As an expat, abroad, how do you identify yourself, if you have been away from your birth country for a long time? Is home where the heart is? What is a true Englishman, American, Frenchman or Scotsman? A True Englishman may be a gentleman, well educated, polite but rather serious and a man who never complains. A true French man may be a person who loves cheese, french wine eating snails and who hates the English. I think Americans are taught American history (the 'founding fathers' etc) from an early age at school, more so than British kids are taught British history. Many American's are very patriotic. You will see flag poles in their gardens and they seem to have pride in their country. America is a diverse bag of people and yet 'America' and the 'American way' is well known and even loved by many of its people.The 'American dream' (see link) is still believed and coveted by many people who dream of settling in America.
The UK, has seen a mass immigration of people from the African continent and from Asia and India. Many of these immigrants arrived seeking a better life, they were 'Indian' Pakistani Muslims who settled in cities in the UK, many didn't mix or integrate with the indigenous population and failed to learn the English language. Do these people still identify themselves with their birth country? Have they reproduced their own countries in a mini form in the UK? Some people would say yes, while others would say that's what makes England rich in culture and what makes it an interesting place to live, the large mix of people from different lands. These people were caught between feeling 'English' and were given British passports but still felt Indian, Asian or African rather than 'British'. The misfit identity has been passed on to many of their native born children. Many of these people sit uncomfortably in a 'silent resentment' in a no mans land, between some of the white populous and themselves. They feel and often are, treated as 'foreigners' despite having British citizenship and many years of residency. On a smaller scale, the same situation can be said for the British in France and on integration failure. During the 90's and 2000's, many sold up during the crazy 'property boom' and moved to France, fat with cash. Many did not learn French or integrate with the frogs. They took over whole villages and created a mini England in France. This really annoyed the French and rightly so. The riots in and around poorer parts of Paris are an example of integration failure on massive scale, causes of which are complex and debated by many.
It is very hard for expats who are always on the move to integrate with the local population. It must be very hard to lift up your home like a tortoise and move permeability to another country with a different language and culture. Do you adopt your new country in body and spirit, casting off your former clothes that once tied you as 'English', 'American' or 'French' for example. Perhaps places like England, could do more to welcome and integrate expat immigrants to its shores. Sadly, belief in the 'self ' has taken over belief in the collective and in the nation, in my own opinion. However, people must want to integrate and to be part of the nation. It takes two to tango, as the old cliche goes. Perhaps accepting ones new country is down to individual choice? You either accept it in full, with all its baggage or reproduce your own country in mini form, refusing to learn the language and refusing to integrate with your hosts. Sometimes this is easier said than done, due to culture clashes or animosity from others. We can easily stereotype counties, as above shows (intended as humor).
I digress, as I tend to do. To get back to the main question, what makes a person feel Russian, British or Spanish, French, etc? Does the media shape their identity? Is their identity with their country shaped from an early age at school and by their parents? I come from England that is part of one not so happy 'European Union', We still have the British pound but many of our laws and regulations are decided by geeks in Brussels who would not know a cod from a carp if it slapped them in the face and they decide the UK's agricultural Fisheries policy. Do I feel English? Does Britain exist anymore in only all but name? What is it to be English in the 21st century, when identity has slowly been eroded. Some will say but England is happy mix of people, from original Viking and Norman settlers to Africans, Asians and others, is there any such thing as Englishness (see link, not a real word but means to feel English) or to be Englishman? I do not know what it is to be English anymore and it worries me, even if I do live abroad.
In England, there will soon be a royal wedding, and the marriage will last for a few years and on the day of the marriage, people will wave their flags, people will get more drunk than usual and people will feel 'British' and proud, if only for one day in the year. Why can't people feel British and proud for good rather than just for a day? Because they have lost all hope and belief, they have no national identity. They are not alone, many other countries and people within the EU, feel exactly the same way. Some would say national identity (see link) is a myth and state of mind? I don't agree, I think its vital and needed, lets get it back.
Note: Like everything in almost every topic, there are exceptions to what I have said above and I do not deny the imperfections in my subject. I have only touched the surface in a very complex and controversial subject, mainly to think about nationalism and how and why people identify themselves as being English, America, Spanish, French or almost any nationality anywhere in the world. All of the above ignores inequalities, education, racism, employment, gender and opportunity, to name only some reasons for integration failure.
Immigration data (UK only)
Born abroad
Humorous website of stereotypes
You are not your country
© All Rights Reserved.
Note: Like everything in almost every topic, there are exceptions to what I have said above and I do not deny the imperfections in my subject. I have only touched the surface in a very complex and controversial subject, mainly to think about nationalism and how and why people identify themselves as being English, America, Spanish, French or almost any nationality anywhere in the world. All of the above ignores inequalities, education, racism, employment, gender and opportunity, to name only some reasons for integration failure.
Immigration data (UK only)
Born abroad
Humorous website of stereotypes
You are not your country
© All Rights Reserved.
I completely agree with what's said in this post and especially with its concluding part. People need to belong, need identity. Britain and the other european countries have lost their identity - perhaps punishment for their sin of colonialism.
ReplyDeleteI am English. My family name is English and is very localised; it goes back to the Old English language, which was wrongly called Anglo-Saxon by the Victorians, but in my part of England Anglo-Danish would have been more appropriate. In fact, according to experts in the family name field,everyone with my name spelt in its particular way comes from the same village or settlement, which is only 6 miles from where I was born and spent the first 40 years of my life. I can trace my forefathers back some 400 years: all were born, lived and died in the same place. So I reckon my family has been hanging around the same neck of the woods for about 1,500 years - until I came along, that is. Interestingly. on the Moscow metro adorning the walls alongside the escalators there can be seen, together with the advertisements, a public information poster whose purpose is to encourage patriotism amongst Russian citizens - NOT nationalism, a very different thing. What interests me especially is that this poster quotes Francis Bacon, the Elizabethan English polymath and philosopher. In Russian the quote reads: Любовь к родине начинается с семьи (Lyubov' k rodine nachinaetsya s sem'i) - Love of one's Motherland starts with the family. That sums it all up for me, really. All families in a nation have their individual differences and also their common social rules. More importantly, families can and do accept outsiders into their fold, on condition that the newcomer accepts the family rules, customs, traditions and social etiquette. Unfortunately, in Europe there are many incomers now that have been welcomed into the fold, but who, whilst on the one hand wishing to accept the stability and wealth that has arisen largely because of the cohesion that a long-standing social matrix of families, namely a nation, has over many centuries adhered to, they do not wish, on the other hand, to accept the same code of behaviour that their host nation has developed and adopted over the centuries since that self-same social matrix began to develop as a nation. The result: ghettoisation. I remember, when I was living in Frankfurt-am-Main in the late '80s, in search of a bookshop I once turned into an unknown side street. A young Turk suddenly approached me and said to me in German: "No Germans here!" I had unknowingly stepped into an area that some Turks had apparently decided was to be "theirs". I answered, in German: "I am not German: I am an Englishman." The young man was not sure what to do. Then he said: "Honest? Oh well, all right then." Bloody stupid! I should hasten to add that such behaviour amongst Turks in Germany is undertaken by a minority: in my opinion, the Turks that I became acquainted with in "Das Vaterland" just wanted to earn an honest living and be accepted as German citizens.
ReplyDeleteBritain has definitely had a hang up on its colonial past, but sin is the wrong word. What Britain did was simply what "people" did over the many years it took to migrate the world. When the technology was there they took advantage of it and sailed the world. If its a sin then nearly every country is guilty of it.
ReplyDeleteI always consider myself a Londoner before an Englishman. I love the vibrant mix of people and culture there, for me London will always be home not England. After spending my youth is a small town in the Lake District I realised how different people can be within a country. Narrow minded and bigoted and this was just to someone that came from a differing part of England not even a foreigner. This is still par for the course and I want no part of it.
Now I live in Russia and many of the same problems are here. The racism directed at people invited to work here Not Illegals, and also directed at people paying to study here. It seems tolerance is hard to come by. I run a manufacturing company and I employ people from the surrounding nations. My first choice is to employ Russians but they dont want to do some of the menial jobs so we have to use imported labour we have no choice, these other nations are happy to have the work.
Of course this was a one off but I was once in a restaurant in Saint Petersburg and I was asked by the table next to me to move because I was speaking English.
We are different in that respect as I hate London and find it packed and a bit dangerous.
ReplyDeleteI would move to the Lake district in a flash if I could. I was bought up in a village in North London and yes it was boring, and yes everyone knew what everyone else was doing but I would swap my life now for a place in the countryside or by the sea.
My wife is a city girl so it seems I'm stuck. When I'm abroad I feel very English and sometimes ashamed by my fellow Brits (At our former posting in Slovakia they came on stag dos and wrecked the town) ... when I am in England I dont feel anything other than like a visitor in an alien land.
Thank you for your blog, I enjoy reading it.
ReplyDeleteI must say you are a good observer.
I was born in Moscow but I haven't been there since 2004 when I moved to LA and it's interesting for me what's going on there and how you see it.
Thanks again.
Thank you billy bones. At times I can be serious but I try to be funny and light in writing. I find it interesting living in Russia. Keep well.
ReplyDeleteI never felt particularly Bŕitish or English till I came to the Czech Rep. It is difficult to pinpoint what it is, but I do feel different and apart from people here. It is very traditional here and some people need to be dragged from their caves eg. men refusing to change nappies, women expecting other mothers to stay at home till their kids are three. I find these attitudes repressive and claustrophobic. To me, I suppose being English means being a bit freer, having a less rigid role and greater exectations.
ReplyDeleteI miss the mix of cultures in the UK. There are problems with integration and disaffectedness, but there is also a richness and diversity that Ilove. Everything must be Czech here, not many people seem to think outside the box. I lived in Bradford and miss the colours of the Asian shops, the curry houses, the Jamaican rastas, so many different people. In a funny way, this odd mix is what it means to be English to me. It is complex, but when it works it is brilliant.
I could go on forever about what separates me and makes me English, but I wonder if expats aquire characteristics from their new culture. Perhaps in small ways I am now Czech.
I's not sure I share your view on England but I do know what you mean about the Eastern European attitude, its also similar here in Russia and was the same in Slovakia where I used to live. Kind of old fashioned and eccentric.
ReplyDeleteThanks for presenting my maps on your site!
ReplyDeleteThe national identity topic is always a hot potato and I think British people are way too preoccupied with it. Somehow you have evolved an instinct to always doubt your identity, even in moments you don't have to. It's not only about immigrants who find it hard to integrate, I have seen and heard native Britons talk about national identity as if it's something that has to be constantly acquired. Nobody can run from his/her identity, it something that forms with life and it sticks to you like skin. In that sense, enjoying a cup of tea could be as nationally identifying as a parade on the Red Square. It makes sense, no? :)
As for Russia, it's a big country with a very different culture. I am a little bit skeptical about whether people in Vladivostok necessarily like to be ruled from a metropolis that's thousands of miles away, in comparison to that Brussels is almost a suburb of London.
Yanko I like your maps they are original, funny and a lot of fun. Great idea !! I hope you sell lots.
ReplyDelete