Tony Linsell
England
The territory that is called England is the homeland of the English. The English gave their communal name to England and have lived in it ever since. England means “land of the English”.
The English
By “the English” I mean the ethnic / indigenous English. They are members of a community that has a recorded history that goes back nearly 2000 years. That community - that nation - migrated from Jutland to Britain about 1500 years ago. People who have since then merged into the English population, and are indistinguishable from the English, and claim no identity other than English, and are accepted by the English as being one of their own, are English - and England is their homeland.
A Nation
The English are a nation. By “nation” I mean a group of people bound together by a shared history, culture, ancestry, language and communal identity. A nation is a group of people who feel that they naturally belong together - they share common values, perceptions and interests. A nation is an extended family - a group of people who are willing to endure hardship and sacrifice in defence of each other and their communal interests. Our instincts have been shaped by natural selection to enable us to live and flourish in a community. Our instincts are not suited to an atomised existence in a disorderly society.
A National Homeland
All nations seek to establish or preserve a homeland because it provides a physical space in which the nation can govern itself and live according to its own laws and customs. Freedom and democracy are impossible without core shared values and a shared physical space in which to live by those values. Democracy is about a community freely and fairly electing people from within the community to govern the community according to rules that are acceptable to the community. A government is expected to do all it can to maintain a healthy, peaceful, sustainable community. The more distant a political and economic system gets from communal self-government and the pursuit of communal interests, the less democratic it becomes and the less freedom its members enjoy.
What England Means to Me
England is my communal homeland; a physical space in which my community has from time to time been able to more or less govern itself. England is a place that has been physically shaped by my community. Its landscape, whether in town or countryside, tells the story of my community’s history and achievements; its good and bad times; its values and traditions. The landscape of England reflects the social, political, and economic history of the English. Pubs, churches and people are part of that landscape, they indicate English territory. When they disappear, as is increasingly happening in towns and cities, it indicates that the territory has ceased to be occupied by the English - the English have moved out.
Landscape of the Mind
In addition to the physical England there is the England of the communal imagination - a place where no outsider can go. This is the England of our mental landscape - imagined but nonetheless real in that it is moulded from a very early age and affects how we live in the real world. It is an accumulation of the informal prompts that permeate everyday life and which teach us the worth of certain values, perceptions and behaviour. The prompts are in such things as how others greet and speak to us - the food we eat and, how it is cooked and how we eat it - the sound of our language and how it both shapes and reflects the way we think and see.
Our mental and physical landscapes are the product of those who lived their everyday lives and the few who did exceptional things. Each generation leaves its mark on them.
Proof of Title
Hostile outsiders (and misguided or foolish insiders) often scoff and say, “I suppose you think you are Anglo-Saxon” or “Do you have a family tree that shows your ancestors where here a thousand years ago” or worst of all - and from the certifiable - “But we’re all Celts”. The answer is that I don’t have to prove my ancestry by means of formal records and bits of paper. It is enough that I am a member of the English community - its history is my history. As a member of the English community I am linked to the communal history and imagination of those who have for over a thousand years called themselves English and regarded England as their homeland. I have no more need to prove my ancestry than does a Sioux, a Maori, or an Irishman.
So, I am English and there are two Englands that are meaningful and important to me - both are an essential part of my communal and individual identity - both are my homeland.
Tony Linsell is the editor of Steadfast Magazine
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Hear! Hear!
Robert Boos
27 Oct 07 at 6:05 pm
Well said , Tony. It is not something we have to prove; it is something we feel. Nobody can ever take that away from us.
greg
21 Nov 07 at 9:37 am
i agree. To be english is to be proud and it is high time our children were taught this, instead of being told they are british. we need to spread the word that that we are the English and the dragon has awakened!!
mark Snape
16 Jan 08 at 8:03 am
I’m in accord with most of what you say except: “The more distant a political and economic system gets from communal self-government and the pursuit of communal interests, the less democratic it becomes and the less freedom its members enjoy.”
Would you describe our current government as less democratic - just because it looks after the interests of Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales too?
I would have said “The more distant a political and economic system gets from communal self-government and the pursuit of communal interests, the less representative it becomes of the community.”
Wider geographic representation does not mean less democracy nor freedom, but it does mean less influence for the people … which I think was your point?
Bart Hulley
17 Jan 08 at 11:12 am
[...] and Freedom This is the real thing - Tony Linsell | What England means to me Steadfast For the poster who remarked on freedomin this country, take a look at this - [...]
What England Means To Me by W.Gruff - Page 2
21 Jan 08 at 2:09 pm
In response to Bart Hulley, democratic accountability is under threat from a number of directions the anglophobic governance of the UK government is but one small part of the problem:
The failure of the UK government to grant devolution to England, to allow the English to debate devolution and to deny the English a vote on the subject is but one obscenity against democracy. As a consequence the English have a First Minister of England no one has ever voted for (in Gordon Brown), English departments are being managed by MPs elected by non English constituents, and the electoral system is being gerrymandered to prevent the English having the full influence they should have in UK decision making. Added to that English MPs have no influence on non English devolved matters, however, the MPs elected in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland have FULL influence on English only matters. This is made all the worse by the parachuting in of Welsh, Irish and Scottish MPs into English constituencies to bolster the minority interests in the government this is a shameful and deliberately undemocratic act, perpetrated by both Labour and Tory parties to buy off nationalist pressures in other parts of the UK, of course in the case of Scotland this strategy has been manifestly unsuccessful!
The apparent acceptability of the UK government to pass sovereignty away to a third party in the guise of the EU, without a referendum and without any meaningful democratic debate is yet another example of undemocratic practices and the alienation of the English people from the democratic system.
Attempts by both Labour and Tories to break England into European Regions, ripping up our traditional county structures and removing local government by a systematic process of salami slicing away democratic rights, such as the right for planning decisions to be made locally is further evidence of the death of local democracy.
To enforce European Law irrespective of the views of the people of England and in the face of England’s rejection of such laws, (by opinion polling evidence) and the creeping process of “majority voting” will effectively turn the people of England into non participant observers of the process of governance as the right to govern ourselves is removed from us.
I would like to say these things are not true but a close look at what passes for “democracy” in the UK will expose the wholesale assault on English self determination.
Curiously the UK government which does so much to insist on the human rights of every other ethnic culture are properly observed and protected, signed in 2007 the UK Declaration of the Rights of Indigenous Peoples and publicly declared their support for the rights of indigenous peoples, however, in signing the Declaration the UK expressly stated that this Declaration did not apply to the people of the UK! Therefore we have the additional democratic outrage that the UK government will support, protect and promote any number of other indigenous ethnic cultures, but will not do the same for the English.
It is in this context I believe Tony Linsell was explaining how democracy is being denied to the English.
Christine Constable
23 Oct 08 at 1:52 am
What I am very concerned about is the failure of the groups set up to defend the interests of the English to define what they mean by English. The English Democrats apparently believe that all legal immigrants should be classed as English. This is merely to re-name multi-racialism as English!
A leading figure of the Free England Party has written that they beleive we should keep the 1976 Race Relations Act. This introduced a bureaucratic tyranny designed to opprss the English and give our inheritance to outsiders the British State was importing for cheap labour.
To be charitable I will describe these two parties as misguided and timid of upsetting the ruling elites.
David Hamilton
9 Nov 08 at 1:46 am