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Pip

Nationalists and Racists

Playing something of a devil's advocate here, but I've got this banging around in my head at the moment (after a thread that got locked on CoSG - long story, irrelevant here).

Do you think there is a fundamental difference between these two propositions; a wish for sovereignty of people living in an historical geographical unit, sharing such things as common language, culture and history (nationalism); a wish for separateness from people of different appearance, and unity with people of similar appearance (racism, at its most basic)? If so why?

Doubtless, some people will have issue with the way I've defined these things, and others will feel that this sort of thing is only an English problem, and not an issue for the Scots thank-you-very-much. Still I would appreciate the thoughts of the keen minds on this site.
Lewis

They are linked possibly by the fact someone would be persecuted for the second reason, and so would create their nation with ideals of the first reason.

If there were a perfectly functioning society where everyone felt equal, history seems pointless. When you find yourself classified as a "f******g Jock" or a "B*****d Englishman", you then will feel a better relationship who are persecuted with you.

Such as the Kosavars being persecuted, the Kurds in northern Iraq, the Irish pre-1922 etc.

Hope this answers your question.
Shagpile

Re: Nationalists and Racists

Pip wrote:
Playing something of a devil's advocate here, but I've got this banging around in my head at the moment (after a thread that got locked on CoSG - long story, irrelevant here).

Do you think there is a fundamental difference between these two propositions; a wish for sovereignty of people living in an historical geographical unit, sharing such things as common language, culture and history (nationalism); a wish for separateness from people of different appearance, and unity with people of similar appearance (racism, at its most basic)? If so why?

Doubtless, some people will have issue with the way I've defined these things, and others will feel that this sort of thing is only an English problem, and not an issue for the Scots thank-you-very-much. Still I would appreciate the thoughts of the keen minds on this site.


My observation Pip is that you fall into the first category and not the latter.

I'm really not sure that culture is relevant though, it means many different things to many people within a given nationality.

I followed 'that' thread on CofSG. And we all have 'our' problems.
Aventinian

Re: Nationalists and Racists

Pip wrote:
Do you think there is a fundamental difference between these two propositions; a wish for sovereignty of people living in an historical geographical unit, sharing such things as common language, culture and history (nationalism); a wish for separateness from people of different appearance, and unity with people of similar appearance (racism, at its most basic)? If so why?


Nope. Fruits of the same poisoned tree, to my mind.
Pip

Lewisman wrote:
]They are linked possibly by the fact someone would be persecuted for the second reason, and so would create their nation with ideals of the first reason.

Yes I see what you mean, that racial chauvinism could encourage people to have a distinct sense of identity, that went out of its way not to ape the former oppressors.

Shagpile

Yeah I saw you on there mate. I'm reasonably confident I'm not a racist myself (I think nearly all people are capable of unconsciously racist thought or expression if caught at the wrong moment), but there were a couple of moments where I was about to write something and I reminded myself of Aventinian down there.

We're all individual members of the human species, and yet it feels right and good to me to say that I want an independent England, free of outside interference. When someone says 'I want an independent England free of non-white people' it turns my stomach. But why? Is it simply base irrationality? Why are those propositions so fundamentally different?

Race doesn't exist, it's a construct, but then that's essentially what Aventinian and agentmancusso say about nationality.[/quote]
Lewis

Quote:
When someone says 'I want an independent England free of non-white people' it turns my stomach. But why? Is it simply base irrationality? Why are those propositions so fundamentally different?


Because you feel this sense of community within England to a different extent. You have what I would consider "positive nationalism" where people want what's best for their country to move forward and let everyone help, rather than "negative nationalism" which is based on exclusion and the country actually using nationalism to harm it's own needs.

I sincerely hope the "shagplie" was only a case of forum tourettes and not an attack at anyone's opinions.

The oppression idea seems a bit extreme in the case of the UK, but it is smaller things that make the difference. Look at John Swinney, he's a nationalist because of misrepresentation at the Commonwealth games. People got angry about 24/7 "Wayne's foot coverage" in the 2006 World cup. I'm sure the English get fed up of many things as well. These injustices are shared by your community, and so you feel excluded from the other nations in your union as a larger being.
I think there is a small sense of history and popular beleif. But I have no thinking that it is racism. In the case of "positive nationalism" you would accept those from other nations to your country in order for your entire community to grow and benefit.

It's a difficult thing though. These are the only explanations I've ever thought of. You don't choose your nationality, you don't choose what race you are, but you can still be attacked due to this and you still share these things with those around you.
What I fear is that many people may feel excluded and we may have a world of micronations who are tiny community taking offense at everything.
Shagpile

Lewis wrote:

I sincerely hope the "shagplie" was only a case of forum tourettes and not an attack at anyone's opinions.


I'm neither a policeman nor lawyer Lewis, but my reaction to what "George" posted, was a gut reaction to what I felt at the time was more incitement to racial hatered, rather than making a point on racism.

Perhaps, at times, I may be a wee bit oversensitive. Perhaps in that respect it was a case of forum tourettes, but to hold up an exampe of another person's racist view to justify your own?

Quote:
If you do you'd be wrong, she looked on herself for what she was, Jamacan, or Afro-Jamacan, she also believed that we English should be punished for the Slave Trade, and the Empire itself, now that is the usual sort of so-called member of the So-called Ethnic Minorities you say should be invited into being English, they are who they are, they don't believe in changing to suit the Country they are living in, they see it their duty to change the Country their living in to suit them.

Also i've had converstions with men of Afro-Caribian Origan, who have admitted to me why they prefure sleeping with any English woman who is willing, and its not because they wanted to be English, they admitted that their reason is purly to breed-out the Native English Population, feeling England with Half-Breeds, or in their own words:

"Bastardising the Native English Population!"

I'm not making these things up, these are facts, simple as that.


Lewis wrote:

What I fear is that many people may feel excluded and we may have a world of micronations who are tiny community taking offense at everything.


Exactly why there should be tolerence, I include myself in that, but no one's perfect.
Lewis

Yes. I didn't realise your name was shagpile. My Epicfail.


The thing I pointed out is a very extreme case. The reason I support nationalism, is that the Uk community doesn't work well enough on it's own as there is too much internal bickering in order to run a top-notch country. Someone once made a point that "we lack a common enemy". I thought that was an interesting concept about the internal bickering of the UK, but we do share common enemies.
Shagpile

Lewis wrote:
Yes. I didn't realise your name was shagpile. My Epicfail.


The thing I pointed out is a very extreme case. The reason I support nationalism, is that the Uk community doesn't work well enough on it's own as there is too much internal bickering in order to run a top-notch country. Someone once made a point that "we lack a common enemy". I thought that was an interesting concept about the internal bickering of the UK, but we do share common enemies.


Laughing  No worries mate, my misunderstanding. Sorry  Embarassed

I agree with, you though, one size does not fit all with regard to the UK.
Pip

Lewis

Lewis wrote:
Pip wrote:
When someone says 'I want an independent England free of non-white people' it turns my stomach. But why? Is it simply base irrationality? Why are those propositions so fundamentally different?


Because you feel this sense of community within England to a different extent. You have what I would consider "positive nationalism" where people want what's best for their country to move forward and let everyone help, rather than "negative nationalism" which is based on exclusion and the country actually using nationalism to harm it's own needs.


I like that. And one can't imagine a 'positive racism;' by nature it's irrational, exclusive and, I should say, supremacist. In the British context I suppose that the Second World War (maybe others) was the only time when inclusive, all-pull-together nationalism really happened, which is no doubt why it's still invoked so often. In a nation of true community that would be a more common state of affairs.

Lewis wrote:
The oppression idea seems a bit extreme in the case of the UK


Yes, you're right. I was thinking more about Ireland.

Shagpile

Without discussing another forum or its posters here (that's best done on the forum itself) I think it's safe to say that you and I have a lot of common ground when it comes to racism. In general it's always frustrating when a thread gets locked and you still have more to say, but I guess we're all lucky to have forums to post on.
William_Cleland

Re: Nationalists and Racists

Aventinian wrote:
Pip wrote:
Do you think there is a fundamental difference between these two propositions; a wish for sovereignty of people living in an historical geographical unit, sharing such things as common language, culture and history (nationalism); a wish for separateness from people of different appearance, and unity with people of similar appearance (racism, at its most basic)? If so why?


Nope. Fruits of the same poisoned tree, to my mind.


Always think that attitudes towards the European Union are the best yardstick for who is a nationalist in that sort of sense. The Westminster parties tend to be split on that just like the SNP.
Aventinian

Re: Nationalists and Racists

William_Cleland wrote:
Always think that attitudes towards the European Union are the best yardstick for who is a nationalist in that sort of sense. The Westminster parties tend to be split on that just like the SNP.


Even as a dedicated Europhile, in my experience objection to the European Union is not made on nationalistic grounds - save for some of the more traditional Tories and sidelined idiots like UKIP - but rather as a result of how it governs itself.

Even Margaret Thatcher, the last of the great anti-Europe Prime Ministers (at least towards the end of her term) objected more to the boundaries of the state being pushed forwards by the Union whilst we pushed them backwards. Very few credible politicians make outright nationalist attacks on the European Union.

In a way, I'm becoming rather glad that the Constitutional Treaty wasn't adopted, despite it being full of sensible reforms. At least when Lisbon gets through, we can be assured that the EU will not be left static and attached to entrenched standards. I hope that will do a great deal to remove objections to it as a body.
Dave Coull

Aventinian wrote "Even Margaret Thatcher, the last of the great anti-Europe Prime Ministers (at least towards the end of her term)"

I'm glad you added that last bit, because  after she left office  there was a tendency for Maggie to become (with a fair amount of encouragement from the "Iron Lady" herself) something of an icon for anti-Europe Tories. But the reality is that, in office, she presided over greater British integration into Europe.  

"objected more to the boundaries of the state being pushed forwards by the Union whilst we pushed them backwards"    -   this, I'm afraid, is just another myth encouraged by Thatcher herself and her followers. The reality is that Maggie presided over a massive degree of centralisation of the state. While in theory being in favour of local government, in practice Maggie was an incurable central-government-interventionist who just couldn’t help meddling in supposedly decentralised affairs. This was true in general, but her instinctive authoritarianism had particularly drastic consequences where Scotland was concerned. Before Maggie, under both Tory and Labour governments, Scotland had a sort of administrative devolution. There was a recognition from Whitehall that Scotland was a special case, and that they had to pay at least some attention to what members of the Scottish establishment (educational, legal, religious, civil service, etc etc)  were telling them. Maggie reversed all that. She even went to the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland to preach a sermon telling them they had got it all wrong. The shock of central government interfering where it had never dared to interfere before destroyed administrative devolution, and led to renewed demands for a Scottish Parliament. Maggie’s compulsive centralising led to a decentralising reaction.
cornubian

Who wants to be British: http://ourkingdom.opendemocracy.n...08/03/03/who-wants-to-be-british/
Aventinian

cornubian wrote:
Who wants to be British: http://ourkingdom.opendemocracy.n...08/03/03/who-wants-to-be-british/


"Currently we see awkward and uneasy attempts to layer a ‘British’ identity over what is essentially a multinational island."

Nonsense. Nothing is being created that hasn't existed for generations. Shockingly enough, we all have a British identity, and the majority of people in the constituent countries do identify with it: and that's while it's at a low ebb.

Britishness has always involved an element of layering and tolerance of local identities too. That is nothing new. It is already 'multinational' - not that I accept the UK is more multinational than a large number of other established states.
Red Justice

Aventinian wrote:
cornubian wrote:
Who wants to be British: http://ourkingdom.opendemocracy.n...08/03/03/who-wants-to-be-british/


"Currently we see awkward and uneasy attempts to layer a ‘British’ identity over what is essentially a multinational island."

Nonsense. Nothing is being created that hasn't existed for generations. Shockingly enough, we all have a British identity, and the majority of people in the constituent countries do identify with it: and that's while it's at a low ebb.

Britishness has always involved an element of layering and tolerance of local identities too. That is nothing new. It is already 'multinational' - not that I accept the UK is more multinational than a large number of other established states.


LOL No such thing as a British identity Laughing  Have you not realised yet Av there is no "Britishness" except in the minds of a few in Scotland. The Brit thing is political always has been nothing to do with Scottish culture and it is not racist to say that either.

The UK is mult-cultural and made up of nations and countries of diverse interests hence the desire for self-determination.
Holebender

Aventinian wrote:
Shockingly enough, we all have a British identity, and the majority of people in the constituent countries do identify with it


Twaddle.

It has been posted elsewhere (http://ourscotland.myfreeforum.org/about5011.html) that the latest British Social Attitudes Survey has shown that only 43% of people in Scotland choose any degree of Britishness, 21% describe themselves as equally Scottish and British, and 73% describe themselves as "only" or "mainly" Scottish.

There is no majority in the constituent country (glad to see you agreeing that Scotland is a country, btw) of Scotland who identify with any kind of British identity.
Aventinian

Red Justice wrote:
LOL No such thing as a British identity Laughing


It's amazing how blind bigotry can make you...

Quote:
Have you not realised yet Av there is no "Britishness" except in the minds of a few in Scotland.


And are you trying to say that your own nationalistic, jackbooted perversion of 'identity' has some sort of objective external reality?

There was me thinking that all forms of identity were psychological constructs...

Quote:
The UK is mult-cultural and made up of nations and countries of diverse interests hence the desire for self-determination.


Because of course, Scotland has no minorities. In fact, it isn't composed of human beings at all is it? Simply mindless automatons who you feel justified in exploiting to the greater ends of the Nation.
Aventinian

Holebender wrote:
It has been posted elsewhere (http://ourscotland.myfreeforum.org/about5011.html) that the latest British Social Attitudes Survey has shown that only 43% of people in Scotland choose any degree of Britishness, 21% describe themselves as equally Scottish and British, and 73% describe themselves as "only" or "mainly" Scottish.


And yet I can show countless other surveys that show less than a third of people willing to identify as "Scottish not British". While I can't access the first-hand documents referred to online, it appears the question is rather more skewed towards Scottish identity in the first place.

Quote:
There is no majority in the constituent country (glad to see you agreeing that Scotland is a country, btw) of Scotland who identify with any kind of British identity.


I have always used the term 'constituent country' for the four main parts of the UK. I wouldn't use 'country' on its own to describe these areas, and I believe it is an anomaly.
Holebender

GO on then, show us these studies.

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