[lit-ideas] Re: England good at "incorporating" immigrants
- From: Judith Evans <judithevans001@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Tue, 26 Apr 2011 21:30:07 +0100 (BST)
I was wrong, he doesn't only mean, e.g. Andrea Levy, he seems to include anyone
black or Asian writing in English who lives or has lived in England -- so,
includes Naipaul, Rushdie,
and Okri. A neat bit of cultural appropriation.
Caryl Phillips, Lawrence, calls England a "mongrel nation".
On Tue, 26/4/11, Lawrence Helm <lawrencehelm@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
From: Lawrence Helm <lawrencehelm@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Subject: [lit-ideas] Re: England good at "incorporating" immigrants
To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Date: Tuesday, 26 April, 2011, 20:03
JLS,
You can see I hope how “assimilate” is right for American immigrants (whether
or not it is right for English ones) – or at least it used to be right (this
goal may have been degraded in recent times). Washington and Adams may have
had English ancestries but Kennedy’s was Irish, Eisenhower’s probably German,
and Johnson’s perhaps Scandinavian. Still those distinctions never enter into
political discussions, for all Americans came from some place – and then they
assimilated and became roughly indistinguishable from everyone else. What was
Bush’s ancestry? I’m not sure I’ve ever heard anyone bring that up. Why would
they? (Granted Obama’s ancestry has been brought up but only because some are
challenging whether he was born in America and thus not eligible to be
president – not one of my concerns btw).
Hitler called us a nation of mongrels and, therefore, not up to facing the
Wehrmacht in battle. Is Britain (England, et al) on its own special road to
becoming a nation of mongrels? And what of Germany? Are the Turks
‘assimilating” or merely “incorporating.” The implication of King’s words may
be that the “mongrelization” process is much further along in England than in
Germany.
I’ve read a bit further in Bruce King’s book. He mentions conflicts aplenty,
one of the most notable in regard to British housing. He mentions influences
from the countries the immigrants came from, including Islamic Fundamentalism.
These influences, King tells us, fade away as time goes on and the immigrants
become more and more English (British). King is obviously of the school that
believes the Fundamentalist-Islamic threat exaggerated.
As to King’s use of the term “English” rather than “British,” he is after all
writing Volume 13 of The Oxford English Literary History.” He doesn’t
distinguish well enough for the language-critics the difference between English
as a language that great literature has been and is still being written and
England (a sometime synonym for “Britain”) the nation, and while I have a few
problems with what King has written that isn’t one of them.
Lawrence
From: Jlsperanza@xxxxxxx
Sent: Tuesday, April 26, 2011 10:57 AM
To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [lit-ideas] Re: England good at "incorporating" immigrants
In a message dated 4/26/2011 1:18:26 P.M. , lawrencehelm@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
writes:
http://www.lawrencehelm.com/2011/04/england-good-at-incorporating.html
Lawrence
For the record
L. K. Helm is quoting from B. King, "The Oxford English Literary History",
Section, 'The Internationalization of English Literature'.
Page 1:
“During the second half of the twentieth century the literature of England
went through a major change... Unlike previous period changes this one had
its basis in a large influx of peoples from elsewhere. ... If the nation
seemed to be withdrawing into a "little England" [scare quotes mine. JLS] of
post-imperial dreariness and irritation, having a diminished relationship
to Europe and the United States, or fragmenting into micro-nationalisms, the
new immigrants made English literature international in other ways than it
had been during the Empire." --- interesting here to consider, then,
"LITTLE England" versus "GREAT Britain". I once read that "Great", in "Great
Britain", and I actually believe this, the sailor in me, is due to a sailor's
chart: there are two Britains, or two British Isles: Britannia Maiora --
("Great" or "Major" Britain) and "Britannia Minora", or Minor England, or
Hibernia, or Ireland. This survives in the official name of the country (never
'nation'?):
"The Queen of Great Britain and Northern Ireland" -- this expression seems
to ENTAIL, rather than 'implicate' that Northern Ireland is not part of
"Great Britain" -- since it's a bit of the OTHER island. Surely someone born
in County Antrim can call herself a "Brit", as she is, because it's part of
"minor" Britain.
As student of history, and teacher of history, D. Ritchie, born north of
the Tweed, etc., may perhaps expand on the very specific dating of the
creation of "Britain" qua Empire, when, the last "King" or Queen of England
became King or Queen of the "Union" of England-cum-Scotland.
J. Evans, b. Bath, but with connections with Wales can even perhaps expand
on a perhaps EARLIER 'assimilation' between the Dragon of St. Davis of
Cymru (which does not, alas, feature in the _flag_ of "Great Britain" as the
Cross of St. Andrew or the Cross of St. Patrick, do, along with England's St.
George) and England. Again, with monarchical matters, "You will have a
king that does not speak Welsh" -- Edward I and II -- Edward II being too
young to speak either Welsh or English for that matter. And so on.
So, I find the emergence of historical facts so rich and glorious in good
Old England to just focus on what happened post the Coronation of Queen
Elizabeth II --. But I agree with Burgess, in his "History of English
Literature" that this is best seen as "Elizabethan Literature". "New
Elizabethan
era" of English literature.
Helm goes on to quote from King:
""England" [scare quotes mine -- not "Wales", or "Scotland", or "Ireland",
which have, according to Bruce, their own 'literatures'] was once more at
the centre of significant developments, and as England became multiracial
and multicultural the claim that they do things better in France no longer
applied."
I would need a listing. There was a recent prohibition in Paris to 'dress
as a Muslim' for a woman. The reporter went: "In France you can strip your
breast in Saint Tropez, but not hide your face in Notre Dame", or something.
I found it a good example of a zeugma. Or not.
"England was much better at incorporating people than most of Europe.""
The present concern with refugees passing from Liguria to Menton (and
Paris, in their six-month 'visas' to "visit relations") is causing problems with
the "Union" itself, so perhaps King should not generalise, "England" vs
the "Continent", since there are shades of 'how good or bad at incorporating'
stuff people are.
Assimilate is perhaps wrong -- since it presupposes 'similar'; incorporate
is perhaps bad, too, in that 'corpus', in Latin, meant _dead body_? And so
on.
Cheers,
Speranza
----- The Swimming-Pool Library, --- reading.
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