I have been reading an article by the Irish writer Fintan O'Toole in which he lays bear the English hypocrisy about themselves and the flirting with death through Brexit.
The Irish have always been nipping at our heels, forever sniping at the English constitution for being successful when their own history is littered with self harm.
Nationalism came to the Irish late after centuries of family tribal squabbling and a refusal to coalesce into recognisable nationhood. Hot headed by nature, their gift for oratory has placed them in a juxtaposition between self harm and a Celtic history of rough living which they insist was imposed on them by others. A history full of cries for justice when justice was severely missing from their plebeian character. Fed a diet of injustice they have a fine ear for the winging of another nation, especially if it's from their traditional foe the English.
Brexit is seen in Mr O'Tools eyes as an act of hari Kari, an act of supreme suicide by a nation who failed to adjust to their new position in this globalised, twenty-first century.
Perhaps he is right. We have that propensity to dwell in the past, to celebrate our victories and make martyrdom out of our failure.
Since the global reach of Empire faded away and, abetted by the economically powerful USA, we helped defeat fascism but at an economic cost from which we never recovered. (Unlike the Germans and the Japanese who were rebuilt on the back of the US dollar as foundations for stability in the two war zones of the Second World War, Europe and Asia).
Apart from the miracle of the NHS and the Welfare State where, as a nation we recognised our responsibility to the people 'as a whole' living within national boarders, we have been insanely successful in relinquishing the hold we had on our economy favouring anyone who would come up with an offer to take the effort of running anything from us. The glint of gold in the financial markets held our attention when, for literally no effort one could make fortunes overnight on the money market. The picture of well heeled aristocrats bent over the roulette table, betting the house on a spin of a wheel is symptomatic of the English.
We the people, fed as we are on a diet of false news became sitting ducks for Boris and his pals. History regurgitated as future fact made us feel that for the first time 'we' were being treated poorly by the new powerful kid on the block, the EU and especially by those unelected weirdos the EU Commission. For the first time we were made to feel the underdog, the equivalent of the colonised and not the coloniser. The rules were flowing towards us not the other way around and we didn't like it.
The jingoistic tunes emanating from much of our media didn't help to make a dispassionate evaluation of the Referendum question, In or Out, the questions of economic sustainability were couched in the tones of 'business' and the effect on business and remarkably, most people didn't equate their own pay packet with that of business. When you are part of the Gig economy or living off welfare the source of funds to pay you the pittance you receive seems irrelevant.
So our future is bound up in a historical picture of fortitude and eventual, muddling through. Our identity is secured, much as is the Faroe islanders, by the water around our shores. We trade by the skills we have to wrest from nature things which we are able to sell in a divisive world of trade agreements and tariff barriers into the group consolidation of national identity which absorb much of the national character in exchange for economic leverage.
Sound familiar.
Out of the frying pan into the fire. At least then the pan was standardised, whilst the fire, by definition will burn and be uncomfortable until we find a way of controlling the heat. Perhaps that's our new definition as a nation.
A slow, low heat society which turns tough decisions into palatable meals simply by waiting patiently for the meat to cook through. Italy comes to mind.
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