On this St. Patricks Day, I felt a desire to write something about identity and nationality. Particularly with the upcoming Scottish independence referendum, it seems that identity is surfacing as something of deep importance at this present juncture, if not of course at all times. My personal identity has always been that of the outsider. I was born and spent the first 17 years of my life in Dumfries and Galloway in the lowlands of Scotland, the son of an Irish father (from the divided north of Ireland) and an English mother from the midlands of that country. Because of the seemingly strong importance my father felt towards his Irish identity (and this in the context of a sense of injustice at the suppression of this identity as a result of the realities of life in Northern Ireland) I inherited as a teenager some sense of this passion. Of course, as the years moved on I came to understand that this was not actually a reflection of my own sense of identity and so (without undermining anybodys valid sense of injustice or pain) felt somewhat alienated by the whole idea of nationalism and identity in this sense. I began to realise that I felt connected to a sense of Irishness, Englishness, Scottishness and (controversial and polarising as this term is, from my own perspective) Britishness. As this 21st Century emerges and the realities, both perceived and actual, of our history, both personal and collective, make themselves known, I am beginning to awaken to a sense of deep belonging within and to it all. Even the outrages of imperialism and war are aspects of this shared past that I welcome as a part of my narrative, for good or bad, and I do so without celebrating violence but with a desire to discover the roots of violence in my own soul not simply to find blame with its manifestation in others. Someone said to me recently that our sense of outrage is actually only something that makes us FEEL better and in reality achieves nothing but the hardening of our own heart. In the campaign for and against Scottish independence (of which I am personally still undecided) there seems to be a lack of positive expression of shared identity, in this context, that ever controversial term, Britishness. What is Britishness ?, goes the question, sometimes genuine, sometimes rhetorical. My own answer to that question would be another question: What is ANYTHING ? The answer of course is entirely dependent on perspective. Who is to say one persons fixed notion is going to reflect anothers, nor indeed why should we wish to believe that it should ? I, in my 34th year, with my dear English mother and my dear Irish father and my dear Scottish siblings, sat here at the kitchen table of our home in Killyleagh, Northern Ireland, a country of Irish identity and British identity, feel profoundly connected and enveloped by an impossibly huge sweep of history, where history is nothing more and nothing less than an ever-changing expression of our collective belonging, positively and negatively (dependent as ever on perspective !) and I want to fill the gap I perceive in positive affirmation of the union of Scotland and England and Wales and Northern Ireland, not to dismiss or diminish or counter the arguments for independence, but simply to celebrate the POTENTIAL of Union, politically, socially, spiritually. We are all our own selves, in a small and material way, as the self we call by our own name and the labels we choose to place on that self and other selves and simultaneously (so much more resonantly), in a deeper, infinitely expansive way, we are our oneness, our togetherness, our being-ness, through all that is, all that was, all that will be. Togetherness, as well as independence is something worth re-examining, personally, politically, spiritually. Something that this fascinating and positive moment in the history of our nations has come to offer, regardless of outcome. So happy St. Patricks Day to all those to whom that means something, and mostly to those in whom it reaffirms an understanding that we are all paradoxically together, alone. And thank you for your Facebook time !!!! Love love and more love :-) xxxxxxxxxx
Posted on: Mon, 17 Mar 2014 19:55:40 +0000
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