We have seen a resurgence in English nationalism - and interest in England's patron saint:
One of the usual objections raised to considerations of English nationalism – and there are many – is that it doesn’t really exist and therefore shouldn’t be considered. However, understanding nationalism in general can help shed light on English nationalism in particular. One important element is the shift from nationhood to nationalism. A sense of belonging to a particular nation need not be politicised (nationhood), but it can become so if it is linked to a feeling of grievance, and has committed political actors to promote solutions to the perceived problem (nationalism). On St George's Day: English nationalism between Brexit and Covid-19 - UK in a changing Europe
Interestingly, St George is not just an English saint:
People across the world are celebrating Saint George, who has become a symbol of English nationalism in the UK - which is ironic, given that he wasn't even English... The irony of those clamouring for #Brexit festooning their homes with flags of a saint who was Greek or possibly Palestinian, with a Syrian mum, who grew up in Turkey and almost certainly had never even heard of England, let alone had anything to do with it. 5 reasons why St George would have hated the current state of England | indy100
But 'England and St George' have become very mixed up:
Ignore the scaremongering, the only people who have ever ‘cancelled’ St George are English Protestants
Nationalist mythology is what we make of it – but culture warriors could start by learning our own history
By Kate Maltby April 6, 2023
King Edward VI, a priggish 13-year-old who enjoyed putting down the adult men around him, was not a fan of Saint George the dragon slayer. For Edward of England, his nation’s patron saint was a bit of an embarrassment: a relic of the Catholic superstition that the hardline Protestants who had controlled his education had raised him to purge from his new kingdom. Why, he reportedly demanded of an elder courtier, did we honour a warrior who couldn’t even fight at close-quarters with his enemy? If English images of St George always showed him decorously poking the dragon with an absurdly long spear, “what was he doing with his sword the whole time?” ...
So if it were up to Edward VI, we now wouldn’t be celebrating St George’s Day at all. Just as Oliver Cromwell’s Parliament tried to ban Christmas. But political fashions change, and shortly after his premature death, Edward’s ultra-Catholic half-sister, Mary I, brought back St George and his full associations with England’s highest honour, the Garter.
I thought of Edward VI when I read the latest confected row about St George’s Day and our frothing contemporary culture wars. The Telegraph has claimed that Magdalen College, Oxford has jettisoned St George to honour Muslim sensitivities. The story alleged that this venerable Oxford college – which should be a bastion of all things Christian – has cancelled an “annual” dinner in honour of St George so that on 23 April, its hall can instead celebrate Eid al-Fitr, the feast marking the end of Ramadan. The problem is, like most stories designed to complain about minorities taking up space, it isn’t as presented. Magdalen’s records show no tradition of an annual feast of St George – among revolving experiments with various themed dinners, it has held a dinner for St George’s Day only five times in the past 100 years.
The real implication of the Telegraph’s story, of course, is that here in England a celebration of St George’s Day should take priority over any minority festival. It would do better to make that case honestly, rather than relying on tortuous misrepresentation. Beneath the framing of this story, with its suggestion of a Muslim population forcing out a Christian warrior, lies the rhetoric of a “clash of civilisations”. This is a call to arms against creeping invasion, drawing on symbolism as ancient as the earliest Islamic-Christian conflict in Europe.
Come 23 April, and Twitter will again be awash with self-righteous types pointing out that “St George was Turkish”, and “appropriated” by England. To which – firstly, he’s mythical; secondly, the legacy of a mediaeval Christendom in which English Christians felt shared identity with a figure from the Middle East is one which should perhaps convince “anti-racists” on the left to treat our medieval heritage with more nuance. Perhaps the West hasn’t always been as wickedly racist as they claim? (For centuries, in-group/out-group dynamics in Europe were religious rather than race-based.)
But the only people who have ever “cancelled” St George are English Protestants. Nationalist mythology is what we make of it – but culture warriors could start by learning our own history.
Finally:
No One Cares About St George's Day Because No One Cares About England
National pride is dying out. Here's why.
DISCLAIMER: This article was written by a Welsh person.
England is a sad little country. Sure, it's made some remarkable contributions to pop culture in its time, and the landscape is occasionally capable of moistening the eyes of even the most emotionally-repressed dad. But by and large, it's crap. There seems to be very little understanding among its people of the extent to which it is seen by its neighbouring kingdoms as the Gary Barlow of the group – the one with the most inflated ego, yet the least justification for it.
For a long time now, England has been suffering from a mass Napoleon complex: an entire country jacked up on invading half the countries on Earth was rightly forced to return them, and has been attempting to overcompensate for its perceived shortcomings ever since by, quite simply, being a massive bellend.
Why No One Cares About St George's Day
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