Harringay, Haringey - So Good they Spelt it Twice!
How European Do You Feel?
At a social event on the Ladder over the weekend, conversation turned to Brexit. I mentioned that one of the reasons I am sad/angry/embarrassed about the direction we've been taken is because I feel European. Two of the people I was chatting with, although ardent Reaminers, responded that they didn't really fell at all European.
So, it got me wondering how people in general feel about their European identities. I'm happily a Londoner, an Englishman, a Brit and a European; all identities can live happily side by side. How do you feel?
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by John McMullan on
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You need to own more than one house to benefit from the increase in value. It's pointless the value of our houses going up like this if it means our children won't be able to buy their own place.
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I don't feel European. I perhaps feel a little bit English but definitely not European. I think this is because I only hold a New Zealand passport so have never had the right to live and work there. To me it's just somewhere I go on holiday.
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Permalink Reply by Maddy on
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I wonder if it has also to do with speaking other languages? I have fluent French and good Italian, and can get by in Spanish and basic German. I feel very European, and have always been brought up to consider myself that way even though my 'heritage' is 100% English. My parents had lived through WW2 and their parents through WW1 and they saw a united Europe as a force for peace (which it has largely been).
Language teaching in schools these days is even more patchy (sometimes non-existent) than when I was growing up, where you more-or-less had to study French, from a French-speaking specialist, for a few years. Now it's been renamed Modern Foreign Languages, and you often find for example a German specialist having to teach other languages instead. It's possible to pass a GCSE in French now by memorising and parroting, without any real understanding of the language; I know this because I helped a friend's child get a C grade when he clearly didn't really know a word of French (or care less!)
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Permalink Reply by vaneska on
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Can you imagine, as a random example off the top of my head, the people of Taiwan announcing that they are not Asian? The absurdity.
Something has become quite clear to me since the 23rd: I am European first and foremost. And I grieve that I no longer feel British.
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Permalink Reply by Hugh on
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I'm not sure that I agree that Brexit has diluted the extent to which the people I talk to feel European. However you're not the first person I've heard expressing a preference for your European identity over your British one since that fateful day.
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Permalink Reply by matt on
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What is 'European'? I think the identity split is city vs everyone else in smaller towns/villages, wherever you are. Places like London are so outward looking and interconnected with other cities worldwide it's almost a different planet. Remember feeling the same in Hong Kong.
Maybe the idea of an interconnected Europe is more a metropolitan ideal or construct, helped by transport connections, institutions, media, political power ... and stadiums full of euro football supporters :)
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It's more than that, Hugh - I actually feel robbed of my European 'nationality' against my will.
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Me too. I've been an EU citizen all my life. I don't think the older generations who formed their identies outside the EU quite realise what they've done to us.
I find it ironic that my dad still complains about his part of Northumberland becoming Tyne and Wear, yet can't understand I might feel the same about being taken out of the EU.
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Permalink Reply by Sandi on
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Interesting question Hugh. Mourned (still mourning!) our soon-to-exit, but not sure I felt European. More Londoner, British, Guyanese, Indian in that order I think...
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