‘Britain is shit’…….that was the statement that drew the most applause at the final session of last weekend’s Anarchist Conference in London. Last night I was watching some women Morris Dancing outside an African boozer in South London and I thought ‘England’s great aint it’. I should add I love Morris Dancing ever since I attended the WYLAM GOOSE FAIR up the Tyne Valley many moons ago and saw a load of Morris Men clobber a load of nuisance lads who’d been taking the piss. The trouble is most anarchists don’t like theircountry and thus we hand everything that might smack of country love over to the far right and wonder why the punters look at our self hate with bemusement. Of course GEORGE ORWELL managed to combine revolutionary socialism with patriotism during the war and Billy Bragg has ploughed the same furrow but unless we work out something a bit more positive about being English then we’re on a loser. During WW2 FRANK NEWBOLD produced some propaganda posters for the government which were the most un-war like propaganda posters you could ever seen - one featuring a shepherd strolling over the South Downs with his sheep and another picturing a fairground with the slogan underneath ‘IT’S YOUR BRITAIN – FIGHT FOR IT’. It is our England – not theirs – we shouldn’t be ashamed to fight for it back. On telly this week Nick Griffin called England ’ a slum’ – that from a privately educated Cambridge toff. Our England aint the same as yours Griffin and never will be – and it ’s our England we will fight for!
June 11, 2009...10:18 am
In praise of………….England and Morris Dancing!
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46 Comments
June 11, 2009 at 3:37 pm
I’m not sure it got the most applause, but you’re right, when anarchists slag off Britain or England it’s actually their own ability to connect with British (or English) people that they’re really slagging off.
Spot on it is our England and we should be fighting for it.
Pease pudding is shite though.
June 11, 2009 at 5:26 pm
who’s the ‘we’ in ‘our’ england?
what do we as immigrants get, are the scots and welsh no longer part of our movement? you should have clarified this was the English Anarchist Movement Conference, if that’s what you wanted!!
Nationalism is there to divide us; the working class has no fatherland!
June 11, 2009 at 8:49 pm
Dead right Ian. I know exactly what you mean and it is NOT nationalism. I’m not even sure that patriotism is the right word. It’s just affection for the place you call home. Orwell, Billy Bragg, Frank Newbold are all good examples and don’t forget the wonderful wartime propaganda films made by Humphrey Jennings.
June 12, 2009 at 8:14 am
fact is, if you call ‘England’ your home, there’s nothing natural about it. It’s an imagination; fetishism of the highest order.
You might have some sentimental memories from where you grew up, or the films you watched, but how does that make you English? I’m sure there are a lot of places in England where you don’t feel at home.
I’ve never seen Morris Dancing (cause I live in an urban shithole). Can I not become part of the English Anarchist Movement until I’ve seen it?
June 12, 2009 at 8:46 am
The problem about england loving is that “england” is immaginary. Where does england begin, where does it end? If we want to recupe the language of the right then we are working class patriots/ patriotic to the class struggle??
Anyway my “england” is London, multi-racial and anti-authoritarian.
June 12, 2009 at 8:56 am
Don’t be daft immigrant, you ask who are the “we” obviously it’s us – that means you if you want to be.
To describe England as being purely a product of the imagination is to ignore hundreds if not thousands of years of history and culture accumulated in one area. The development of this shared England is obviously influenced by generations of two way migration, by exploration and conquest and thousands of other subjective factors. But to deny it’s existence as both a real and imagined social presence in our lives is to howl against the unfairness of life.
England is as real and as imaginary as the Earth, deal with it, don’t deny it.
June 12, 2009 at 9:33 am
Our England?
You are having a laff arncha!
What are the numbers around land ownership again?
Is it still one percent of the richest still owning fity two percent of the land?
It is not ‘our’ England, it is mostly ‘theirs’.
If its ever gonna be ‘our’ England, we’d have to take it back first for fukks sake!
June 12, 2009 at 10:46 am
fair enough – England as a specific historical and political space is real, I accept that. But there is nothing progressive about identifying with it. The history and tradition of England (and I mean its modern history – if you talk thousands of years you come into really dodgy territory) as had good and bad elements. Why be selective and pick out the Morris Dancing?
This will put you at odds with those who have been fucked over by England in the past few centuries and are still being fucked over today.
June 12, 2009 at 12:13 pm
Look, obviously there’s nothing inherently progressive about identifying with a particular country, but there’s nothing inherently reactionary about it either. The left (and that includes you anarchists whether you like it or not) needs to stop mistaking urban middle class cosmopolitanism for internationalism and stop dismissing important aspects of people’s identity.
For the record I’m a Scot with English parents, Scotland and England are two very different country’s both of which I fucking love in different ways. Morris dancing beats the shit out of bagpipes any day of the week though.
June 13, 2009 at 8:37 am
Nick: I’ve danced the morris to bagpipes. You should give it a try.
June 12, 2009 at 12:14 pm
No one has been fucked over by England. Millions of people have been fucked over by the English ruling class, and their servants under capitalism and colonialism.
Indeed why pick morris dancing, or landowners, why not Chartism, the union movement, the Diggers, the Levellers, Wat Tyler, and the original Jack Straw?
Why not Mayday, and the Spitalfields Fair, and the Putney debates? Why not the old anglo-saxon moot? Why not Mary Seacole?
To every reactionary example from history we can think of a popular example to rival it, and the only reason we can’t think of more is because our history has been written by the winners – the ruling class.
Let’s write our own.
England has a rich radical tradition, that is ours to claim for the working class.
June 12, 2009 at 12:21 pm
I’m thinking in particular about the working class experiece of WW2 which led to the Labour landslide of 1945, return of Communist MPs, the victories of the almost anarcho-utopian Commonwealth Party during the war. All fed by radical propaganda from mass circulation papers like the Daily Mirror, Picture Post and the widespread ‘Them and Us’ feelings ‘ which were allied with fighting for Britain – but the fighters had a very different class based idea of what kind of England they were fighting for – as Churchill found out.
June 12, 2009 at 12:49 pm
Anyway forget morris dancing, anyone seen Dave Morris dancing?
Now that would be strange.
June 12, 2009 at 1:11 pm
Nice one Kipper!
The only really successful revolutions anywhere had at their heart land reform, whereby everybody got free and easy access to the land to meet their families and communities needs.
Land is everything, ask Indigenous Peoples the world over.
The aristocracy and the rich know and have always known that land is the foundation of real power.
Thats why in the past they always sought to own as much land as possible, and as Kipper points out, they still do!
Until we wrestle with the whole notion of land ownership reform, and come up with a fair and sustainable way of redistributing it, we will forever be at the not so tender mercies of …………. guess who!
June 12, 2009 at 1:14 pm
“Dave Morris dancing?”!!
Thats it I’m emmigrating!
June 12, 2009 at 1:15 pm
Ian, have you read this? http://www.amazon.co.uk/Peoples-War-Britain-1939-45/dp/0712652841/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1244812336&sr=8-1
Highly recommended.
June 12, 2009 at 5:54 pm
I was reading some damn final books by a Bristol historian & folklorist named Ronald Hutton who commented that Morris Dancing portrayed by Cecil Sharp et al as a relic of some neolithic ritual is more reliably seen as a court dance popular in the 15th century that was eventually passed down to the lower classes. His book ‘Stations of the Sun’ about the ritual year in England is a treasure trove about local custom and ritual. His book on the history of the only religion England bequeathed to the world, modern paganism, ‘Triumph of the Moon’ is also a fine read.
We should avoid patriotism as it is the last refuge of scandals. I do agree that we should try and support the creation of a radical counterculture in Britain, and restore our working class – the oldest in the world – to history. All the smugglers, rebels, luddites, factory girls, chartists, levellers, working class heroes etc. deserve to be remembered.
(‘Must become historians of present also’ – Note jotted on CP Historian group minutes in 1956) One thing that the left seems to be doing less and less these days is historical commemoration. A friend of mine went to Levellers Day recently and told me what a bloody goodtime everyone had, but said it was ashame that there were not so many young people around. Festivals built around local working class history commemoration could become a good focus for building a new left and reaching out to the punters. A generation of historians such as EP Thompson, AL Morton, Christopher Hill, CLR James, Eric Hobsbawm, George Rude et al were important in placing the emphasis on popular struggle. In these days of the crunch, these historical treasure chests could provide a good basis for restoring the sense of class as a relationship. And this kind of theory work needs to be built upon.
Orwell should be admired not for his nationalism, but his internationalism. Many anarchists are pure reactionaries attacking the far left for its concerns with issues like Iraq and Palestine (counterposing this to supporting the working class at home), it is well to remember that Orwell repeatedly blasted the mainstream left of Britain for its glossing over of imperialism and Britain’s role in the world. His anti-imperialism was first learnt after seeing empire first hand in Burma, he also went to fight in Spain famously. One of my favourite quotes is his definition of imperialism:
‘Colonialism is the policeman and the soldier holding down the native, while the businessman ruummages through his pockets’
For the CP in the 30s, the two big campaigns were National Unemployed Workers Movement and solidarity with the Spanish republic. Working class solidarity at home and abroad were entwined. Today that would mean opposing the false construct ‘white working class’, standing shoulder to shoulder with migrant workers, as Sivanandan said, ‘They are here because we are there’.
June 12, 2009 at 7:27 pm
It seems that nationalism and patriotism – fundamentally restrictive and innately repressive things – are getting mixed up with being anglophile. Just liking things English like Morris dancing, warm beer, lacrimose anarchists, the mob, and decency…..why not?
Unless, you think it’s crap of course. Well, then you should go back where you came from!!!
June 12, 2009 at 9:15 pm
The philosopher Ernst Bloch had a lot to say about this sort of stuff – about how the communist movement had allowed fascism to occupy the ‘hollow space’ of opposition to the abstract rationalism of capitalism, with its homogenising of local distinction. How to reclaim all our ’senses of belonging’ while remaining open to the unity and diversity of the world? Sorry if that sounds over-intellectualised…Bloch is worth checking out (if you discount his Stalinist phase). A ‘practical’ example – a French workmate prefers English beers to French, which kind of makes me ‘proud’, while I’ve got more time for French avant-garde artistic-political stuff than most of what’s come out of England lately (if looked at from the point of view of ‘interesting’ ideas to grapple with, rather than the life-and-death reality of the everyday).
June 12, 2009 at 9:19 pm
I’m actually very partial to morris dancing, too (bit of a guilty pleasure and embarrassment).
June 13, 2009 at 7:52 am
There is an element amongst the Anarchist movement that is very similar to the ruling class: “They are at home everywhere, because they are at home no where”.
I don’t think you have to look too hard at some Anarchists in the UK to see what I mean by that statement. Whether it was ever any different I don’t know.
The odd thing however is it has not always been like that for the powers that be.
If you take an old Labour heavyweight like Harold Wilson and his wife Mary, they come across now as rather kindly, quintessentially English figures, playing different figures off against each other, and dividing their time between the working class industrial North and holidaying on the Scilly Isles.
Compare that to New Labour Heavyweight Peter Mandleson and his Brazilian partner. They would probably be at home in any capital city in the non-Muslim world, speaking the same language, eating the same food, earning huge sums of money and holding the same politics as everyone else around them.
I guess that’s globalisation in action.
June 13, 2009 at 8:42 am
I’m actually very fond of The Morris, although I don’t see it all that often. A close freind is of the Morris persuasion in Australia and often tours the world visiting other troupes.
The thing is, to be proud to be British is unfashionable at this time. Why? I don’t know.
Its surprising how many immigrants and first and second generation immigrants have this pride in our Nation and yet many who can trace their lineage back many generation in these islands do not have the same pride.
I believe that we are strongest and have the most pride when all regions of this Great Britain are pulling together. Which is why in dividing the various regions this present government has done the most harm to our national identity.
June 14, 2009 at 1:38 am
As the Ozzy Morris dancer mentioned above, I must say that this really is a case of ‘absence makes the heart grow fonder’. I used to live on another small island – Tasmania – and it wasn’t until I left and could get a sense of perspective that I realised how brilliant that place is.
Ditto England. For many who knock our country, a step outside to get a wider view would change their minds for them. And if it doesn’t … don’t let them back in
June 14, 2009 at 12:32 pm
English and peerless: Green fields, misty mornings, soft, slanting light, brittle air, hoar frost, high hedges, narrow lanes, pubs, regional accents, architecture (pre 1960s),football, fish n’chips, cups of tea,stilton cheese, watercress,black pudding,groynes,pavements, daddy long legs, ways,woods,parks,footpaths,larks, locks, ploughed fields,bare trees, chilly November, stone walls,cawing crows ,rooks nests,buttercups and daisies, roadside poppies, nettles, bluebells, woodbines,foxgloves, elderberry wine.
Loathsome and not particularly English: class system, monarchy, pollution,cars, nationalism,private railroads,city types,advertising,petrochemical smog,corrupt politicians,venal civil servants, political police, bent judiciary, standing army, daft doctrinnaire left, bullshit mainstream media, ruling class law.
June 14, 2009 at 9:35 pm
I take your point…but corrupt politicians being ‘not particularly English’? Who invented ‘rotten boroughs’? Berlusconi and Ahmedinnerjacket have much to learn.
June 14, 2009 at 10:28 pm
I disagree. To me, black pudding symbolises everything that’s wrong with this country. Gorging on the blood of animals is a barbaric practice that in turn contributes to the callous disregard for humanity that is so prevalent in our society. Too many cops, cab drivers, bankers and other right wing scum fuelled up on animal hormones. Bacon sarnies are the staple food of the BNP.
June 15, 2009 at 7:59 am
Satire’s not dead!
June 15, 2009 at 8:04 am
“Bacon sarnies are the staple food of the BNP.”
How about bacon is racist as a slogon? or the Bacon National Party?
:-0)
June 15, 2009 at 8:56 am
The best blackpudding I’ve ever had was in Argentina, beautiful, and you can eat it raw…
Don’t worry though, I love the english stuff as well!
June 15, 2009 at 9:38 am
Question:
Doesn’t being proud of being English imply that you are proud of not being from elsewhere?
June 15, 2009 at 9:59 am
”Indeed why pick morris dancing, or landowners, why not Chartism, the union movement, the Diggers, the Levellers, Wat Tyler, and the original Jack Straw?…England has a rich radical tradition, that is ours to claim for the working class.”
…”Let’s write our own.”
You would be writing your own literally if you assume all the levellers for exmaple were from poor or working class background. a significant minority were from middle class or above background, for example some of the radical pamphleteers who played a vital role in spreading the message. the same thing goes for the person who mentioned orwell. nonetheless i agree it along with all the things mentioned and that they are part of the working class struggle and history to be reclaimed from academics and used to inspire people today to take action. however, don’t forget the occasional input from those from other backgrounds. people with intelligence like ian don’t need reminding of this and accept all who are genuine in their belief but you should see the ridiculous debate goin on on indymedia uk on the report article about the anarchist movement conference. aparently only those who happend to have fallen out a certain mother have the right to certain beliefs! orwell begs to differ as do the levellers. as do we if we are serious about it all.
June 15, 2009 at 10:23 am
last time I admitted to being proud to be English was was when pissed on the last train home from Glasgow Central to Paisley Gilmore St on a Saturday night c.1972. I eventually woke up in the Royal Alexander Infirmary, sorer and wiser.
June 15, 2009 at 12:40 pm
Some depressingly telling posts on this one. Paul had it right in his first few lines. Ian posted up a quote from Orwell about the left/radcials not being part of the common culture of the country (antagonistically or not – very very importnat point) a few months back. That would be very fitting for this thread.
June 15, 2009 at 4:08 pm
Whats with all this patriotic shit about england anyway? Are the stereotypical comments and generalisations above representative of how english anarchists think about persons from other parts of the british isles? No wonder theres no real solidarity
-oh, and morris dancing is not an exclusively english pursuit but also practiced in other parts of the country too btw
33+ posts…??? I am fucking disgusted
June 15, 2009 at 5:52 pm
fucking great post, fucking great discussion. england isn’t the ruling class its the people. we need to take back the feeling of pride from the fascist scum. we fought their kind in WW2. st george was a immigrant from north africa after all! England is a country of immigrants of all races! the basis of world capitalism was the “norman yoke” in england – the main families William the Conqueror gave land to still have that land. As Karl Marx said – “The expropriation of the agricultural producer, of the peasant, from the soil, is the basis of the whole process. The history of this expropriation, in different countries, assumes different aspects, and runs through its various phases in different orders of succession, and at different periods. In England alone, which we take as our example, has it the classic form.”
TAKE BACK THE LAND!
June 15, 2009 at 8:19 pm
Yeah, START THE LAND OCCUPATIONS!
June 15, 2009 at 8:22 pm
“TAKE BACK THE LAND!”
When did we ever own it?
Yes, let’s take the land. And why stop there? Let’s take it all! All the means of production. But not for the English or the British. No, for humankind.
And in the process we’ll abolish all property, states, nations and money too.
June 15, 2009 at 10:32 pm
Yes!
June 16, 2009 at 3:36 pm
“class happens when some men, as a result of common experiences (inherited or shared), feel and articulate the identity of their interests as between themselves, and as against other men whose interests are different from (and usually opposed to) theirs. The class experience is largely determined by the productive relations into which men are born–or enter involuntarily. Class-consciousness is the way in which these experiences are handled in cultural terms: embodied in traditions, value-systems, ideas, and institutional forms. If the experience appears as determined, class-consciousness does not. We can see a logic in the responses of similar occupational groups undergoing similar experiences, but we cannot predicate any law. Consciousness of class arises in the same way in different times and places, but never in just the same way.”
EDWARD THOMPSON, THE MAKING OF THE ENGLISH WORKING CLASS
Discuss.
June 17, 2009 at 11:18 am
Check the link out for a bit of english history we can all be proud of http://www.dailyecho.co.uk/search/4435203.Micheldever___s_tribute_to_executed_rioter/
June 27, 2009 at 5:20 pm
One of the projects of the British Marxist Historians came from the Italian Communist Party who alarmed by how fascism had ransacked history to appropriate folk heroes and episodes of the past for their own ideology called for leftists to construct an alternative history of popular-democratic struggle.
I got a message from this new group that seems promising:
FOLK AGAINST FASCISM
The British National Party’s manifesto encourages its members to insinuate themselves into the folk and traditional customs and events of Britain. This involves the appropriation of British folk music, customs and culture as a means of spreading their racist policies. They are selling traditional music through their Excalibur merchandising arm, despite the protestations of many of the artists included, who find their policies abhorrent.
The UK folk scene is a welcoming and inclusive one. Folk musicand dance is about collaboration, participation, communication and respect.
This group is being created to take a stand against the appropriation of folk culture by the BNP. They want to take our music. We will not let them.
From the BNP’s Activists and Organisers Handbook:
“Community Activism means our activists getting involved in the affairs of their neighbourhood at all levels…We have had some major successes, for example, with local groups set up to encourage the celebration of St George’s Day. Fun activities for children and families which are linked to our Christian heritage – such as Pace Egging in many northern towns – are particularly suitable candidates for revival as popular awareness of the growing power of Islam encourages support for and interest in our own religious and cultural traditions.”
More from the Activists and Organisers’ Handbook:
“Ideally our units will lead their communities in organising, or at least supporting, cultural events such as St George’s Day celebrations (April 23rd). Most regions of the country have cultural events which are unique to that area, or county. For example, Padstow Hobby Horse (sic) in Cornwall, Arbor Tree Day in Shropshire, Garland King Day and the Well Dressing in Derbyshire, the Marshfield Mummers in Wiltshire, the Haxey Hood in Humberside, and countless others.
Some such celebrations, now very popular, have only been revived in recent years – the Hastings Jack in the Green and Whittlesea Straw Bear festivals show just how big such things can get. Why not do some research to see if there’s a lost local tradition you can inspire a team of enthusiasts to revive?”
One of the things we need to be particularly aware of is the English Fair Fund. This exists to “give grants to help local community groups celebrate St George’s Day.”
Another racist organisation, The Steadfast Trust, provides community grants for “English-themed” events and St George’s Day celebrations, and has already co-opted folk music within this strategy.
So, you’re a folk musician or in a morris side. Someone in your town or village asks you to come and play at their St George’s Day festival, and, in the spirit of community, you agree. Later, the BNP or the Steadfast Trust releases a press statement telling of all the wonderful St George’s Day festivals it has supported this year, and lists all the artists/dance sides who took part. And there’s your name.
Just like the artists who find their music being sold on the Excalibur/BNP website and are powerless to do anything about it, you become part of their marketing strategy, and there’s not a lot you can do.
So if you are asked to play at any St George’s Day events next year, ask who is supporting them. Find out where the money is coming from. Or, even better, start your own St George’s Day event, and make it one that actively welcomes ALL of England’s communities. Don’t let them win.
UPDATE
Billy Bragg gave FAF a shout-out from the stage at Big Session Festival, and we also had a song dedicated to us by Mark Radcliffe on Radio 2 last night, so word is getting round!
T-shirts will be available sometime around 8 July – watch this space for news of how to buy them. We are currently putting together an e-bay shop, so stickers and badges will also be available to purchase at that stage as well.
In addition to the ideas for large-scale live events which will be discussed at a meeting on 10 July, we are looking at launching a special logo for CDs which allows artists to say they do not condone their music being sold or distributed by the BNP. There is already huge support among the folk community for this idea, and it will be launched at Sidmouth Folk Week. Details will follow soon.
June 28, 2009 at 4:52 pm
Pleased to hear about the FAF initiative. I noticed that Boris Johnson had organised a St. George’s Day thing in Trafalgar Square at which Eliza Carthy had played. I know Boris isn’t a fascist, but I was disappointed to see that Eliza Carthy had supported what’s essentially a piece of nationalist propaganda. The BNP-sponsored intervention into folk/traditional stuff was news, but not surprising.
The EP Thompson/Christopher Hill approach to social history has been under attack from ‘postmodern’ historians lately – mainly for the class analysis – it needs to be ‘rediscovered’.
July 2, 2009 at 10:55 am
I don’t really agree with the start your own St George’s Day event, as far as I can see, it hasn’t really been popular custom since the reformation to celebrate George’s Day & when it has been revived it has always had strong nationalistic jingoistic overtones.
Some figures evoked in support of Englishness were actually internationalists such as Thomas Paine who said, ‘my country is the world, my religion the love of mankind’ and also positively commented that to partake in two revolutions (in his case the French and American) was to have lived a life to some purpose.
Intriguingly, Peter Linebaugh posits that the working class in Britain was multicultural and multiracial at its birth and documents the secret conversation across the Atlantic via a seafaring proletariate.
As a good review of one of his books comments:
‘EP Thompson’s The Making of the English Working Class (1963) starts with the formation of the London Corresponding Society (LCS) in 1792 – supposedly the first working class political organisation in Britain, and presumably, the world. Linebaugh and Rediker trace the history of struggle that comes before this point and the defeats that led the LCS eventually to define itself in national, racial terms as being for the English working class rather than the international, multi-racial oppressed multitudes of the earth. They say, “Organizations such as the LCS would eventually make their peace with the nation, as the working class became national, English.” (p. 352) As John Zerzan has pointed out in ‘Who Killed Ned Ludd?’,[1] the very point which traditional Marxists pick as the marking the beginning of working class history and proletarian struggle, is exactly the point at which it is effectively dead and buried within the mechanisms of union negotiating and electoral politics. The Many-Headed Hydra ends where ‘normal’ labour history begins – with the birth of the ‘proper’ ‘full-grown’ ‘mature’ industrial working class – which is actually a product of defeat. The unrooted peasantry, the transitional class of ex-peasants and not-yet-proles (not dismissed by Linebaugh and Rediker as “primitive rebels”, like Hobsbawm does[2]), resisted being turned into ‘full grown’ industrial workers for decades upon decades. When they finally lost, the point of their defeat was taken as the beginning of the ‘proper’ working class, a ‘proper’ working class which is also a product of defeat, inasmuch as it is defined as working and also by separate national, white and male histories. The separate national histories we are taught in school and the separation between labour history, black history and women’s history are also products of defeat.
The separation of these disciplines of history is in a way an ideological attempt to prevent links being made, to keep people in separate categories and to stop, for example, the white working class connecting their history with black history. It is also ideological in that in teaching national histories, much of the point is to reinforce the idea of the nation (which is essentially a fiction), whereas of course actual history never stopped when it got to the borders of the state. As we know from real life, actions and inspirations and causes and effects flow internationally.
This book is also a story of a time before the working class was so divided – when the white workers had not yet been taught to hate the black workers. Indeed, these divide and rule tactics were introduced to defeat and destroy the multi-racial struggles that had threatened to shake the early capitalist world to its foundations.’
http://www.eco-action.org/dod/no10/books_hydra.htm
July 5, 2009 at 11:45 am
Thanks for posting this up – it’s a real corrective to some of the social nationalism masquerading as class struggle anarchism that crops up on these threads.
July 2, 2009 at 11:20 am
Returning to the St George’s Day theme, it also seems that other nations that celebrate national day’s vibrantly such as Ireland have a long history of being a colony rather than a coloniser, and even in other countries such as the US or France that have been empire-builders the national day is linked to some revolutionary tradition/
July 7, 2009 at 4:14 pm
One of the nicest things about our quintessentially ‘English’ Morris Dancing is that it may actually have Moorish origins. This proposition isn’t as outlandish as it sounds as a lot of the stonework on our medieval cathedrals was in fact fashioned by Islamic artisans.
We’re all for encouraging a positive English identity, we’re actually working on a new chant for the next world cup…
“Eng-er-land, Eng-er-land; two poll taxes and one king’s head!”