Thursday, May 06, 2010

Maybe There Won't Always Be an England

There's a general election in the U.K. today. Although the outcome is unusually uncertain, I predict listlessness, based on a recent survey suggesting "England is the least patriotic country in Europe," as reported in the Telegraph (U.K.):
Respondents were questioned on several aspects of national pride, with English people judging their overall level of patriotism to be 5.8 out of ten on average -- the lowest of the nine nations.

One in four English adults said 'political correctness' had left them feeling ashamed to be English, while forty per cent said they felt England had completely lost its national identity.

Just ten per cent said they would happily fly the national flag on their house or in their garden, compared to more than a third of Dutch people, with more than a quarter saying they feared being called racist if they did so.
(via An Englishman's Castle)

1 comment:

Unknown said...

There will always be an England because geographical separation from the continent and the size of England, which supports national identification, ensures it.

Just as, for the very same reasons, there will always be a Japan, which will never be, just part of China.

What we are witnessing today is the historically temporary zenith of post-modernism's nihilism affecting national self-esteem and its PC denigration of nationalism.

Nationhood is more than just a convenient means of identification. It's a natural and thus enduring category of organizational cooperation between people.

England awaits its next Elizabeth the First, Cromwell or Churchill, all of whom led England into a greater sense of its identity.

"There are no great men, only great challenges that ordinary men are forced by circumstances to meet." ~ William F. Halsey

Perhaps economic collapse and crisis or an extended period of oppressive 'occupation' by the Euroland regulators, will be necessary to create the 'tipping point', which precipitates the emergence of the visionary leader who leads England back to her honor.