Consider the difference between a nation and a state.
A 'state' is a multi ethnic, multi cultural collection of people and beliefs. A 'nation' is a ethnic and culturally the same collection of people who can be recognised by their sameness.
Under
these definitions Scotland Ireland and Wales are 'nations' and England
is a 'state' given its wholesale diversity, wilfully carried out by
successive governments for wholly economic reasons. The arguments in
Scotland and
Ireland about needing recognition
and independence for ethnic reasons was lost on the English decades ago
as the people succumbed to the onslaught of multiculturalism. The tools
used, such as political correctness was the equivalent
of placing non believers in the stocks in the market place
and pelting them with ripe fruit. The fussed up odium, mostly in the
chattering classes in London who had at their disposal the press and the
media to reinforce their prejudice meant that it was a brave individual who stuck his or her head above the parapet.
Part of the smoke screen to persuade people that their nationality was intact was the move away from calling themselves
English and rather say, we are British, a term of inclusiveness to
include the Scots, Irish and Welsh whist disguising the dismantling
of England as a Nation and replacing it as a State. There were
deliberate moves put out
by the establishment to make talking about being English inappropriate
and slightly racist. Any attempt to convert the English to think of
themselves as a sovereign nation
(impossible now given my definition of nationhood and
the multicultural mix we now have), with parliament attempting to
devote itself to recognising questions which were wholly concerned with
matters within the boarders of England ran into all kinds of headwind
and constitutional problems.
With decades of Tory right wing rule in London committed to dismantling the welfare state and the public sector those
nations such as Scotland, with a far finer appreciation of the society
it sees itself a part of and the damage the London based government
seems determined to inflict on the "uneducated hooligan white van man,
St George flag
flying louts", is not in their own pedigree. Un-inflected as it is to
anywhere near the same degree as the elitist public school mentality in
England which is myopic to the
pain and suffering it imposes on that very 'nation' it has reduced to a "kafkaesque state".
No comments:
Post a Comment