Lord goldsmith, in his wisdom, has suggested to our dear leader that all children on leaving school should pledge allegiance to Queen and country. Apparently this will instill a sense of "Belonging" and "Britishness" and boost national pride. Full article is here
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/7287984.stm
Now I'm all for a new bank holiday to celebrate Britishness that is also suggested on the condition that its mandatory, is additional to my current bank and public holidays and in no way shape or form will I be expected to partake in any Britishness event, by britishness cards or release a britishness badger into a stream.
You may think I'm down on Britain. I'm not, as a country it has its proud and not so proud moments in history. It's achieved many things, produced great thinkers, orators and scientists and is not a bad place to live. However we don't suit being a bombastic, flag waving nation boasting about our achievements, it harks back too much to when we oppressed billions. No, Britishness involves, Cynicism, sarcasm, politeness, good sportsmanship and knowing how to queue. It also involves quietly nodding and smiling during other nations bombast and subtly getting things done. Sadly our current government feels we should be more like America, with a flag on every porch, pledges of loyalty and indeed to boost has joined America's illegal wars, and is cracking down on personal freedoms like America.
America makes good TV and has a real knack for good customer service, but that's it. Everything else they do, they do either badly or wrong. Democracy, they have something every close to a workable electoral system, but they bung in the Electoral College so that the system is actually less fair than ours. And its like this across the board. Indeed who we should really be looking to for guidance is Europe, our closest neighbours. Of course many Scandinavian nations have solved their problems with national pride by use of transparent, trustworthy government and by doing things to make their nations proud. For example not cowtowing to America, going their own way and encouraging international co-operation.
So, please if anyone is reading this, refuse an oath of allegiance. Instead I propose the opposite. The Queen and all of government must pledge an oath to only act in the best interests of the people of Britain, and to represent their constituents before minority interests.
:squee:
16 years ago
Of course, you realise your ID card is going to have "troublemaker" engraved on its chip ;-)
ReplyDeleteI do agree with you on the Britishness thing. On one hand, I think instilling people with a sense of pride in our country and its achievements is a good thing. However, I'm not entirely sure how waving flags and making people recite oathes to the Queen will accomplish that.
Surely there's a greater sense of pride that can be established through education. As you say, this countries produced many "great thinkers, orators and scientists". That's something to be proud of being British for, not just because the building across the street happens to have a Union Jack.
They can join the list alongside Most major religions, Scientology, The Vegan society, Budweiser and Apple. Oh and Habitat (You remember my "How much for a bloody school lab stool!")
ReplyDeleteActually there were a couple of interesting points raised on the SFX boards.
Basically you don't want people to be blindly loyal/proud of their nation, to paraphrase Dinobot, when you tell people, tell them the bad and good an let them make up their minds. Otherwise you get a culture not unlike a certain transatlantic neighbour (USA USA!) who tend to take any opinion saying taht their country is anything but a paragon of Freedom, Democracy and justice, as a sign that you hate America, freedom and probablya re in Al Queda.
Secondly, will doing a pledge actally do anything. Remember Assembly at school, for at least 7 years I had a weekly christian assembly, however It didn't make me any more or less christian.