Comments on: The nations, not so blest as thee

By: stostosto

stostosto — Tue, 15 May 2007 09:47:58 +0000

Is it true that Britons are hopelessly confused when arriving at a cross-channel customs service and finding signs saying “French nationals” and “Foreigners”? Because they, of course, are neither.

By: stostosto

stostosto — Tue, 15 May 2007 09:16:31 +0000

as opposed to our neighbours in Denmark and Norway (who were of course bot occupied by the germans during WWII) we don’t celebrate national day

What? We Danes don’t even have a national day. What a typical ignorant, chauvinist, snooty Swedish comment.

It’s true that we’re big on flagwaving, though. The Muhammad cartoon crisis last year with Middle Easterners routinely torching the Danish flag only resulted in a brief lull in this. As best I can see we’re back to waving flags at every given occasion: Birthdays, home-comings, sports events, Sundays at the garden house.

By: Alan Kellogg

Alan Kellogg — Sun, 13 May 2007 19:19:04 +0000

I recall a commercial (for something or other) where the point about the product (whatever it was) was made by telling the story behind the builidng of Carnegie Hall in NYC. It ends with a man shouting down from the seats to the architect, who responds in a normal tone of voice, “In this theater you don’t have to shout.”

By: Koranteng Ofosu-Amaah

Koranteng Ofosu-Amaah — Sun, 13 May 2007 06:36:43 +0000

Quoting Malcolm Bradbury in Eating People is Wrong:

After all, there was one thing that every Englishman knew from his very soul, and that was that, for all experiences and all manners, in England lay the norm; England was the country that God had got to first, properly, and here life was taken to the point of purity, to it's Platonic source, so that all ways elsewhere were underdeveloped, or impure, or overripe. Everyone in England knew this, and an occasion like the present one was not likely to prove that things had altered. I have lived in England, was the underlying statement, and I know what life is like

Handwaving here as usual... It is interesting to compare John Major and Blair - Major's prime legacy is grayness: the notion that the UK is ultimately middling and understated. Blair's elevates the stakes but in declaiming his typical focused-group empty slogans he is applying the American hard sell to a country that has no need for Dr Feelgood. Everyone likes a little bit of nostalgia but there is no need to go overboard like he does.

By: John Emerson

John Emerson — Sat, 12 May 2007 15:39:01 +0000

Or maybe just Gustav Ericsson.

By: John Emerson

John Emerson — Sat, 12 May 2007 15:37:42 +0000

Gustavas Vasa: the Father of His Country—or a self-educated fugitive slave? Only the Swedes have to ask themselves that kind of question.

By: Matt McIrvin

Matt McIrvin — Sat, 12 May 2007 13:00:16 +0000

How many months until the dirt nap of the American reputation?

Until?

I’d actually like to make a case for Sweden as being far less nationalistic than Britain.

It also fell to the Swedes to sing about Waterloo.

By: Phoenician in a time of Romans

Phoenician in a time of Romans — Sat, 12 May 2007 09:02:31 +0000

It’s the same reason that British stamps do not name their country,

They don’t name the country because they were the first to have stamps. They didn’t need to say “UK” on them, unlike everyone else.

Unfortunately, my country is not immune to nationalism. Fortunately, we channel it into fifteen men on a field beating the snot out of the Poms, Aussies and South Africans.

By: rm

rm — Fri, 11 May 2007 19:36:38 +0000

There's a long history to this. Look at the mention of "Protestant imperial guilt" and "a religion of self-restraint" here. I took the course before it was a book. What I mainly remember is that when the Native Americans in California offered to worship Drake as a god (according to Hakluyt, of course; no one really knows what the Californians were thinking), he piously and humbly refused, which is exactly what gave Drake the moral right to claim the land! (Neat how that works.) In contrast to those evil Spaniards who are happy to deceive the simple natives.

By: Cirkux

Cirkux — Fri, 11 May 2007 15:48:06 +0000

I’d actually like to make a case for Sweden as being far less nationalistic than Britain.
In Sweden flagwaving is really only ever done by the far right, and as opposed to our neighbours in Denmark and Norway (who were of course bot occupied by the germans during WWII) we don’t celebrate national day (6th of June which is only an excuse for a day off work).
Britons in my experience are quite ethnocentric and do tend to think other countries are slightly underdeveloped without ever having visited them, and surely that must count for nationalism?

By: ajay

ajay — Fri, 11 May 2007 13:59:31 +0000

It’s the same reason that British stamps do not name their country, and that so many British organizations do not announce their nationality (“The Royal Society”, “The Royal Academy”, “The National Theatre”, “The Associated Board of the Royal Schools of Music”, “The World Service”, etc).

Well, Britain had stamps first – no need to put your name on them if no one else has them. (see TLD suffixes.)
And if you can unlimber the chip on your shoulder long enough to look around, Britain isn’t exactly alone in this. Picking some random examples: the National Geographic Society, for example, expects you to know which nation. The Swedish Navy simply calls itself “Marinen” and its ships “HMS”.

When The RS was founded in 1660, there WAS indeed another English-speaking monarchy in existence—in fact, just next door—in Scotland.

Which had, and follow me closely here, THE SAME KING AS ENGLAND. Blimey.

And, yes…
The Germans are German, The Russians are Red,
And the Greeks and Italians eat garlic in bed!

And all the world over, each nation’s the same,
They’ve simply no notion of playing the game – They argue with umpires, they cheer when they’ve won,
And they practise beforehand, which ruins the fun!

By: Nathaniel

Nathaniel — Fri, 11 May 2007 13:29:18 +0000

I’ve always been partial to German president Gustav Heinemann’s response when asked whether he loved his country:
“I love no states. I love my wife. That’s all.” (Ich liebe keine Staaten, ich liebe meine Frau, fertig!)

I suppose that’s a prominent example of a high-ranking Jerry who meant it :-)

By: Francis

Francis — Fri, 11 May 2007 12:59:48 +0000

Incidentally, has no-one else remarked on the irony of an English ‘song of patriotic prejudice’ being sung by a Mr. Flanders?

Oh, of course. And both Swann’s parents were immigrants. (I believe Michael’s were as well, but I’m not so sure of that). That’s what the line “The flower of the English” is all about…

By: Peter

Peter — Fri, 11 May 2007 12:49:52 +0000

To Sanbikinoraion at #30:

Your quibbles about (some) examples of my claim don’t refute the claim. To answer your question about The Royal Society: When The RS was founded in 1660, there WAS indeed another English-speaking monarchy in existence—in fact, just next door—in Scotland. The two kingdoms did not join in union till 1706.

After the Hanoverian accession to the British thrown the lack of a geographical identifier on the name of The Royal Society is even more noticeable, because each male Hanoverian monarch was both King of Britain and Elector of Hanover. Odd that the people running the Royal Society never felt they had to clarify exactly which royal it was whose society they were.

By: bill the turk

bill the turk — Fri, 11 May 2007 12:24:59 +0000

‘Flanders & Swann, again: “The British, the British, the British are best; I wouldn’t give tuppence for all of the rest.”

Um, no. That’s English – the verses all denigrate the Welsh, Irish and Scots. ’

Not quite true –
‘And crossing the channel, one cannot say much
For the French and the Spanish, the Danish or Dutch,’

although the Germans, I think, are derided foir being ‘German’.

Incidentally, has no-one else remarked on the irony of an English ‘song of patriotic prejudice’ being sung by a Mr. Flanders?