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Lecture 2.1. National stratification






Lecture 1. British Studies. A Short Survey of

The United Kingdom

Plan

 

1. Introduction

2. Wales

3. Scotland

4. Northern Ireland

 

1. On the North West coast of Europe lie a group (5000) of islands called the British Isles. The largest islands are Great Britain and Ireland. Since 1922 most of Ireland has been an independent republic which took the name Eire [eqrq] in 1937.The north east corner of Ireland, sometimes known as Ulster, sometimes as Northern Ireland, is a part of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. Officially it is not a country but a province or a constituent region. Great Britain is divided into 3 countries: England, Scotland and Wales. The United Kingdom area is some 244, 100 sq. km. The combined population of the British Isles is 59.5 million people.

It is widely assumed that the British is a relatively homogeneous society with a strong sense of identity. Most people call Britain ‘England’ as if Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland were merely outer parts of England. The United Kingdom is a land of great diversity, partly in its landscape, but more importantly in the human sphere. All four territorial divisions carry a special sense of identity which is strongly affected by the tension between their own distinctive history and tradition and centralized government from London. As for the English they take for granted the United Kingdom: they never worry about the fact that London is the capital of both England and Britain, they contemplate Wales and Scotland as wonderful wild places for holidays and they consider Northern Ireland to be a miserable problem area. These countries are on the periphery; England is at the centre.

2. For the other countries in the Union, the ‘centre’ needs to be questioned. Wales is the mountainous area in the west of Great Britain. Wales is rich in mediaeval poetry and myth, and is the reputed home of King Arthur. Many mountains, caves and wild corners are associated with him, though it is not at all clear that he was an historical character. More important, the Welsh have their own language, which is still the first language of some hundreds of thousands of Welshmen, especially in the north west of the country. It is the language of teaching in many schools and some university colleges. However, the majority of the Welsh, especially in the industrialized southern coastal region do not speak the language. What they share is a strong sense of being not-English which derives partly from the fact that Wales was once an independent principality that was conquered by the English in the early fourteenth century, partly from their long poetical and musical traditions that are distinctly un-English. Wales feels like a distinct foreign country (and a very beautiful one) to the English.

3. Scotland has a long history of vigorous independence. When the Romans marched northwards across the country in 55 AD they found it impossible (or impractical) to subdue the Pictish tribes who lived in the north. The Kingdom of Scotland has existed for many centuries (think of Macbeth, based on a historical character in eleventh century Scotland!) and, despite repeated attempts by the English at conquest and endless border raids from both sides, the two countries were eventually united peacefully. In the early sixteenth century an England princess married a Scottish king, and a century later after the death of Queen Elizabeth of England, the Scottish James inherited the English throne as well. He was the son of Mary Queen of Scots about whom Russians, like Germans, are absurdly sentimental. Mary Queen of Scots was a menace to everyone including herself (this was the view of her son as well as almost everyone around her), capable of treason, murder and sheer stupidity. After James united the thrones in 1603, the two countries continued to be independent, and sometimes at war with each other until they were united in the Act of Union in 1708.

Scotland has its own legal and educational systems, and there is an autonomous Scottish Parliament since 1999. Scotland, like Wales, has much mountainous country and a central valley, once heavily industrialized but now suffering from unemployment and the decline of industry. Nonetheless, the Scottish Nationalists argue that Scotland produces and passes on to England more than it receives in goods and social benefits. They believe they would be better off if Scotland was independent and directly profiting from the fish, oil and gas in its coastal waters.

The Scots also insist on their national cultural distinctiveness, although the Highlands, a beautiful depopulated region of poor farmers and foresters among whom Gaelic (the old Celtic language) is still sometimes spoken, is culturally quite different from the lowlands, central valley and eastern coastal regions, areas of strong Protestantism and a tradition of hard, practical work. The Scots can certainly claim that they take education more seriously than the English: more of their pupils stay on at school, more go to University, and even today, the cities of this relatively poor country show great official respect for traditions of learning. Edinburgh and Glasgow are both cultured cities.

4. Northern Ireland with its mountains, lakes and wild sea coast is beautiful as Wales and the Highlands of Scotland are. The people are friendly and hospitable to outsiders, and show all the enthusiasm for language, poetry and fantastic stories of their fellow-Irish in Eire. But for the last quarter of a century, Northern Ireland has been synonymous with " the Troubles". The actual violence has been relatively small-scale, but the province has been occupied by the British Army for thirty years and a generation has grown up knowing that their lives are and will be defined by their identity as Catholics or Protestants. From an outsider’s point of view, the problem can be described as follows:

The English have been eager to colonize Ireland since the Norman Conquest (the eleventh century) and efforts were made to do so for centuries, although the Irish were always rebelling against the English rule imposed on them wherever it was more or less successful. Consequently, the Irish showed no interest in the conversion to Protestantism of the English in the mid-fifteenth century. Their Catholicism (and Catholic allies) became a crucial part of their defiance of the more powerful country. In the 1650`s Cromwell put down an uprising in the northern Irish province, Ulster, with considerable brutality, and then, to keep the region loyal, settled there large numbers of Scottish Protestants. In Ulster the descendants of these Protestants became a majority, whereas elsewhere in Ireland they were virtually non-existent.

When, after centuries of struggle, Ireland finally won the right to independence in 1922, part of the settlement with Britain was that the province of Ulster should separately decide whether it wanted to join the Irish Republic or stay with Britain. Since the majority of the population (about 60%) were Protestants who did not wish to join a Catholic Ireland where they would be a minority, they voted to join a ‘United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland’. Under this arrangement the minority of Catholics in the province were badly treated politically and legally for many years, and the terrorist Irish Republication Army (which is not supported by Eire) gained considerable sympathy among the Catholic population. Eventually, in the late nineteen-sixties, resentment turned to violence and the British Army was sent in, originally to protect the Catholics and to keep order. They are still there. The Army is resented by both sides, and has added its own share of violence to the situation - but nobody knows whether things would be worse if it was withdrawn. Most people in Great Britain would be perfectly willing for Northern Ireland to be handed over to Eire; the province for outsiders is simply a `problem`, a running sore which will not heal, and few soldiers in the British Army enjoy their turn of duty in the area. But that is a democracy. If one part of the democracy consistently votes to stay in the United Kingdom, by what right can the other parts of the kingdom turn them out? There will always be a majority of Protestants in that Corner of Ireland. They have been there for 3 hundred years and more, so it is their home as much as it is the home of Catholics.

But no matter whether the person, living in the UK, is English, Scottish, Welsh or Irish, in the face of outsiders he/she is inevitably British.

 

Lecture 2.1. National stratification


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