Surplus Matter Jeevan Rai’s tumblelog

Well, if I agree not to take that as creepy, you’re in return obliged not to regard this response as tedious. The said post was a gag about the United States as an aged colonial establishment, and that’s why I felt alright laughing about it. But I’d never feel entitled to blame modern citizens or modern governments for the acts of their ancestors, because that’s irrational. Clearly, that’s precisely the reason why it’s alright for any American to make, or laugh at, that joke: it’s possible to be a citizen by currency and simultaneously sceptical about the historic validity of one’s assumed national identity.

Bearing that in mind, do really you think that all (or even many) modern Brits*, including second-generation immigrants like me, are necessarily proud of Imperial history (which many of us are not)? Or, even if we despise it, that we’re somehow still responsible for it by virtue of nationality, despite (like all beings) having had no choice in our place of birth?

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* Incidentally, I identify as British, not English. I know that around the globe the two words are often treated as interchangeable, but there’s a technical difference which is significant over here—in particular to unionists, and in general for complex ethnographic reasons.