Get your flags out for the lads!

With the football European Championship, now known as UEFA EURO 2004™ (love the trademark symbol - says it all about modern football as a business), due to kick off on June 12th, England (not Britain) is being gripped by an epidemic of flags of St George flying from windows, plastered on pub fronts, and most irritatingly stuck to cars, just as happened two years ago in the World Cup. Brace yourselves for Ing-er-land fever, for the eruption of the reactionary, lachrymose, but oh-so-profitable patriotism which wafts up from the sewers (and the sewer Press) every time Ing-er-land (the footie team, that is, not the middle-class egg-chasers who are just "England") take part in another multinational war by proxy (sorry, 'international football tournament'). Grown men cry into their lager, women who should know and behave better scream and shout at pub TV screens, xenophobic stereotypes are flogged to death and beyond in the tabloids, football commentators describe England as "we" despite much of England's population being non-English (Alan "Blowhard" Green on Radio 5 is a particularly crass and loud example), foreign wars and disasters get knocked down the news agendas after news of David Beckham's metatarsal, and racist attacks rise sharply.

So what's new, you ask? Every tournament/war involving Ing-er-land has resulted in the same nauseating, and highly dangerous, upsurge of virulent patriotism in England. Keep your unpatriotic head down, keep your treasonous trap shut, and live with it. Three things, though, distinguish the English nationalism of recent tournaments from those of the past:

1. It's now English, not British nationalism being 'celebrated'.
2. The intensity of it has increased markedly.
3. There are bloody flags of St George everywhere.

This is hardly an original observation, and every pundit and his/her uncle will have their views as to why English nationalism has taken over from British, but the plain truth is that it's happened. The red cross is now ubiquitous, a fact which some liberal pundits seem to think is a GOOD THING, on the grounds that the symbol has been recuperated from the fascists of the BNP. According to these pundits, the flag of St George is now a symbol of an "inclusive" forward-looking England, and has been stripped of its reactionary and fascist overtones so that all of us in the New England can wear it with pride.

This is very much the wrong end of the stick, and shows a fundamental misunderstanding of the nature of English nationalism. The liberals would have it that the BNP stole the flag and invested it with reactionary symbolism, and that it's now been taken back to it's rightful owners. The opposite is the truth. The BNP took the flag in the first place precisely because it's deeply invested with reactionary symbolism, and the adoption of the flag by the Great British Public is a distressing indication that these reactionary values are now deeply embedded within the dominant English culture of all classes. The BNP won't be mourning the loss of 'their' symbol, rather their dark hearts will swell with pride as the flag's values have become common values. The dominant English nationalism which the flag represents is inherently reactionary, celebrating as it does ancient myths of Olde Englande, and deeds of warfare, conquest, and empire [1].

The dominant English nationalism represented by the flag cannot possibly be 'inclusive' or 'progressive', and more than the swastika can be 'recovered' as an ancient mystical symbol of healing or whatnot. The very essence of English nationalism, it's raison d'être, is exclusivity: this island race, this England, this happy breed, standing against foreign usurpers and invaders on the ramparts of Fortress Britain. What it means to be English is to not be a foreigner: an English(wo)man is defined by not being a dago/wop/frog/kraut/turk/paki/ayrab. Other countries have positive traditions and values which define their cultures - just speak to any Italian or Finn, for instance. Englishness is defined by negativity, by exclusiveness.

Which of course is not much comfort to non-white people of whatever generation living here, most of whom have bent over backwards and done double somersaults and triple salcos to become 'British' or 'English', to assimilate with the dominant, reactionary culture. They've been pissing in the wind, because dominant Englishness is by definition white - they've never had a chance of fitting in. The good news is that recent generations of non-white English people have seen that there's no point banging on the doors of a castle they'll never be let into, and instead have created their own Englishness, an Englishness which defines itself by inclusivity and diversity, an Englishness which explicitly rejects imperialist nostalgia and traditional English iconology (so well encapsulated by John Major when he waxed lyrical about drinking warm beer watching cricket on the village green).

And it seems like there are plenty of white people who subscribe to this new Englishness. I remember a workmate of mine in Hull, Janet B, an ordinary but very intelligent Hull native who's travelled widely, pining wistfully to me that she'd love to be able to celebrate Englishness in the way that the Scots and Irish and Italians celebrate their nationalisms, as a positive and progressive thing. (A rather naive view IMHO, given that all nationalisms have at least the seeds of reaction in them, but her sentiments were good.)

Trouble is, that sort of forward-looking, positive, multi-ethnic, grass-roots Englishness may be taking off in some cities, but it's a mere flea-bite in the skin of the dominant Englishness so actively 'celebrated' by the media, politicians, and much of the white population. What chance does it have against a sea of flags of St George, against the febrile patriotism of the scum Press (owned, of course, by foreigners, another irony which escapes yer average Ing-er-land fan as he reads the Ozzie-owned Sun and drinks his Danish lager and declares his loyalty to a German royal family), against the weight of history. What chance the Notting Hill Carnival as an icon of Englishness against the inertia of centuries of myth-making, empire, and war, against lachrymose images of the Battle of Britain, of Trafalgar, of Dunkirk? And as England becomes less economically and militarily powerful, as Scotland and Wales and even Northern Ireland get autonomy, as the world comes ever more under the control of multinational corporations and power blocs, as England slips down the economic league tables, so English nationalism becomes ever more virulent, bulldog-headed, regressive, racist, and plain violent. England becomes the Millwall of Europe: a nonentity second-division outfit with a hard-core following with the motto "No-one likes us, and we don't care".

So what, you ask again? Let the natives have their delusions of imperial grandeur, let them nourish their myths and legends - more fool they, but it's their choice, and it's fairly harmless. Trouble is, when a bout of English nationalism breaks out people get hurt, seriously hurt. It's not a good idea to be a foreigner, particularly a dark-skinned foreigner, or even a dark-skinned Englander, on the streets when an Ing-er-land match finishes and the pubs pile out, particularly not if the Three Lions have lost. Racist attacks are known to increase during football tournaments involving Ing-er-land, and there were a good few in Hull two years ago to my certain knowledge. A particular incident was after the first game of the tournament, which finished just before noon (the tournament was held in the Far East) so Ing-er-land fans were enjoying lager breakfasts. Sweden held Ing-er-lan to a 1-1 draw, which threatened Ing-er-lan's progression to the next round. Hundreds of disgruntled and pissed fans spilled out on to the streets of the Avenues, where most of Hull's asylum seekers and refugees were being housed, and chased after and beat the crap out of any refugess they could find in Pearson Park. That's the practical result of English nationalism: violence against the non-English, and that's what's going to happen again in this coming tournament.

Oh, and of course, it's absolutely nailed on that Ing-er-land will play Germany in the semis - think of it as dismal fate, kismet, bad karma, or just Sod's Law, but it'll happen sure as dogs piss on lamp-posts. Out will come all the hoardy old stereotypes and chants ("two world wars and one world cup"), German cars will get trashed, and the country will go onto a war footing. Best I save some of my holiday entitlement to escape to Scotland when that happens....

[1] That St George himself was likely of Middle Eastern origin is a lovely irony which naturally is ignored by 'patriots' - see the Encyclopedia Britannica entry on him.