Feeling British (In Mallorca)

"The Guardian", not the first newspaper you would associate with rampant nationalism, is running a series on what it means to be British and how British its readers feel. It is asking for videos to demonstrate one's Britishness. Being "The Guardian", you would probably not expect a Union flag waving behind a gathering of tattooed gentlemen (and ladies) tucking into plates of fish and chips while a Chas 'n' Dave CD plays in the background.

This Britishness thing raises its head periodically and leads absolutely nowhere. Gordon Brown, if one remembers rightly, once proposed that there was a British day. Whatever happened to that? Indeed, whatever happened to Gordon?

Mere mention of the former Prime Minister gives the game away when it comes to feelings of Britishness for those who no longer live in Britain. Feelings of Britishness among the expatriate community are an interesting area for study, and they can also be important in ways over and above simply how one feels.

Gordon Brown, or now David Cameron, would, for most expats, be more relevant than José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero. Most, you would assume, would know who Cameron was. How many, by comparison, would know that Zapatero was the Spanish Prime Minister?

Knowing that Cameron is Prime Minister isn't a feeling of being British, but it is an example of identity with Britain, and feelings and identity equate to much the same thing. More than just identity, it is also an expression of where interest lies. I would hazard a guess that ninety-nine out of a hundred expats, were they interested at all (a moot point), would say that they knew more about and took greater interest in British politics than Spanish. Just as they would know more about and took greater interest in the Premier League and British soaps.

"The Guardian", one supposes, as it is that sort of a newspaper, would be angling for Britishness feelings and assimilation among the world's diaspora that has ended up in the UK. But what of Britishness that has gone offshore (to Mallorca) and its related topic, that of the big I - integration?

An enormous amount of garbage is spoken about integration, largely by those who labour under the misapprehension that they are integrated and insist on telling those unfortunates who aren't that they are.

To be fair, the garbage stems from the fact that the term itself is illusory and almost impossible to define. It is also a state of being that is increasingly difficult to achieve. A point I have made on several occasions is that the ease of contemporary communications in different forms (allied to a sizeable British community) militates against integration far more forcibly than might once have been the case.

It is not sufficient, for example, to be able to speak the native. In itself, this proves nothing, other than an ability to speak a different language. Speaking Spanish (and/or, far less likely, Mallorquí) does not amount to integration. Language and culture go hand in hand and are indivisible, but only for those steeped in the culture, which generally means having been born into it. Integration is, therefore, a largely bogus concept, and as such raises the question as to why it is felt to be important.

Well, it can be important, if only in terms of perceptions by the locals. The more Mallorcan one appears to be, the easier things can become. Why? Simple. It means less discrimination, which officially may not exist but most certainly does.

Then there are feelings of Britishness among the second generation, those largely or wholly raised in Mallorca or Spain. And they are feelings which are, for the most part, absent. They ultimately manifest themselves, in practical ways, by a Spanish bar being preferred to a British one, by the reading of a Spanish newspaper and the watching of Spanish telly. Gradually and eventually this results in a lack of cohesion, a dis-integration of whatever the British community might have once been or thought that it was.

But it is also testimony to a British acceptance of integration. Unlike some other cultures, the British do not generally speaking assert their culture (probably because they can't define it). This may sound peculiar if one considers Brit bars and other examples of Britishness in Mallorca, but it is the case. The second generation is allowed to slip easily into Spanishness. There is no cultural proscription which prevents this, and so the second generation loses its Britishness, despite being British. Does it matter? No. Just as integration for the first generation also doesn't matter.


Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.