Embarrassed to be English

[Traballi]

Got ancestry results back recently and apparently I'm 98% English, tiny bit of Irish but not even Scottish or Welsh. It wasn't a surprise as already looked into family history and been here for centuries.

I'm actually embarrassed of my English lineage to be honest. What's there to be proud of with our appalling history of colonialism and more recent dallyings with the far right and flag shagging?

I see the British flag up where I live and I honestly cringe. I'm also married to someone who is from a country we have a history of conflict with too so that doesnt help although DH doesnt hate us excessively (won't name country in case outing but with our history of wars/ conflict/ invasion, it could be dozens of places lets be frank)

I guess I've had a different perspective on Englishness over many years through the people I know from overseas and I speak other languages too. I also went to a Catholic school (in England) which taught us about slavery and what happened in Northern Ireland. None of which was nice about the English (teacher was Irish). I'm grateful for these perspectives though as I wouldn't want to be brainwashed into being a blind patriot.

I have friends with strong Irish and Welsh roots and they have a real sense of identity to hold onto with it, ancestral languages that they're interested in and a feeling a pride.

If you're English, it's hard to feel like that unless you're in Tommy or Nige's crew, which makes me even less inclined towards patriotism tbh.

Does anyone else feel like this? It's a bit sad really. I'd love to at least be half something else to cling to that identity instead and ignore the English but.

Luckily my DC is only half English and has two other nationalities through DH, and is being brought up in Wales so will probably feel more Welsh. I'm also obtaining a passport from another country through DH soon and I'll be using that for all overseas travel as soon as I can so I can appear to be from there instead.

AiBU or do others feel like this? Being English just isn't cool.

I’m also embarrassed that you’re English.

@SnackQueen😂😂😂 and this is why I love the English

This!!

Other people could never make me ashamed of who I am.

I am not proud to be English but nor am I ashamed. I just “am”.

I do want to do another ancestry DNA profile. I did one before which turned out to be a scam so want to do a proper one.

I think every country has periods of history they aren’t proud of. For many of us being English is something to be proud of. Our democracy and tolerance (in the main) our countryside, our inventors. Yes we need to ignore the bigoted sections of society and fight to keep us from going down the same path as USA.

Dear God.
Get over it, please.

The pro-PAL marches only focus on hating the Jewish nation, not the nation oppressing and killing its own people (and Jews) and the many nations funding them to do so

Funny that

I am 48% English by DNA but 100% by culture, affection and love of my country (with some reservations e.g. not fond of Mr Robinson or Mr Farage and their ilk). We ended slavery i.e. the Triangular Trade (2,000 British sailors died stopping slave ships from the West coast of Africa) and slaving and slave markets wherever we found them,ending the horrific East African trade (in volume of people enslaved far greater than the Western trade, and much older, dating back several centuries, and nothing to do with Europe or the Americas) in the 1880s. We invented Parliamentary Democracy and exported it so that the colonies we left were self-governing and set up to prosper - and many have. We did not spread Christianity wherever we went, respecting the beliefs of the people we met when we built (quite accidentally, really) a great trading empire. That empire we gave up voluntarily - the first imperial power ever to do this.
We have produced some of the greatest literature on earth and the greatest playwright and arguably the greatest poet, too (Milton). Until the seventeenth century England was a centre of the most advanced music (a civil war and francophile kings ended that one, sadly). The industrial and agrarian revolutions started in Britain, uniquely place by being an island and having large reserves of coal and iron, both needed for industrialisation, The industrial revolution was not funded by slavery (profits from that stayed mostly where the slaves went) but by the profits of the agricultural improvements during the eighteenth century and fueled by the scientific revolution that started in the seventeenth century and blossomed in the north and in Scotland. Enterprise and industry in places like Derby were the furnaces in which the new technology was applied.

As empires go (and one can compare the Chinese empire, the Ottomans, Aztecs etc) the British empire was benign. Few attrocities, most of them not caused by the British government and often repudiated and punished by said government (Amritsar,the destruction of the aborigines of Tasmania, for example).
We introduced the rule of law where there had previously only been the rule of men. Improved women's rights wherever we had the influence to do so.
We may not like empires or colonization but they are and have been a feature of humanity since ancient Sumer. Currently the American empire is faltering in the face of China and Russia - both powers invidious to human rights, the codification of which after WWII was based on British constitutional rights.
Why are you ashamed to be English?
We are not responsible for what people did in the past. And a lot of people in a lot of places did some pretty unpleasant things. But I refuse to be ashamed of the bad things Britain might have done and reserve the right to be happy with the good that was done.
If you are unahppy about being English, btw, at least be glad you are not Scottish, Irish or Welsh - the British Empire was mostly built, run and policed by men from those nations, not the English.
NB Not surprising your spouse comes from somewhere we had a war with. The club of countries not to have fought the British is pretty exclusive.

Over the millenia there have been lots of colonisers, including Greeks Romans, British, Ottomans. The vast majority of decendents of these empires were poor and not in charge or control of what occurred.

Many countries had slaves, Egyptian, African countries sold their own people, slaves in many early South American countries ancestors, China, Asia.

Lots of countries have started wars killing innocents for different reasons. There are currently conflicts going on in several countries.

You'd struggle to find a country that doesn't have history of poor treatment of others or its own.

You're not responsible, just like I'm not, get over yourself.

The Swiss neutral? I suppose all that Nazi gold and stolen Jewish money was just ‘resting’ in their accounts then…

I just don't see things through this lens. I know it's the fashionable take. But, from the knowledge I have, England was a fairly mild colonial power and set out to do good, and succeeded in doing many good things.
Warfare, conquering and being conquered is the history of the world. We're in an anti colonial phase, but our ancestors didn't know about decolonisation. The ones invoved in colonisation believed they were doing good, and achived good things as well bad.
As someone else has said, the ancestors of most Brits were much too busy staying alive to have time to oppress others.
I guess Im in for a pasting, but I'm just talking sense, as I see it.

Almost 15% of the U.K. population is foreign born, probably much higher in England. I don’t really know how much tolerance you expect? I agree with you that we are becoming more divided, but this was always going to happen at some point as nobody voted for mass immigration. It’s really quite simple. Pointless to pretend it’s not happening in every other western developed country as well.

Why are you mixing British and English in your post and all the history you talk about was British. I live in Ireland and the burning of my town and the killing of civilins during the war of independence was all done by Scottish regiments who were brutal under Scottish command. Of course this was done under British rule, but definitely not uniquely English. The colonisation of Africa has many Scottish leading players. The most oppressive empire rule could arguably have been done under a Welsh Prime Minister. That terrible imperial war monger Duke of Wellington was born in Ireland, part of the British ruling Elite of the time. It's a bad history but it's not exclusively English.

Try and focus on the good stuff , not all Englishness is bad . I do understand why you struggle as the rest of the world has such grim view on English folk it must be hard .

Did you really post in good faith OP?
Doesn’t ring true to me and you’ve disappeared.

Mumsnet has been flooded by goady divisive posts which are all intended to incite the same types of responses….

Surely I’m not the only one to notice?

If you are English through the centuries, you should thank your ancestors for either being rich and surviving lots of illnesses, or of being from the downtrodden poor in this country.
I suspect most of us come from tough resilient hardworking peasants, and thank them for surviving.
I don’t think many of us were rich in England ever.

History is not “embarrassing”. Unless you think the whole matter can be sorted out over a dining table hundreds of years later. It’s as stupid as Basil Fawlty shouting at a German guest in his hotel.

English food is abysmal so I can see why

Hmm....I think so. I have quite a lot of folklore stuff. .It'd be great for people to dog into this more...

Well, the vast majority of English people were not oppressors and colonialists. I'm very English too, and proud of it. I'm not going to self-loathe because of what our ancestral politicians and ruling classes did.

England has produced many of the world's greatest works of art and literature, and also produced many of the world's greatest inventions. The Industrial Revolution changed the world. We stood alone against Hitler and defeated him. We are a bit of a Mighty Mouse. We are tiny but have never let any country bully us.

What the English have contributed to the world is incalculable. We invented the telephone, the internet, the lightbulb, steam engines, vaccinations, public railways, discovered gravity, and a lot more. Embarrassed to be English?? Seriously, give yourself a splash of cold water!

I'm also obtaining a passport from another country through DH soon and I'll be using that for all overseas travel as soon as I can so I can appear to be from there instead

Quite ironic that the OP complains about past colonialism and oppression of other peoples and countries but is totally ok with hijacking and trivialising another country’s people’s identity purely for the purpose of convenient future travel. Lol.

Totally agree with OP. Luckily I’m only 1/4 English, rest is Irish and Scottish, but yes I’m ashamed to be even a bit English. The flag makes me cringe, the history makes me wince, the way the fascist ‘people’ are heading - sooo bloody thick! - makes me despair.

I'm from a country that I imagine would be on your list of 'much better' and one that you probably would regard as one to be proud of (I don't know for sure, but I'm just guessing, it's certainly one that people like to idolise).

Let me tell you that underneath the travel brochure side of things there is some very dark poverty, oppression, racism and ignorance - both in the past and currently. Very similar to the things you're saying (minus the empire stuff, that's quite niche). It's just not as... 'advertised' as it is here. Here it's all you seem to talk about, it's in all the media, it's so frequently the talking point of opinion pieces and newspaper articles. You kind of keep it alive with all the self hatred and negativity.

I've lived here for over 20 years and I love it. Genuinely love it - is it perfect? No. Are there some things that my birth country does better? Sure, some things. But there are many, many MANY excellent things here that don't happen in my country, or many other countries, and I feel so fortunate to live here. I wouldn't want to go back 'home' now, I'd miss the positives too much.

'Everyone' - really????

There are millions of people living all around the world who are perfectly happy where they are. Only on MN do I read this nonsense indicating that 'everyone' is desperate to go to England, and I have literally never heard anyone say that about their own country.

The wealth England has now is an accumulation of the money earnt from the slave trade and robbing the colonies of their natural wealth.

England got rich enough to educate, create industries, etc.etc. because of the returns on these original overseas investments.