The Flat, Taunton. 20.56.
As the time of New Bryyo came to be, the old ways faded. The cries of joy from those who honored Science covered the angry shouts of those who mourned the old ways, the Primal Traditions.
Metroid Prime 3: Corruption
The world is changing. The England I grew up in – rather, the England my parents grew up in – is slowly fading away. Regional accents are disappearing before the ceaseless march of RP and MLE. Kids start secondary school with no knowledge of any of the old country dances but an in-depth understanding of all the machines that can be found in a gym. In order to facilitate our constant push toward a genuinely multicultural society, we have relinquished a lot of the traditions that made this country unique.
Much of this change can be chalked up to the inevitable march of time. However, whenever a culture feels it is under threat, there will always be those who make a stand.
Reading the above, you might be forgiven for thinking I’m on the same side as the people who marched on Taunton today. I’ll set the record straight – never in a million years. This whole jingoistic, xenophobic and fundamentally Eurosceptic fiasco utterly destroyed my hopes of moving back to Spain, forcing me to seek employment on this rock for the last ten years. As far as I’m concerned, the right has a lot to answer for – up to and including the murder of my great-grandfather and his friends back in the 1950s. All the same, I remain committed to my philosophy that you must be prepared to listen to all points of view, even if they go against everything you believe in, if you are to truly understand the world and your place in it.
That’s why I popped into town today, to see the protest and counter-protest taking place in Taunton. My great-grandparents all but gave their lives to make a stand against fascism, so it would be remiss of me to turn a blind eye when something so significant comes to town.
I heard them coming from the ground floor of Waterstones. They’re weren’t particularly great in number – maybe a little over forty, all told – but they were hard to miss. A considerable police escort flanked them every step of the way. An angry-looking crowd, with shaved heads, full sleeves of tattoos and dark sunglasses. Some of them carried the English flag, others the Union Jack. One or two carried placards demanding support for Christian values. One carried a tattered yellow flag bearing the five red squares of the Jerusalem cross, the ancient symbol of the Crusaders.
I wasn’t expecting religion to have anything to do with today’s protest. Another tradition that we are slowly losing here is our faith, though we are by no means the only country in that predicament, with regular church attendance falling around the world.
Tenconi, the UKIP Leader, was the special guest in town, leading the march on the Taunton Police HQ. To his credit, the protest didn’t turn ugly as we feared it might, though his choice of words gave me serious pause for thought: these are the demons, they are the ones we must defeat… At times it felt like I was watching a very British take on Bible Belt Baptism.
One of the fellas had a shirt with the words “If my flag offends you, I’ll help you pack” emblazoned across the front in big black capital letters. I could do with a pair of strong arms when I inevitably leave this country someday, though something tells me the words were not intended for me.
I wonder where this will all lead? Like Tolkien before me, I mourn for the passing away of the old world. A student of language and culture I may be, but I do regret the ease with which we have so readily traded away parts of our own identity as a nation for this thing called “the future”. When I was at university, I remember getting slapped down for voicing that idea by peers who went as far as to say that England either didn’t have a distinct culture to speak of – which is grossly ignorant at best – or worse, “didn’t deserve to have one for what they did to the world”. As a child of at least two cultures myself, identity means a lot to me, so I’m not sure how to feel about it. It just worries me that the same people who are trying to make a stand against the slow death of the old ways are all too often the kind who take that line of thought too far and turn preservation into purification. Change is a necessary and ultimately inevitable part of life, but it can be a painful experience, especially for those who stand in its way or its wake. It’s a tightrope, holding onto tradition while ushering in the future. I certainly don’t envy any politicians right now.
I’ll muse about this some more. My thoughts are hazy. I just wanted to jot down my observations as the far-right march on and into the distance, on my own doorstep, no less. BB x
