This morning I decided it was high time to throw on my
galoshes and take an extended stroll around the local community. No sooner had
I removed my electronic tag and opened my Knife Crime Wound Spotters Guide,
when some playful local oik approached me; “Dear Mr Savage, have you a copper
to spare, I’m right on my uppers? I’ve n’er a single groat to spare for Special
Brew.”
Post haste I replied, “Ahh, my sweaty, overweight, greasy,
ugly, dim-witted friend. Fear not, for this is England. In this land of hard
workers and strong backs you shall not go hungry. Go forth and work a day’s
toil in my field, then thou shalt find me a generous master”.
When I woke, I continued my stroll to the nearest hospital
to be treated for head wounds and report the theft of my almanac, my galoshes
and everything I own.
Whilst making my way back to reservation towers, bandaged
but proud, chomping on a cox’s and sporting a tweed bandana over my newly
minted stiches, I took the chance to reflect on my Englishness.
I recently read an article about the national burden those
German fellows feel in relation to their recent past and their desire to cover
up their own history: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/sep/16/bernhard-schlink-germany-burden-euro-crisis
Historian, philosopher and former judge Bernhard Schlink argues
that the European project presented Germans with a chance to whitewash their
history and replace it with the colours of the European dream. For Germans,
the burden of shame stemming from the War and more specifically the holocaust,
could be dissipated so long as their identity remained tied to a central
European, rather than national, experience.
The faltering of the Euro has led to some describing German
foreign and economic policy as dictatorial and ugly wounds have been reopened. If
the European dream goes sour, Germans will be forced to confront their past
once again.
Whilst the German experience has been examined and
dissected, in no small part due to the West’s continuing obsession with Hitler
as a kind of psychological bogeyman, I wonder how the English public would
respond if they were to sum up their sense of nationality.
Many people seem to classify their relationship with their
country as the same as their relationship with their flag – either hanging it
out of the window to ‘reclaim’ it from the far right, or wincing at the sight
of cars daubed with national emblems. This seems to be restricted to the
English flag as there was something altogether more jolly about the Union
Jack’s roger, which seems to be viewed as the kindly old aunt to the George’s
Cross ASBO gathering teenager.
I can’t speak for the Scottish, Irish or Welsh relationship
with their identity, but there seems to be an easy pride in the flying of the
flag at least, something which English people seem to regard as a frontline in
their national identity.
I hope that it is too simplistic to boil down the English
experience to flag waver, flag hater, flag burner or flag ignorer, because a
bit of cloth seems a rather pointless way to demonstrate your relationship with
your country.
Whereas Germany has tried to position itself as part of a
wider, cooperative community within Europe, the English have adopted the
position of social pariahs, lurking at the fringes of the party, smiling at the
host, but dissing their CD collection and stealing beers from the fridge when
his back is turned.
The English seem to have a curious sense of false entitlement
which stretches back to the chastening experience at the end of the war when
foreign territories were handed back and the Empire was consigned to history.
As my American friends ceaselessly remind me whenever a certain ‘George W’ is
brought up, there isn’t many corners of the world that the English have failed
to fuck up royally, something which we have never really been held account for.
Whereas Germans retreated from themselves by hurling
themselves into the European Project, the English acted like spoilt
adolescents, drunkenly swaggering around and picking fights whilst silently
guarded by an American older brother, ready to knee the rest of the world in
the balls if we get in a tizz, so long as we lend them our pocket money when
they need to buy petrol.
English people seem to revel in our dominant ‘otherness’ and being
viewed as eccentric or cynical while the rest of the world is emotional,
excitable or moody. We position ourselves as above reproach, whilst going
slightly bonkers, tortured by the memory of how we used to be contenders, a
Miss Havisham of a country, jilted at the altar of history.
Looking online at the reaction to the opening ceremony of the
Olympics, I tried to find comments to describe why so many people regarded it a
success, especially as it was so individual. It was precisely its lack of a homogenising
‘one world’ corporate approach that seemed to make it so palatable. We know
we’re odd, so you just have to go with it. And they did, American press reports
gleefully passed the time commenting on the unique vision being somewhat
baffling, hinting that it might have been a joke that the rest of the world
simply didn’t get.
In spite of a spate of articles reflecting on what it means
to be British, the English have so far remained immune to self-reflection or
chastisement in relation to its sins and its responsibility to the rest of the
world. All attempts to recognise ourselves as the cause of our own problems
have been resisted, perhaps in fear of what we might find. Fingers have been
placed in ears and we’ve started humming the theme to Super Ted.
Rioters remain chavs, protesters idealists and politicians
fuckwits and everything is neatly explained away into its own little box, but
sooner or later we are going to have to get to grips with ourselves or we might
find that the after party has already started and no one gave us the address.
I guess it won’t matter. We seem to like it that way.
Goodbyeeee
