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PATRIOTISM
“Without
local loyalties,” said Ralph Vaughan Williams, the
composer, “there can be nothing to build on.”
He meant, of course, that true patriotism is rooted in a
sense of place. VW was as unmistakably English as his
teacher, Ravel, was French. You don’t have to be
English to love his music, but it will always mean more
to us than others because it offers an internal landscape
that corresponds with something that we understand
instinctively.
It is worth reflecting on the wisdom of a man who matters
when one sees the witless parade of faux-patriots
clogging up the highways of this land trailing their
flags of St George. This is not England they are
celebrating. It is the empty-headed parish of
In-ger-land, populated by noisy show-offs. It is not love
of country. It is a form of exhibitionism, with the flag
employed as a fashion symbol. In short, it is a travesty,
exposed as a fraudulent pageant by the moving events that
took place the previous weekend in Normandy.
Like so much else in modern England, the current madness
is propelled by football, which has become a substitute
for real life. This vain, shallow world attracts vain,
shallow people, and is amplified to a deafening pitch by
the largely uncritical coverage of the sport by
television and radio (and newspapers, too). The thought
of David Beckham, heir to the office once adorned by the
likes of Billy Wright and Bobby Moore, leading out the
England side in the European Championship turns the
stomach. That mincing ninny couldn’t even spell
patriotism, never mind define it.
In 1966, when Moore led England to their World Cup
victory, beating West Germany in the final, there was
none of this tomfoolery. Pubs did not drape red and white
colours over their awnings and, mercifully, there were no
comedians (if one can so describe the ghastly Baddiel and
Skinner) to supply lashings of boil-in-the-bag
sentimentality. “Thirty years of hurt” indeed!
(Thirty-eight now, and counting). Some of us would
willingly endure a lifetime of humiliation on the
football field if we could avoid that execrable
end-of-pier partnership.
In Paris today you will not find anybody wandering around
in replica shirts and waving tricouleurs. Yet in this
country thousands, not all of them young and daft, have
taken leave of their senses. Perhaps this narcissism,
this restless urge to affirm some kind of identity, stems
from the response to the untimely death of Diana Princess
of Wales. In the mawkish aftermath of that event, one
Susie Orbach opined that the English were beginning to
learn about “emotional literacy”, the sort of
piffle that silly people come up with to block channels
of clear thinking.
The English are a remarkable people, and England has a
remarkable history. No country, not France, not Germany,
not even Scotland, has given so many great people in so
many disciplines to the world, and the world has not
withheld its consent. Despite everything, it remains a
country that works, which accounts for the fact that
thousands of people who were born elsewhere want to live
here.
We have so much to celebrate. Nowhere is there a more
interesting, or a more richly varied landscape for so
small a country. Our theatres, orchestras and art
galleries are among the best in the world. We are, on the
whole, the most fair-minded of people, and have
cultivated a 500-year-old tradition of welcoming talented
people (from Holbein to V. S. Naipaul) who have come here
to live and work. It goes without saying that we are the
funniest people in the world.
So let us put away these flags, and tell the excitable
folk who wave them to grow up. Until they do so I shall
not be the only person who is hoping for a resounding
French victory against “our boys” at Euro 2004.
(Source: Times Online)
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