About being "proud of your roots"

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I was just idly reading about Dermot O'Leary being "extremely proud of his Irish roots" (his parents are from Ireland, I believe, though he grew up in England). It suddenly struck me how weird I think that whole concept is.
Is it not just as absurd as someone being "ashamed"of their "roots"? How can they be a cause for either pride or shame?

DMIL is South African and emigrated in her twenties to another country. She experienced a number of comments for years about apartheid.

She still struggles with how privileged and lucky she was to have been born to white, wealthy parents. Comments from others didn't help this.

If asked where she is from, she says her adopted country. Although she loves South Africa and the people, she isn't proud of her roots - it's difficult to be proud of something that was so wrong.

Is it possible that these people are having difficulty grasping the concept because they don't perceive you as being a speaker of this different language, given that you are interacting with them in native English?

Then they really are ignorant and need to educate themselves on the history of the Irish language before they spout off about it.

"On poppies, I don't think they come into this. I wear a poppy partly because when I stood in graveyards full of unknown unidentified men, I felt that I would like to acknowledge what they went through. I like to stop and remember it. That's all."

Convenient that English traditions 'don't come into this.' I can't think of anything much more nationalistic and having pride in your roots than publicly wearing a symbol to remember dead soldiers that you don't even know.

Scremersford, you are completely misreading Cailindana who specifically said that (a) she likes it here, which is why she stays and (b) she doesn't meet many Irish people who live here, so that it was an unusual experience, which is hardly the attitude of someone who chooses to live in an Irish ghetto. She then reported that the other person said she was unhappy living here. An individual she happened to meet. Not some anti-UK coven that meets to whinge and spread sedition.

I've lived out of Ireland in several countries since I left university. I like it here, generally. I don't have a single close Irish friend in the UK. I have not made myself Irish ghettos anywhere in the many countries in which I have ever lived.

I will say that I have found it more difficult to live here as an Irish person than in any other country I have ever lived in, because being Irish was perceived as a possibly vaguely interesting accident of birth in the other places, or actually a hugely positive, terribly interesting thing (the US). Here there are still all kinds of connotations and associations, and yes, still some prejudice, about Irishness for many people. The good things about living here currently outweigh the bad for me, but that may not always be the case. And I certainly don't espouse the rather Enoch Powell-ite view that if an immigrant criticises anything about the UK (even if the target of that criticism is anti-immigrant prejudice), they should 'go back home'.

I don't think the poppy is necessarily just about British soldiers though.
Isn't it a symbol taken from the fields of Flanders where hundreds of soldiers had died. Wouldn't many of those soldiers have been German, Belgium and French?
I always thought the Poppy was for remembrance generally of dead soldiers. I think the money from the sale of Poppies to to families of British armed forces, but I never thought of the symbol itself as being a patriotic one.

I think the point about shame is an interesting, and actually I think lots of British people are somewhat ashamed of our collective past - although I recognise that shame is really too strong a word because of our distance from events. We have a history of genocide, we bought and sold people, the first concentration camp was British, our colonial past is full of exploitation of the people we conquered... When I have been British abroad, I have felt acutely aware of my national history, perhaps a little like SquadGoals DMIL. I didn't perpetrate it, but I have certainly benefited from it, and I think it's as well to think about that.

Scremersford, did you read anything I wrote?

I said, I like living in England, she didn't. I don't have any Irish friends at all, every single one of my friends is English, including my husband. Where did you get the idea I don't have English friends???

For me, being proud of my roots means my familial roots and background. I am proud of my hard working, brave grandparents (my granddad was part of the liberating forces that went into Bergen-Belsen) and proud of my parents who did their utmost to put us first even though they were never rich. I am proud of the values they all instilled in my sister's and I. I am proud of the things they've done for and with other people. I am proud to call them my family and do my best to instill those same values in my ds. It had nothing to do with geography and is more of an intangible concept. I suppose it is best described as my family's culture which has nothing to do with religion or location, but a general ethos handed down over generations that ties us together.

To clarify Scremersford, were weren't having some sort of anti-British protest, we were having a private conversation about how we felt. I don't see why that's 'a strange way to behave'.

When I think about past wars, WWII in particular, it is with a strong sense of 'there but for the grace of god' (am an atheist with but it's an apt expression). Had my ancestors lived in Germany, had I, would they / I have been among the few to resist nazism? I cannot truthfully answer yes to that, much as hindsight and my sense of myself as a good and moral person means I'd like to be able to. That is a starting point for some valuable introspection and thinking about things going on in the world today.

It's so easy when your ancestors were on the winning side to claim moral victory for yourself without applying any thought at all but so very complacent and potentially dangerous, I think. It's through this sort of selective identification that simplistic nationalism is built.

As it happens I'm a second generation immigrant (not that anyone would know if I didn't tell them) but my family are from an allied country - phewee! Seems to me they could, anyone's could, just as well have been German, or slave-traders or whatever.

But, I do feel lucky and to an extent proud to live in a country with some established political ideas and structures that contributed to it doing the right thing at some points in the past and while I'm here, I feel a responsibility to help maintain, develop, defend those, it's always an active process. So pride in action and achievement, anger and shame about negative actions. Neither just about 'being'.

I have no problem with pride about ancestors but It does get on my nerves when my family members constantly compare their or their parents homeland with where they are now and there is nothing stopping them moving. An Irish in law did move back for a whole 6 months. I have an Irish spelling of a name, the sniggering every time a new teacher read the register was horrific because my GM was Irish who herself left at the age of 12 but my mother still spoke with an Irish accent with family and broad scouse everywhere else (like bloody John Barrowman Scottish accent) and had never been to Ireland.

cailindana

But people do know soldiers that have passed in the wars you can't assume everyone who wears the poppy is doing it through national pride

I have an Irish name but I use my middle name instead because people can't grasp the spelling or pronunciation of my name.

We have relatives who were in the Hitler youth, I'm not ashamed of them at all. In fact it's useful for DD to understand that there was much more to ww2 than Allies good/Germans bad. DH great Aunt was actually killed for joining The Resistance but again we aren't proud because it's nothing we had any input in.
To be you can only be proud/ashamed of something you have done but there is nothing wrong at all with acknowledging your heritage and being glad you have a different culture in your life.

Also, like a pp I've never seen remembrance day as being about remembering 'our' (the country in which I reside but my contemporaneous ancestors did not) dead only. I really dislike the way the poppy had been hijacked, to an extent, by pro-military (at an organisational and moral level) and nationalist groups. I see it as about remembering sacrifice, wishing 'never again' and thoughts that follow from that.

It's never been about celebrating victory. I recall being really shocked by an American acquaintance who just assumed it was.

Calidana "Convenient that English traditions 'don't come into this.' I can't think of anything much more nationalistic and having pride in your roots than publicly wearing a symbol to remember dead soldiers that you don't even know."

oh sorry, I didn't mean "English traditions dont' come into this". I meant "roots" don't come into this because given what I think people's definition of "roots" are, they wouldn't say I have English roots as I'm the first generation of my family born in England.

I thought someone said upthread that wearing a poppy was about "roots" and that would clash with my alleged "roots". Well, not clash, but wouldn't be connected with them.

But...as far as Irish roots go..I don't think there are many people in Britain who don't have Irish roots somewhere in there. Most people I know have at least one Irish grandparent etc.

bit of an overgeneralisation and untrue :
It would make more sense to say I don't think there are many people in Britain who do not have British roots (English, Scottish, Welsh, Irish) somewhere in their makeup.
To me my roots are the culture/traditions and the set of rules by which I live my life and less to do with geographical area.

Newsflash mollie123 Ireland is not part of Britain.

Yes lottie - that makes sense to me. I am a bit puzzled by the outright rejection of pride/shame by some on this thread. I think these words are commonly used for our feelings about our national heritage. I don't feel the same shame as I would for things I have perpetrated, but I certainly have some negative feelings about British history - as well as some very positive ones.

I'm also somewhat ashamed of our collective national blindness about Irish history. I didn't learn any in school and only picked it up from Irish friends and colleagues and from books along the way. And I'm STILL woefully ignorant. But this thread really pushes home some of the reasons why it's important to learn it, I think.

x-post - agree with lottie on national pride, but not on the poppy. I wore a white poppy through secondary school. Even back in the '80s and '90s it was clear that poppies were an complex symbol. The Royal British Legion is a service charity - its military link it worn on its lapel!

Yes, in writing I realised that I see a distinction between Remembrance Day and the poppy symbol. Not just because of the way it's been hijacked quite recently. Poppies are laid for the British dead, by British politicians and military. But, I see the act and service of remembrance as being wider than that. That's always seemed explicit to me - not just my own interpretation - from explanation in school onwards.

Im proud of my culture and heritage, positive about it too and loved sharing it with my DCs. It has to do with still being here in adversity, and celebrating that. Its easy to say "so what" when you are part of the indigenous population and could probably trace your lineage back centuries if you chose to. Not all of us can do that. So whats wrong with a bit of cultural pride?

For all those who don't believe in cultural pride, would you simply give up all your traditions if you moved to another country and just do everything the locals do?

For all those who don't believe in cultural pride, would you simply give up all your traditions if you moved to another country and just do everything the locals do?

Probably not them all - I'd keep the main ones, but I would be very happy to take on the local traditions.

tbh I have found mostly white english people say this to me what does it mean to be proud to be of mixed culture aren't we all the same

mmm I wish it were that simple but when you have family who have grown up who have not have the same opportunities because the are not white

when your aunts tell you not to tan because it is better to be fairer skinned it's nicer

when your dad tells you a white English man will make a better husband because he will be able to look after you better as he will in my dads eyes have better opportunities in life and not face racism and will be a better person he will better educated, more sophisticated and more knowing and most likely have more money

At times half of my cultural background feels alien to me but it is who I am it is part of me and I love that I love that I can be proud of that with no feelings of attached shame. I wish my older family members felt the same though they are proud people I wish they did not feel the shame that has been so conditioned that they can not recognise it that makes me feel really sad