Are the English a dying breed?

[angle20 10]

Rudyard Kipling captured some of the intangible aspects:

 

The Stranger

 

The Stranger within my gate,

He may be true or kind,

But he does not talk my talk --

I cannot feel his mind.

I see the face and the eyes and the mouth,

But not the soul behind.

 

The men of my own stock

They may do ill or well,

But they tell the lies I am wonted to.

They are used to the lies I tell,

And we do not need interpreters

When we go to buy and sell.

 

The Stranger within my gates,

He may be evil or good,

But I cannot tell what powers control

What reasons sway his mood;

Nor when the Gods of his far-off land

Shall repossess his blood.

 

The men of my own stock,

Bitter bad they may be,

But, at least, they hear the things I hear,

And see the things I see;

And whatever I think of them and their likes

They think of the likes of me.

 

This was my father's belief

And this is also mine:

Let the corn be all one sheaf --

And the grapes be all one vine,

Ere our children's teeth are set on edge

By bitter bread and wine.

 

[boyfriday 21]

My bad mate. Like I said I have been away for a long time and just plunged back in. Not even considered having my past incarnations as a sig. To be honest it should not matter how many posts I have made or for how long I have been a member here. What I say should be treated on its own merits, and people should not be having a go for that reason. Just because a person has not posted much does not make that persons contrubutions any less valuable.

 

There was no secret agenda in me not pasting my previous post count and name onto my posts. Like I said - did not think it was that important.

 

Dragon

 

I absolutely agree Dragon, but you'll recall that you attributed sentiments to me earlier, challenging my posts, that a new poster wouldn't have been in a position to make.

[DragonofAna 10]

Titanic99 I so disagree with you on almost all counts. It is important that we remember our past indiscretions as well as our good history, otherwise we may forget that we are not perfect. I am proud that I and my coutrymen can accept that mistakes have been made and that they remember those mistakes as opposed to sweeping them under the carpet.

 

And you fail to recognise that everything you say depends upon little more than concepts. In a hundred years the things you are saying now may well be frowned upon and your memory may be castigated for those things - but for now you believe them to be good. When slavery was at its peak people were of the belief that such is how things were meant to be. I am not going to spit on the memories of those people because they lacked hindsight.

 

If I was playing racism cards then I would mention that I cannot do many things in muslim countries because those things are against the muslim faith, but they do pretty much what they want over here.

 

This is not about racism. It is about pride in being English. I have much more to be proud of than to condemn.

 

Dragon

[boyfriday 21]

i dont see the difference whether he has made 1 post or 100,000 surely the post count is immaterial to his views

 

Please read my post Glam, I don't care how many posts someone has made, I'm merely referring to the fact that he has knowledge of others that isn't apparent when they are replying to his posts.

 

It was Dragon that mentioned post count and how many he'd made in his previous identity.

[DragonofAna 10]

All the time you only joined on the 18th August with 96 posts so all the time is quite a broad statement.

But all in all i agree with what you have said there is an element of truth in it i have stooped to that level too and am not afraid to admit it

This is last post on this thread so all the best carry on

 

Here you go boyfriday. The value of my posts was raised by the above post.

 

I tend not to personalise my responses based on my knowledge of the poster but based on the content of their posts.

 

Now - back to topic perhaps?

 

Dragon

[boyfriday 21]

Now - back to topic perhaps?

Dragon

 

..yes, back to topic, sadly that statement denies me the opportunity to reply to you publicly.

[Titanic99 10]

Titanic99 I so disagree with you on almost all counts. It is important that we remember our past indiscretions as well as our good history, otherwise we may forget that we are not perfect. I am proud that I and my coutrymen can accept that mistakes have been made and that they remember those mistakes as opposed to sweeping them under the carpet.

 

And you fail to recognise that everything you say depends upon little more than concepts. In a hundred years the things you are saying now may well be frowned upon and your memory may be castigated for those things - but for now you believe them to be good. When slavery was at its peak people were of the belief that such is how things were meant to be. I am not going to spit on the memories of those people because they lacked hindsight.

 

If I was playing racism cards then I would mention that I cannot do many things in muslim countries because those things are against the muslim faith, but they do pretty much what they want over here.

 

This is not about racism. It is about pride in being English. I have much more to be proud of than to condemn.

 

Dragon

 

I don't see how you've worked out that you disagree with me on so many counts, take your first paragraph for example. I can honestly say that I agree with everything you've put in it with the slight deviation in that I don't believe children of this country are told the more negative aspects of our past.

 

I don't agree with your second paragraph, using your example I cannot accept that anyone actively involved in the enslavery of others or colinisation of anothers land believed this was right at the time.

 

I agree with you on your third point, but surely this is a positive aspect of British/English society and we should be proud of this.

[DragonofAna 10]

In respect to the first point - you said -

Not true, we can be proud of the positive aspects of our History, just as we should be embarassed about the more negative aspects.

 

Sorry but this implied to me that we should sweep our bad past under the carpet. You do not show and tell when you are embarrassed about something.

 

As for my second point - can you not accept that some things that we consider bad today were acceptable yesteryear and vice versa? If this is true then how can we condemn our ancestors?

 

I agree with you on your third point, but surely this is a positive aspect of British/English society and we should be proud of this.

 

But not at the expense of our own culture and our own ways which are both getting more and more difficult to recognise.

 

Dragon

[tab1 10]

I believe you are of Pakistani origin..tell me what emotions go through your head when Pakistan defeat England at cricket,what do tou feel when you see the Pakistani national flag flying proudly,what are your emotions when you read about troubles in Pakistan,do you know the Pakistan national anthem and if you were at a event were it was being played would you stand for it and possibly join in and would you defend Pakistan unconditionally

Since I haven't gone through indoctrination that you seem to have then that allows me to have a more balanced view of life and don't get overly emotional about flying flags. As with FUTO cricket is not important to me and nor is football for that matter. Anthems are important to people at National events and as with FUTO would treat any anthem with dignified respect. Now having answered your questions I would expect to be brave enough to answer questions I posed to you. Can you just explain these statements please

 

Didnt say you aint got a right to post on here,what i am saying is the post was about English culture which you can never have any idea of hence your anti English rant

as you have proved,ould not have any idea about the workings of English patriotism...not British,note,English.

As I stated earlier all the immigrants be they 1st,2nd,3rd generation may be British but they will never be English

 

Oh and by the way strange as it seems Indians were not fighting solely for Britain in WW2 they were fighting for their own freedom as well.

why I would have no idea about the culture I have been surrounded by all my life?

And why do you deny that any others made sacrifices for this country?

[Titanic99 10]

In respect to the first point - you said -

 

Sorry but this implied to me that we should sweep our bad past under the carpet. You do not show and tell when you are embarrassed about something.

 

As for my second point - can you not accept that some things that we consider bad today were acceptable yesteryear and vice versa? If this is true then how can we condemn our ancestors?

 

 

 

But not at the expense of our own culture and our own ways which are both getting more and more difficult to recognise.

 

Dragon

 

I can accept and defend people, who committed acts that they believed were morally justifiable at the time, irrespective of when that time was and whether or not different values are applied to these acts now. However, I cannot accept or feel proud of any nation/person who have committed acts against other people/nations, knowing that these actions cannot be justified at that moment in time, hence my reluctance to embrace this notion that we should all feel proud of our countrys past.

 

With regards to your point about our culture becoming more and more difficult to recognise.

 

I cannot comment on this as in order to establish this I'd need to know what it looked like in the first place and despite my best efforts I've never been able to get someone to describe what our culture is.

[tab1 10]

We are talking about the here and now, Tab1. I can’t be responsible for what happened in my country over 200 years ago as I wasn’t there.

Absolutely, but your ancestors were there, and isn't this discussion about heritage and culture? Surely then as Glamrock claims credit for all the good his ancestors did, so you should shoulder repsnsibility of yours.

I realize that my country was taken from the Native Americans by the English throne and the US government, amongst others. And yes, there were hard feelings against the English at the time the US declared independence and rightly so, but that was 200 years ago. We’ve long gotten past that. And one difference is that people who move to the US from other cultures, while retaining their own, also integrate American culture.

 

(my bold)

It was a little ore than hard feelings IMO, they were actually killing the british and taking pride in it. The difference you point to as the main difference is that there you don't have little Nodens and Glamrocks running round saying no one else can ever have any idea what their culture is about, and even less so if they happen to be a different skin tone.

 

 

Let me share a little story with you. I was in the States back in the spring visiting my sister and one of her kids was in a spring musical production, which I attended. It was full of patriotic songs such as The Star Spangled Banner, America the Beautiful, My Country Tis of Thee, etc. There, in the audience, sat a Muslim immigrant woman watching her Muslim grandson, sing the songs, hand over heart, just like the rest of the kids.

Nice story eh, so why then if the same situation occurs here the woman will be told by Glamrock that she has no right to do that because it's his culture.

 

You see, she and her family have embraced the American culture and in return, have been encourage to retain their own. They are new to the US but they have found patriotism.

And what encouragement are your partner and the racists giving the likes of me and BF and FUTO and others who have spent all of our lives here and are accused of trying to change the English culture.

 

You can’t find any patriotism for the country you call home, but then, I’m not sure you could find your way out of a paper bag.

After all that I don't know your hair colour but certainly intellect shouts out BLOND!!

[DragonofAna 10]

I can accept and defend people, who committed acts that they believed were morally justifiable at the time, irrespective of when that time was and whether or not different values are applied to these acts now. However, I cannot accept or feel proud of any nation/person who have committed acts against other people/nations, knowing that these actions cannot be justified at that moment in time, hence my reluctance to embrace this notion that we should all feel proud of our countrys past.

 

So no-one should be proud of anything as you find me a country whose peoples have not been responsible for some atrocity or other. In fact - this applies not just to the distant past, but is a continuing saga.

 

From the beginnings of time people have done wrong knowing that what they are doing is wrong, but does this mean we should not be proud of our many achievements and the way we have worked to overcome the wrongs of the past?

 

Can you not see that some of those wrongs have resulted in benefits for the people who were wronged? Benefits they may not otherwise have received?

 

Seems no matter who you are, where you are, or when you are there is a mentality that believes you should be proud of nothing at all.

 

Dragon