Happy St. George's Day

April 23 is the national holiday of England. Historically, it is a day for ex-pats celebrate their beloved home, for anglophiles to reflect on the great history of England and the many gifts the small island country has given to the world, and a day for people in England to . . . stay subdued. A celebration of country and patriotism is frowned upon by the multiculturalists that are in control and mired in self-hatred. It is a good sign that this may be changing. This from the Guardian:

St George's Day, which used to pass unnoticed, is this year being celebrated as never before. In Norfolk, schoolchildren are filling the skies with red-and-white balloons; from Manchester to Dorset, giant dragons have been parading; in Lancashire, special St George's sausages are being consumed; in Kent, an insulation firm is giving its workers the day off.

The festivities are, however, characterised by an element of bitterness absent on St Andrew's, St David's or St Patrick's days. Every April, official reluctance to fly the flag of St George on public buildings, the rejection of applications for pub opening-hours extensions and bans on various kinds of patriotic expression provoke angry complaints.

In England's capital, Mayor Ken Livingstone refused for years to allow any acknowledgement of the country's national day, while happily funding extravagant celebrations for St Patrick's Day, Diwali and the Chinese New Year. He has now bowed to protests, but some English patriots consider London's principal event today, the screening of a Monty Python film in Trafalgar Square, to be something of an insult.

Behind all this sulky animosity to St George seems to lurk a peculiar repugnance for English national sentiment on the part of the British establishment. . . .

It was not some scowling ministerial crony of Gordon Brown who refused a publican a St George's Day extension but allowed one for the Chinese New Year: it was Norwich magistrates. It was Liverpool councillors who ordered a shopkeeper to remove St George's Day flags from around his premises, without apparently objecting to Irish tricolours on St Patrick's Day. . . .

In fact, authority figures from all parts of the Kingdom have long discouraged expressions of Englishness at any time of the year. During last year's World Cup, employers banned workers from displaying the English flag, even though similar treatment of the Saltire would have been unthinkable. Police warned that England flags on vehicles might frighten horses. Schools forbade children from wearing England badges.

British luminaries who applaud expressions of Celtic, African or Catalan nationalism treat its English equivalent with disdain. According to them, England is not really a nation at all. They consider any of their fellow citizens who embrace English identity to be Morris-dancing nincompoops. The Tories oppose the creation of an English parliament even though they would be likely to dominate such an institution.

. . . [T]he adoption of a robust national consciousness might infuse [the people of England] with a new-found assertiveness. Our rulers know that if this happens, their own rootless values and dogmas will be unlikely to survive, and their own days may be numbered. Hence, the very possibility of an English identity must be denied.

Read the entire article here.