A society's health, strength and longevity (i.e. long-term survival) depends very much on its individual members' sense of shared identity and belonging. When force and opportunism predominate in holding a society together it will be unhealthy, weak and (relatively) short-lived.

 

Who can doubt the weakness and unhealthiness of modern British society, or the fact that it is held together largely and increasingly by forced dependency and opportunism, rather than by a sense of common identity and belonging?

 

Gordon Brown, obviously. But then he (and a lot of others, including most of his parliamentary colleagues and the British media, who together are a powerful force indeed) has a very strong vested interest in maintaining a sense of British identity and the power structures of the state it supports.

 

Britain is not defined by ethnicity, Gordon Brown says, and of course, we HAVE to believe it; otherwise, we would find ourselves in very deep water indeed. The battle cry of those defending the multi-racial/multicultural nature of "Britishness" is a blood curdling, "Death to racists!" At the sound of which all opposition cows and gives way. It is like being called a heretic in medieval Europe with its instruments of torture to enforce, if necessary, religious conformity.

 

No! No! Call me anything, but please, NOT a "racist". I'll submit and confess to anything you want me to, if you'll just not call me a "racist". Pleeease! Pleeease!  And thus is our multi-racial/multicultural sense of "Britishness" forged in the fire of FEAR, of being called a "racist" if anyone should show the slightest sign of dissent.

 

But perhaps we should remind ourselves that the word "kingdom" has the same origin as "kin", and that it originally applied to a group of closely related clans who, if they shared nothing else, did share the same ethnicity.

 

And now, I am going to make a terrible confession - of heresy: central to my own sense of identity is my ethnicity as a native European. 

 

There, I've said it; I've contradicted Gordon Brown, and jumped into the deep end. I can swim, I know I can, but not if I'm being beaten about the head.

 

Ethnicity is central to my identity, not because I've decided that it should be, but because I FEEL that it IS. It's central, but not absolute or unconditional: I'm not going to defend the many crimes, e.g. genuine racism, of fellow Europeans, or be disrespectful towards or avoid contact or friendship with non-Europeans.

I'm a native, an ethnic European, as were all (or at least, the vast majority) of my ancestors. I'm not quite so sure of my purely British or English ancestry, and I know there's no such thing as "racial purity" amongst Europeans anyway. But I only need to look in the mirror, or at members of my family to see that I'm very much a European.  And it is with European history (more than 2500 years of it), prehistory, and culture that I identify (rather than with just British history). I'm not uninterested in archaeological finds made in China, India or Africa, for example, but am far MORE interested in finds made in Europe - because I can, and do, relate to them through my own ancestors.

  

Quotes from Gordon Brown's short article: "[Britain is], a model for the world . . . . Other countries can learn from us . . . . , we can be a beacon for the world".

What WOULD the world do without us?

Should Gordon Brown be criticized for his arrogance, praised for his cognizance and unashamed expression of "British superiority", or mocked for revealing what a deluded fool he is?

I go for both the first and the last option, but would emphasize the latter. A "stupid white man" if ever there was one! (thank God he's a Scot!)

". . . . the teaching of British history should be at the heart of the modern school curriculum, and the current review of the curriculum should root the teaching of citizenship more closely in British history", writes Mr Brown.

Hmmm . . . . . But British history, i.e. the history of these islands, goes back two millennia, and on into prehistory, and is intricately bound up with the history of continental Europe, all of which, with the exception of very modern history, is "hideously white", i.e. the history of native Europeans. How can we possibly root a sense of multi-racial/multicultural British identity in a history that we do not share? Of course, we cannot. It's just nonsense.

"Britain . . . is defined not by ethnicity", Mr Brown goes on to say, " but, at its core, by common values and shared interests that, in turn, shape our institutions".

Ahhhh, so perhaps we don't need to look to history after all. Which is just as well, in view of just how little New and native Britons share.

So, it's the "common values and shared interests that, in turn, shape our institutions" that bind us in our shared sense of British identity. Hmmmm . . . .  But these institutions all developed in the past, when the British population was still 99.9 percent native European. So how do New (non-white) Britons fit in there? I suppose, by accepting and adopting the common values and shared interests of native Britons.

It seems to me that Gordon Brown's ideas for a shared "British identity" are very shallow and totally inadequate as a basis for establishing or maintaining a healthy, strong and long-lived society.