First off sorry if it rambles, I dont have a direct train of thought just my views on being British.
Am I proud to be British? well lets look at that statment, first off what is British? well as most people know it litterally means England, Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales. But on a slightly more deeper Level it means working together, yes the road was rough and maybe it was imposing someone elses will on others but I think our working together is a good thing, which is why I never say I'm English (even though I am) I will always say British, why? because being British is how we made the modern world.
I live in a society thats atcually quite odd, we were once the greatest empire the world had ever seen, we could send our ships half way across the world to Brazil and force them to stop slavery, take over countrys with ease (this is dabatable if its a good thing or a bad thing but I am in a pro empire camp all be it a small one) and yet our power is gone. I live in a country that has lost its greatness, one who's image is shaped by looking at the past and looking at the present and realising that were failures.
All comedys are about failure, our most famous sports men and women are failures (always getting second but never quite winning) and yet we still worship them like they won.
As a Brit I find very little in our times to be proud of, we invented a computer but wouldnt allow it to be declassifide and by the time it did the Americans had started preducing comerical computers.
So am I proud to be British, it would seem at first no, not at all. This however is wrong. I am proud to be British however I am proud of my past.
I'm proud of the Empire we had and I think we are lacking an active empire in the world today. In Africa we took countrys from incapable rulers and transported the systems that would make good goverment and a strong economy, when we ruled africa the gdp was alot closer to our own than it is now, there were far less wars and people on the whole had alot better rights.
We were the melting pot of the world, the first industrial nation one producing vast amounts of products and with our empire we exported this around the globe (in countrys part of the empire we had no tarriffs so it litterally was a free market economy and this means that economys developed faster). Our class system in many ways was also something to be proud of, the working class though impovrished (which something should of been done about) did have a distinctive culture, the Aristocracy also had a distinctive culture. However for me it was the Middle class that makes me proud to be British. The Middle classes were surrounded by the uneducated and the idiots, the Middle class built grand buildings in the citys, they commissioned art work supported religion and they even founded schools. This was urban regeneration on a grand scale, these medicians as they liked to see themselves were the people who truely made the difference in the empire. These were the people to abolish slavery.
I'm proud to be British because of our past but find myself ever increasingly disenfranchised with our now as our goverment continues with its images of grandure when it really doesnt have the power to make the difference it desires to do.
Am I proud to be British? well lets look at that statment, first off what is British? well as most people know it litterally means England, Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales. But on a slightly more deeper Level it means working together, yes the road was rough and maybe it was imposing someone elses will on others but I think our working together is a good thing, which is why I never say I'm English (even though I am) I will always say British, why? because being British is how we made the modern world.
I live in a society thats atcually quite odd, we were once the greatest empire the world had ever seen, we could send our ships half way across the world to Brazil and force them to stop slavery, take over countrys with ease (this is dabatable if its a good thing or a bad thing but I am in a pro empire camp all be it a small one) and yet our power is gone. I live in a country that has lost its greatness, one who's image is shaped by looking at the past and looking at the present and realising that were failures.
All comedys are about failure, our most famous sports men and women are failures (always getting second but never quite winning) and yet we still worship them like they won.
As a Brit I find very little in our times to be proud of, we invented a computer but wouldnt allow it to be declassifide and by the time it did the Americans had started preducing comerical computers.
So am I proud to be British, it would seem at first no, not at all. This however is wrong. I am proud to be British however I am proud of my past.
I'm proud of the Empire we had and I think we are lacking an active empire in the world today. In Africa we took countrys from incapable rulers and transported the systems that would make good goverment and a strong economy, when we ruled africa the gdp was alot closer to our own than it is now, there were far less wars and people on the whole had alot better rights.
We were the melting pot of the world, the first industrial nation one producing vast amounts of products and with our empire we exported this around the globe (in countrys part of the empire we had no tarriffs so it litterally was a free market economy and this means that economys developed faster). Our class system in many ways was also something to be proud of, the working class though impovrished (which something should of been done about) did have a distinctive culture, the Aristocracy also had a distinctive culture. However for me it was the Middle class that makes me proud to be British. The Middle classes were surrounded by the uneducated and the idiots, the Middle class built grand buildings in the citys, they commissioned art work supported religion and they even founded schools. This was urban regeneration on a grand scale, these medicians as they liked to see themselves were the people who truely made the difference in the empire. These were the people to abolish slavery.
I'm proud to be British because of our past but find myself ever increasingly disenfranchised with our now as our goverment continues with its images of grandure when it really doesnt have the power to make the difference it desires to do.
