I don't often disagree with you, Eric, but on this occasion I must.
Sunak is not English. He has never made this absurd claim for himself, recognising, on the contrary, that he has a civic British identity while retaining his Indian and Hindu ethnic and religious identities. He is a British Indian. Here are his own words on the matter:
'I am now a citizen of Britain. But my religion is Hindu. My religious and cultural heritage is Indian. I proudly say that I am a Hindu and my identity is also a Hindu.'
'My wife is Indian, and being a proud Hindu means I will always have a connection with India and the people of India. I am hugely proud of my Indian roots and my connections to India.'
'I am thoroughly British, this is my home and my country, but my religious and cultural heritage is Indian, my wife is Indian. I am open about being a Hindu. I don’t eat beef, it has never been a problem.'
So any pretended English identity has never even come into it as far as Sunak is concerned (note, he self-describes as 'thoroughly British'). So why have others taken it upon themselves to speak for him? And who does a Scot such as Fraser Nelson think he is to tell the English who is and is not a member of our nation?
Sunak himself has intervened in the debate, via a BBC interview with Nick Robinson:
"He's angry...with those like a popular podcaster who declared recently: "He's a brown Hindu; how is he English."
"Of course I'm English, born here, brought up here," he says.
"On this definition, you can't be English even playing for England, let alone supporting them... I genuinely thought it was ridiculous." " https://bbc.com/news/articles/cy9dxxgjx4do
As a person of Indian origin I can understand how misleading it is to assume nationality is about race.
The vast majority of Indians and Pakistanis belong to the same races.
Yet because most Indians are Hindus and most Pakistanis are Muslims, there are stark differences between their ways of life, historical loyalties, international sympathies, architecture, literature. So much so that the partition of British India into predominantly Hindu India and predominantly Muslim Pakistan happened.
Of course one can claim to be a Scot or an Englishman purely by virtue of racial descent. It would be a thin claim if it did not include what really counts - values.
Living in Afghanistan as the descendant of 100 English generations while being a Taliban who speaks only Pushto would make one a devil of an odd Englishman. Though I dare say one could brandish a certificate of blood purity signed by Suella Braverman, Konstantin Kisin and Eric Kaufmann.
I am amazed that Suella Braverman could be born in England, live there for so many years, get an education in England, and still say she does not feel English!
The question is, if Fraser thinks Sunak is English, why isn't Sunak also African? Both his parents were born and raised in Africa (Kenyan and modern Tanzania) and his father's mother was also born and raised in Africa ?
He did not live in Africa and in any case chose to be English, not African.
Sunak himself has intervened in the debate, via a BBC interview with Nick Robinson:
"He's angry...with those like a popular podcaster who declared recently: "He's a brown Hindu; how is he English."
"Of course I'm English, born here, brought up here," he says.
"On this definition, you can't be English even playing for England, let alone supporting them... I genuinely thought it was ridiculous." " https://bbc.com/news/articles/cy9dxxgjx4do
As a Brit if I moved to Kenya, as Sunak's ancestors did, and had children there and those children married the children of other British ex-pats born in East Africa (as Sunak's parents did) and they moved to India and had a child with the same levels of Indian attributes you claim Sunak has of English attributes they would NOT be considered Indian or Kenyan either by the state or locals and I doubt very much that you would consider them as Indian either.
This is always a one-way street and always will be. Many people consider white South Africans not to be African even after though their families have lived there for hundreds of years.
I really don't see what British Jews considering themselves to be white or what they record in the census has to do with anything, it is utterly irrelevant in this argument and why you introduced it I don't know. The same is true with the USA, it has an entirely different culture wrt migration and nationality. Everyone non-native American in the USA comes from migrant stock, that cannot be said of the UK, quite the opposite.
Really thoughtful, informative and helpful piece. Thank you. Some kind of constructive consensus on these issues is crucial to the future health of our country. To me, a 'nation' is a large body of people UNITED by a common language, culture, history and shared occupancy of a territory. Unity is thus its strength, and not diversity.
Most nations also have a particular ethnos at their (historical) centre. But I don't believe personally that an homogenous ethnicity is crucial to the continued flourishing of a nation over time. A successful nation does not have to be pickled in homogenous ethnicity aspic in order to thrive.
Perhaps the crucial distinction to make is this one: a nation can be successfully multi racial, but it cannot be successfully multi-CULTURAL. The difference between these two things is usually made apparent through the scale and speed of immigration, and, linked to that, the degree to which the 'state' (the POLITICAL entity) encourages the cultural integration of migrants.
The 'double whammy' problem we face at the moment is that the level of immigration is far too high and far too rapid, and it is also linked to a state which does not seem able to encourage cultural integration. We are thus facing the top-down imposition of multi-culturalism, and that will, surely, if left unchecked, result in disaster.
I walk each week with a Hindu guy, slightly older than me. To hear us, you would not be able to tell us apart - but I am WHITE (on a good day!) and he is most definitely BROWN. In many ways, he is even more 'Anglo' than I am, and he has certainly lived and walked in this land for longer than I have. I regard him as English, even though my family line here extends back over centuries and his does not. His father emigrated here in the early 1970s as a result of the expulsion from Uganda. Because that wave of immigration was relatively small-scale, motivated in good faith, and, above all, culturally sustainable, it was integrated almost seamlessly into the cultural 'flow' of our nation. It may have modified it slightly, but the distinctive cultural 'flow' of the nation remained intact.
I think what's most important is that my friend values a COMMON, historical, 'English' identity (with ME!!) above a separate Hindu and Indian one, because THIS is the nation in which he lives (along with everything that should follow from that). HE regards himself as English above all else. This does not mean that he eschews everything about his 'other' culture - in November he taught me about 'Diwali' and I taught him about the ancient Christian festival of 'Hallowtide', of which 'Halloween' forms part. But, living HERE, both of us give primacy to the common language, culture, history and shared occupancy of a territory that defines ENGLISHNESS. If we lived somewhere else, then things would, and indeed should, be different.
What I am trying to say - I think! - is that we need to recognise, and value, a THIRD category of 'Englishness', between 'Englishness by nationality' [at its worst a cold, official designation] and 'Englishness by ethnicity' [an equally arbitrary racial designation]. People CAN, I hope, like my friend, be truly English by CULTURE as well as by nationality, even without sharing my Anglo-Saxon roots. And they can share in the evolving, bottom-up, everyday construction of Englishness.
And we can ALL, therefore, be 'British' on similar terms. Quite where this places Rishi Sunak I don't know. I'd need to get to know him rather better as an individual!
This has already surely proved to be the case with previous waves of migrants, from Irish migrants to Huguenots. And it also proved to be the case with VISIBLE ethnic minorities in the 20th century.
But we now face an unprecedented scale and speed of migration from culturally very different parts of the world, and a State which feels "embarrassed" about encouraging cultural integration and unity. The weakest, vaguest of abstractions like 'tolerance' and 'freedom' just won't cut it.
Seeking some kind of positive, and common, way forwards culturally seems to me to be crucial to the future success of our country. And this necessitates a reduction in the scale and speed of immigration, and a rejection of multi-cultural relativism (with it's inevitable mosaic of parallel and disconnected communities) in favour of the foregrounding of a common, historically rooted, English culture in THIS land....which we can then ALL then add to, sustainably, together.
Any alternative to this seems likely to spell disaster, along ethnic, cultural and 'nationhood' lines.
At least one other senior Canadian academic is now stating quite openly that Elon Musk's typically 'shoot from the hip' statement to the effect that "Civil War is Inevitable in the UK" is actually TRUE...
"Most nations also have a particular ethnos at their (historical) centre. But I don't believe personally that an homogenous ethnicity is crucial to the continued flourishing of a nation over time. "
Name some examples of successful nations where this is the case.
If one finds oneself beginning to think otherwise, then either they have thought too much about this question and consequently abstracted it into a divorce from reality, or you are interested in undermining the idea of the native peoples of the United Kingdom having a claim to being an ethnic group.
I started calling myself English rather than British when I got online and realised that a lot of Americans think the two are interchangeable, and this really annoys the Welsh and Scots. I've been asked by a few Welsh to call myself English and not British. I'm aware that many English also use "English" and "British" interchangeably and this annoys some of the Welsh and Scots even more. So, I do that out of respect for the Welsh and Scots but I also feel very English and very committed to England. This is why I am a late medievalist studying England and also learn Old English and, now, Old Norse.
But I'm not English, by ethnicity, I don't think. I have an ancestral DNA test because I'd like to see if I have any Anglo-Saxon heritage, but I don't think so. Two of my grandparents were Welsh, one Italian and one French. I would love to find out that some of my ancestors were English or of any of the Germanic tribes, simply because I love the pre-Christian mythology of the Northmen. I'd like to think that some of my ancestors practiced that, but I don't think they did. I think half of them were Britons who predated the Anglo-Saxon invasion and the other half are from the Mediterranean.
Some of the Welsh, in particular, still feel that the English should not be here but should go back to Northern Europe and take our Germanic tongue with us so they can restore Britain's native languages and indigenous peoples, but most of those who say this are joking and have accepted the Anglo-Saxon invasion now. Half-joking anyway. Many are genuinely not happy about English being the dominant language because it is not native to this island and also got imposed on the Welsh by force. Some of the Scots feel the same way, and some of the Cornish and Geordies do not identify as English and speak of 'the English' as people from the Home Counties. I find all this fascinating and delightful. We have so many indigenous languages (I'm going to include English as one of them even if this annoys some of the Welsh) and even more dialects on such a small island. I don't like this being flattened out to "British" or even to "English." This island has too rich a stew of nationalities, ethnicities, histories, cultures, religions, myths, languages, dialects & customs, and its glorious. One of my most conservative positions is my patriotism and love of history and tradition and particularly myths, languages and dialects. This makes me say that ethnonationalists who want to group all the "white British" together as the indigenous peoples and everybody else as foreigners cannot be conservatives, because they don't seem to know or value the history of this island and all its tribes and ethnicities and languages and dialects and don't want to conserve them, but throw them away and replace them with a new categorisation system. (I don't like racial categorisations for other ethical reasons, but I also really don't like them being put down in place of the way the different tribes of this island have historically understood themselves.
Someone who chooses to be English out of deeply considered values is far more genuinely so than someone who is English only for reasons not of his choosing: accident of birth.
As a person of Indian origin I can understand how misleading it is to assume nationality is about race.
The vast majority of Indians and Pakistanis belong to the same races.
Yet because most Indians are Hindus and most Pakistanis are Muslims, there are stark differences between their ways of life, historical loyalties, international sympathies, architecture, literature. So much so that the partition of British India into predominantly Hindu India and predominantly Muslim Pakistan happened.
I am amazed that Suella Braverman could be born in England, live there for so many years, get an education in England, and still say she does not feel English!
According to Wilki the following is your own ethnicity:
"Eric Kaufmann was born in Hong Kong and raised in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, and Japan. His ancestry is half Jewish, one-quarter Chinese and one-quarter Costa Rican."
And that gives you the right to make a big deal about what you call being English by "ethnicity"?
Of course one can claim to be a Scot or an Englishman purely by virtue of racial descent. It would be a thin claim if it did not include what really counts - values.
Living in Afghanistan as the descendant of 100 English generations while being a Taliban who speaks only Pushto would make one a devil of an odd Englishman. Though I dare say one could brandish a certificate of blood purity signed by Suella Braverman, Konstantin Kisin and Eric Kaufmann.
Sunak himself has intervened in the debate, via a BBC interview with Nick Robinson:
"He's angry...with those like a popular podcaster who declared recently: "He's a brown Hindu; how is he English."
"Of course I'm English, born here, brought up here," he says.
"On this definition, you can't be English even playing for England, let alone supporting them... I genuinely thought it was ridiculous." " https://bbc.com/news/articles/cy9dxxgjx4do
I must confess I have never read any of your books, Professor Kaufman, but I have read articles by you and seen and heard you a lot on the media and I know that it was you who coined the term “asymmetrical multiculturalism”. I am therefore puzzled by the distinction you’re making between nationality and ethnicity. Wasn’t this distinction invented precisely in order to make asymmetrical multiculturalism possible? Ethnic minorities would have both an ethnic-cultural identity based on their ancestry and a national identity defined by “values” such as equality, tolerance etc. The ethnic majority, by contrast, would be told that it had no ethnic-cultural identity, only a national identity based on shared values. I don’t think any English person 100 years ago would have had a clue what you were talking about had you suggested to them that the English People and the English Nation were two distinct entities.
In my view, you came up with a better solution to this conundrum in this article:
What is true for the whole is not true for every part of the whole. The English are a national group defined by their common ancestry. Rishi Sunak does not have English ancestry. However, Rishi Sunak IS a member of the English national group. He has been adopted into the English national group and he identifies with that group therefore he deserves to be considered English even though he does not have English ancestry. The fact that the English are a national group defined by common ancestry does not mean that Rishi Sunak cannot be English, as racists would say. But the fact that Rishi Sunak does not have English ancestry does not mean that the English are not a national group defined by their ancestry, as the multiculturalists and wokeists would say.
Incidentally, I can’t understand why Konstantin Kissin chose to ask Fraser Nelson about Rishi Sunak rather than Kemi Badenoch! Sunak clearly sees himself as English (or at least as British). Badenoch says she is Yoruba and that her Yoruba heritage has given her “a very strong identity about who you are, where you come from, traditions and so on”. My impression is that Badenoch very much accepts asymmetrical multiculturalism. Whenever she speaks about how great Britain is, it’s all about values and abstractions. Yoruba is her ethnic-cultural identity, Britishness is her values-defined national identity. Her acceptance of asymmetrical multiculturalism explains why she sees nothing odd in being a Yoruba nationalist and wanting to become Prime Minister of Britain. And, of course, she wasn’t brought up in this country and doesn’t understand basic aspects of British culture such as what being “working class” or “middle class” means. Come to think of it, why didn’t Kissin and Foster ask her about all this when she was on their podcast?!
I have slightly rewritten my comment since posting it, which might indicate how complicated this topic is. I’ve also just read the comment by George Carmody, which quotes Sunak as saying “I’m thoroughly British… but my religious and cultural heritage is Indian”. Is Sunak, like Badenoch, an asymmetrical multiculturalist? He says that he will always have a connection with India because he’s a Hindu. He seems to be saying that Hinduism is a national religion, which implies that all British Hindus are permanently tied to a foreign nation. Do I regard a British person who has a strong connection to India as being as British as I am? To be honest, I don’t think I do. The Indian government certainly regards the Indian “diaspora” as being made up of Indians who it thinks can be useful in promoting India’s interests abroad. It’s worth pointing out that many people in India clearly saw Sunak as Indian, not British:
I don't often disagree with you, Eric, but on this occasion I must.
Sunak is not English. He has never made this absurd claim for himself, recognising, on the contrary, that he has a civic British identity while retaining his Indian and Hindu ethnic and religious identities. He is a British Indian. Here are his own words on the matter:
'I am now a citizen of Britain. But my religion is Hindu. My religious and cultural heritage is Indian. I proudly say that I am a Hindu and my identity is also a Hindu.'
'My wife is Indian, and being a proud Hindu means I will always have a connection with India and the people of India. I am hugely proud of my Indian roots and my connections to India.'
'I am thoroughly British, this is my home and my country, but my religious and cultural heritage is Indian, my wife is Indian. I am open about being a Hindu. I don’t eat beef, it has never been a problem.'
So any pretended English identity has never even come into it as far as Sunak is concerned (note, he self-describes as 'thoroughly British'). So why have others taken it upon themselves to speak for him? And who does a Scot such as Fraser Nelson think he is to tell the English who is and is not a member of our nation?
Sunak himself has intervened in the debate, via a BBC interview with Nick Robinson:
"He's angry...with those like a popular podcaster who declared recently: "He's a brown Hindu; how is he English."
"Of course I'm English, born here, brought up here," he says.
"On this definition, you can't be English even playing for England, let alone supporting them... I genuinely thought it was ridiculous." " https://bbc.com/news/articles/cy9dxxgjx4do
As a person of Indian origin I can understand how misleading it is to assume nationality is about race.
The vast majority of Indians and Pakistanis belong to the same races.
Yet because most Indians are Hindus and most Pakistanis are Muslims, there are stark differences between their ways of life, historical loyalties, international sympathies, architecture, literature. So much so that the partition of British India into predominantly Hindu India and predominantly Muslim Pakistan happened.
Of course one can claim to be a Scot or an Englishman purely by virtue of racial descent. It would be a thin claim if it did not include what really counts - values.
Living in Afghanistan as the descendant of 100 English generations while being a Taliban who speaks only Pushto would make one a devil of an odd Englishman. Though I dare say one could brandish a certificate of blood purity signed by Suella Braverman, Konstantin Kisin and Eric Kaufmann.
I am amazed that Suella Braverman could be born in England, live there for so many years, get an education in England, and still say she does not feel English!
An appalling, stark case of failed integration!
The question is, if Fraser thinks Sunak is English, why isn't Sunak also African? Both his parents were born and raised in Africa (Kenyan and modern Tanzania) and his father's mother was also born and raised in Africa ?
He did not live in Africa and in any case chose to be English, not African.
Sunak himself has intervened in the debate, via a BBC interview with Nick Robinson:
"He's angry...with those like a popular podcaster who declared recently: "He's a brown Hindu; how is he English."
"Of course I'm English, born here, brought up here," he says.
"On this definition, you can't be English even playing for England, let alone supporting them... I genuinely thought it was ridiculous." " https://bbc.com/news/articles/cy9dxxgjx4do
https://substack.com/home/post/p-158167285?utm_source=activity_item
Sorry but this is nonsense.
As a Brit if I moved to Kenya, as Sunak's ancestors did, and had children there and those children married the children of other British ex-pats born in East Africa (as Sunak's parents did) and they moved to India and had a child with the same levels of Indian attributes you claim Sunak has of English attributes they would NOT be considered Indian or Kenyan either by the state or locals and I doubt very much that you would consider them as Indian either.
This is always a one-way street and always will be. Many people consider white South Africans not to be African even after though their families have lived there for hundreds of years.
I really don't see what British Jews considering themselves to be white or what they record in the census has to do with anything, it is utterly irrelevant in this argument and why you introduced it I don't know. The same is true with the USA, it has an entirely different culture wrt migration and nationality. Everyone non-native American in the USA comes from migrant stock, that cannot be said of the UK, quite the opposite.
Really thoughtful, informative and helpful piece. Thank you. Some kind of constructive consensus on these issues is crucial to the future health of our country. To me, a 'nation' is a large body of people UNITED by a common language, culture, history and shared occupancy of a territory. Unity is thus its strength, and not diversity.
Most nations also have a particular ethnos at their (historical) centre. But I don't believe personally that an homogenous ethnicity is crucial to the continued flourishing of a nation over time. A successful nation does not have to be pickled in homogenous ethnicity aspic in order to thrive.
Perhaps the crucial distinction to make is this one: a nation can be successfully multi racial, but it cannot be successfully multi-CULTURAL. The difference between these two things is usually made apparent through the scale and speed of immigration, and, linked to that, the degree to which the 'state' (the POLITICAL entity) encourages the cultural integration of migrants.
The 'double whammy' problem we face at the moment is that the level of immigration is far too high and far too rapid, and it is also linked to a state which does not seem able to encourage cultural integration. We are thus facing the top-down imposition of multi-culturalism, and that will, surely, if left unchecked, result in disaster.
I walk each week with a Hindu guy, slightly older than me. To hear us, you would not be able to tell us apart - but I am WHITE (on a good day!) and he is most definitely BROWN. In many ways, he is even more 'Anglo' than I am, and he has certainly lived and walked in this land for longer than I have. I regard him as English, even though my family line here extends back over centuries and his does not. His father emigrated here in the early 1970s as a result of the expulsion from Uganda. Because that wave of immigration was relatively small-scale, motivated in good faith, and, above all, culturally sustainable, it was integrated almost seamlessly into the cultural 'flow' of our nation. It may have modified it slightly, but the distinctive cultural 'flow' of the nation remained intact.
I think what's most important is that my friend values a COMMON, historical, 'English' identity (with ME!!) above a separate Hindu and Indian one, because THIS is the nation in which he lives (along with everything that should follow from that). HE regards himself as English above all else. This does not mean that he eschews everything about his 'other' culture - in November he taught me about 'Diwali' and I taught him about the ancient Christian festival of 'Hallowtide', of which 'Halloween' forms part. But, living HERE, both of us give primacy to the common language, culture, history and shared occupancy of a territory that defines ENGLISHNESS. If we lived somewhere else, then things would, and indeed should, be different.
What I am trying to say - I think! - is that we need to recognise, and value, a THIRD category of 'Englishness', between 'Englishness by nationality' [at its worst a cold, official designation] and 'Englishness by ethnicity' [an equally arbitrary racial designation]. People CAN, I hope, like my friend, be truly English by CULTURE as well as by nationality, even without sharing my Anglo-Saxon roots. And they can share in the evolving, bottom-up, everyday construction of Englishness.
And we can ALL, therefore, be 'British' on similar terms. Quite where this places Rishi Sunak I don't know. I'd need to get to know him rather better as an individual!
This has already surely proved to be the case with previous waves of migrants, from Irish migrants to Huguenots. And it also proved to be the case with VISIBLE ethnic minorities in the 20th century.
But we now face an unprecedented scale and speed of migration from culturally very different parts of the world, and a State which feels "embarrassed" about encouraging cultural integration and unity. The weakest, vaguest of abstractions like 'tolerance' and 'freedom' just won't cut it.
Seeking some kind of positive, and common, way forwards culturally seems to me to be crucial to the future success of our country. And this necessitates a reduction in the scale and speed of immigration, and a rejection of multi-cultural relativism (with it's inevitable mosaic of parallel and disconnected communities) in favour of the foregrounding of a common, historically rooted, English culture in THIS land....which we can then ALL then add to, sustainably, together.
Any alternative to this seems likely to spell disaster, along ethnic, cultural and 'nationhood' lines.
At least one other senior Canadian academic is now stating quite openly that Elon Musk's typically 'shoot from the hip' statement to the effect that "Civil War is Inevitable in the UK" is actually TRUE...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gid48FgiHho&t=411s
https://www.militarystrategymagazine.com/article/civil-war-comes-to-the-west/
With the right action from the top, we might still be able to prove him wrong.
"Most nations also have a particular ethnos at their (historical) centre. But I don't believe personally that an homogenous ethnicity is crucial to the continued flourishing of a nation over time. "
Name some examples of successful nations where this is the case.
The United States of America
https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/2019/04/09/race-in-america-2019/
You mean is he a foreign betrayer or a local traitor?
I suppose it depends upon your frame of reference.
No, next question.
If one finds oneself beginning to think otherwise, then either they have thought too much about this question and consequently abstracted it into a divorce from reality, or you are interested in undermining the idea of the native peoples of the United Kingdom having a claim to being an ethnic group.
Next topoc
I started calling myself English rather than British when I got online and realised that a lot of Americans think the two are interchangeable, and this really annoys the Welsh and Scots. I've been asked by a few Welsh to call myself English and not British. I'm aware that many English also use "English" and "British" interchangeably and this annoys some of the Welsh and Scots even more. So, I do that out of respect for the Welsh and Scots but I also feel very English and very committed to England. This is why I am a late medievalist studying England and also learn Old English and, now, Old Norse.
But I'm not English, by ethnicity, I don't think. I have an ancestral DNA test because I'd like to see if I have any Anglo-Saxon heritage, but I don't think so. Two of my grandparents were Welsh, one Italian and one French. I would love to find out that some of my ancestors were English or of any of the Germanic tribes, simply because I love the pre-Christian mythology of the Northmen. I'd like to think that some of my ancestors practiced that, but I don't think they did. I think half of them were Britons who predated the Anglo-Saxon invasion and the other half are from the Mediterranean.
Some of the Welsh, in particular, still feel that the English should not be here but should go back to Northern Europe and take our Germanic tongue with us so they can restore Britain's native languages and indigenous peoples, but most of those who say this are joking and have accepted the Anglo-Saxon invasion now. Half-joking anyway. Many are genuinely not happy about English being the dominant language because it is not native to this island and also got imposed on the Welsh by force. Some of the Scots feel the same way, and some of the Cornish and Geordies do not identify as English and speak of 'the English' as people from the Home Counties. I find all this fascinating and delightful. We have so many indigenous languages (I'm going to include English as one of them even if this annoys some of the Welsh) and even more dialects on such a small island. I don't like this being flattened out to "British" or even to "English." This island has too rich a stew of nationalities, ethnicities, histories, cultures, religions, myths, languages, dialects & customs, and its glorious. One of my most conservative positions is my patriotism and love of history and tradition and particularly myths, languages and dialects. This makes me say that ethnonationalists who want to group all the "white British" together as the indigenous peoples and everybody else as foreigners cannot be conservatives, because they don't seem to know or value the history of this island and all its tribes and ethnicities and languages and dialects and don't want to conserve them, but throw them away and replace them with a new categorisation system. (I don't like racial categorisations for other ethical reasons, but I also really don't like them being put down in place of the way the different tribes of this island have historically understood themselves.
Someone who chooses to be English out of deeply considered values is far more genuinely so than someone who is English only for reasons not of his choosing: accident of birth.
As a person of Indian origin I can understand how misleading it is to assume nationality is about race.
The vast majority of Indians and Pakistanis belong to the same races.
Yet because most Indians are Hindus and most Pakistanis are Muslims, there are stark differences between their ways of life, historical loyalties, international sympathies, architecture, literature. So much so that the partition of British India into predominantly Hindu India and predominantly Muslim Pakistan happened.
I am amazed that Suella Braverman could be born in England, live there for so many years, get an education in England, and still say she does not feel English!
An appalling, stark case of failed integration!
According to Wilki the following is your own ethnicity:
"Eric Kaufmann was born in Hong Kong and raised in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, and Japan. His ancestry is half Jewish, one-quarter Chinese and one-quarter Costa Rican."
And that gives you the right to make a big deal about what you call being English by "ethnicity"?
Of course one can claim to be a Scot or an Englishman purely by virtue of racial descent. It would be a thin claim if it did not include what really counts - values.
Living in Afghanistan as the descendant of 100 English generations while being a Taliban who speaks only Pushto would make one a devil of an odd Englishman. Though I dare say one could brandish a certificate of blood purity signed by Suella Braverman, Konstantin Kisin and Eric Kaufmann.
Sunak himself has intervened in the debate, via a BBC interview with Nick Robinson:
"He's angry...with those like a popular podcaster who declared recently: "He's a brown Hindu; how is he English."
"Of course I'm English, born here, brought up here," he says.
"On this definition, you can't be English even playing for England, let alone supporting them... I genuinely thought it was ridiculous." " https://bbc.com/news/articles/cy9dxxgjx4do
I must confess I have never read any of your books, Professor Kaufman, but I have read articles by you and seen and heard you a lot on the media and I know that it was you who coined the term “asymmetrical multiculturalism”. I am therefore puzzled by the distinction you’re making between nationality and ethnicity. Wasn’t this distinction invented precisely in order to make asymmetrical multiculturalism possible? Ethnic minorities would have both an ethnic-cultural identity based on their ancestry and a national identity defined by “values” such as equality, tolerance etc. The ethnic majority, by contrast, would be told that it had no ethnic-cultural identity, only a national identity based on shared values. I don’t think any English person 100 years ago would have had a clue what you were talking about had you suggested to them that the English People and the English Nation were two distinct entities.
In my view, you came up with a better solution to this conundrum in this article:
https://www.city-journal.org/article/the-wests-culture-of-therapeutic-individualism
What is true for the whole is not true for every part of the whole. The English are a national group defined by their common ancestry. Rishi Sunak does not have English ancestry. However, Rishi Sunak IS a member of the English national group. He has been adopted into the English national group and he identifies with that group therefore he deserves to be considered English even though he does not have English ancestry. The fact that the English are a national group defined by common ancestry does not mean that Rishi Sunak cannot be English, as racists would say. But the fact that Rishi Sunak does not have English ancestry does not mean that the English are not a national group defined by their ancestry, as the multiculturalists and wokeists would say.
Incidentally, I can’t understand why Konstantin Kissin chose to ask Fraser Nelson about Rishi Sunak rather than Kemi Badenoch! Sunak clearly sees himself as English (or at least as British). Badenoch says she is Yoruba and that her Yoruba heritage has given her “a very strong identity about who you are, where you come from, traditions and so on”. My impression is that Badenoch very much accepts asymmetrical multiculturalism. Whenever she speaks about how great Britain is, it’s all about values and abstractions. Yoruba is her ethnic-cultural identity, Britishness is her values-defined national identity. Her acceptance of asymmetrical multiculturalism explains why she sees nothing odd in being a Yoruba nationalist and wanting to become Prime Minister of Britain. And, of course, she wasn’t brought up in this country and doesn’t understand basic aspects of British culture such as what being “working class” or “middle class” means. Come to think of it, why didn’t Kissin and Foster ask her about all this when she was on their podcast?!
I have slightly rewritten my comment since posting it, which might indicate how complicated this topic is. I’ve also just read the comment by George Carmody, which quotes Sunak as saying “I’m thoroughly British… but my religious and cultural heritage is Indian”. Is Sunak, like Badenoch, an asymmetrical multiculturalist? He says that he will always have a connection with India because he’s a Hindu. He seems to be saying that Hinduism is a national religion, which implies that all British Hindus are permanently tied to a foreign nation. Do I regard a British person who has a strong connection to India as being as British as I am? To be honest, I don’t think I do. The Indian government certainly regards the Indian “diaspora” as being made up of Indians who it thinks can be useful in promoting India’s interests abroad. It’s worth pointing out that many people in India clearly saw Sunak as Indian, not British:
https://m.youtube.com/shorts/RLnsetuODbg
I’ll stop now
He’s a stinking paki that needs to be sent back to his shit hole country !
Is Bud Lite Bordeaux?
I don’t like where this goes. The next question might be: Was Eric Hobsbawm English?