[vesavius]

Originally Posted by GoldHeart

George can believe what he wants,but I don't know why he has issue with people being patriot of their own country, isn't that exactly how he feels about the UK himself . Like Zelah said,can they not be proud to be both British & Pakistani or whatever heritage or background they are ? .


Is he going to tell Nancy she can't wave the Italian flag ,or Tate the Scottish flag and so on ? .

There is a difference between nationalism & Patriotism , you can respect other countries aswell as your own .

Also he is talking about the different languages being put up around the UK ,but like Caroline said...you can go abroad and English is also put up .

Brits will go to Spain expecting the locals to automatically understand them ,whilst they themselves refuse to learn Spanish. Obviously this doesn't apply to everyone ,if you're well travelled or whatever...I would like to think you'd try to learn the language,even if everyone in the country spoke fluent English .

I don't think he has a problem at all with others being patriotic about their own country, I think he just wants to right to patriotic about his without being challenged or being told that that English culture 'doesn't exist'. He wants to preserve his, as others demand the right to preserve theirs. I think that's ok.

Just to say, Nationalism is a fine and valid political position. It is not inherently even right wing and many socialist organisations have been nationalistic. The SNP has been for most of it's existence, for example. It's not a bad thing thing to be nationalistic.

If I did move to another country permanently I would def learn the language. A few pensioner boomers in Spain is not the same though as the replacement of near entire boroughs and even cities with foreign nationals.

English is a special case language wise... it is the de facto global language (through Empire and then the US). A Korean, for example, benefits from English being up because around 50% of Koreans speak English and Korea is one of the lower ranking East Asian countries for it. It's not for the benefit of the English, it's because it's the closest thing the world has to a shared tongue. I watch Asian survival shows and when Koreans, Chinese, and Japanese are grouped they always use English as their shared language.