“Combo: But I've got one question to ask you. Do you consider yourself English, or Jamaican? [There's a long uneasy silence, as Milky looks around nervously to the rest of his friends... ] Milky: [eventually] English. Combo: Lovely, lovely, love you for that, that's fucking great. A proud man, learn from him; that's a proud man. That's what we need, man. That's what this nation has been built on, proud men. Proud fucking warriors! Two thousand years this little tiny fucking island has been raped and pillaged, by people who have come here and wanted a piece of it - two fucking world wars! Men have laid down their lives for this. For this... and for what? So people can stick their fucking flag in the ground and say, "Yeah! This is England. And this is England, and this is England." (reference).
Combo, the leader of a small nationalist group, were truly convinced that England was being taken over by immigrants. Nationalist movements still exist in Britain, and their influence is increasing. This essay will try to analyze why two nationalist organizations, the National Front (NF) and the more radical British National Party (BNP), arose in Britain, how they act in society today, and what consequences this has in society.
During the second world war, the people living in the British Empire were portrayed as loyal and as a part of the British people. They fought in the war alongside britons, and their right to migrate to Britain was only disputed if they were non-white. After the war, when the immigration from the non-white colonies continued, the British attitude towards non-whites changed (Webster 54). Paul Gilroy argues that this is due to the fact that the British people lost a sense of comfort as their society became less homogen...
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This is England. Dir. Shane Meadows. Perf. Thomas Turgoose, Stephen Graham, and and Andrew Shim. Non-stop Entertainment, 2006. Film.
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every journey is full of obstacles and how bad extremisms can be. This and elements such as
Heath, A. “What has happened to the extreme Right in Britain. Working Paper, 23, 1993.
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Husain, Ed. The Islamist: Why I Joined Radical Islam in Britain, What I Saw inside and Why I Left. London:
Postcolonial criticism, as suggested in the textbook, “has developed because of the dramatic shrinking of the world and the increasing multicultural cast of our own country” (1603). As described by Andrea Smith in his book “From Heteropatriarchy and the Three pillars of White Supremacy”, “The
First off, the last thing Nasser and the Free Officers needed after the coup was a resurgence of the Wafd or problems of any other parties such as the communists or Muslim Brotherhood. At certain points during the coup and later dealing with the British, the Muslim Brotherhood and communists worked in conjunction and were even partially represented with the RCC (Thornhill 905) primarily due to the resentment for the current regime. To solve this however the Free Officers had to play it careful, it started out by keeping Ali Maher as prime minister, who talked of how the Free Officers involvement would only be brief and elections would soon be reinstated. This gave the British the idea that order was being kept in Egypt and Maher was for the most part in control, because of this the British wouldn’t see as much of a need to storm into Egypt and risk inciting anti-British riots.
The movie “This is England” was released in 2006, written and directed by Shane Meadows , a story taken, in part, from his life as a boy growing up in the Midlands of England. Mr. Meadows work presents to the viewer a representation of the cultural depiction of the street gang known as Skinheads, in a non-stereotypical light. This is England is a drama combining peer pressure, gangs and gang violence, social gatherings, loss and companionship of youths in a working class environment of a small town in England. This is England has been nominated and has also won multiple awards, according to IMDb.com, several nominations are from the British Academy of Film and Television (BAFTA), Golden Kinnaree Award for Best Film, Best Screenplay for British Independent Film Awards and won the Alexander Korda Award for Best British Film additionally won Best European Film from the Mons International Festival of Love Films. This film stars Thomas Turgoose as Shaun, the 12-year-old troubled youth whom this film revolves around, Stephen Graham as Combo and Joseph Gilgun as Woody. Shaun's troubles seem to begin with the loss of his father, an officer, killed during the Falkland War. Subject to bullying from other local gang types, Mods, New Romantics . . ., depression takes it toll on young Shaun. Seemingly, being a loner, Shaun happens upon a small group of older teenage kids, Skinheads, led by a charismatic boy named Woody. Woody takes an immediate liking to Shaun and invites him to join his group. Shaun finds camaraderie in being a part of this group, and they all enjoying the carefree life of being kids, although sometimes the play progresses into vandalism like where a small group of abandoned, derelict housing units meet further destruction a...
.... According to Pippa Norris, an individual's degree of nationalism is constructed in a young age and it is based on “the international context of the time “(stone and Muir, 2007:5), for example, citizens who were born in the 1940s in the time of the World War II will have a stronger sense of Britishness than the ones born in the time of globalization and conflicts over the EU. The younger generations identify less with Britain than their parents or grandparents. The Home Office Citizenship Survey consider age to be the most powerful driver of “belonging to Britain” and the survey show that people over 75 years old feel the strongest identification with Britain (Heath and Roberts, 2008). If the same trend of a weak national allegiance among younger generations remains in the upcoming years, the British national identity will sure be weakened (Stone and Muir, 2007).
These horrors caused by nationalism seem to be at the opposite end of the spectrum from the promising ideal of democracy. As Ghia Nodia pointed out, many analysts view nationalism as “fundamentally antidemocratic” (3). What these anti-nationalists fail to realize is that nationalism has also called force heroism and even sacrifice throughout history. Numerous people have risked their lives to restore democracy and civil rights in their nations, when they could easily have chosen comfortable exile elsewhere. Indeed, nationalism is the very basis of democratic government because it unites the citizens as “we the people”, supports the common political destiny, and nurtures trust toward the government.
The concept of racism is a relatively modern term that made its appearance in the 18th century. The practices and processes that have helped shape racism in British society today must be looked at as a series of ideologies, that have been built into British institutions and organisations as a consequence of the historical contexts of colonialism and imperialism. However, ideas of race and differences between races are rooted even earlier than this, even as far back in history as the 16th century. Even though racism can operate on levels of both individual racism and institutional racism, it is the later that will be looked at in this essay together with the historical context of Colonialism, and the political ideologies in the form of the Immigration acts that have shaped and still shape racism in British society (Mason 1995).
Quindlen, Anna. "A Pyrrhic Victory." Current Issues and Enduring Questions. Ed Sylvan Barnet and Hugo Bedau. Boston: Bedford Books, 1996. 431-432
Garner, R., Ferdinand, P. and Lawson, S. (2009) Introduction to Politics. 2nd edition. Oxford: Oxford University Press.