Britishness in a post-colonial era

When US presidents address their people, they start with "my fellow Americans". French presidents always open their addresses with "Frenchmen and Frenchwomen" and always end them with "Long Live France".

But British leaders? Well, it's "hello" or "good evening" and "goodbye" at the end, mundane greetings which are neither distinguished nor dignified.

Surprisingly in a country which once ruled an empire, the British have grave difficulties in identifying what their country stands for.

So, when Prime Minister David Cameron recently called on people to promote British "values" and ordered schools to make "Britishness" an integral part of the curriculum, there was much eye-rolling from the public that anyone would be stupid enough to even raise such a matter.

The explanation why Mr Cameron felt compelled to wade into a debate which he knows will be controversial is clear enough: Britons need to redefine their national identity, and do it fast.

One reason is September's referendum on Scotland's independence. Opinion polls suggest most Scots will opt to stay as part of the United Kingdom. But if future demands for independence are to be avoided, the place of the Scots within this kingdom will have to be redefined, not so much by what separates them from the rest of the population, but by what unites them.

The same applies to an education system which is so diverse and obsessed with promoting "tolerance" at the expense of a common identity that it produces some real horrors. The discovery that several schools in Birmingham city had been taken over by Muslim hardliners who then proceeded to segregate boys and girls in classrooms and told pupils that non-Muslim girls should be regarded as "white prostitutes" shocked the country.

The concern over a lack of identification with Britain surfaces in other ominous ways too. Last year, for instance, more people holding British passports opted to risk their lives fighting for terrorist groups in Syria than those who signed up for reservist duties in Britain's armed forces.

Mr Cameron's call on the country to be "far more muscular in promoting British values" and "not to be squeamish about our achievements, or bashful about our Britishness" is not new. Nor is it a narrow Conservative Party agenda - his Labour Party predecessors Tony Blair and Gordon Brown launched similar appeals when they were in power. But all these efforts met with popular derision.

Part of the problem is that nations are like extended families: Belonging to them is often not a matter of choice but an accident of birth, and defining what a family should stand for is either an unnecessary or unpleasant exercise, only undertaken when it faces a crisis.

Matters are even more difficult with the United Kingdom, a country which is an amalgam of four nations - England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland - all of which were initially brought together by the sword.

Britain's colonial experience also had a decisive impact, persuading Britons that they need not confine their identity to just a few windswept islands off the Atlantic Ocean.

And, because the empire ended gradually, there was no need for much national soul-searching either. Those who opposed the imperial enterprise turned to the European Union for salvation, while old imperial enthusiasts looked to Britain's "special relationship" with the United States in the hope of maintaining past glories. The only issue on which both camps tacitly agreed was that trying to define what it means to be British in a post-colonial world was unnecessary.

The English language is mother tongue in scores of countries worldwide and the language of choice in most others. Unlike the French, the British are not fussy about how their language is used or abused and do not consider themselves the arbiters of the tongue; US twang and Australian slang are readily accepted.

However, it was the advent of mass immigration over the past four decades which shattered this complacency over Britain's national identity. The sons and daughters of immigrants challenged the smug view of the British empire as a civilising enterprise, emphasising instead its history of exploitation, often without mentioning that it was also the British empire which subsequently led the fight for the abolition of slavery.

And in social terms, immigrants often travelled in the opposite direction to the majority of the population: While the latter abandoned religion, most immigrants continue to consider faith as their defining characteristic. Similarly, while Britain became more socially and sexually permissive, immigrants retreated even more into their own, more restrictive definition of a community.

Mr Cameron is right that, if such tensions are not to erupt into open conflict, a new British identity has to be forged, one which identifies common social and cultural themes shared and cherished by all.

But the vexing question is what should this new identity consist of?

Loyalty to one family led by an 88-year-old monarch famous for her handbags and old-fashioned hats? Some politicians argue for "toleration and a sense of fairness" as hallmarks of British identity. But these qualities surely cannot be unique to the British alone.

Or is it "the Union Flag, football and fish and chips", as Mr Cameron suggested, conveniently forgetting that the British flag avoids the question of identity by being an amalgam of the flags of some British nations, that each British nation competes separately in football, or that curry dishes are now more popular than the fish-in-batter recipes, which in any case were brought to Britain by Jewish immigrants from Europe?

Undoubtedly, the British Premier has launched an important debate. And he is right to demand that Britons should agree on common values; a diverse society which leaves its ethnic groups to their own devices is not tolerant, but negligent.

But he is wrong if he believes that any single politician can define what these values are, or how they could be taught.

For just about the only characteristic which all Britons share is an instinctive disdain for ideas imposed from above. A few years back, a British newspaper ran a competition for the best one-liner defining the country. The winning entry was: "No motto, please; we're British."

Jonathan.eyal@gmail.com

This article was first published on June 22, 2014.
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