England: A land built on blood

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"The English murdered peoples, languages and laws. And they hate everything that reminds them of the fact. .....Hypocrisy, violence and charm are for the foreign observer the three keys to the English way. The hypocrisy begins with the history and its cover-up of violence."

So argues Hywell Williams :
http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,3604,778093,00.html

Is he right? Is the history of England one of violence and hypocrisy?

― stevo (stevo), Wednesday, 21 August 2002 06:10 (twenty-three years ago)

Yeah, probably. We're a bunch of cunts - had you not spotted that?

― N. (nickdastoor), Wednesday, 21 August 2002 06:53 (twenty-three years ago)

Heh, all the violence is right out in the open! Does this guy ever look out his window? Anyway, violence x hypocrisy = civilisation!

― dave q, Wednesday, 21 August 2002 07:08 (twenty-three years ago)

As Shaggy said: It wasn't me.

― Pete (Pete), Wednesday, 21 August 2002 07:30 (twenty-three years ago)

And Shaggy is an honorable man.

― N. (nickdastoor), Wednesday, 21 August 2002 07:36 (twenty-three years ago)

Um, surely *all* nations were built on blood and lies?

― RickyT (RickyT), Wednesday, 21 August 2002 07:38 (twenty-three years ago)

Surely not Trevor Nelson's Dance Nation?

― N. (nickdastoor), Wednesday, 21 August 2002 07:47 (twenty-three years ago)

as a non English person, I think you can overstate the awfulness of England's role in fucking up other countries.

on a purely proportionate level I don't any comparable British imperial possession was run on the barbaric level the Belgian Congo was, for instance.

― DV (dirtyvicar), Wednesday, 21 August 2002 07:58 (twenty-three years ago)

Trevor Nelson has as much blood on his hands as any of us

― RickyT (RickyT), Wednesday, 21 August 2002 08:11 (twenty-three years ago)

nope, the british empire was nothing to be proud of. or the dutch or french colonies.

england also has a long history of being on the receiving end of invasions as well. not that this is a valid excuse.

and stevo, where are you from?

(my point being that it's not only the english)

andy

― koogs, Wednesday, 21 August 2002 08:51 (twenty-three years ago)

andy/koogs- i'm from England, live in the Netherlands, and have dual British-Dutch nationality.

The core of Williams' argument isn't related to the British empire, but rather the history, and identity, of England itself. Namely the destruction of the Celtic peoples and culture by waves of Germanic tribal invasions centuries ago.

Personally I find his rhetoric overblown and hysterical ( the use of 'genocide' is especially contentious) - from a writer whose 'Guilty Men' book on the collapse of the Major administration I enjoyed - but having recently been reading and thinking about the collapse of Yugoslavia, 'Britishness', and the rise of 'ethnic nationalism', the raw victimhood of his prose hit a nerve.

― stevo (stevo), Wednesday, 21 August 2002 09:14 (twenty-three years ago)

just read the article and it's pretty much another model of the worst and most laughable kind of Guardian "think piece". oooh in stone age times tribes were nasty to each other! how awful, we should all be ashamed of ourselves. It obviously goes to show we are all to some extent genocidal maniacs. well, the "genocide" may or may not have taken place and if it did it was forty generations ago, but.. er.. we should certainly compensate the (hypothetical) victims.... who by the way are "Uncle Toms" if they cling their old customs... Oh, and Kipling. bad man. very nasty piece of work.

― pulpo, Wednesday, 21 August 2002 09:46 (twenty-three years ago)

Nick you are SO funny! You made me laugh out loud! And yes Rainy and Duane I want to marry Nick bla bla etc. I've always thought of Britons as quite polite and kind. After all, they killed less Maori in New Zealand than Aboriginals in Australia so - um - well I don't know, they did kill less people than the conquistadors, I think.

― maryann, Wednesday, 21 August 2002 09:47 (twenty-three years ago)

england also has a long history of being on the receiving end of invasions as well. not that this is a valid excuse.

uh, when was England last invaded? a bit less recently than Belgium, say, I'll wager.

― DV (dirtyvicar), Wednesday, 21 August 2002 09:59 (twenty-three years ago)

Last successful invasion was in 1688, the so called Glorious Revolution.

― RickyT (RickyT), Wednesday, 21 August 2002 10:04 (twenty-three years ago)

Maryann is taking the piss out of me.

― N. (nickdastoor), Wednesday, 21 August 2002 10:07 (twenty-three years ago)

The ancient history of the British Isles is (for shame) not a specialist subject of mine but it so happens I'm reading a book at the moment which talks about how the Celts invaded Britain fron about 500 BC onwards... Presumably crushing the native culture / language?

That's not to say there's nothing to be ashamed of in English history, of course. But that piece seems motivated by hatred, which I tend to think isn't a great place to start.

Having said that I'm a product of Welsh / English interbreeding, and since he's using words like "Uncle Tom" he would probably consider me some kind of debased humanity, eh?

― Tim (Tim), Wednesday, 21 August 2002 10:16 (twenty-three years ago)

Glorious Revolution lead to GIN! I am all about glorious revolutions! Not so much the depraved MORAL HORROR of the GIN CRAZE - although, haven't we all known only too well the horrors of the gin craze.

Ahem, I have shunned the popular science book for tube reading in favour of MADAM GENEVA. It is so good that I missed my stop at Westminister and ended up in St James Park this morning. Oops.

― Sarah (starry), Wednesday, 21 August 2002 10:22 (twenty-three years ago)

Glad you like it.

― RickyT (RickyT), Wednesday, 21 August 2002 10:28 (twenty-three years ago)

Were they the beaker people, Tim?

― N. (nickdastoor), Wednesday, 21 August 2002 10:44 (twenty-three years ago)

Meeeeeeeeep!

― Beaker Person, Wednesday, 21 August 2002 10:45 (twenty-three years ago)

(this was surely a language that was crying out to be crushed)

― N. (nickdastoor), Wednesday, 21 August 2002 10:48 (twenty-three years ago)

>The core of Williams' argument isn't related to the British empire

i should've read the article first...

>but rather the history, and identity, of England itself. Namely the
>destruction of the Celtic peoples and culture by waves of Germanic
>tribal invasions centuries ago.

well exactly, there wasn't just one invasion so attributing all that destruction to 'the english' is just plain wrong.

UNLESS, when he starts on about 'a millenium and a half' he means the last 1500 years, ie after all the invasions and the murder and destruction he talks about is the rewriting of history / the forgetting.

er,
andy

― koogs, Wednesday, 21 August 2002 11:42 (twenty-three years ago)

should cultures and languages be sheltered from the ravages of social darwinism in the same way that the lives of human beings are?

― pulpo, Wednesday, 21 August 2002 11:53 (twenty-three years ago)

Yes they should, or else people get sad.

― N. (nickdastoor), Wednesday, 21 August 2002 11:54 (twenty-three years ago)

or at least they get worked-up on message boards.

― chris (chris), Wednesday, 21 August 2002 12:02 (twenty-three years ago)

TIM HOPKINS says

>>> that piece seems motivated by hatred, which I tend to think isn't a great place to start.

????hahahaha!!!!

― the pinefox, Wednesday, 21 August 2002 12:24 (twenty-three years ago)

(Actually like Mr H I think that piece is silly)

― the pinefox, Wednesday, 21 August 2002 12:25 (twenty-three years ago)

Hey man, I love everything.

― Tim (Tim), Wednesday, 21 August 2002 12:30 (twenty-three years ago)

I thought England was built on a nice loam with a granite base.

― Dan Perry (Dan Perry), Wednesday, 21 August 2002 12:32 (twenty-three years ago)

Sadly, said base has been weakened by nuclear-powered weevils.

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Wednesday, 21 August 2002 14:41 (twenty-three years ago)

'social darwinism'

― Josh (Josh), Wednesday, 21 August 2002 17:26 (twenty-three years ago)

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