The question at the heart of Lord Goldsmith’s review of citizenship, published this week, was essentially how to unify a diversified population through the school system. (Via a virtually unanimous ridiculing of his proposal that teens pledge allegiance to the Queen, was undoubtedly not what Goldsmith had had in mind.)
The main issue on the topic relates to the purpose of Goldsmith’s review, and indeed of citizenship as a subject. Citizenship’s primary aim appears to revolve around instilling a sense of identity and pride in being a British citizen. Arguably the most significant point is the fact that we are seeking ways to do this at all.
In most countries national pride is not something which needs to be superimposed, it is comparatively organic and inherent in everyday life. Why we the British are resorting to teaching national identity is largely due to the mistakes which have been made. The solution therefore, the route to a more unified society, is to remedy them.
In recent years in particular, the attitude has been that all that is British must be rejected in order that other cultures are not. The impact of this approach to embracing diversity has had the opposite effect: to erode all commonalities and exaggerate difference. This misjudgement has become increasingly apparent, and as a result we are seeing a climate change. There has been a realisation that it is perfectly possible to have a dual-identity, as witnessed in the US, for example. Across the Atlantic, we see that citizens of the United States can have a sense of an allegiance to both the country in which they live, and the one in which they or their ancestors were born. In other words, the two are not mutually exclusive.
It is not circumscribed citizenship classes, therefore, which are the answer to creating a greater sense of common identity through schools. It is rather dropping the apologetic stance pervasive in many areas of public bureaucracy, which have led to a Britishness 'deficit'. A sense of belonging and solidarity cannot be fostered in a vacuum. So no more bending over backwards in history to never convey Britain in a positive light, ditto to discarding English literature at every opportunity and scrapping all reference to Christmas in Christmas-time activities.
Comments (1)
While the idea of pupils taking a pledge of allegiance to the Queen is odd, the fact is that it is a personal relationship with and loyalty to the monarch and not citizenship that remains the legal basis of our community. People who become British nationals, only recently called citizens, take an oath of allegiance to the Queen.
The good thing about monarchy compared with citizenship is that it is far less nationalistic and has little ideological content.
One can be a loyal subject of the Queen while being Australian, Jamaican, English, Scots or Welsh.
One can be loyal to the Queen while regarding politically correct values that are the ethical content of citizenship as a load of clap trap.
Citizenship is a secular religion which has its origins in Greece and more recently Jacobin France and the Soviet Union. It is by nature totalitarian as it regards the state as the highest source of authority and the bestower of identity and giver of the one law that has to apply equally to everyone regulating every sphere of human life and existence.
That is what the Archbishop was objecting to. The monarch following Elizabeth I doesn't want to make windows into people's souls. The state does.
Posted by william | March 18, 2008 3:50 PM
Posted on March 18, 2008 15:50