[NOTE ALL QUOTES NEED CHECKING AS ARE NOT VERBATIM]
I just heard some baffling comments from James Naughtie, the Scottish presenter of BBC Radio 4's
Today Programme. He was talking with a geneticist who has analysed his DNA to see where he is 'from' genetically. The banter with fellow presenter, John Humphrys (a Welshman) was good-humoured, but it revealed to me how making jokes about Englishness, or the English by a non-English person, is seemingly totally acceptable, while even good-humoured mocking of this kind about black people, or Jewish people, or Chinese, for example, would rightly be deemed outrageous by most people.
If I recall correctly, Naughtie said, on hearing that his ancestors left England for Scotland some 500 years ago - "that's long enough". Humphrys can be heard shouting "he's English".
He then quipped to his Welsh presenting colleague: "at least I'm not Welsh".
He also said, perplexingly, "at least I'm not a black goat from Brittany" [ie implicating that Humphrys was], to which JH said something like, "steady on, I'll have to get the Commission For Racial Equality on"...
Can you imagine if you replaced the word "Welsh, or English", with African or Jewish, Catholic, Muslim, Irish or Chinese...? I know I'm conflating ethnicity with religion here, but you get my drift. If it would be wrong, for instance, for a Jewish presenter to joke about his relief at not being a Muslim, or for a white person to express relief about not having genetic links to Africa, then it should not be acceptable for Jim Naughtie to make the kind of statements he did this morning.
This was followed, bizarrely, by an interview with a social anthropoligist, who has written a book about what defines 'Englishness". The interview was basically a run-down of the English stereotype, including the fact that to be English, you must suffer 'alienation' and use the word "typical" whenever faced with a problem.
Can you imagine English and Irish presenters of a Scottish-based radio programme joking about their relief at not being Scottish, before interviewing a social anthropologist about Scottish cultural stereotyes? No, nor can I.
With Scottish nationalism on the rise and a sense that people on this island are increasingly defining themselves in narrow terms, we must guard against idle banter about ethnic identity which can set the cultural backdrop for much more sinister forces. I don't like stereotypes, and feel uncomfortable with outward shows of nationalism and triumphalism - perhaps it's because I was born in England...
