Post by Teddy Bear on Aug 8, 2012 23:25:10 GMT
Excellent piece by Daniel Hannan on how the BBC have been using British successes in the Olympics to present it as a multicultural triumph. A notion that the writer doesn't go along with.
Multiculturalism? Nonsense. The Olympics are a victory for patriotism and common British values
By Daniel Hannan
The Olympic Games have brought British patriotism back into fashion: British patriotism in its broadest, most benevolent, most generous form.
Watching the first event, the men’s cycling road race, in Surrey, I sensed that something had changed.
Every house along the route was draped with Union flags. The people in front of those houses were cheerfully handing round drinks and sandwiches to strangers, united by the warm feeling that they were all hoping for the same thing.
The disappointing position of the Team GB cyclists when they eventually flashed past made little difference to the mood. People had been celebrating their common identity with one another, not just with Britain’s sportsmen.
Similar scenes have been repeated all over the country ever since, British spectators of all backgrounds uncomplicatedly cheering British athletes of all backgrounds.
For example, Mo Farah, who won a magnificent victory in the 10,000 metres, moved to the United Kingdom from the Horn of Africa when he was nine. Asked by a journalist whether he wouldn’t rather have run for Somalia, he swiftly replied: ‘Look, mate, this is my country. When I put on the Great Britain vest, I feel proud — very proud.’
Not that any of this stopped Evan Davis, a presenter on Radio 4’s Today programme, from asking Boris Johnson whether Conservatives were as comfortable as Labour supporters with the Games as ‘a really fantastic advert for multicultural, multiethnic Britain’.
It’s a typical BBC tactic to rattle off ‘multi-cultural-multi-ethnic’ as though it were a single word, a single concept. In fact, the Olympic Games celebrate the precise opposite of multiculturalism.
The Union flags now flying all over the country are totems of a shared loyalty that supersedes ancestral ties. Wherever our parents were born, we can be patriotic Britons by signing up to a set of common values.
And a pretty decent set of values they are: free speech, parliamentary democracy, jury trials, religious toleration, personal liberty, habeas corpus. These are the precepts which make Britain a more agreeable place to live than, say, Somalia.
The United Kingdom, unlike many of its continental neighbours, has traditionally had a civic rather than a racial concept of nationhood.
A hundred years ago, 80 per cent of British subjects in the then Empire were neither white nor Christian. Yet, twice in the last century, tens of millions of young men came from across the Empire to fight for a country which, in most cases, they had never set eyes on, because they believed in what it stood for.
Perhaps you have to be a BBC presenter not to see this.
Twenty-two years after famously wondering at the loyalty of crowds at cricket matches, I suspect that Norman Tebbit (the Tory peer said an immigrant’s allegiance should be judged by which side they cheered when England played a Test match) is allowing himself a thin smile.
The truth is that there are few signs of divided loyalties in Britain this week.
Tebbit’s cricket test was handsomely passed at Headingley over the weekend, as South Africa-born Kevin Pietersen knocked his former homeland’s balls all over the grounds to amused chants of: ‘He’s ours not yours!’
Boris Johnson, who is having an utterly splendid Olympics, did something similar to Evan Davis’s questions. When it was put to him that the Games were ‘not so great for the Right’, he replied: ‘Kids around the country are seeing that the more you put in, the more you get out — which is a wonderful Conservative lesson in life.’
Spot on, Boris.
In the run-up to the Games, we enjoyed the comedy series Twenty Twelve, in which a gang of quangocrats and busybodies chuntered on endlessly about multi-culturalism, inclusivity and diversity. The Games themselves, by contrast, are about patriotism, elitism and ruthless competition.
Here are a few more points that Boris might have made, had he wanted to crush the ludicrous notion of the Olympic Games being ‘not great for the Right’.
First, the Games have reminded us of quite how much we admire the Armed Forces, who this fortnight are supplying so much of the security.
Seeing servicemen close up, rather than in some foreign field on television, many of us have been taking the opportunity to thank them. We are lucky to live in a country where civilians like and respect their soldiers — and, for that matter, their police officers, who are being applauded wherever they appear.
Second, the sight of so many delirious parents watching their now grown-up children — the children whom they had happily ferried to training session after training session — is a reminder that families are much better than government agencies as providers of education, inspiration, healthcare, social security and discipline.
Third, the Games are a vindication of competition in schools. Some Leftie columnists have been whining about the fact that a disproportionate number of the athletes were educated in the independent sector, but what does this tell us?
The answer is that, in general, independent schools have encouraged competitive sports in the realisation that the flawed ‘all must have prizes’ philosophy is a poor preparation for life beyond the school gates.
Of course, there are plenty of state schools that offer sporting opportunities — an increasing number, indeed, as Education Secretary Michael Gove’s reforms start to take effect. It could be a wonderful achievement if the legacy of the Olympics was that every school in Britain fostered the same ethos.
Fourth, the United Kingdom has been shown to stand for something very strong. These Games have been bad news for those on both sides of the Scottish border who see the Union simply as a technical arrangement.
England, Scotland, Wales and Ulster all have claims on their inhabitants’ loyalties, but there is also such a thing as British patriotism. In Aberdeen or Aberystwyth, Antrim or Andover, we are one people, speaking the same language, shopping at the same chain stores, watching the same television programmes, singing the same songs.
We know ourselves with all our faults: brave, taciturn, prone to drunkenness, stubborn, bloody-minded. Yet we recognise, too, that our country has given a great deal to the world.
We developed and exported the sublime idea that the individual was more important than the State, and that laws ought not to be passed nor taxes raised except by our own elected representatives.
In pursuit of those values, we have more than once saved Europe from tyranny. God knows, we have had our shameful moments, too, but when the reckoning is made, few countries have contributed so much to the happiness of Mankind.
Not everyone who displays a Union flag in their window would put it in so many words, but most of us sense that that flag stands for something — something to be proud of.
Best of all, these Olympics seem to have cured us of the belief that it is somehow un-British to win.
‘Show me a good loser and I’ll show you a loser,’ said the actor Paul Newman.
Our ancestors didn’t raise these islands to greatness by revelling in mediocrity. Sportsmanship, decency, seeing the other chap’s point of view — those are British virtues right enough. But there is no dishonour in also wanting to succeed.
And, while it would be un-British to gloat, I think we can be forgiven a certain inner satisfaction, after French President Francois Hollande’s boast about rolling out the red carpet for his own country’s victorious athletes, at the way we are thrashing the French.
Not so great for the Right? It certainly is. But it’s also great for the whole country.
By Daniel Hannan
The Olympic Games have brought British patriotism back into fashion: British patriotism in its broadest, most benevolent, most generous form.
Watching the first event, the men’s cycling road race, in Surrey, I sensed that something had changed.
Every house along the route was draped with Union flags. The people in front of those houses were cheerfully handing round drinks and sandwiches to strangers, united by the warm feeling that they were all hoping for the same thing.
The disappointing position of the Team GB cyclists when they eventually flashed past made little difference to the mood. People had been celebrating their common identity with one another, not just with Britain’s sportsmen.
Similar scenes have been repeated all over the country ever since, British spectators of all backgrounds uncomplicatedly cheering British athletes of all backgrounds.
For example, Mo Farah, who won a magnificent victory in the 10,000 metres, moved to the United Kingdom from the Horn of Africa when he was nine. Asked by a journalist whether he wouldn’t rather have run for Somalia, he swiftly replied: ‘Look, mate, this is my country. When I put on the Great Britain vest, I feel proud — very proud.’
Not that any of this stopped Evan Davis, a presenter on Radio 4’s Today programme, from asking Boris Johnson whether Conservatives were as comfortable as Labour supporters with the Games as ‘a really fantastic advert for multicultural, multiethnic Britain’.
It’s a typical BBC tactic to rattle off ‘multi-cultural-multi-ethnic’ as though it were a single word, a single concept. In fact, the Olympic Games celebrate the precise opposite of multiculturalism.
The Union flags now flying all over the country are totems of a shared loyalty that supersedes ancestral ties. Wherever our parents were born, we can be patriotic Britons by signing up to a set of common values.
And a pretty decent set of values they are: free speech, parliamentary democracy, jury trials, religious toleration, personal liberty, habeas corpus. These are the precepts which make Britain a more agreeable place to live than, say, Somalia.
The United Kingdom, unlike many of its continental neighbours, has traditionally had a civic rather than a racial concept of nationhood.
A hundred years ago, 80 per cent of British subjects in the then Empire were neither white nor Christian. Yet, twice in the last century, tens of millions of young men came from across the Empire to fight for a country which, in most cases, they had never set eyes on, because they believed in what it stood for.
Perhaps you have to be a BBC presenter not to see this.
Twenty-two years after famously wondering at the loyalty of crowds at cricket matches, I suspect that Norman Tebbit (the Tory peer said an immigrant’s allegiance should be judged by which side they cheered when England played a Test match) is allowing himself a thin smile.
The truth is that there are few signs of divided loyalties in Britain this week.
Tebbit’s cricket test was handsomely passed at Headingley over the weekend, as South Africa-born Kevin Pietersen knocked his former homeland’s balls all over the grounds to amused chants of: ‘He’s ours not yours!’
Boris Johnson, who is having an utterly splendid Olympics, did something similar to Evan Davis’s questions. When it was put to him that the Games were ‘not so great for the Right’, he replied: ‘Kids around the country are seeing that the more you put in, the more you get out — which is a wonderful Conservative lesson in life.’
Spot on, Boris.
In the run-up to the Games, we enjoyed the comedy series Twenty Twelve, in which a gang of quangocrats and busybodies chuntered on endlessly about multi-culturalism, inclusivity and diversity. The Games themselves, by contrast, are about patriotism, elitism and ruthless competition.
Here are a few more points that Boris might have made, had he wanted to crush the ludicrous notion of the Olympic Games being ‘not great for the Right’.
First, the Games have reminded us of quite how much we admire the Armed Forces, who this fortnight are supplying so much of the security.
Seeing servicemen close up, rather than in some foreign field on television, many of us have been taking the opportunity to thank them. We are lucky to live in a country where civilians like and respect their soldiers — and, for that matter, their police officers, who are being applauded wherever they appear.
Second, the sight of so many delirious parents watching their now grown-up children — the children whom they had happily ferried to training session after training session — is a reminder that families are much better than government agencies as providers of education, inspiration, healthcare, social security and discipline.
Third, the Games are a vindication of competition in schools. Some Leftie columnists have been whining about the fact that a disproportionate number of the athletes were educated in the independent sector, but what does this tell us?
The answer is that, in general, independent schools have encouraged competitive sports in the realisation that the flawed ‘all must have prizes’ philosophy is a poor preparation for life beyond the school gates.
Of course, there are plenty of state schools that offer sporting opportunities — an increasing number, indeed, as Education Secretary Michael Gove’s reforms start to take effect. It could be a wonderful achievement if the legacy of the Olympics was that every school in Britain fostered the same ethos.
Fourth, the United Kingdom has been shown to stand for something very strong. These Games have been bad news for those on both sides of the Scottish border who see the Union simply as a technical arrangement.
England, Scotland, Wales and Ulster all have claims on their inhabitants’ loyalties, but there is also such a thing as British patriotism. In Aberdeen or Aberystwyth, Antrim or Andover, we are one people, speaking the same language, shopping at the same chain stores, watching the same television programmes, singing the same songs.
We know ourselves with all our faults: brave, taciturn, prone to drunkenness, stubborn, bloody-minded. Yet we recognise, too, that our country has given a great deal to the world.
We developed and exported the sublime idea that the individual was more important than the State, and that laws ought not to be passed nor taxes raised except by our own elected representatives.
In pursuit of those values, we have more than once saved Europe from tyranny. God knows, we have had our shameful moments, too, but when the reckoning is made, few countries have contributed so much to the happiness of Mankind.
Not everyone who displays a Union flag in their window would put it in so many words, but most of us sense that that flag stands for something — something to be proud of.
Best of all, these Olympics seem to have cured us of the belief that it is somehow un-British to win.
‘Show me a good loser and I’ll show you a loser,’ said the actor Paul Newman.
Our ancestors didn’t raise these islands to greatness by revelling in mediocrity. Sportsmanship, decency, seeing the other chap’s point of view — those are British virtues right enough. But there is no dishonour in also wanting to succeed.
And, while it would be un-British to gloat, I think we can be forgiven a certain inner satisfaction, after French President Francois Hollande’s boast about rolling out the red carpet for his own country’s victorious athletes, at the way we are thrashing the French.
Not so great for the Right? It certainly is. But it’s also great for the whole country.