Posted on 12/01/2007 11:28:40 AM PST by Pikamax
As the nation settled down on Wednesday night to watch England play Croatia, I sensed an air of optimism in the land. A feeling that all would be well. I mean hey, England were holding their own against Brazil when Croatia didn’t even exist as a nation state. So what chance would these swarthy-looking Yugo-ruffians have? They were minnows in a tank of sharks. They weren’t going to be beaten. They were going to be eaten.
Hmmm. I’m afraid I knew we were going to lose moments before the match began. I looked at our players mumbling their way through the national anthem and realised they didn’t really care about playing for England. Because they don’t really know what England is. And truth be told, neither do I.
When I was their age it was crystal clear. Newspapers would report: “Fog in the Channel: Europe cut off.” Peter Ustinov would arrive at JFK airport and, having studied the signs saying “US citizens” and “Aliens”, he’d ask a security guard where the British should go. We were separate, different, better.
We had hardback dark blue passports with a personal message from the Queen on the inside cover “requiring” that foreign border guards allow the bearer to do whatever he or she pleased without let or hindrance. Slap one of those down on a Frenchman’s desk and the crack of invitation grade cardboard would have the greasy little oik sitting up straight; that’s for sure.
We had saved the world from tyranny so often we’d lost count; we’d brought decency, truth and cricket to every continent and every coral pinprick. We’d sailed iron steamships into America when they were still using coracles. We were defined by our brilliance, our superiority, our technical know-how.
Today, things are rather different. Mention the war and you’ll be told by an outreach counsellor that we must empathise with the Germans, who are coming to terms with their mistakes of the past. “And you know, children, it was actually the British who invented concentration camps . . .”
Empire? When I was at school, teachers spoke with pride about how a little island in the north Atlantic turned a quarter of the world pink, but now all teachers talk about is the slave trade and how we must hang our heads in shame.
Right. So we must forgive Germany for invading Poland. But I must beat myself to death every night because my great-great-great-grandad moved some chap from a hellhole in Ghana to Barbados. In fact I can’t even say we’re British any more because then all of Scotland would rush over the border, pour porridge down my trousers and push a thistle up my bottom.
I believe people need to feel like they’re part of a gang, part of a tribe. And I also believe we need to feel pride in our gang. But all we ever hear now is that we in England have nothing to be proud about. In a world of righteousness we are the child molesters and rapists.
Our soldiers were murderers. Our empire builders were thieves. Our class system was ridiculous and our industrial revolution set in motion a chain of events that, eventually, will kill every polar bear in the Arctic.
And it gets so much worse. Because if you say you are a patriot, men with beards and sandals will come round to your house in the night and daub BNP slogans on your front door. This is the only country in the world where the national flag is deemed offensive. Small wonder the England players were disinclined to sing the national anthem with any gusto. It’s in English and that’s offensive too. Unless it’s simultaneously translated into Urdu, for the deaf.
Then there’s our national character. In the past, boys were told in school assembly that their mothers had died and were expected to get over it in a nice game of rugby. Crying only happened abroad. Not any more. We were ordered to weep like Americans when Diana died, and no local news report is complete today without some fat oik sobbing because his house has fallen over. I sometimes get the impression Kate McCann is being hounded precisely because she has a stiff upper lip.
Every day we read obituaries about men who pressed on with the attack on a German machinegun nest even though their arms and legs had been blown off. Today disabled people get a statue in Trafalgar Square just because they got pregnant. Tomorrow all the obituaries will be for those who saved others from certain death by insisting they wear high visibility jackets. Cowardice is the new bravery.
As for that wounded soldier seen recently sporting a T-shirt that said: “I went to Afghanistan and all I got was this crappy false leg,” I call that typically English. But not any more. It’s appalling. A slight on disabled people. And you shouldn’t have been in Afghanistan in the first place, you baby killer.
Do you see? We can’t be proud of our past because it’s all bad, we can’t use British humour because it’s offensive and we can’t use understatement to deal with a crisis because the army of state-sponsored counsellors say we’ve got to sob uncontrollably at every small thing.
I want to end with a question. It’s addressed to all the equal opportunity, human rights, diet carbon, back room, bleeding heart liberals who advise the government: “I am English. Why is that a good thing?”
I bet they don’t have an answer. And until they can come up with one, chances are we’ll never win at football again.
Clarkson’s rabidly anti-everyone. He’s an equal opportunities ranter.
Although caravan-towing drivers probably get it worse than anyone.
There is no succor in soccer.
I enjoy English understated humour; now, if I could just understand anything they say...
You're lucky you don't have a national English anthem, you should hear our American national anthem.
"Oh, say can you see, by the dawn's early light..." is set to the tune of the old English drinking song, "To Anacreon on High", which with a range of one and a half octaves is pure hell to sing.
I quite like the star spangled banner as it goes.
Though Mae Hen Wlad Fy Nhadau is the best. I’ve been to International rugby matches in Cardiff, and 75,000 Welshmen pounding that out is spine-tingling indeed. Very jealous of the Welsh when it comes to songs.
My dad works with people from several different countries and in his opinion if your ancestors had the good sense to leave Britain you are ok to work with. The English are too interested in protocol instead of getting the job done for his taste. Or as one of his American co-workers told a Brit, “If it wasn’t for us you sob’s would still be using whale blubber for heat.”
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Valid point. The English however were invaded by Norway in the North and the Normans in the south. Hard to defend against simultaneous invasion on opposite borders. The Normans won. Perhaps the English are still in denial of that loss. If conquest defines a civilization, why do we still refer to people from England as Anglo-Saxons ? Should we not refer to them as Normans ? At any rate, recent DNA analysis demonstrates that the Dominate DNA in England among females is Celtic. Scotland is more Celtic and Ireland even more Celtic. Perhaps the problem is one of identity. Perhaps the English have turned their back on their Celtic roots and are in denial of their conquest by Normans. When I visited England a few years ago I meet someone who had not even been to London in years. He explained to me that London was not the real England. Perhaps that was a sign that their Celtic roots are still alive and well ? Or perhaps that was a sign that the Anglo-Saxons still despise the Normans ? Or perhaps that was a sign that the Global Multicultural London community was not really a part of England ? Hard for me to tell from the other side of the pond.
Exactly what is an “oik”?
“This author apparently doesn’t understand that we in the US are fighting the exact same battle, and that weeping and whining is no more part of true American culture than it is English culture.”
He doesn’t really know much about America. I was raised in the South and my Mom would give me hell if I even looked like I was going to cry. At 57 I’m wondering where this “feminine side” is that I’m supposed to get in touch with. I look at some of these quivering little youngsters now and wonder what happened.
And I'd like it, too, if it would just go away.;)
"God Bless America", and "Oh, Beautiful for Spacious Skies" are so much more fitting, not to mention that most people can actually sing them.;p)
All joking aside, you face somewhat of the same problem we have in Texas. You're being overrun by immigrants who will never be English. They don't want to be, instead, the parasites want to change their host country into the third world hellholes that they left.
Half the immigrants here are illegal wetbacks, and our Republican 'conservatives' (who are kinda sorta like the British Tories) don't want to do anything about it. This mass illegal immigration across our southern border, which most of our politicians, including Jorge Bush II, is bleeding our tax-payed hospitals and tax-payed social services, and Washington won't do a thing about about it.
Although, to be fair, Bush II and the ultra corrupt liberal Ted Kennedy DID propose a ridiculous 'amnesty' bill this year, which would have only rewarded the millions of illegal Mexicans for breaking our laws. After massive, huge phone calls, letters, and protests, the amnesty bill sunk like a lead ballon.
The problem seems to be that if you've let millions of little illegal camels into your tent over the last umpteen years, how in the hell can you kick all of them and their American-born babies out now?
The joke for years is that Bush's Homeland Security doesn't mean a thing if any Arab terrorist can easily cross our Southern border by blending in with the north-bound illegals Mexicans. We protect our airports, while our huge southern border is wide open.
Pardon me for the rant, and now I'll try to climb off my soapbox.:)
An oik is a bit of a berk...
The Robledo brother were only "half foreign" (which you could pretty well say of any Geordie..:-) ), their mother was English and they grew up (from age 4) in England and spoke English.
There were a few Foreign players in the early seventies like Colin Viljoen (South African).
When the EPL debuted in 1991 there were just 11 foreign players playing on the opening day, now there are 260 registered.
Chelsea are often cited as as the worst of the teams of "Foreign Mercenaries" yet ironically they contribute more players to the England squad than any other Club (J Cole, A Cole, Terry (captain), Lampard, Wright-Phillips, and Bridge).
The problem is in the press—with respect to this particular article, the British press, but the problem exists everywhere in the English-speaking world. If you stand your ground and proclaim that not only are you British, you are aware of what makes you British, and that it is not enough to inhabit the island, one must also *be* British, the media demonize you. Then they pull in their minions to demonize you. Then they intimidate everyone else (most especially your elected representatives) into demonizing you. There is a tyranny of the Left in the English-speaking world, but nowhere less than in the television and print media, and if we are to prevent the decline of our civilization we need to end it.
I don’t know how to make that happen—we don’t elect the media, but somehow, some way, we need to neutralize the effectiveness of the demonizers. There is nothing wrong with nationalism, with a common identity and culture rooted in both the values of Western civilization and in national identity, and there is nothing wrong with Englishness (and I say this being not remotely English).
You (and we, in the wider English-speaking world) are dealing with two pernicious factions—those who actively wish to destroy the English roots of our civilization and those who, misguided as they are, feel guilty about it. They need to be either stopped, neutralized, or discredited. I don’t know what measures will be needed or how drastic they will need to be, but it has to happen.
Mr. Clarkson needs to find himself a good mosque to attend. That should lift his spirits.
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