BRITISH IDENTITY AND THE GERMAN OTHER A Dissertation ...

that with the rise of Conservative English nationalism in response to Scottish and Welsh
devolution a turning inward has taken place since the 1980s. Paul Ward saw in the British
Nationality Act of 1981 a politics of racial exclusion based on an immigrant’s perceived capacity
to imbibe English domestic virtues, a policy that favored Jews over West Indian blacks. 82
Krishnan Kumar and Richard Weight warned that English nationalism risks being hijacked by
soccer hooligans waving the red and white flag of St. George or becoming aligned with
reactionary racism along the lines of Enoch Powell’s 1960s rhetorical attack on anti-
discrimination legislation. 83 On the other hand, Weight located in England’s libertarian heritage
and parliamentary democracy the proper cure for resuscitating a more radical patriotism. Kumar
argued that nostalgic cultural definitions of Englishness, from fox-hunting to exclusive ruralism,
racial or linguistic purity or any sense of “owning” past cultural achievements should not be
politicized. “A public, institutional definition of Englishness,” he added, would embrace and
elucidate English civic principles simply taken for granted in Britishness. 84
and 1983, respectively.
Temporal and Spatial Difference in British and German Identities
The importance of official histories and territorial boundaries in defining cultural and
political identities dates back to the ancient Hebrews and Greeks, as Hans Kohn argued, and such
temporal and spatial conceptions varied considerably in British and German orientations. In
82 Britishness since 1870 (London; New York: Routledge, 2004), 126.
83 Kumar, The Making of English National Identity, 252, 267-68. Weight, “Raise St.
George’s Standard High,” New Statesman and Society, 8 January 1999, 25-27.
84 Kumar, 270.
102