Afraid of our identity?

What makes us afraid to celebrate being English?

As St. George’s Day appraoches on April 23rd. is it worth asking the question “Are we afraid of our own identity?”

For years we seem to have become very reticent about celebrating our national saint’s day, and have sat back whilst many things that “identify” the English have become lost in the mists of history, we have been prepared to allow the big consumerist ideals of corporate giants to “sell” St. Patrick and Irish products to us, to thrust Valentine down our throats with a hard sell technique, yet the supermarkets, the pubs, the small shops, restaurants, the newspapers, and the politicians and local authorities cannot be bothered to get off their collective backsides to help us celebrate being English.

Even young boy scouts used to parading on St. George’s Day have found their activities curbed and abolished due to “Elf ‘n’ Safety” regulations dictating that roads need to be closed and sufficient coppers cannot be found to marshal the parade. It is as though collectively as a nation we have become terribly embarrassed about being English.

We fly the flag of St. George with vigour and fervour when the English football team is doing well, or when our rugby team is on the verge of a word cup final, but on St. George’s Day - well I’ll let you go out and count them. happily, South Tyneside Council decided a couple of years ago to take the European flag and hide it away somewhere and replace it with the flag of St. George but originally placed it next to the clock tower at South Shields town hall, before red faced officials realised that it needed pride of place above the main entrance - and so it should be.

Our long history is a fascinating tapestry that at one time enthralled school pupils as they learned of this island nation fighting for it’s independence against Romans and Vikings, of almost mythical characters such as Hereward and Boedica, they learned of the golden thread of monarchy that weaved it’s way through this rich tapestry leading backwards all the way to Harold. They revelled in the stories of famine pestilence and plagues as rural England survived what could be thrown at it, tore itself apart with a civil war and relentlessly sold it’s merchandise around the globe as an empire was built. Union with the Scots and Irish created the Great Britain that we often talk about, even though we eventually ceded our interest in the Irish, it was in the (originally) English parliament that our democracy flourished and it’s principles were borrowed and copied in countless countries worldwide. As the industrial revolution changed the face of rural Britain it was initially the English mill towns who forged a path and English entrepreneurs created a network of canals and railways that eventually traversed across the whole of Britain.

So why should we be afraid to celebrate our traditions and our history, why is it that St. George’s Day is no longer seen as a major cause for rejoicing (rather like Commonwealth day and the Queen’s Official Birthday)?

Paul Kingsnorth has written a book “Real England: The battle against the bland” and I’ve just finished reading it’s review in the Telegraph, and in it he argues for many of the things that I have talked about in this blog from time to time, especially as they affect life in my hometown, South Shields. He rails against the cloned town centres, the loss of independent retailers, village post offices, and the traditional pub.

“In the high streets, saloon bars and market-places of England, the omnipresence of the chain store and supermarket is striking. Giant multinational companies dominate almost every area of national life, from finance to farming. They do so with the full and enthusiastic encouragement of the State, whichever political party happens to be managing it. Meanwhile, the same State busies itself enacting or enforcing laws, from health and safety legislation to EU hygiene directives, which crush the life out of the small, the independent and the local.”

“We are sleepwalking towards a future in which the country becomes a giant reproduction of Kent’s Bluewater shopping centre - the largest in Europe, a paradise of consumerism, CCTV, security guards and fake landscapes, where price trumps value and everything is for sale.”

“Why is this happening, and why do we allow it? Responsibility can be pinned on three forces, which are meshing together to form a uniquely destructive whole: a powerful alliance of big business and big government; an unspoken, 21st-century class conflict, in which every nook and cranny is being made safe for the wealthy urban bourgeoisie; and a very English reluctance to discuss who and what we are as a nation or to stand up for our places, our national character and our cultural landscape.”

Thankfully he states that the English are gradually stirring and finding ways to counter this malaise, he recognises the role of smaller more local communities coming together to protect what is theirs, what is English. Fledgling armies of people fighting for the post office, or the village pub, or the streetscape that allows children to play in larger towns.

“We stand up for our localities and communities, we value our history and the glorious eccentricity of our landscape, and we refuse to allow it to be replaced by more strip malls, car parks and executive waterfront apartments. In doing so, we rediscover what perhaps for a while we forgot - what it really means to be English.”

We may have once been described as a nation of shopkeepers, but there is more to England than that, we are a nation that lived off it’s land for centuries, we became adaptable, we managed resources for the benefits of all, we brought much to the common good of the Union. So it is worth remembering that England although small in size is large in stature, we could describe ourselves as the “David” in the battle against Goliath, much the same as George had to battle the larger dragon.

So I say, however you manage it try and do something to celebrate being English on St. George’s Day, challenge your local pub, club, shop, or street to fly the flag and encourage others to join you. Pester the Shields Gazette to campaign for a restoration of traditional celebrations - it’s just one day, but it’s our nation’s saint’s day!

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