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?

'How many people (without children) celebrate Easter?!'

In Ireland, practically everyone.

Cailindana "The idea you could give all of these up and adopt an entirely new way of living based on people you hardly know is laughable"

lots of immigrants do this. And if they came from a place loaded with traditions they hated, they are glad to. If they came from a place of religious rule or a place where homosexuality was illegal, divorce frowned upon etc, they may have left because of those traditions. I won't even visit certain countries due to issues like that.

But across many countries, there are many things in common e.g. giving birthday gifts.

If you meant me with the "telling people how to feel" - no, you can feel however you like. I'm picking up, rightly or wrongly, that you find it amazing or unbelievable that people will park in a new country and love it and take it on - and I don't understand why you find that so surprising.

Well I'm proud of mine. There are many nationalities, classes, religions etc that get looked down on or pitied and patronised. Me and my husband come from a very poor working class town, council estate, rough school, from Catholic Irish background, my grandfather was a miner. We now are relatively weall off and mix with lots of people, some from nice middle class, privately educated, wealthy and very polite backgrounds.

Some people feel the need to hide their roots, I'm proud of where I come from and never hide it.

Lorelei it is not humanly possible to entirely change who you are. Your culture is part of who you are. You might love your new country (and I do like England a lot) but I can't change the way I speak for example. I'm not going to give up my Irish expressions, they are part of how I think. I'm not going to be cremated as is traditional among my community here, as I want to be buried.

I'm totally with you, Cailin, about how we're all products of our cultures, and how we tend to be blind to our own influences (seeing our own "norms" as some kind of default state).

I think where we differ is on the sense of national pride which can be superimposed on this. I can see how it develops as a protective mechanism in the wake of discrimination, though.

To me wearing the poppy has personal significance and I wear it as remembrance, respect and tribute to my great grandfather who died in battle during WW1 and my parents who served in the forces in WW2.

I think it is human nature to be annoyed or upset when people who have chosen settled here from other countries complain about how awful it all is. I have one friend from south Africa who does this constantly although has lived in the UK voluntarily for over 20 years. It would be easy for me to point out some of the negatives of her country of origin and it is always on the tip of my tongue to ask her why she lives here if it's so awful, however I'm too polite to do so and conscious that I would be branded racist or nationalistic or xenophobic or any other derogatory term.

Cailin - we cross posted, but now I'm even more confused. You say "Lorelei, unless you grew up in a windowless box, every single person on the planet comes from some sort of culture, be that the culture of their parents or their friends."

um, no, but my box had windows on the world as it was outside. My parents are from a different place, I grew up technically with one foot outside London in a village but with a very strong London connection. Friends were of no religion or all religions, just as mum is from one religion, her brother is an atheist like me.

You speak as if there is "one set" of traditions and values that we grow up with. Maybe for some people, but not for others. Christmas- not really done in my household till I decided trees were pretty for a few years and my parents indulged me. Then we didn't do it - as a teen and a student I had a lot of parties to go to, none of which had anything to do with Christmas really, more just a case of "we're teens and we're shaking off our olds for Xmas". Dad did cards mostly for professional and networking reasons as did I in my 20s - not any more though.

you also say "You didn't spontaneously think of having a funeral with a burial/cremation when someone dies, that comes from your culture".

I still don't automatically think of one or the other, is that what you mean? I would never assume someone was having either a burial or a cremation. How would I know what they were having unless they told me in advance? There is no "normal".

You also say "British people seem to think their way of life is the 'standard' way of life and everything else is quaint and ethnic and cultural. Newsflash in any other country outside Britain you're a foreigner with strange ways." Um, yes, we know that....but then again, when I do go abroad I find people perfectly decent and accepting of our "strange ways". Ever chatted with a French or Spanish waiter about tea? What a bizarre and unfair thing to say, to say we think we are the standard way of life?? You are saying "British people have a way of life". I am saying, I am British and we have many ways of life. You are pigeonholing people. I'm not.

It's hard to explain Irish Pride. We actually have a popular brand of bread here called Irish Pride.
In the past year while living in London I was PROUD of the Irish people being the first country to vote for gay marriage by national referendum.
I was also immensely proud of Ireland winning the six nations.
Irish people seem to be a particularly resilient sort. Despite centuries of oppression by the crown and the Catholic Church.
We have managed to survive and preserve our culture.
I also love when Americans like having irish roots.
Jfk, reagan and even obama lol.
It's a privilege to be irish.

cailin "Lorelei it is not humanly possible to entirely change who you are. Your culture is part of who you are."

but what is culture? What about the myriad people who arrived in London or New York or Paris and found themselves utterly defined and understood by the city, then stayed for life? Does it matter that maybe they were raised in Glasgow, Delhi or Sydney till they were 20? In many cases, by 40, it is utterly forgotten and they never go back to where they were born.

also, many people think my culture is not English. I'll put my hand up and say I'm a product of English culture to some extent, sure. But many people assume I'm a product of my parents' culture, which mystifies me.

Lorelei you don't seem to be understanding me at all.

I'll try one more time.

Christmas is cultural tradition. It doesn't exist in all countries. The fact that you chose to have the traditions of Christmas such as the tree comes from the fact that you grew up in a culture that celebrates Christmas. Ergo your desire to have the traditions of Christmas came from your cultural surroundings.

Burial and cremation are cultural traditions. We could just as easily put bodies in fridges (and some people do freeze bodies) or we could put them in pyramids, as the Egyptians did. The fact that burial/cremation is what's available is down to the culture you live in. Therefore whatever choice you make is influenced by your cultural background.

You do not make your choices in a vacuum.

Yes and it's a privilege to be English and for England to be a place where so many people want to come and live.

Add me to the people who don't understand you cailindana

I find the sort of person who tends to constantly remind you of their nationality (I have a couple of Scottish nationalist friends on FB) is very tedious. Yes, we get it, you're Scottish, everyone is born somewhere, don't need to be reminded over and over again how Scottish you are

Oh yes, Scremer, I hear you on that one. MIL's posts about her Scottish pride are CONSTANT and it does my head in. I'm Scottish, I think this is a pretty good country, beautiful landscapes, interesting cities, Glaswegians in general but I find going on about it really cringey. MIL posts pics of Mel Gibson in Braveheart, ffs.

I tend to agree with posters who say that a certain amount of 'pride' in one's roots comes from histories of marginalisation. My great-great-grandparents were extremely poor when they left Ireland for Scotland. They had a shitty time as Catholics. I feel a protectiveness or an affinity, perhaps, with that part of my history because I know how they struggled and how proud they'd be to see that their descendants had a good education and standard of living.

Totally agree Agent - the whole obsessive tartan pride thing does my head in.

callindana I thought burial or cremation was the norm in most parts of the world and that it can't really be described as a cultural tradition. how am i wrong?.

If I was British I would be immensely proud of that too.
But im irish. And proud.

Calindala - yes, Christmas is a cultural tradition for some. But can you see that for others it is a mere frivolity? you say I "chose" to have a tree some years - I just thought the smell of pine was nice and the tree was pretty and I did it for a couple of years. Yes, it was an idea that came from somewhere else, but it had no more significance than if I bought an orchid to cheer up the flat in winter.

Christmas technically didn't "exist" in her country when mum was growing up but she knew about it.

and all our ideas come from somewhere else, surely?

I never said I made choices in a vacuum, but what I get from your tone is that you think choices are made from a very restricted range, but the world is so big and varied and well connected....so I think choices are made from a very wide range indeed.

I just have no idea what you are trying to say on this thread, sorry.

Honestly SirChenjin, she thinks we are at once the most amazing and most oppressed people in the world. Twenty years ago, people wouldn't be seen dead with all this tartan pride stuff (I'm thinking of the episode of the High Life with the SNP terrorist on Air Scotia). It was fine to enjoy being Scottish and all the good things about this country but wearing your Scottishness like the ultimate badge of honour was seen as pretty lame.

In the case of MIL it's laughable initially but highly embarrassing and annoying when she starts mouthing off about the English oppressing us and sniffing at the St George's cross. Fly your fucking saltire if you want! Who's stopping you? What English person would even care?

But I also think patriotism and preferring your country over another country a bit weird. They're just differently labelled bits of earth.

I suspect that TheBunnyofDoom has never spent much time out of the UK (or possibly ever attended a geography lesson?). I lived in Russia and God did I prefer Britain - they are no way just differently labelled bits of Earth!

After snow from November to May, -33 degrees in Winter, then 40 degrees in Summer, endless grey vistas or monochrome silver birch forests. Britain's soft climate and green fields felt like Utopia when I got back.

Oh yes, I know people like this. One of my Aunts, a rabid nationalist with a chip on both shoulders and a tartan drape around her shoulders, informed me that she doesn't like English people (all 60-odd million of them?) because they "all think they are better than us".

Now, of course, we have the SNP dressing up nationalism by referring to it as civic nationalism to make it more palatable - when most of their more vociferous supporters wouldn't know what it actually meant.

callindana I thought burial or cremation was the norm in most parts of the world and that it can't really be described as a cultural tradition. how am i wrong?

Even if the entire world did it customer, it would still be a cultural tradition, because it's a social practice the people choose to carry out that has personal significance beyond the physical practice. A culture can exist world wide or within a small group of people - it's simply an agreed set of norms and traditions.

Incidentally it's quite rare in Ireland to cremate people - it's far more common to be buried. So my choice of funeral is likely to be influenced by that.

I'm amused by the posters who are trying to shut others down based on their 'immigrant experience' (or lack thereof)! For the record, I hold a British and Irish passport, so I hope I'm allowed to hold an opinion on this.

I feel that national pride is pretty tenuous when you live in the country and you were born in it, but it's absolutely incredible when people proclaim some kind of pride with regard to their 'roots' as if it's some kind of achievement that your forebears were born somewhere.

What really grates though, is the hypocrisy. Posters here seem to be suggesting its fine to be proud of your roots if you're a supposedly 'oppressed peoples'. I wonder if those proud descendants of the Irish are proud of the kneecappings and disappearances of innocent people undertaken by irish republicans? Are they as full of shame as they seem to expect the descendants of Cromwell to be? No, thought not!

Yes, the idea that countries are 'labelled bits of earth' is incredibly naive.

CustomerCare I have one friend from south Africa who does this constantly although has lived in the UK voluntarily for over 20 years.

For some reason, I have a few acqaintencies who are Spanish who make the most awful, rude comments on FB about living in Britain and the British. I've deleted some of them. At one point I was living abroad and I did wonder what reaction I would get if I posted about despising the Germans and how their health service was rubbish and how racist they were, and all sort of nasty little minor digs about things that happened in everyday life. Maybe if I hadn't actually bothered to go out and meet any Germans I would have been tempted to do that. Seriously, just go somewhere else if you hate it that much. South Africa is a massive country and fabulous in many ways but I went to live there and constantly made rude comments about it I don't think I'd have many friends.

Equally, at the same time, I had some acquaitancies (not all German but all European) who were pedalling the same derisory (and usually inaccurate) comments about the UK. "But why is the UK so racist? Why doesn't it welcome people from other countries?" etc.).

Caillindana I think you are a lot more culturally focussed than me, and many people. I just can't be bothered with a lot of that stuff. My culture is not to be too focussed on cultural traditions!

another thought - I was under the impression that regardless of religion or lack of it, many people are choosing cremation due to practicalities and graveyard space, frankly.