https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episodes/m0026rgz/simon-schamas-story-of-us
Simon Schama's "Story of Us" is an immigrant's fantasy, is profoundly racist and makes a deep mistake.
I have watched one and a half episodes with great interest, Schama is a great story teller and choses very interesting subject matter. But all this is irrelevant to the topic he has chosen this time.
He proudly announces that his parents were proudly British and Jewish, both born in London. If I remember right, if not they were immigrants and he was born in Britain. But it makes no difference Sharma may be born in England but no one would think for a second he is English. He has Russian roots and a DNA test will show instantly that he and his background originate from Russian Jews.
He effectively admits he has no interest in being English, he is proudly Jewish, and I assume that includes Russian also. If he examines his family customs and the customs of his community he will identity Eastern European and Jewish identity and not English. A crude example would be avoiding pork, but that is a demonstrable fact that points at much deeper loyalties, identities and historicity.
No one has a problem with this. But in exactly the same way that he is proudly Jewish so are the inhabitants of England proudly English.
Now the English are a generous and hospitable people and have been more of less accepting of immigrants. English are interested in immigrants we learn from immigrants and we absorb immigrants into English culture. Some famous examples are Christianity brought here by the Romans, Fish and Chips which came from Portuguese Jews and Curry which came from Bangladeshi immigrants in Birmingham. All are now considered fundamentally English. Just as the words of English have a variety of sources so too do the English.
But the thing to note here is that they have been adopted by the English. This is not the say that every custom that comes to the shores of England is automatically English. It has to be adopted and absorbed into the English culture and communities to become English. It undergoes a natural organic assimilation by the people who already live here. This is not to say that England is homogenous, every part has local customs and traditions making a rich tapestry but the key thing is the people in each region accept and belong to their culture.
When immigrants come they bring attitudes, customs and cultures that belong elsewhere and obviously will not be immediately recognised or accepted.
The obvious argument here is that if immigrants expect the local English to immediately accept their customs then the local English have a greater expectation that immigrants should immediately accept their customs and culture. After all why would anyone move to a country where they have no interest in adopting the local culture and customs? Would you really move to an Islamic country if you have no interest in Islam. Think about it!
So the problem obviously with Simon Schama's view of England (Britain as he calls it) is that its an empty country free for immigration. This was the view that the European Colonists had of North American and the result of this view was the genocide of the people who already lived there.
Schama's ideas are a stronger version of NAZI ideas. While the NAZIs supported some of the original inhabitants of Germany and expelled the rest. Schama is giving absolutely no acknowledgement of the people who live in England. It is a purely Immigrant view of England and overlooks 75% of the population who have deep roots here and identify with the country and its customs.
There are people living in England who have been living here longer than there have even been Jews. The culture of England precedes everything that Schama is proud of in his own heritage. But does he even reference this? There is a fundamental contradiction between being proud of your own foreign heritage in a community proud of its own. To be proud of being a Russian Jew and British means you have to warp what British or Jew means. Perhaps if you eat the country's most celebrated food like Lincolnshire sausages or Pork Pie you will see the contradiction. To be an English man this is what you eat. Why would you not? If it's because of customs that originate in the Middle East you are clearly not respecting English culture and so are a traitor to the country. Now it is possible for the English to adopt this Middle Eastern culture: we have adopted Christianity. But is Schama going to convert the communities in which he lives to Middle Eastern culture so that he can belong to them, or is he going to remain an outsider? And if he tries to convert and fails then he must accept the community culture or remain an outsider. and he cannot fall back on personal choice because as a Jew does he have a personal choice to eat pork? No he is clearly committed to one community and its rules and not committed to English culture and its rules. He is an outsider and there is no escaping it.
Now if Schama wishes to be accepted in this country as an English man, so that he is no longer an immigrant he needs to think about something. How easy would it be for an Englishman to be called a Jew? Jews more than any other people should be fully familiar with barriers to membership. As a result Schama can fully understand that he will never be called English and the "us" he is referring to obviously does not exist, any more than there is an "us" that combines Jews and Gentiles.
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There is a simple test of whether a foreigner has at least within themselves been assimilated into England or Britain. In the case of Schama, if Britain went to war with Israel or Russia would he fight and support the English war effort? It is obvious that someone who would back the enemy is not English and worse is actually a traitor.
Obviously the test is quite complicated. It is quite possible for the English to challenge their own country's war plans. We saw this in 2003 when many saw the invasion of Iraq as unjustified. But they were not defending Iraq because of loyalty to Iraq, but loyalty to reason and justice. And they were not attacking the British government because of a lack of loyalty to England but because they disagreed with the leaders of England. There is also the brand of English person who rejects warfare all together. They do not fight for England, they do not fight for anyone.
The test is specifically to look for foreign loyalties that are greater than the loyalty for home. In essence you belong where your heart is.
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