It does not, however, prevent them from feeling their national identity very strongly.

National (‘ethnic') loyalties can be especially strong among the people whose ancestors were not English. For some people living in England who call themselves Scottish, Welsh or Irish, this loyalty is little more than a matter of emotional attachment. But for others, it goes further and they may even join one of the sporting and social clubs for ‘exiles’ from these nations. These clubs promote national folk music, organize parties on special national days and foster a consciousness of doing things differently from the English.

For people living in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, the way that ethnic identity commonly expresses itself varies. People in Scotland have constant reminders of their distinctiveness. Firstly, several important aspects of public life are organized separately, and differently from the rest of Britain - notably, education, law and religion. Secondly, the Scottish way of speaking is very distinctive. A modem form of the dialect known as Scots is spoken in everyday life by most of the working classes in the lowlands. The historical and cultural split between highland and lowland Scotland is reflected in the language they speak. Unlike lowland Scottish a few tens of thousands of people in some of the western isles of Scotland and adjoining mainland speak Scottish Gaelic (which they call ‘Gallic’).

Thirdly, there are many symbols of Scottishness which are well-known throughout Britain. For example, on 25 January every year, many Scottish people attend “Burns’ suppers”. At these parties they read from the work of the eighteenth century poet Robert Bums. He is regarded to be Scotland’s national poet. At these parties people wear kilts*, sing traditional songs, dance traditional danccs (called "reels’) and eat haggis (made from sheep’s heart, lungs and liver).

The people of Wales do not have as many reminders of their Welshness in their everyday life. The organization of public life is identical to that in England. Nor are there as many well-known symbols of Welshness. In addition, a large minority of people in Wales probably do not consider themselves to be especially Welsh at all. In the 19-th century large numbers of Scottish, Irish and English people went to find work there.

• Part of the traditional dress of a Scotsman: a heavy pleated woollen skirt, usually of tartan, in front of which is worn a sporran. The kilt is part of the uniform of a highlander.

As a result, a feeling of loyalty to Wales is often similar to the fairly weak loyalties to particular geographical areas found throughout England - it is regional rather than nationalistic.

However, there is one single highly-important symbol of Welsh identity - the Welsh language. Everybody in W^rales can speak English, but it is not everybody’s first language. For about 20% of the population (that is more than half a million people), the mother-tongue is Welsh. For these people Welsh identity obviously means more than just living in the region called Wales.

Moreover, in comparison to other small minority languages of Europe, Welsh shows signs of continued vitality. The Welsh language, which is Celtic, has survived in parts of the north and west, more spontaneously than the rather similar Gaelic languages of Scotland, Cornwall and Brittany. Due to its Celtic origin Welsh is quite different from English. For example, the word Llandyfrdwy (pronounced roughly [hbd^Ardu:i] ) is a typical Welsh place name.Thanks to successive campaigns the language receives a lot of public support. All children in Wales learn it at school, there are many local newspapers in Welsh, there is a Welsh television channel and nearly all public notices and signs are written in both Welsh and English.

Welsh nationalism is mainly cultural and linguistic. The national flag, with its fine dragon , is regularly displayed, the Welsh national anthem played and sung. The 800-year-old National Eisteddfodd, a festival of Welsh music and poetry dating from the twelfth century, is held each year with official help. Plaid Cymru, the Welsh national party, won three of the country’s 38 seats at the election of 1987, all in the Welsh-speaking far north-west. But in more than half of the constituencies in Wales its candidates received less than 5 per cent of the votes cast, and so lost their deposits. In Cardiff («Caerdydd») their support was below 2 per cent.

The question of identity in Northern Ireland is a much more complex

issue.

In this part of the UK, the pattern of identity and loyalty outlined above does not apply. Here, ethnicity, family, politics and religion are all interrelated, and social class has a comparatively minor role in establishing identity. Northern Ireland is a polarized society where most people are bom into, and stay in, one or other of the two communities for the whole of their lives.

On one side of the divide are people whose ancestors came from lowland Scotland or England. They are self-consciously Protestant and want Northern Ireland to remain in the UK. On the other side are people whose ancestors were native Irish. They are self-consciously Catholic and would like Northern Ireland to become part of the Irish Republic.

Although the two communities live side by side, their lives are almost entirely segregated. They live in different housing estates, listen to different radio and television programmes, march to commemorate diferent anniversaries and read different newspapers. Their children go to different schools. Merely talking to someone from the other community is a rare event.

Many Scottish, Irish or Welsh are very proud of being not English and having distinctly different names. For example, the prefix “Mac” or “Me” in surnames ( such as MacCarthy, McCall, MacDonald) means “the son of’. So the name “MacDonald” , for instance, means “the son of Donald”. A very large number of names (for example, Davis, Evans, Jones, Lloyd, Morgan, Price, Rees, Williams) suggest Welsh origin (although many of these are found throughout England). While the prefix “O” (as in O’Brien, O’Hara) is distinctly Irish.Among other signs of national identity are special clothes. For example, the kilt, a skirt with a tartan pattern worn by men, is a very well-known symbol of Scottisbness.

There are other characteristics too. There are certain stereotypes of national character. For instance, the Irish are supposed to be great talkers, the Scots have a reputation for being careful with money, and the Welsh are renow’ned for their singing ability. These characteristics are, of course, only caricatures and are not reliable descriptions of individual people from these countries. Nevertheless, they indicate some slight differences in the value attached to certain kinds of behaviour in the countries concerned.

Different waves of immigration.

People have been coming to settle in Britain for centurics from many parts of the world.

Some came to avoid political or religious persecution, others to find a better way of life or an escape from poverty.

Speaking about multi-ethnic character of the contemporary British society certain attention should be given first of all to background to immigration.

Because of its long tradition of accomodating immigrants and refugees and because it is part of a multiracial Commonwealth, Britain contains a diversity of peoples. London, for instance, is among the most multiracial cities in the world. It has been estimated that some 160 languages and dialects are spoken by children in London schools. For many centuries a variety of people have been absorbed into British society, having come to Britain in search of better economic opportunities or to escape political or religious persecution. Huguenots (French Protestants) settled in the 17-th century as did Jews from the continent of Europe in the ! 9-th. The Irish have long formed a substantial part of the population. Refugees from Nazi Germany arrived in the 1930s before the second world war. After the war large numbers of refugees and displaced persons, Poles in particular and subsequently Hungarians, entered Britain.

The presence of some black immigrants was recorded in the 16-th century. In the 17-th and 18-th centuries young black people were brought to Britain as domestic servants. Former slaves from Caribbean followed, and black seamen have traditionally settled in ports such as Liverpool, Bristol and Cardiff. Substantial immigration from the Caribbean, India, Pakistan and Bangladesh began in the 1950s at a time when the other countries of Western Europe were also receiving large numbers of immigrants from less industrialised parts of the world. In addition, in 1972, Britain admitted some 28,000 Asians from Uganda and , in the late 1970s, some 18,000 refugees from South-East Asia. Chinese immigration developed in the 19-th century with seamen settling in London and Liverpool. It continued after the second world war and accelerated, especially from Hong Kong, in the 1960s. Significant numbers of Italians, Greek and Turkish Cypriots, Australians, New Zealanders and people from the United States and Canada are now residents in Britain.

Afro-Caribbean people came to Britain from all the widely scattered islands in the Caribbean which are in the Commonwealth, as well as the mainland territories of Guyana and Belize. Nearly 60 % came from Jamaica. Although they share a colonial history, the people of each country regard themselves as distinctive from the others. Their mother tongue is English, although a variety of dialects are spoken, and they mainly adhere to Christian denominations. In the 1950s and 1960s job opportunities were better in Britain than in their own countries and some of those who came had served in the Royal Air Force during the second world war or worked as skilled craftsmen in factories on Merseyside. Others were recruited by London Transport for work on the buses and the Underground railway.

Immigration from India and Pakistan (including Bangladesh) began a little later than that for the Caribbean and reached its peak in the late 1960s, prompted by a desire for better opportunities in employment and education. Most Indians have come from the Punjab and Gujarat. Their languages include Punjabi, Gujarati, Urdu and Hindi. Concerning their religions we must mention that most of them are Muslims, Hindus and Sikhs, but the Asian community also includes Christians.

Until 1962 Commonwealth citizens had always been free to enter Britain as they wished. In that year, however, the government decided that it was necessary to limit the number of immigrants to a level the country could absorb, both economically and socially, and the first legislation to control Commonwealth immigration was passed.

Reflecting these restrictions, the overall level of immigration has been decreasing.

The majority of those accepted for settlement are spouses or dependants of people who are British citizens, or who are settled in Britain.

in 1985-87, according to the results of a sample survey, the non-white population of Great Britain was about 2.4 million (some 4.5 per cent of the total population), of whom about 43% were bom in Britain; one in three was aged under 16 and about one in six aged 45 or over.

The Labour Force Survey indicates that the highest concentration of ethnic minorities is in Greater London and the six metropolitan counties of England, areas where employment opportunities were greater at the time of the initial arrival of immigrants. Some 71% of the ethnic minority population live in Greater London and the metropolitan counties compared with 31% of the white population, and over 43% live in Greater London itself compared with only ] 1% of the white population.

After Greater London, the next largest concentration of Indians and Afro- Caribbeans is in the West Midlands (including Birmingham) while more Pakistanis have settled in West Yorkshire than elsewhere. The proportion of ethnic minority groups living in the metropolitan counties ranges from 55% of the Chinese population to 83% of the Afro-Caribbean.

Apart from the concentration of the ethnic minority groups in London and in towns within the metropolitan counties (Birmingham, Wolverhampton and

Coventry in the West Midlands, Manchester and Bolton in Greater Manchester, and Bradford in West Yorkshire), large communities are found in Leicester, Slough, Luton and Blackburn.

Scotland has proportionately fewer people from the ethnic minorities than elsewhere in Britain. They number about 43,000, according to Labour Force Survey statistics.

Although members of the non-white population are disproportionately concentrated in the areas of greatest deprivation in the inner cities, where the disadvantages they share with poorer sections of the indegenous community are compounded by racial discrimination, progress has undoubtedly been made over the last 20 years in several areas of life. Many individuals have achieved distinction in their careers and in public life and the proportion of ethnic minority workers in professional and managerial jobs has increased. According to Britain 1990: An Official Handbook there are three black Members of Parliament and the number of ethnic minority councillors in local government is growing.

To round up this chapter it seems appropriate to quote an extract from the Queen’s speech during her recent visit to Pakistan. She said: «Several of our leading politicians, broadcasters, academics and businessmen are Muslim. It is important that minority communities and traditions whether in Britain or Pakistan are allowed to thrive.»

Seminar 3.

«British History in Brief» Part 1.

Read about pre-Celtic period in British History, Celtic, Roman, Anglo- Saxon, Viking and Norman invasions, and answer the following questions: