What is 'Britishness'?

[An Fear Dubh]

Mmm that reminds me of a programme I watched awhile back, that followed people over the years and revisits them every ten years to see how they have coped with life.

In one interview they talked to this bloke in his flat in the East-end of London, and he said he was a cockney born and bred, he loved jellied ells and a pint of bitter. But if he went out for a pint he could not find a cockney pub in London!! And when you consider the favourite dish in England is a curry. You wonder does Britishness exist in Britain?

[Jim]

Yeah, but English food is grim anyway. The only thing its got going for it are chip butties and fish and chips. Who wants yorkshire puddings and cornish pasties when you can have a kebab?

[An Fear Dubh]

Is the chip British?? As my understanding is that the potato was introduced to England from America/West Indies in the 1700's, and that the frying of it was in the style of a French cooking method. And again this was in America/West Indies, but if you think of Curry as English then I suppose so is the chip.
So when David Trimble and the UUP hit on the slogan a few years back - 'As English as Fish and Chips' no-one had the heart to tell him!!

[Jim]

Naw! I've a french mate and she had a rant one time about how chips where as french as sushi. I'd call fish and chips english because its well known to be an english meal but i wouldnt call myself british because the chippy down the road does nice fish.

i dont know what you mean about the slogan, was trimble trying to crack his party was english?

[An Fear Dubh]

I was not sayin that chips were French. I was saying that potatos come from South America (I googled that). And that various cooking styles have existed, and during the 1700's the French/Canadian's had a style of deep frying, that a number of countries used. And in North America the idea of frying potato was first tried.
I do not believe one person invented anything it is more a series of developments, but I question the Britishness of chips, unless you are saying a colonial Britishness meal, and not English Britishness meal. And we all know how each gold medal winner and good tasting thing is British but lose or taste off and you become Scottish haggis, Welsh ....

Yes, Trimble was trying to say the UUP was more British than the British.

[bearhunter]

I always liked the line from George and Mildred when Mildred tried to make George a curry for tea:
"I don't want any of that foreign muck. I like good English food: Scotch broth, Irish stew and Welsh rarebit."

[He_Who_Walks_in_The_Wilderness]

Personly i find arguments about culture to be a tiresome waste of time, its does not matter if we are talking about Irish culture or british culture, or the Culture of Papa New Guniea All cultures out there are this planet are to vast to neatly tie up in defination of a few sentences. All Cultures are made up of myriads of different sub-cultures evolved over many thousands of years of cultrual evolution, right from the day we stopped swinging in trees and we spoke our first langauge.
A question for you, lets take th irish culture, over the last 10 years there has had a massive wave of emigrants come to the RoI, most have now taken or are now in the process of taking irish passports, lets Take a polish person for example, who has his irish passort, does he now have the right to call himself irish? can he say that his now part of Ireland? if thats the case, does that not now mean that his culture is now part of the irish culture? And what about the other ethic minortys now living in the RoI
Many people try to reduce culture to simpltistic definations like Music, Art or languge, so another question for you, lets take a bloke born and reared in inner city dublin, does not speak irish, or know much about traditional irish music/poetry etc, could'nt be bothered with it at school as it bored him, loves Goth Rock though, is he less of an irishman then the person who is fluent in gealic, can sing, write poetry about wolf tone etc(all in irish of course)?

[An Fear Dubh]

I do not think arguments about culture are a tiresome waste of time, because someone like your inner city Dublin lad does not give such things much thought. But he can be perceptible to the dangerous right wing and and racist views that try to paint immigrants as the root cause of all the Dublin lad's problems. I believe similar to you that culture is not neatly defined and is a myriad of different things that build up to meet the needs of the local society. By understanding this and looking at aspects of Irish and British culture, we can explain to our Dublin lad that the immigrant is not the root cause of anything, but his fears due to lack of information are being exploited for political reasons.
I believe that culture is more a personal emotion, if you feel Irish, then you are. Of course there are some identifiable elements but these are fluid and not constant. And in your examples I believe both can call themselves Irish, but the Polish person might think of themselves as of Polish culture while availing himself of the law and acquiring a Irish passport. There will be an element of each culture blending to meet the needs of the Polish/Irish society, and this will feed into the general Irish culture/society.
So it is very important that we understand how culture is built and defined so as to present the facts and dispel the myths and do not allow right wing elements to exploit the issue.

[He_Who_Walks_in_The_Wilderness]

Who said anything about the young lad from dublin being right wing, just because somebody has no interest in history does not make them a bigot, he could well be into rap music instead of goth rock, and at the end of the day i don't think i have ever heard of any right wing goths. The only reason i choose these 2 examples was because both of them do not fit the traditional stereotype of what an irishman should be, yet as you have said, they both have the right to claim themselves as irish, therefore if you are asked to define irish culture and since you have agreed that both examples have the right to see themselves as irish, then you must include them in your definition of what irish is, and since you are including them, then you must include all the other people that see themselves as irish and it should be at this point that you realise why culture is so undefinable. If you wanted to get a view of what britsih culture is then you would have to ask every single person who lives within the borders of the UK and its territorys and everybody who has or has held a britsh passport and then and only then will you get a true deffinition of what british culture is.
As to those that visted Britian and said that there was no or little culture, personlly i find those comments bordering on racist certinly right wing, did you walk around with your eyes shut are something, the minute you stepped foot in the Uk your were surrounded by british culture, It did not matter if the people your saw were black, white, muslim, christian, etc the chances are they were british citizens (even the ones that worked in the kabab houses) they are part of and they add to british culture (that will include non-british citizens living in the UK to really).
At the end of the day who cares were chips were invented its part of british culture now, for that matter chips are part of austrailian culture and incendently irish culture to. From what i have seen from the last fe comments, I don't see people interested in british culture as much in trying to denie that the british have a culture. The times i have been dublin recently it reminded me of many big british citys, complete with kabab houses, does that mean that dublin is no longer an irish city? does that mean it has no culture? of course not.

[An Fear Dubh]

I did not say the Dublin lad was right wing, what I said - "he CAN BE PERCEPTIBLE ..." - meaning he might be easily led or listen to those who push right wing views, in an inner city where it is likely to be poor and have unemployment, bad housing, poor health, poor education opportunities and all the problems of inner city communities. And we have seen these problems being blamed on immigrants.

And I think education and knowledge of things and trying to understand them, helps people to make informed and the right choices. Through ignorance or a lack of knowledge we can be led by those who wish to manipulate us for their political ends. If we have an understanding we can support the view or group that best represents our informed view.

Jack Straw tried to re-write history to show what Britishness was. He did that because he thinks most people (and he is right) do not know enough history to correct him. Jack Straws motives border on racist, because he attempts to exclude sections of modern British society outside of what he defines as British. But we are agreed that such a concept as culture is near undefinable and is fluid and open to constant change.

I agree that culture is near impossible to define. And I was trying to debate and explore culture so that others would see how difficult it is to define and would reach that conclusion for themselves.

As an Irish Republican most things that I say Unionists will dismiss, either as trying to point score over unionism, or as republican propaganda. So as Unionists tried to define what Britishness is for themselves, or look at what Irishness is. They would see many things the same. Because not every Irish person likes 'traditional ....', so these things are not essential to being Irish. But it does not mean you are not Irish either.

In Ireland and in the north in particular, Unionists say they want to remain 'British', and Nationalists say they want to be 'Irish'. I want people to consider what these terms mean to them. I want people to compare what they mean by British and Irish. Are there things the same? What are the differences? Is the gap too wide that no bridge can cross, or can we step back and forward many times without the need of a bridge and not realize we have done so?

You missed the point about the chips - the point is knowledge and history. Yes - Fish & Chips in newspaper = British to some. But an Indian Curry = British to others. History is an aspect of culture, but do not define yourself 'as British as Fish & Chips', like the Ulster Unionist Party did in one of their elections. As we know from history the origins of chips is not purely British, and British culture is not defined as simply as people who eat Fish & Chips.

I am not trying to deny British culture, or promote Irish culture as something better. I believe that culture is near impossible to define, but we can highlight aspects, that are fluid and having meaning for large numbers of one culture.

Unionists feel under threat, and threatened by things that they see as 'Irish'. They need to explore for themselves parts of their culture and gain confidence from that. With this knowledge they can look at these things 'Irish' and see do they really threaten them. Nationalist are confident and no longer feel under threat culturally. This confidence worries unionists because they are unsure of what it means for them. Once unionists see there is no threat to them, they can gain more confidence in their culture.

To some extent unionist aspects of culture has been held back by the 'troubles'. And old customs and traditions have not been under the normal influences that most cultures are - constantly under going change. Any change was and is seen as giving into the other side (nationalists). So today they are faced with demands of modern society, and out dated tradition. They look to England for cultural leadership, but get confused. And do not seem comfortable or sure of Unionist culture.

Nationalists have had the southern society to push on nationalist cultural aspects, and traditions are mostly in their proper place. And things like 'Riverdance' have modernized some aspects. Without being able to define Irishness, nationalist feel comfortable with their culture.

[He_Who_Walks_in_The_Wilderness]

I guess that depends on which unionist you ask, personnly i am completey comfortable confident with my own preception of what my cultral identy is, i feel no threat from the irish identy, i have no problem with the irish identy, i just don't relate to it as part of my personal culture heretige. I am not and nor will i ever be irish.
By the way last time i heard the queen was born in the UK, as were her parents so that would make them british, irrespective of were her ancestors were from, . if you want to be pendantect about it though you could throw in greek to. My ancestry is celt, pict, roman, saxon, norman, viking, English, Scotish, northern irish oh and french hugonout to so i guess that means i have less claim to being british then the queen does. i will leave you with an example of british cultural heretige.

Raed sceal mon secgan, rune writan, leop gesingam, lofes gearnian, Dom areccan daeges onettan

and no its not gobblegook or made up, nor is it ulster-scot for that matter, the translaton is

“Advice must be given, rune written,
song sung, fame earned,
judgment pronounced, the day seized”

[An Fear Dubh]

While I think culture is difficult to define, I also think nationality is also more complex and political than location. As borders move, and you can be born in one country and that country can become another country. I always like this little model - Traditionally a horse is always born in a stable, and a cow is born in a barn. [You can change stable and barn for countries, and horse and cow for nationalities] A horse born in a barn or a cow born in a stable are still a horse or a cow (or foal and calf) they do not change.
Where you have cross breeding and gene splicing you begin to have grey areas. But if you profess to hold true to a blood line, then the origins of that blood line hold true. I think the Queen of England professes to hold to a blood line that is mainly German. Unless you are saying she is a cross breed and not really anything.

[He_Who_Walks_in_The_Wilderness]

"being born in a stable does not make me a horse' do you know who said that? The queens bloodlines are connected to most of the monarchys in europe those that are still here and those that have gone, and at the end of the day the only people i see banging on about her bloodline are republicans, irrespective of what some of her ancestry is the insitution of monarchy within the UK is throughly british insitution.
Speaking as a cross breed myself i have to say there is nothing wrong with being one, as mike skinner of the streets said i am 45th generation roman, I really am descended from those groups i listed, but more directly my mother and father are from different parts of the UK one being English the other from northern ireland, dispite being a cross breed i still feel 100% british. I would becareful out talking somebodys ethic origins, it comes across as a bit racist, even if it is the queen we are talking about, saids like your saying that unless you are born a bred in a country and that you can trace your origins back for as long as the country has existed then you have no right to claim yourself as part of that country, does this apply to all ethnic minortys or just those of possibly german origin.
As to were i am from, i am from the wilderness

Ps that example of british culture i gave you was saxon by the way

[Original Admin]

Wellington said that about the stable didn't he? Being a Dubliner and all that.

Anyhooooo where are YOU from Wilderness?

[He_Who_Walks_in_The_Wilderness]

yes it was wellington.
As i have already said i am from the wilderness