Sir - Whilst I found your views enlightening and seeing English nationalism from another angle, I take great disgust with your term 'Mongrel Stock', not only is this a derogatory term which I personally find insulting but also historically incorrect, when England become a united nation under Alfred the Great and his son Althelstan a nation within it's own right was forged (ad925), surely you would agree that at the very least there were 5 generations between 925ad and the Norman takeover. During this period a nation and race called England was built. It is to be remembered that although the Angles, Jutes, Saxons came from different areas of the Nordic land their cultures where not so dissimilar, I would argue the same breed but from different regions. The influx of Normans although highly significant to England's history was of no great amount, although the term invasion is used we could hardly call it over run can we because rather than speaking French the indigenous population continued to speak English. The immigration of Huguenots, Jews and Dutch did not overturn the basic English culture but added to it to a small extent. There is not one major industrial nation, perhaps the exception being Japan, that can call itself nationally pure genetically so infact the term 'Mongrel Stock' could be levelled at anyone, why it is perceived that only England is a 'Mongrel Nation', is a totally misguided conception, these terms should not be banded about without a little bit of thought. Kind Regards Barry (The Elder) |
You see the term 'mongrel stock' as in some sense derogatory? I find that difficult to understand. I am proud of the multicultural, multiethnic and multiracial nature of England.
England was, as you say, a nation for five generations before the Norman invasion. For five generations people of different origins were making a new nation. Isn't that just the same as happened in America in the nineteenth century? They were proud of their new nation and aware of their different origins. E Pluribus Unum, out of many, one. It's a great motto.
My pride in England has nothing to do with any weird idea of pure blood and racial continuity. I am proud of the culture of tolerance and liberalism, the acceptance of the best that the rest of the world has to offer and at the same time refusing to give up on our own ways of doing things when they make sense to us. I love the way our language imports words and uses them, making them English words. For example the French don't have a word that means "small, but in a good way", we do, it's petite, it's an English word. The Italians don't have a word for "time, specifically in the musical sense", we do, it's tempo. English is full of foreign words that help us to make sense of things but at the same time if you deconstructed any passage of modern English you will see that most of the words, grammar and syntax are Anglo Saxon in origin.
I am most proud of the mongrel parts of our nation. I know I am of mongrel stock, I have a son who has red hair, the mark of the Vikings, my grandfather counted his cattle using Viking numbers and I have walked down a street in Germany and known I was totally undetectable as a foreigner unless I opened my mouth, but not so in North Wales, where Welsh speakers knew I was English the moment I walked into their shop.
I agree that most nations are far from genetically "pure", that is just the way we are, our species. We migrate, mix, conquer, rape, seek out the stranger for marriage and especially affairs. All human societies leak genes, but the best ones also leak culture, drawing in the valuable without diluting that which is precious. I look upon the epithet "mongrel nation" as a badge of honour.
If we take the term mongrel as from the OED, the term mongrel is derogatory, and as such I find your way of thinking at odds with my own, you refer to 'out of many one' with regard to America, no one refers to the Americans in the media as a mongrel race, yet why should I put up with it in relation to England, the term is used as if to say 'there is not such a race as English' it is as if we have been put together like a jigsaw puzzle interchangeable at will. Of course genetically humans will reproduce from their past genes (i.e.; the black couple that had a white baby) but is that is no reason to give rise to England being a mongrel nation, the human body being what it is, is capable of adopting to it's surroundings that is why I refer to the 5 generations, the English people have been formed both climatically and geographically to become their own race the English, a new form of being. Using your example then I would take it that a person of half cast skin could equally be called a mongrel, try saying that and the result would be an alternative of a punch in the mouth of you being carted up in front of the local magistrate on a charge of racism. Whilst there are people like yourself that keep referring to England being a of mongrel race/stock, the myth will continue, of course humans will reproduce from their genes inherited from the past, like the black couple that had a white baby, in their innocence they carried on their life as an afro Caribbean family and still do to this day, they do not consider themeselves to come from a mongrel race and why should English people. Are you turning this phrase on it's head and using it in some form of irony, or are you happy to have England refered to as a mongrel race. Kind Regards Barry (The Elder) |
Am I happy for the English to be called a mongrel race? Yes! I'm calling them that and I identify myself with that concept.
mongrel / n. & adj.
n. 1 a dog of no definable type or breed.
2 any other animal or plant resulting from the crossing of different breeds or types.
3 offens. a person of mixed race.
adj. of mixed origin, nature, or character. mongrelism n. mongrelize v.tr. (also -ise). mongrelization n. [earlier meng-, mang- from Germanic: probably related to mingle]
(Concise Oxford Dictionary)
I am using the word in its adjective form: of mixed origin, nature, or character. I am not saying the English are mongrels (noun form) and I am not suggesting that our mixed origin is anything to be ashamed of.
http://www.auntiemomo.com/cakeordeath/mongrelnation.html
http://www.bnp.org.uk/news/2003_may/news_may24.htm
I don't have any problem with the idea of celebrating the diversity, tolerance and openness of the English. We are not bunch of in-bred isolationists on the edge of Europe trying to hold together the last traces of a fading greatness.
I used to look at history as a story of us and them, but that is silly. The "patriotic" English historian watching the Roman conquest cheered for Boudica against the legions and then finds himself siding with the descendants of Romanized Christian Britons against the invading Saxons who probably made up 90% of his genetic heritage. We should just be comfortable with the fact that history was awkward, messy and brutal but things have now got better and the ability to absorb new cultures and new people is part of the best traditions of Englishness.
The English are largely Anglo Saxon, but not by any means pure. I don't see purity as a good thing. To me the best things in life are blends and syntheses: my favourite food isn't pure potato or flour or lean meat.
I don't see mongrels as inferior and I have no problem with the term. Are you aware of the concept of cross bred or hybrid vigour? The blend can be better than the pure.
Nobody speaks of America as a mongrel race? Really?
http://www.newamerica.net/index.cfm?pg=article&pubID=1147
As for whether somebody might take offence at being called a mongrel my response is in two parts, first I am not calling other people mongrels, I am using the term of the group I am a part of, I am calling myself a mongrel. Secondly some people will take offence at anything. I am an atheist, to me that is a descriptive term and a badge I wear with pride but many people use it as a taunt and an insult. I would not call somebody a mongrel (noun form) unless I knew they would not take it the wrong way. There are lots of words that have been used as taunts which are also labels worn with pride (Jew, Gypsy, queer, fag, dyke etc.) whether they are offensive depends on where they are used, how and to whom.
Calling the English a mongrel race is a slight exaggeration but it is meant entirely as a compliment.
Wright and Eubank: Englishmen |
To me Englishness is nothing to do with race or genetic origin, it is about accepting an English culture, identifying some parts of the English culture as something you are proud to be associated with. You try telling Ian Wright or Chris Eubank that they can't be English and see how far it gets you, they are Englishmen because they care to be so, and you can tell that they care with a passion. |
Nobody is comfortable with everything that is English but English people who identify as such see something there to be proud of. I see English liberalism, tolerance and openness as something to be immensely proud of.
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