National Pride

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Having had several days of joint training now it’s evident that there’s a massive difference in the sense of national pride felt by each group of volunteers. The Bangladeshi volunteers are much prouder of their history and culture than we are. We drew maps of our respective countries and they knew every indent of land and tiny island in the river deltas. Ours looked a bit like the UK but with an enlarged south of England, squashed north of England, massive Wales and Isle of Wight, tiny Scotland and not enough room for Northern Ireland! (If I attempted to analyse that there’s probably a lot I could say, except for the Wales and Isle of Wight bits anyway) They did look pretty covered in flower petals though.

We also sang our national anthems. Theirs was sung with gusto and pride; ours was mumbled and we just about managed the words to a verse and the chorus. In our defence, the national anthem is quite dull and unfortunately, our group are all English as well, so we don’t even have a better one to fall back on.

Throughout the day we shared songs and poems from our respective countries or at least the Bangladeshis shared, we were coerced into it. We managed an extra long version of Happy Birthday and on reflection could have managed a Beatles song. Lawrence saved it a little by reciting the Jabberwocky poem with actions but basically we were put to shame by the Bangladeshi volunteers.

In part, I think this sense of pride comes from being such a new country, emerging out a struggle for language recognition and self-determination. It’s necessary to have that kind of national bonding to form a cohesive society and develop a sense of nationhood after such a beginning. Since our country is much more established we don’t feel the need to prove our identity so much as it is more deeply entrenched. I realise I’m generalising and that this doesn’t hold true for everyone, since there are plenty of nationalist groups from all corners of the UK, but I do feel that our culture and history has embedded a sense of nationhood quite deep in our collective consciousness (or I’m just ashamed I don’t know anything other than Sonnet 116 by heart and certainly wouldn’t recite it in front of an audience!)