Essay for a course in British Cultural Studies (WARNING : Long article)

“Cry God for Harry, England and St George. It’s a shame none of us south of the Border can cry it too loudly or we’ll probably find ourselves up before the Commission for Racial Equality. The English have become a race in denial”

- The Daily Mail, April 23^rd, 1996.

Here, I'm supposed to provide the backbone for an essay commenting this little sentence, with an intro, an outline and a conclusion.
Honestly, I don't feel confident about it.

So let's just try here, where I can definitely afford explaining too much details, getting completely out of the subject, use quite a familiar tone, and so on.

Well, Let's do it then.

First, what the heck is this cry, and why should anybody want to yell it out in England ? For the "Border" is definitely referring to the border between ThistleLand and RoseLand. The cry is a quotation from Shalespeare's play "King Henry V", act III, sc. 1, and is calling upon the Patron Saint of England, St George. This Patron Saint's day happens to be April 23rd, which is why the article on that day's Daily Mail was referring to it, not so out-of-the-blue.
But are The English a race in denial indeed ? What the heck does the author mean, here ?
Actually, the author means that the English are not allowed to be proud of their origins for it would cause them to be sued for racial discrimination.
To what extent is this sentence, a warcry indeed, acceptable in 21th century Britain ? And where is the oh-so-thin line between Nationalism and Racism ? That's what we're going to study from a little bit closer.


First, what might be wrong in expressing one's identity inside his or her own country ?
Crying out loud one's Englishness in England doens't seem very useful, but doesn't seem harmful either. For saying "I'm a real English" doesn't make you say "...and you're not", but something closer to "...and join me in a celebration". After all, what is St George's day supposed to be if not a occasion to make Englishmen join other Englishmen into celebration and thus creating social links ? So what would be wrong into calling upon said St George to protect England ?

Maybe the answer lies into another question : to protect it from what ? From some exterior threat, maybe ?
For England has united Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland in United Kingdom, still each nation keeps its patron Saint (respectively Andrew, David and Patrick) and its identity. The problem for the author here being that Scots have the right to be proud of their Scottishness, Welshes of their Whelshness, and Irish of their Irishness... And even though there were always tensions between said nations and England, they're not supposed to put a threat to it.
Then there are the outsiders, from other parts of the World. Britain is not much of a melting pot : according to 1991 census, 5.5% of its population are considering themselves as being from another ethinicity. Well, 5.5% of immigrants ain't that threatening, ain't it ?

Actually, these 5.5% are threatenting to some people.
For St George's Cross (red on white) is heavily used by the British National Party as a symbol (just take a look to their website's homepage...), and St George and Englishness are typical rally points for these nationalists, refusing immigration and flirting (sometimes doing more than that) with racism.
For nationalism is to be proud of one's own Nation. Indeed, but to be proud of something, doesn't it have to be better than the other choices ? The step from "I'm proud to be English..." to "...because you other people suck !" is easily crossed...
This confusion is thus very easy to do for a third-party observer. For one can't say at first eyesight (or hearing) if one's just proud to be what one is or if one's actually putting some racist thesis in inuendo.

In the end, boasting about one's nationality to someone one doesn't know let's this someone free to interprete the message. And as we saw, the interpretation is easily twisted towards a racist and xenophobic one, justifying an appeal to the CRE. Even if the yelling lad didn't mean anything rash to non-English people. The whole problem thus could be said to come from an amalgam in collective consciousness between nationalism and xenophobia, but as things go, this amalgam is very often justified.

...

Damn, I can't seriously present this to my professor. It ain't complete, probably not as coherent as it should be... I think I won't volunteer for an exposé on that subject.

Still, if you want to react and make the whole thing more coherent, or add some information, please do !

Stay tuned.