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The nationality debate, an alternative view

Happy St David’s Day.

 

 

 

Dewi Sant.

 

 

But instead of sitting proudly on the nest of Welshness (because who needs a special day to celebrate being a member of the greatest nationality on the planet?), I thought I’d have a quick look at being British.

I did the Channel 4 Nationality Quiz yesterday. I got 23 right, out of 24 possible answers. This is a pass. I feel slightly ashamed I got one question wrong.

But really, does passing this quiz make me British? Does knowing the correct answers to 23 out of 24 questions make me *suitable* to call myself British?

for full size: click on this, then click on the next picture

 

 

Of course it doesn’t.

 

This quiz is pathetic.

 

 

 

Knowing where the Welsh Assembly is located, for example, is nothing to do with whether I am fit to call myself British or not.

What a stupid fucking quiz.

Any child of reasonable intelligence should be able to pass this quiz; it’s a pop quiz, a randomised general knowledge, trivial pursuit-type questionnaire.

Where are the historical questions?

Where are the questions on law (civil, criminal and case)?

Where are the questions on culture and custom and context?

Where are the questions on literature and language? And art and poetry?

And also where’s the test on literacy? If you can’t structure and punctuate a simple sentence in at least one of the official languages of the country, you must, by logic, be an unsuitable candidate to call yourself British.

And really, just one question on Wales? And no questions at all on Northern Ireland?

How fucking pathetic.

So here’s my take.

Everyone who lives in the UK should be forced to take this test – no matter where they were born.

And the stupid people who were born here but who can’t pass the test should be exported to live in the Falkland Islands for the rest of their lives.

Firm but fair.

You can take the test here, but it really is ridiculously simple.

And the one I got wrong? That was Question 14:
How many elected members does the UK have in the European Parliament?

The answer of 73 disgusts me. Seventy three sets of ‘trotters in the trough’? Seventy three Euro MPs? As well as our 650 Westminster MPs?

That’s outrageous, and a total disgrace. Both numbers should be halved.

13 thoughts on “The nationality debate, an alternative view”

  1. Hmmmm. In my life I’ve had a lot of cause to think about — not race, but ethnicity — which is the more useful term, I think. Being an English (I’m quarter Welsh, but culturally very English) child migrant in Australia was a lesson in being Other. I think you have to experience being “different” to realise what the majority is, and how dominant it can be.

    After all, fish don’t realise they swim in water. It’s only out of water that you notice the water!

    That said, it is important to me to be English, and I moved back here. It’s a big move, but this is my country. Despite having been a migrant (well, my parents were), I really don’t know why people leave the country of their birth. The shock of it when I was 7 has been a constant ripple in my life ever since.

    1. I love that response. Ethnically I’m Welsh as far back as the start of the C18th, then records get difficult to follow. Culturally I have no idea what I am. Spanish a lot. Latin American a lot. British a lot. Italian a bit. But all that’s due to my travels/different countries I have lived in.

  2. My mother holds a British and NZ passport. She was born and raised in England, then raised her own family in NZ (for the most part). My father’s great grandfather emigrated from England to NZ in the 1840s. My sister and her husband both grew up in NZ but have lived in England for most of the last twenty-something years. I (like my sister) was born in a British hospital in Singapore.

    We’re all Kiwis and my Mum is also a Pom.

    What is nationality again?

    1. I think, in order to answer that question, you’d have to set it within the context of the documentary that this post relates to.

    1. It’s only cold there during our summer. And just think, you’ll have all the penguins you could eat! You’ll have a great time. Lots of sheep to play with. Have fun. 🙂

  4. A Dewi Sant day a few days after beating the Saes at the cabbage patch is always nice.

    (You can explain for your American readers!)

    1. Nah, that’s not ‘not bad’ for a Canadian, that’s excellent. There are Brits here who can’t hit 50%. Brilliantly well done.

      1. I should add that I got 11/24. I couldn’t even manage a percentage with a finite number of digits. 45.83333333333333% (roughly).

  6. I’m on the boat with Masher. Then again, I was born in Yorkshire and thus the rest of the UK is of no importance to me. Except Blackpool which is one of our colonies!

    On a more serious note, I don’t think any sort of question based test can determine nationality. Surely nationality is a mixture of birthplace, parentage, and within those guidelines, mindset.. I think to adopt a nationality outside those lines requires a willing immersion into that countries entire way of life.

    1. I agree entirely with you. And my faux anger is really focussed on the Tebbitesque simpletons who think some kind of a ‘cricket test’ is the basis for any kind of a nationality decision.

      Anyway, I thought Blackpool was a bona fide dominion of the Isle of Man. Have I got that wrong?

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