This is England
I watched the 2006 film This Is England
the other day (actually, around Sep 2013) for the first time. My partner made a succinct and
insightful comment toward the end of that film - something like
“Isn't it sad – maddening even - that Britain needed (and still
needs) to prove how Great it was. That British identity, its pride or
its image, mattered so much...”
It was the simplest revelation to me of
an overlooked protagonist in that film: one's 'in-group' identity.
One's image.
Sure there are many other themes in the
film; under-education, boredom, social disadvantage, white supremacy
and intolerance. These - one and all - appeared to be some important
features of Thatcher's England, hence some of the political
commentary in the film and the TV series, and while some features are
more timeless than a Tory government and than this single era, the
quietly exposed theme was indeed that of maintaining English Pride
and Identity.
Without claiming it as the only
motivation, I don't think it's crass to suggest that Pride and the
(colonial?) national image were motivators for England only a handful
of years later, to brutalise themselves and the Argentines in the
Falklands. This was not about resources as many later conflicts have
been. It was the idea that these islands were part of the empire, and
it would be a slight on the empire's image and reputation to
relinquish the territory.
In This is England the idea of English
image or identity didn't immediately expose itself as an issue and I
think that was quite deliberate. The film seemed to articulate
non-conformity and a working-man's take on 'mod' culture as the major
part of the 60's skinhead sub-culture. We know from the history books
that at its outset Skinhead identity was one which largely embraced
'others' taking in influences from far afield (Jamaica), and with no
bigotry or xenophobia at its heart, in fact quite the opposite with
black nationalism and social justice among many themes in skinhead
reggae.
Moving on to
mid-70's and to Thatcher's England in the 80's, where the prosperous
times of the 50s and 60s were in decline with few jobs and un-affordable housing emerging as challenges for middle England.
Against this backdrop, the English public was primed to adopt narrow-minded
immigration positions in the face of increased immigration. The resultant nationalism - a protectionist
approach to fewer opportunities for 'locals' - easily spilled over to
overt racism against Indians and other Asian immigrants and their
offspring, while easily lending itself to other intolerance such as
homophobia.
To be more succinct, the back-drop of
social disadvantage – the bored and poor youth - laid the ground
for a peaceful and accepting sub-culture to be influenced and
co-opted by a violent and intolerant preoccupation with English
Identity (the working class native English 'in group'). It is
reasonably easy to understand the means of evolution from Skinhead
Reggae, to Skinhead Bigot against such a backdrop.
Not forgivable,
but easy to understand.
As ever, such bigotry and some degree
of xenophobia - thinly veiled by national pride - set me to think on
how the English Identity, as embodied by the Union Jack & St
George's cross, might be rather analogous to our own burning torch of
pride and nationalism – the southern cross.
This is Australia
The southern cross is a pretty strong
national identifier for Australians. If you were attending a music
festival in Europe or the USA, rocking a Southern Cross would make
you stand out clearly as an Aussie - at least to fellow Aussies.
Unfortunately, if you look at one of
Australia's rather ashamed moments of mass nationalism and bigotry -
the Cronulla Riots [1][2]in Southern Sydney in late 2005 - those signs of
national pride, the southern cross, the national anthem, and
Australian sporting chants, were trotted out in support of
intolerance. Australians wearing their national pride tattoos,
beating on Australians sporting an appearance of middle-eastern
descent and vice versa...
It led me to ponder then whether a
perception of both diminishing opportunity and a national image's
dilution by 'others' were motivators for such intolerance, as seemed
to be so for Britain in the late 70's, and as has been the case in
many other instances both contemporary (Pym Fortuyn, Geert Wilders
and others in the Netherlands during the 2000's) and historically
(Nazi Germany).
In Cronulla, an affluent
southern-beaches suburb of Sydney, there was generally little
financial hardship to contend with compared with Sydney's Western
suburbs. The mid-2000's saw the lowest unemployment rates in
Australia in two decades. It was a prosperous time and a prosperous
place, with no general sense of misfortune or short supply of
resources (jobs, money, housing) to blame for civil unrest. It seems
therefore unlikely that diminishing opportunity is the reason in this
instance for white middle Australia to be externally motivated toward intolerance and violence.
It has left me to conclude that this
issue of Hunter S Thompson's “flag sucking” nationalist is akin
to the societal in-group and out-group labels defined by the likes of
religion, sexuality, disability skin colour, language, football team
and so on ("The God Delusion" p293).
So this leaves me in my (somewhat)
maturity, feeling ashamed by my fellow countrymen and women, who
deign to adorn their cars with messages along the lines of “fuck off we're full” and “love it or leave”.
It leaves me with a significant
wariness around those who would wear the Australian flag as clothes,
who would fly a flag in their front yard, who would tattoo themselves
with the southern cross, or who feel the need to scream their Aussie
identity (and anarchist's dissent of societal norms) by adorning
their bodies and cars with “such is life” or with full portraits
of the 19th century Aussie (criminal) icon Ned Kelly.
There is a place for national symbols,
and they are ceremonial. Wave a hand-held souvenir flag on January
26th to celebrate the anniversary of our federation, and
by all means adorn public buildings and press galleries with state,
national and cultural flags. If you identify with Ned Kelly's
larrikin attitude and not-quite Robin Hood
rob-from-the-rich-and-give-to-yourself approach to his short life,
then memorialise his death on November 11th and perhaps
refrain from using him to proclaim how proudly Australian you are. Aside from encouraging social division, you may also be more likely to die violently[1][2]).
I'm not saying that you shouldn't
believe that Australia is a good place to live – it is – but i'm
pleading with people who will never read this, to take down the
opinionated bumper stickers, and stop wearing the symbols of national
identity, because even if your intentions are purely 'I fucking love
this place', you are unfortunately going to come across to many as
siding with those in society who are not down with our multicultural
nature. You're going to appear as being unwilling to take on our
moral obligation as a well-off nation to have massive foreign aid and
refugee programs. You're going to appear as one concerned about
'queue jumpers' rather than one who is concerned with helping those
less fortunate and with augmenting our society with a great many
people from around the world who have a lot to contribute if we'll
let them.
We must quell uncritical off-hand
sentiments that paint Australia – as I've said, a wealthy and
prosperous nation – as unable to take on refugees. We must avoid
being tolerant of messages which deliberately foster Richard Dawkins'
“out-groups” and which divide our multicultural population along
arbitrary lines of appearance or personal identity.
While straying from my initial
suggestion that we be critical of flag sucking, I'd even go so far as
to say that we need to be more accepting of people's individuality
generally instead of supporting in and out group structures.
Is it right as a manager to accommodate
a customer or a workplace's complaint that tattoos be covered, or
that body piercing be removed or covered. Is it okay for a fictional
old lady to take offence at the presence of a tattooed picture or
word on someone's hand, if that picture isn't communicating
unacceptable messages such as gender or cultural discrimination.
Ignoring food safety and workplace
health and safety demands, is it otherwise reasonable to be bogged
down in 'dress code' discussions? If a person is exhibiting the right
behaviour as an employee, and if their appearance isn't communicating
unacceptable messages, why would we bow to matters of taste (such as
wearing shorts in a corporate setting) and set up conformance and
removal of individuality, purely – if it isnt reaching too far - to
prop up our in-group.
In-group and out-group matters are a
pretty familiar mindset summarised by the sentiment that if you're
not with us you're against us. In fact it was almost those exact
words used by George W Bush on 20 September 2001 - “...every nation
in every religion now has a decision to make: either you're with us,
or you're with the terrorists...”[1] and it's clearly absurd.
But this absurdity is no different to
many other in and out groups including religious belief. A study from
Kent University in 2007 found that 36 percent of 16-24 year old
British Muslims agreed that an apostate – someone who leaves the
Muslim in-group - should be put to death. Of course one study from a
single community (British) and a single age group can't be said to
represent all Muslim opinion on the matter, but this study
illustrates the fact that violence (I mean 'violence' in the very
broad sense posed by Slavoj Žižek in his book of that name) arises
out of in and out group identity, no differently than - to be
admittedly simplistic about it - the Unionist/Protestant &
Nationalist/Catholic in and out groups which created the violent
separation within the northern Irish conflicts. No differently in
fact than the Catholic crusades of the middle ages slaughtering the
non-Catholic people across Europe and the middle-east.
So this in-group mentality may have
motivated white, southern cross toting, loud and proud Australians,
to 'march' as a reclamation of their southern Sydney beach from
'violent minorities', with media and community attention escalating
this march to tension and on to physical violence.
And this in-group mentality certainly
motivates many to don their southern cross tattoos and their 'fuck
off we're full' bumper stickers.
Unfortunately the existence of these
social elements taints other's choice to genuinely and with truly no
prejudice or social division in their heart - proclaim with flags and
clothes their affection for their country. Such affection becomes an
unhealthy affection. It has become tainted.
In one sense, it would be nice if this
symbol were so demonised by it's users that it became completely
unacceptable due to its 'out-group' connotations, as happened to the
swastika and - less-fortunately in my opinion - the demonisation of the Hitler mo').
There are critical people out there - I
recently saw a black Hilux utility on the highway with a small white
swastika on the rear window, and after my initial reeling disbelief
in what I had seen, I was overjoyed to see that this nice new $50,000
automobile had a gigantic key scratch down the entire side as a
pretty clear message that the owner's intolerance was not appreciated. A 'just' intolerance to another's bigoted intolerance.
Whether this critical eye which clearly exists for stark examples like neo-Nazism, extends to the less obvious issues posed by symbols that don't necessarily equate to hate-speech, is another
thing entirely.
I'd hope to contribute to - though
wouldn't presume to achieving - awareness-raising in this space.
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