Why are we the only country who CAN NOT be patriotic or express their opinions?????

[EvesMama]

where i live there is uproaor about a local pub daring to display the england flag across the front/top of its building...told to take them out of charity shop windows etc..now on t.v this morning..some scottish people are filmed asying they HATE English and will be supporting trinidad and tobago in world cup...????

we cant so much as think anything like that..and now this close to home?, were both part of britain FGS

if that was and english guy/gal saying that ther'would be a whole heap of trouble?

again where i am from..crime in the surrounding towns is high and statistics show that a high % is caused by people our country have given asylum too, who we allow to live in our country who receive help from US and if anyone dare say they think it is unfair, we are racist?

i just cant get my head round it?
the world is going mad.

expecting some 'good' replys on this, but im sorry i just think some people take the P out of us because they know it'll be us in bother

Loads of pubs and shops around here have the England flag up! Who has told the pub and shops to remove it?

other residents(shops i think?) complained, but it is very much the norm over the last few months!

its very sad that we're seen to be predjudice when all we are doing is supporting our country..but it go's further than the football, it seems Eglish are not allowed the right of freedom of sppech, unless its been vetted and completely changed as to not offend anyone first

because we have huge amounts of Empire-induced guilt.

The Scots, the Welsh, and indeed the Irish were all oppressed/invaded/culturally and economically denuded by the English at some point in their history so they feel villified in declaring their distate for the English, though I'm not saying they're right or that I enjoy hearing them do so.

The British Empire (yes, I know it wasn't specifically an English empire) oppressed / invaded / culturally and economically denuded many more countries around the world.
It still makes some of us feel slightly guilty that we were once part of such an overwhelming colonial power that stomped around the world forcing people to do things Our Way, because Our Way was the Right Way and the English were Superior. The right way did, of course, include waging war against undefended civilians, slavery, exploitation of powerless people and hardline Christian evangelism with no respect for the beliefs of others.

Proclaiming English superiority in a similarly arrogant way two hundred years later leaves a bad taste in the mouth.

I'm aware I haven't addressed your point about asylum seekers, but I've not got time to write a longer post.

what statistics show a high % of crime is commited by assylum seekers exactly?

your post shows exactly why some people are afraid of english patriotism imo. now if you'd just moaned about not being able to display the flag, that would have been fair enough (though lots of people flew the english flag during the last world cup) why the whinge about assylum seekers and the US "helping" people?

Lots of flags round where I live too. Dp thinks its mad and he's english (he was brought up in an area which had a lot of problems with racism etc so does associate the flag with neo Nazism). I cant see the problem myself tbh. Think its great to see people supporting their country.

Anyway if some Scottish people want to support another country its up to them surely and I dont see what the problem with that is at all. you cant actually insist that they support England jsut cos they are close neighbours. History is a difficult thing to dismiss out of hand. Anyway I've heard loads of English people saying they dont like the Scots/Welsh/Irish and aint seen any trouble yet.

well said mrsB

(Senora, think it was 'us helping people' with caps for emphasis, not 'the United States helping people'. Foxed me for a minute too)

SP is right

The problem with flag-displaying is not flag-displaying but the fact that a lot of people display the flag as a statement against those nasty criminal "assylum seekers" and Americans.

That isn't about patriotism, it is hiding behind a flag because of fear and ignorance.

as it goes, MrsB, the British did a lot less damage to the countries in their "empire" than did the spanish or portuguese (and I'm not sure about the french), yet neither of those two countries seems to suffer from the same scale of empire-guilt. i wonder ehy that is?

Oh was it US rather than the US? I thought it was some kind of anti-Israeli reference :)

hmm, you've got me there Señora - caught me in my Brit-centric view of the world...
Maybe we just suffer more from guilt generally? Or maybe it's because we retain a certain amount of power from the Empire even now - we're a permanent member of the UN, have the veto on the security council, economic prosperity, London as a financial centre, a special relationship with the US and the dominance of English as a global language.
Guilt is a luxury only the comfortable can afford...

Wall to wall red and white around here. we have 3 BNP councillors locally so make of it what you will. People just see flying the flag as meaning different things;

Supporting the team - with or without the accompanying hooliganism

Proud of your country as a whole

Supporting the BNP

As far as the Scot's go my dh would scream and shout in support of them in any other sport than football. Why? It's tradition. !?!

Supporting the team, WITHOUT the hooliganism.

Brings a smile to my face when I see the flag flying everywhere.

fio give them time i am sure someone will have a flag draped around their naked body at some stage especially the late kickoffs.

It's a shame that the minority who use the English flag in a racist xenophobic way have tainted it for those who genuinely display it in support of the national football team. Around here there is a large Italian community and I've seen a lot of houses and cars flying both the English and Italian flags which I think is lovely.
The colonialism debate is so complex but one thing that strikes me is that, certainly in Africa, the British let go of its colonies more gracefully than some other colonising countries (albeit without ensuring that the local people were sufficiently trained to take over thus leading to many of the problems African ex-colonies have experienced.)Perhaps it's time to let the guilt go while accepting responsibility for helping our ex-colonies in a form of reparation. Then we might be able to fly our national flag with the same pride as they do. Sorry-woffly I know but it's a subject I think about a lot!

Don't see the point of proclaiming your nationality when you're actually living in the said country. I could understand English people displaying a flag if they were living abroad to show their patriotism but this is England and yes, it's full of English people (and lots of others besides who don't need reminding that it's Engerlund).

My main issue with the flag being everywhere right now is that it is not to do with patriotism, pride of the country or anything else - it is about football. Most of the people flyin a flag wouldn't give a toss if it wasn't the world cup.

I started posting about 20 mins ago, so probably oodles has been said since

Um, I don't see anyone having any difficulty at all in expressing patriotism. Just ask anyone who is German in London (the most cosmopolitan city in Europe) at a time when there is an international football competition on, and they'll tell you just how frightening English patriotism can be. To say nothing of those of us who live in the sticks, unalloyed by cosmopolitanism. I see nothing but English flags around me (got a few myself as it happens) but the aggressive, ugly nature of most expression of English patriotism is revolting imo. I'm not going to apologise for feeling distaste for the way the English in general express their love for their country. It appears to consist of denigrating everyone else's country, crowing about winning the war (move on already, FGS) and then either vomiting in the gutter or decking someone. Nice.

Someone once pointed out that WWII is to the English as the Revolution is to the French - ie a moment that defined the nation. So it's hardly surprising that it's important to our national psyche.

KateF - successive gvts aren't doing v well with the citizens of Diego Garcia and the Chagos Islands - and not only have they been criminally dragged physically from their homes and dumped in truly sub-human shanty towns in mauritius (Mauritius were forced to accept them as part of Mauritius' own Independence deal) but the island is now being used to support our new wave of military colonisation and is key to an attack on Iran.

I honestly feel ashamed to parade our flag around in the rest of the world in the context of Iraq - but I can completely see the difference between this and suporting a football team.

some areas are flashpoints for tensions, so it can be a good idea in some areas to reduce the inflammation so to speak...
As for your mentioing of asylum seekers, ludicrously irrelevent and actually offensive.
Have you offered to help integrate your local asylum seekers (people fleeing from unimaginable persecution) so that they can succeed in your community
No thought not.
Go do it Massively rewarding

and massively enlightening

On the Scottish question, Scottish people are abhorently racist, but it's "acceptable" because it's about the English. I used to get stick at uni because I grew up near to England FGS and I don't have a strong Scottish accent. I have put up with comments about being "English" for these reasons for years, which is annoying and hurtful, yet when I lived in Yorkshire for 21/2 years I had only one racist comment by an English person about my being Scottish (and FWIW English people normally recognise me as being Scottish, it's people with broader accents than myself who think I sound English). I think it is unacceptable to discriminate against people because of their contry of origin, and just because England is the Auld Enemy and it's traditional, doesn't suddenly make it alright. IMO.

hmm I think anyone who thinks it is unacceptable to fly a St George's Cross in 2006 o support a team of men running around a football field because of the British Empire is (1) being wildly illogical and (2) has a profoundly simplistic and wrong headed view of history.
I have lots to say about the Empire but you will be relieved to hear no time to say it
however I will say that football, for some reason, seems o bring out the most unpleasantly tribal side to many otherwise sensible and civilised people. The childish posturing of my (otherwise delightful and apparently grown up) Scottish relatives in pointedly supporting ANY country other than England is a particularly wearying example. I mean Argentina..... let's not even go there