the Monday Musings column from that consultant bloke

Perhaps I am straying into dangerous waters here, but it what I am musing on on this morning so here I go. It is on my mind because I have been reading some of the media coverage of the build up to the soccer World Cup competition and the words of one fan have started me off on this topic.

The chap concerned admits that he has concerns about going as a fan because of his sexual leaning, but he feels that he needs to go as an English fan and wants to support his team in the competition, even though homosexuality is against the law where the tournament is being held. Sport does encourage nationalist fervour; it makes money out of it, but it is it worth putting yourself at risk over?

I used to enjoy watching sport and, like music, seeing it live enhances the enjoyment so I can understand, to a degree, a desire to go to a World Cup where the opportunity to afford the time and cost may only come around once in a lifetime. I have seen the England football team play in a World Cup qualifiing game at Wembley and, further back, have watched the England cricket team at Lords in test matches against the West Indies and India, but my interest in these was not so much in support of my country as an opportunity to watch the sport being played at the highest level: I did not care too much who won.

My ethnic background is, for about three generations, English. Beyond that it gets a little murky as I am, like most British people, a bit of a mongrel. My surname is classic Welsh; I am a Son of Owen. However that misleads because many people from Wales moved to Ireland where the surname is also common. Some of my ancestors moved there to get away from invaders, forced West by an influx from mainland Europe, or from Eastern tribes who were also faced with continental immigration: The problems of today are nothing new for, if you think about it, there wasn’t anyone here at the beginning and we are all ancestors of immigrants.

My family background on the ;paternal side can be traced back to Ireland and that trail goes cold with a fire that destroyed parish records back in 16 something or other. So my Welsh ancestors had gone over at some point before that, but here comes a small irony in that one of the biggest moves of that sort came after the Norman conquest when Bill’s mob took Welsh people as serfs (slaves if you prefer) over with them.

Now the ironic thing is that the Norman’s achieved their conquest of the UK with help from, amongst others, mercenaries from the Germanic states, (Germany as we know it did not exist until the latter half of the 1800s). My background on the maternal side can be traced back to those Germanic people so there is a good chance that my Mum’s andcestors either chased my Dad’s lot out of their homes or were part of taking them forcibly to the Emerald Isle.

I do understand the difference between English and British. My passport has me down as a citizen of the United Kingdom and, if asked, will say that I am British. That is an inescapable fact; I was born here. Technically, having be born in Berkshire, I am English and there have been many times when in the company of Scottish, Welsh or Irish (both North and South) people I have allowed my Englishness to come to the fore in banter, but I have never really felt strongly about it. Having a laugh over where I come from is one thing, but I can’t take it seriously.

Something else that I understand is that the European Union and Europe are not the same thing. I am glad that I am no longer a citizen of the former, but have long seen myself as a European. Whilst I have Celtic blood physically I take after my maternal side and am tall, blue eyed and lean towards fair so perhaps there is something in that that colours my judgement. In any case, England is in the United Kingdom and that is, in turn, in the continent of Europe.

I am an ethnic mongrel if you go back down the family tree a bit and that is maybe why I have no strong ethnic feelings nor nationalist ones. I was born here in England, have lived most of my life here and will probably die here. I like my country, but I have liked many of the places that I have visited around the world and would have been quite happy to have moved to some of them. Would I fight for my country? Yes, in the sense of defending it, although I’m not sure what use a seventy yer old would be these days. I suspect that that is just a base instinct about protecting one’s territory.

Perhaps it is that same base instinct that comes to the fore in people like the one that I mentioned early in this musing, that makes you want to support your country’s sporting squads. I can only speak for myself. I came into existence as a result of two people having, I hope, a good time. For me the location happened to be in Southern England and that hangs a label on me. I have some pride left in my country and I am not ashamed to be British, even if I don’t like what has become of the place in many ways. I just cannot get impassioned about my nationality in the way that so many others do.

Nor can I get excited about my ethnic background, although there may be something in my genes that has made me feel so at home in Northern Germany from my first visit to Kiel in the mid-seventies and then working in Hamburg and Hannover in the nineties. It could also have something to do with the way that I have felt so comfortable on the Emerald Isle for it was long after working in these places that I found out about my roots.

I am who I am and I feel no need to get excited about where I came from. It is all in the past and I can’t do anything about it. All I have ever been able to do is to try and work with the cards that I have been dealt. I have spent moire than half of my adult life with the woman of my dreams and am very content in my own little world. Life has been hard at times, but I have been very lucky along the way and am content with my lot. I don’t need to feel that sense of national or ethnic identity that seems so important to others.