Rugby

How would we represent the English? I guess same problem for any country, but in England, there are so many different identities. A Geordie is not a cockney, who is not a rural Cornish person and so on.

I guess what I'm trying to say is, I don't understand why it matters really. If someone came up with a song that represents the English people, I somehow doubt that very many English people would really relate to it.

 

My era was more around Louis XVI .....

 

We had a flag once, but that was classed as racist, I guess if we had an anthem that would be classes as racist as well, or probably just ridiculed.

I just dont get how we dont get to have any kind of patriotism and then they wonder why nobody gives a monkeys.

 

Pride and patriotism can't be commanded, though, @pete. Like respect, they have to be earned. For some reason the other three countries of UK engender (sometimes excessive) patriotism. Perhaps because of the perceived and actual injustices going back centuries? For some other reason, that I can't begin to fathom, it's OK for patriots of those three countries to villify England but not for an English person to even think of reciprocating. It's something that's very marked amongst the ex-pat community in France.

 

The English flag is the Cross of Saint George. It never used to represent racism, especially when you consider that saint George came from the part of the world that today we call Turkey. It's sometimes associated with racism nowadays because unfortunately, racists adopted it. I don't think everyone associates it with racism. I think it depends on the context in which it is displayed. If it's in people's windows during a major sporting event in which the England team is competing, then it's patriotic. If it's been waved around by a bunch of skineads chanting about immigrants or people with certain skin tones then it's racist.

I think the reason why so many people now are nervous about being too vocal about being English is because some very high profile far right organisations are very vocal about it and most people don't want to risk being associated with such organisations. The English Defence League springs to mind. From what I gather, the EDL want to defend England from being 'overrun' by foreigners, or anyone that doesn't fit their extremely narrow idea of what is English (after their rallies, I wonder if the go out and great drunk on European beer before finishing the night with a Turkish kebab, Italian pizza or Indian curry - surely not, they drink English cider and have a cheese and chutney sandwich for supper).

I do agree that it's a shame we have to play down our national identity, being a diverse country with heritage linked to many peoples from many parts of the world. I'm not sure what we can do about that though.

 

We should still have our own anthem for sporting events where the different nations of the UK are taking part.
Even if we are a bunch of mongrels.
Lots of mongrel nations in the world but they can still be patriotic.

 

That's very true. Certainly from the 20th century on, France has welcomed wave after wave of immigrants but they were invited to integrate their cultures and customs (which were mostly similar anyway, Catholic, european etc) and so retained most of it's national identity. It seems to be slightly tougher on trying to safeguard it's values in the face of the latest and more diverse arrivals. When you apply for French nationality, all the emphasis is on your obligations with regard to the French state, your acceptance of it's mores and values and what an honour it is to be accepted . It does engender a sort of patriotism, at least for a while.....

 

I was born in a house.

 

I have always considered Hubert Parry's "Jerusalem" the ideal English anthem.

 

It's a great song, but isn't Jerusalem somewhere other than in England?

 

I think is was for a while Jocko along with "land of hope and glory" but I think that just got ridiculed so was probably dropped.