One of the curious things about being in East Berlin while the EU staggers to financial collapse is to watch the various manifestations of European tribalism at work. Small countries; small minds. Now It’s England’s turn, with Dave the Prat telling the rest of Europe to get stuffed, and thereby feeding a frenzy of that old anti-continental spite. But what is weird about all this is the way the English pundits speak of ‘Europe’ as something apart from themselves. It’s ‘Europe’s’ problem, they say, and we want nothing to do with it. But since when is England not part of Europe? Is it the massive body of water separating that small island from the rest of Europe? Then you’d have to include Cyprus and substantial parts of Denmark. Is it the case that the Anglo-Saxon, Viking and Norman invasions were not really European? Or that the English language has no relation to its Germanic base? Or is it yet another version of European tribalism, now manifested as English exceptionalism? Maybe it’s none of this and Dave the Prat is really an unwitting agent of the Chinese waiting for the Euro to collapse.
10 December, 2011
Is England part of Europe? Or tribalism revisited
Posted by stalinsmoustache under economics, total depravity | Tags: England, Euro, Europe, tribalism |[5] Comments
11 December, 2011 at 3:24 am
I’m afraid you are wrong on this one. Britain is an island off the coast of Europe. This position allowed the tiny UK to win and maintain a world empire on which the Sun never set and the blood never dried. This allowed us to pioneer the industrial revolution.
You can be rude about the PM if you like but don’t allow emotion to stop you making a concrete analysis of the situation. HMG has vetoed the treaty in the interests of the City of London. However, that does not mean that the European leaders were acting in the interests of the proletariat.
11 December, 2011 at 4:54 am
George, I agree and disagree. I am no champion of the odious EU, which has been disastrous for Eastern Europe – source of cheap labour once they closed down all the industry. But let’s not assert that England is not part of Europe. May as well argue that Norway isn’t either.
11 December, 2011 at 5:24 am
Agree that Cameron’s primary motive in voting against the treaty was to coddle the parasitic rentiers in the City of London, and that the EU is basically there to grease the wheels of capitalism and needs to be dismantled. To this however needs to be added the break-up of Britain itself, something Tom Nairn has been advocating for decades. Scotland would be in a regional alliance with the Scandinavian countries, the north of Ireland would be reunited with the south, and could exist in a regional alliance that may include Wales, and the Breton and Basque peoples.
11 December, 2011 at 8:02 am
Absolutely. It’s why I insist on using ‘England’.
12 December, 2011 at 7:24 pm
Yes, there could be a break-up of Britain. But think it through.
Why would this happen? Because people in Wales, for example, feel that Wales is not part of Britain They might even feel they were part of some Breton/Basque entity.
If I was arguing against such a break-up then I wouldn’t bother to say that it was silly to say that Wales, etc. is not part of Britain.
Campaigning in Feltham and Heston I feel a lot closer to the Indian sub-continent than I do to Europe.
Of course, there is a European element but it is Eastern Europe – Poland, Rumania, not France or Holland.
There is a similar situation in Lewisham thought the mix is different: the Caribbean and West African connections are stronger.
The key feature of Britain’s geography has been its position as an island in the Atlantic Ocean. This gave it better access to the rest of the world than we had to most of Europe.