Saint Georges Day

I got a text message this morning which read, exactly, as follows:

"My ENGLISH pride I will not hide.
My ENGLISH race I will not disgrace.
My ENGLISH blood flows hot and true.
My ENGLISH people will stand by you.
Through thick and thin till the day we die
our English pride stand so high
ST GEORGES DAY is coming send this
too English people and show your ENGLISH PRIDE !!"

The person who sent it to me said he wasn't sure if this text was a joke but he suspects not. Although this person who sent it to me I'm sure isn't racist, I think the person who sent it to him was... or somewhere down the line (wherever the hell this came from) it came from some one with racist intentions. Of course I didn't send the text on to any one else but it got me thinking today and made me want to sit down and write.

Saint Georges Day frankly is total bollocks, they have been trying to make it the same as Saint Patrick's Day really - like somebody somewhere is trying to make this into some sort of celebration. Saint Patrick's Day can be a bit of a laugh everyone seems to enjoy it and there is no hint of any superior nationalistic (Irish) pride associated with Patrick's Day. Paddies Day, as its came to be known seems only to exist as a marketing exercise for the brewers of Guinness to sell more alcohol. Anyway we are getting sidetracked! The thought of English people standing around getting drunk in the pub (which happens all the time anyway) simply because there is an added reference of some vague almost certainly non existent mythical person called Saint George (he kills dragons remember!) fills me with dread.
What is going into a pub on a day like today (with loads of plastic Saint Georges Flags stuck every where) supposed to symbolise?
Sorry getting sidetracked again, I wasn't wanting to talk about little plastic flags.....

The point I wanted to make though is what emotions and thoughts do you get from reading the above text? Firstly the persons grammar isn't great (but I can hardly comment on that because mine is shocking sometimes too!) but aside from that don't you think the words above are rather nationalistic?
What is all this talk of "blood" and "race", "through thick and thin till the day I die...?"
What crap is this?
Is this 1933 or something?

For the record Saint George has got nothing to do with England, he was Roman / Turkish it seems and is the patron saint of Aragon, Catalonia, England, Ethiopia, Georgia, Greece, Lithuania, Palestine, Portugal, and Russia, as well as the cities of Amersfoort, Beirut, Bteghrine, Cáceres, Spain, Ferrara, Freiburg, Genoa, Ljubljana, Gozo, Pomorie, Qormi, Lod, and Moscow, as well as a wide range of professions, organizations, and disease sufferers. (I got that bit from wikipedia)

I've never had any pride what so ever in being born in England. This country has done enough in the way of invasions, enslavement, colonisation, rape, torture and committed genocide in every continent it every went to to give us enough shame to last a while. The English nation continues to warp the instruments of its power to keep its elite in the rich club of nations, keeping the wealth in the hands of the few and pulls the strings of globalization with the rest of the global western elites for its own ends. It creates havoc in the world by sending its army of war criminals and thugs over to Iraq and Afghanistan to kill anything it deems to label a terrorist!

I'm on a rant - you can probably tell - but I'm getting sidetracked again, but might as well keep going and try and change direction... (deep breath)

As it happens I personally don't even believe that such a concept as race actually exists in any real tangible sense? Race is only an idea in the mind. Surely biology has proven to us that the concept of race is a myth - as mythical as that of St George even. How could you define anything with such a complex muddy (and murky) history as the 'English' as a race anyway...? Where would you start...? The Angeln from Schleswig- Holstein perhaps..? And then what after that... the hundreds of generations that followed of invasions and immigrations that keep coming to this isle, where exactly in this mix is this race of people with this special superior blood that this text this morning was talking of!

Not only do I not believe there is an English Race but I don't think there is any such thing as race period. The idea of race as the above text suggests - of a shared blood and unique and somehow special group of people - is nonsense. Many people that I know who are not themselves racist would however agree that an idea of race exists - people use the concept of race often enough in every day speak without racist meanings or intent. However if biology proves that race doesn't exist what then...? There are nationalism's and ethnicity - these exist for sure and these can be dangerous. We are in some sense members of ethnic groups and through this we claim cultural continuities over time but these are always fluid, in flux and evolve through environment and exposure to time and movement. There are no fixed cultural ethnicities, each of us will effect and change (in a small way) the culture that we are apart of. Whereas with race, we are led to believe that such a monolithic construct such as race exists! Blood and Soil and all that rubbish.
The things that hold us together as communities, as citizens and as ethnic groups are essentially cultural. The culture of our society and of our ethnic selves - should, I believe, be one where we forbid and expose ideas of race and argue it down. The idea of race - of being untainted and unique and special in a world of 'others' - who are defined by what they lack in comparison to us - is a falsehood designed to stir up the human emotion and create false notions in people. Once you believe in race, you are free to go out and do whatever your elders and leaders want you to do because to not do so will threaten your race. Here is a key aspect, I think, of what constitutes racism - you have to feel under threat and therefore must take steps to protect yourself - to paraphrase the text above... join us now, do not hide, because the English people will stand by you till the day we die... because whatever happens I'm not going to stop being who I am - because I am so proud and great and your clearly not and nobody can change me, I'd rather die than be muddied by you... etc... etc... etc...

Which is as I've been suggesting is not only racist but the kind of thinking that seems to bypass evolution completely.

Now I think that is nearly enough ranting today. I hope I've made my point!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I'll leave you with the following lyrics from the track Racist Friend by The Special AKA

PEACE, LOVE AND WARM BEER!

NEIL

If you have a racist friend, now is the time, now is the time for your friendship to end
Be it your sister, be it your brother, be it your cousin or your uncle or your lover
If you have a racist friend, now is the time, now is the time for your friendship to end
Be it your best friend, or any other, is it your husband or your father or your mother?

Tell them, change their views or change their friends, now is the time, now is the time for your friendship to end

So if you know a racist who thinks he is your friend, now is the time, now is the time for your friendship to end
Call yourself my friend, now is the time to make up your mind, don't try to pretend
Be it your sister, be it your brother, be it your cousin or your uncle or your lover
So if you are a racist, our friendship has got to end
And if your friends are racist, don't pretend to be my friend
So if you have a racist friend, now is the time, now is the time for our friendship to end

Summer is coming... I can smell it!

After a few days of sunshine the temperature in London approached the dizzy heights of 21 C yesterday! And then this morning on the way out the house it seemed a touch more humid than normal and then the rain came. But it wasn't the dull grey rain that sends shivers through you, as in winter, rather it was clean refreshing spring rain. The type of rain that makes smiles. The sort of rain that is light and dreamy and you can walk about in it comfortably and still feel ok, in fact I felt happy.

So with that sort of feeling I suppose there is no doubt about it, that SUMMER buzz is coming - indeed today it was attempting to hum its arrival! It may take another few months to get into bloom but already I feel it in my bones. I smelt the promise of summer as I walked from Archway tube station along to my physiotherapy session. On the side of the road in the long green grass and the gently swaying trees came that smell - that summer smell that takes you back, as only smells can do, to an old glorious memory. Sadly it was only a five minute walk and if I didn't have to be somewhere I could have marched on in the rain for hours.

After the physio session I walked back to Finsbury Park and took a detour through a small little park I've never been through before, the rain had stopped but the earth still smelt magic.
Only a few weeks ago these green areas only just seemed to be waking up to this fact, the daffodils tried their best as usual but the trees still seemed as bare and ill as normal. But now its all go, have you noticed the birds have picked up the tweeting a notch or two as well?

It's only a simple little observation but such a joy it was to me: lets walk in the rain and smile and let the northern hemisphere have the light for a while - this little corner of Europe - these grey humdrum streets of North London need some sparkle after the bland lifeless winter.
Celebrate the coming of the light!

Here's to SUMMER - to bright long days and wild imaginations!
Peace.

NEIL

Introducing the Blog!

Hello and Welcome to my very first Blog!

It was about 10 years ago that I first entered the high tech world of the internet and I got my first hotmail email account one warm spring day in an internet cafe in Newcastle.
Now 10 years on - edging a little further down the road one step at a time - I've ventured further into the internet webbery thingy by deciding to write my very own blog!
I'm still not very technologically savvy with all things computers but I'm learning. I'll apologise now in advance for the spelling mistakes and incompetence.

So anyway you've probably got here because you're some sort of friend of mine and I've sent you an email with a link to this page. But yet the question remains... have I actually got anything interesting to say...? No doubt time will tell.
So I hope you all sign up for my regular (irregular) posts which no doubt will feature my musings on life, death, god, happiness, sadness, love, hate, beauty, ugliness, hope, despair, football, music and other such trivial matters. So bookmark this site, subscribe to my posts and whatever technical things you're supposed to do with computers and join me in my random rants and raves about all things that are aimlessly running around in my mind.

I reserve the right to write!

So I sit here on Easter Sunday, 12th April 2009 - the day this beast was kick started - and just want to say welcome!
Enjoy the ride.

NEIL