The new chauvinism

[Briar]

Monbiot joins the "British values" debate. Thank goodness!

The new chauvinism

I'm not ashamed of my nationality, but I have no idea why I should love this country more than any other

George Monbiot

Out of the bombings a national consensus has emerged: what we need in Britain is a renewed sense of patriotism. The rightwing papers have been making their usual noises about old maids and warm beer, but in the past 10 days they've been joined by Jonathan Freedland in the Guardian, Tristram Hunt in the New Statesman, the New Statesman itself and just about everyone who has opened his mouth on the subject of terrorism and national identity. Emboldened by this consensus, the Sun now insists that anyone who isn't loyal to this country should leave it. The way things are going, it can't be long before I'm deported.

The argument runs as follows: patriotic people don't turn on each other. If there are codes of citizenship and a belief in Britain's virtues, acts of domestic terrorism are unlikely to happen. As Jonathan Freedland writes, the United States, in which "loyalty is instilled constantly", has never "had a brush with home-grown Islamist terrorism".

This may be true (though there have been plenty of attacks by non-Muslim terrorists in the US). But while patriotism might make citizens less inclined to attack each other, it makes the state more inclined to attack other countries, for it knows it is likely to command the support of its people. If patriotism were not such a powerful force in the US, could Bush have invaded Iraq?

To argue that national allegiance reduces human suffering, you must assert that acts of domestic terrorism cause more grievous harm than all the territorial and colonial wars, ethnic cleansing and holocausts pursued in the name of the national interest. To believe this, you need to be not just a patriot but a chauvinist...



http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,3604,1545289,00.html

[Jamastiene]

1. ALL acts of violence against innocent civilians is

bad, IMHO. Extremism is still the problem. Maybe if we quit sending our extremists to their countries and terrorizing them, they'll quit terrorizing our respective countries. To put nationalism above human life is sorta what the nazis did. It's one thing to love your country's good points, but another to pretend any country is perfect. Nationalism wihthout honesty sucks. I love what my country aspires to be, not what it is now. Doing that would be settling for less.

I'd personally like to see all the violence come to an end at least maybe for one day if nothing else. I'm tired of seeing horrific images of human suffering caused by human hatred.

[Briar]

3. All acts of violence

against innocent civilians are crimes. To pretend otherwise is to place one's country above the law. Once a country or a government thinks it is above the law and can do what it likes because of its exceptional virtues or whatever, we are all in trouble, in the country and outside it!

I am still hearing people justify the public execution of Jean Charles de Menezes on the grounds that he shouldn't have been here and he shouldn't have run (thus declaring open season on hated immigrants - because apparently the grouse population is predicted to disappoint on the "glorious twelfth"?). We have already lost if that is how Bliar's infamous "public mood" allows our government and law enforcement agencies to act. They have placed themselves above the law that protects us and given themselves the right to act as they think fit. I pray the judges do not bow to Bliar's bullying and join in with the cutting down of the laws to get at the devil (as Robert Bolt's Sir Thomas More put it).

[Jamastiene]

6. I hate to see this day come, but

the U.K. may end up following the U.S. with a 1984 style of governing. The prospect doesn't look good. It's sad to see it.

[rodeodance]

2. "it makes the state more inclined to attack other countries,"---this

type of patriatism is dangerous. and I do hope the brits are cool enough to avoid it. But like the article says-the right wingers are beating the drum.

......This may be true (though there have been plenty of attacks by non-Muslim terrorists in the US). But while patriotism might make citizens less inclined to attack each other, it makes the state more inclined to attack other countries,

[muriel_volestrangler]

4. That Telegraph "non-negotiable components" piece is so pompous

and wrong in many respects (it numbers them I, II, III, IV etc. - I think it's trying to look like a constitution). It's full of Telegraph assumptions which are eminently negotiable, for instance "The Lords, the Commons and the monarch constitute the supreme authority in the land. There is no appeal to any higher jurisdiction, spiritual or temporal" - which implies no appeal to a European court, while at the same time, it says "The atrocities of September 11, 2001, were not simply an attack on a foreign nation; they were an attack on the anglosphere - on all of us who believe in freedom, justice and the rule of law" - suddenly, the language you speak sets you apart in your beliefs? Merde.

And then this: "Shaped by and in turn shaping our national institutions is our character as a people: stubborn, stoical, indignant at injustice". Now we all have to have the same unchanging character? Good god, they're after a Stepford Nation. Well, maybe not, because they've already contradicted themselves: "We should tolerate eccentricity in others, almost to the point of lunacy, provided no one else is harmed."

Monbiot's article is very good - I like his comparison of "the Anglosphere" (which now apparently magically invovles belief in freedom, justice, the rule of law, cup cakes, and crumbly candy bars) to the Ummah. There's another comparison I saw a couple of days ago in an Indian newspaper, that I like - they called the invasion of Iraq "America's honour killing war". It does capture the atmosphere of spilling blood for the sake of revenge.

[non sociopath skin]

5. Indeed, Muriel I liked the Monbiot article very much.

He does have the admirable capacity to keep his head while all around are losing theirs.

I've heard the Tories described as "The South of England Nationalist Party" and it's interesting that the Torygraph's Tablets of Stone seem very much a Home Counties vision of Britishness.

Part of our problem, of course. The Anglosphericals see the US and Oz as more "British" than Scotland or Wales ...

The Skin

[moggie]

8. Stepford Nation, indeed

You know, I wonder whether I may have more in common with a disaffected young British Muslim than with the leader writers of the Torygraph. How dare they presume to speak for me!

They had to include the bit about eccentricity, since so many of their readers are barking mad.

You're showing your age with the "cup cakes" reference!

[non sociopath skin]

9. I am given to understand that Mr. Kipling still bakes exceedingly good ...

... cup cakes.

The Skin

[muriel_volestrangler]

10. Not Mr. Kipling, skin

Not the Nine o'Clock News. I tried to reproduce it from memory here, when Reagan died. Still, topical, in terms of prompts to Presidential press conferences, and cretins in charge of the White House. I think it was the first bit of real satire I knew (see if you can age me from that).

[moggie]

12. He does

Or rather, he has bloody great factories which bake them for him, but the cup cakes in question were from a "Not The Nine O'Clock News" sketch from, I think, 1981.

[fedsron2us]

14. The Telegraph likes to give the impression

that most of these 'non-negotiable components' have existed from time immemorial when in fact they have all been fought over long and hard throughout centuries of British history. The people who chopped of Charles I head in 1649, abolished the monarchy and dissolved the House of Lords obviously thought that the 'anglosphere' could survive without these things.

[lockdown]

15. Anyone read

The Invention of Tradition? Few years since I did but it's very interesting, goes into how many of our cherished traditions are actually quite recent inventions of convenience and sentiment.

http://dannyreviews.com/h/The_Invention_of_Tradition.html

[lockdown]

7. "it was patriotism that got us into this mess"

Hallelujah! As so often, Monbiot is a rare voice of sense in a torrent of media madness.

[LeftishBrit]

11. The whole thing is getting to remind me ..

of John Betjeman's satirical poem from WW2:

http://www.caterina.net/paw/archives/000147.html


Some things never change.

If Britain has one truly refreshing characteristic, it's that - on the whole, and at least since the relinquishment of Empire - we don't go around swaggering and smirking about what a wonderful country we are, and demanding that everyone prove their 'patriotism'. It would a pity to let Bush and Al-Quaeda between them force us to give up this characteristic.

[non sociopath skin]

13. Thanks Leftish ...

... I’d forgotten how funny Betjeman's poem was.

Actually, Flanders and Swann are pretty pertinent if the Torygraph is anything to go by ...

http://sniff.numachi.com/~rickheit/dtrad/pages/tiTHENGLSH.html

The Skin

[Kipling]

16. The Telegraph is to Britain what Satan in to Christianity.

A representation of all that is worst within us.