Wales and Scotland to be extensions of England is an old one. In the sixteenth century William Shakespeare spoke of England as ‘This royal throne of kings, this scepter’d isle’, even though much of this isle was not English. Since 1945 there has been a growing dislike in the Celtic countries of the habit of defining the ‘island race’ as English, a growing sense of difference, and a desire to have more control over their own affairs. The English, for their part, have sometimes felt resentful that, as the wealthiest member of the United Kingdom, England subsidises the others.
Northern Ireland
Nowhere has the sense of conflict with the English been stronger than in Northern Ireland, where the population is composed of Protestants and Catholics. The Protestants do not feel English, though some would call themselves British and almost all claim Ulster (as most Protestants prefer to call Northern
What is national identity in postmodern Great Britain?
21st century Europe. Postmodernism. European Union. Capitalism. Fragmentation. In search of a new identity. Divided and together facing the rest of the world. History turns to be an invaluable source for the researchers to tackle properly the term. But history was written by the conquerors. The truth is probably in-between.
In The importance of not being English, David McDowall states that national identity nowadays might have different perceptions.
“A Canadian recently touring Britain discovered, in his own words, ‘There’s no such thing as the British, only English, Irish, Welsh and Scots.’ Ethnic minority communities apart, there is considerable truth in his remark. The sense of difference is more than 1,000 years old and dates from when Anglo-Saxon invaders from the European continent drove the Celtic people out of what we now call England and into what we now call Ireland, Scotland and Wales. In fact, almost one in five of today’s British is not English.
The English habit of considering Wales and Scotland to be extensions of England is an old one. In the sixteenth century William Shakespeare spoke of England as ‘This royal throne of kings, this scepter’d isle’, even though much of this isle was not English. Since 1945 there has been a growing dislike in the Celtic countries of the habit of defining the ‘island race’ as English, a growing sense of difference, and a desire to have more control over their own affairs. The English, for their part, have sometimes felt resentful that, as the wealthiest member of the United Kingdom, England subsidises the others.
Northern Ireland
Nowhere has the sense of conflict with the English been stronger than in Northern Ireland, where the population is composed of Protestants and Catholics. The Protestants do not feel English, though some would call themselves British and almost all claim Ulster (as most Protestants prefer to call Northern