Lately I've been experiencing a bit of an identity crisis. When children ask what's the point in learning subjects like history (it's all dead and buried), the wise history teacher will say that unless we know where we've come from, we'll never know who we are.
The French, for all their faults, know exactly who they are. From the blockading fishermen in the north to the village townsfolk in the south, their culture is supreme. I even saw in our village bibliotheque a leaflet on how to renovate ancient crumbling houses so as to maintain French local heritage and history.
I see in the Sunday Times that Prince Charles is battling to stop a monstrous glass and steel reconstruction of the ancient much-loved Chelsea Barracks in London. I agree with him. A lot of what's wrong with the UK is not the crumbling edifices of its houses, but the crumbling edifices of its culture. When will planners get the message that unless we conserve the essential character of our past, we destroy not only our heritage but the essential character of who we are.
So, I suppose my own id crisis is caused by being an Englishwoman with eastern-Europe ancestors struggling to be accepted in yet another country. Like the teeming nomads in history, cross-circuiting the globe in search of a better life, I too need to find the essential ingredient that tells me who I am.
Answers please (not on a postcard) but by the comments section here!
Showing posts with label French history. Show all posts
Showing posts with label French history. Show all posts
29th November 2008
Yesterday we were visited by a charming couple from Cap Breton in Novia Scotia, on the north-eastern tip of Canada. With a name like Cap Breton, I wondered at its French origins as I knew that it's some distance away from Quebec and the bilingual French-speaking residents there. Our visitors told us that Novia Scotia is actually an island, now connected to the mainland by a causeway. Delving a little deeper, it seems that centuries ago the island saw active settlement by France when it was included in the colony of Acadia. The French originally named the island 'Île Royale' and it remained part of colonial France until it was ceded to Britain under the Treaty of Paris in 1763. Eventually Britain merged the island with its adjacent colony of Nova Scotia (present day peninsular Nova Scotia and New Brunswick).
I find it difficult to get my head around how the modern world deals with all the European colonial 'acquisitions' from the past. It made me think of the Falklands crisis, when Britain felt so stirred up about a tiny island thousands of miles away in the South Atlantic. What has that part of the world got to do with Britain now? The same could be said for Gibraltar, and similarly many of the 'French' islands around the world. (But not the Middle East, whose residents can trace their roots right back to the beginning of time). If I were the British PM or the French President today, I would hand back all colonial 'acquisitions' of the past, such as the Falklands or Martinique, to the nearest geographical nation and give free rights of living to current dwellers, in exchange for some sort of trade agreement between both participating nations.
But then, I'm not the PM or the President, so I'll just have to go back to being a humble writer with attitude. Must say, though, it felt good to sign a copy of 'Paradis' to my new fans from Novia Scotia. Long may it continue.
................Don't miss tomorrow's (Sunday's) serial: 'I'm NOT a celebrity - get me published'.
I find it difficult to get my head around how the modern world deals with all the European colonial 'acquisitions' from the past. It made me think of the Falklands crisis, when Britain felt so stirred up about a tiny island thousands of miles away in the South Atlantic. What has that part of the world got to do with Britain now? The same could be said for Gibraltar, and similarly many of the 'French' islands around the world. (But not the Middle East, whose residents can trace their roots right back to the beginning of time). If I were the British PM or the French President today, I would hand back all colonial 'acquisitions' of the past, such as the Falklands or Martinique, to the nearest geographical nation and give free rights of living to current dwellers, in exchange for some sort of trade agreement between both participating nations.
But then, I'm not the PM or the President, so I'll just have to go back to being a humble writer with attitude. Must say, though, it felt good to sign a copy of 'Paradis' to my new fans from Novia Scotia. Long may it continue.
................Don't miss tomorrow's (Sunday's) serial: 'I'm NOT a celebrity - get me published'.
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