National identity: Our allegiance must be earned
Nationalism is something that Britain hasn’t been comfortable with since the fall of the Empire. It frightens the liberal left who hate the baseless ideas of national supremacy, xenophobia and racism that drive the bigotry and neo-fascism of the British National Party. It angers the conservative right, who have seen it destroy Britain’s colonial influence on the world stage and see it threatening the union of the British Isles in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. And it irks policy-makers who need it to bind society together, yet they struggle to define or control it in a manner that allows it to be truly useful.
In the UK, of course, there are further complications in that no citizen has a mere single national identity, but one of at least two layers. It is an anomaly to find someone who considers themselves British-only; rather they hold being Scottish, English or Welsh as their primary identity – that served by the strongest cultural, historical or emotional connection – and British secondly.In Northern Ireland, the identity becomes triple-tiered as religion enters the fold. Often Britishness is merely the status of an individual’s legal citizenship and in this context solving the so-called British identity crisis is no mean feat.
Last week’s report by Lord Goldsmith, the former Attorney General, into UK citizenship was a key landmark in Gordon Brown’s Britishness drive. In a country where nationalism is as diverse and complex as it is here, any official documents on the matter are bound to provoke controversy far more than any academic study on the same topic would. Such controversy was duly found; Goldsmith’s proposal to make school children swear an oath of allegiance to the monarch hit a sore nerve on all sides of the ideological divide and was a political error of such gargantuan proportions that it threatens to overshadow the sensible and constructive suggestions made in the report.
Despite being an unpopular – arguably un-British – proposal, the wording of the oath would mark a step backwards in the relationship between citizen and the state. Whereas the American pledge, from which Goldsmith takes his inspiration, cites the “allegiance to the flag…and the republic it represents…indivisible with liberty and justice for all,” the UK equivalent will be see the subjugation to a hereditary monarch ingrained into the country’s children. The proposed wording of this oath reads: “I swear by almighty God that I will be faithful and bear true allegiance to Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II, her heirs and successors according to law ...” This is without even touching upon the offence that will be caused to those with republican tendencies or in areas such as Northern Ireland (and, to a lesser extent, Scotland and Wales) where the desire to be a part of the Union is politically divisive.
Students of national identity will be familiar with the power of “banal nationalism,” the force that binds individuals together using passive everyday symbols and rituals that reinforce the attachment to common values, institutions and goals. While the pledge of allegiance is a form of such civic nationalism in the USA, it is demonstrably unsuitable in a state such as the UK. Rather, Goldsmith should be looking at strengthening existing bonds that bind us together: our shared institutions, our shared culture, knowledge of history and the better teaching and understanding of the values that years of bloodshed, learning and evolution have bequeathed us. An annual day to celebrate Britishness won’t even paper the cracks.
The sociologist Michael Billig wrote: “it seems strange to suppose that occasional events, bracketed off from ordinary life, are sufficient to sustain a constantly remembered national identity.” Rather, it is the everyday and the common place that reinforces national identity. Billig refers to the “unwaved flag” that hangs from a public building, statues of important public and historical figures, art and culture and other such familiar reminders that go unnoticed in their everyday reinforcement of national cohesion as being the most important factors in creating civic unity in an established nation-state.
Goldsmith’s report should be welcomed in today’s climate where “nationalism” is inherently linked with “extremism” in the public and media psyche as an appraisal of civic patriotism. However, the nationalism he puts forward simply isn’t our. To create the civil unity and the Britishness Brown so craves, we need more public art, more monuments to those who have shaped our society, better government institutions and state services that will engender civic and national pride. But, perhaps most importantly, we need the maturity to recognise that Britishness, as a single and cohesive national identity, might not actually exist.
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