I found an undiscovered country: Great Britain
Sarfraz Manzoor finds a sense of liberation as he travels to Durness in Scotland, slipping out of the clothes of his ethnicity, and exploring what it means to be British This summer, as a consequence of the credit crunch, rising air fares and a strong euro, more than half of all Britons chose to spend their holidays in this country. Predictably this was also the summer that proved to be one of the dullest and wettest on record. August may have been, according to the Met Office, the UK’s seventh wettest since records began in 1929, but for me there was a silver lining to the rainclouds. Like many working-class British Asians of my generation, we never went on holidays during my childhood. In recent years I have attempted to make amends by travelling as much as possible, but this has invariably meant going abroad, the idea of holidaying in this country striking me as pointless and dull. The intention of travel, I reasoned, was to broaden the mind, so what stimulation could be gained from not even leaving these shores? How wrong I was.
Earlier this month I visited the tiny coastal village of Durness on the northwest tip of Scotland. The village, in the county of Sutherland, is one of the least inhabited places in Western Europe and driving to it involved passing some of the most spectacular scenery I have ever seen. As I left Edinburgh and headed north I drove past fields prickled with purple heather, gushing brooks and foamy waterfalls. There was no mobile reception for my BlackBerry which proved both frustrating and liberating. A thin mist skimmed across the grasslands. When I finally arrived in Durness it felt untouched by much of what we call the modern world; I did not see anyone wearing a hijab or a hoodie and the local store was owned not by an Asian but by Iris, whose family had managed that same store since the start of the last century. As I walked along the beach, strangely magical black rocks jutting out from its white sand and the cold wind whipping across my face, I gazed at the blue-green sea, trying to imagine the thousands of miles of ocean between here and the coast of the United States. I would never have chosen to visit this corner of Scotland had work not brought me here, and as someone who has lived in towns and cities all my life I was surprised by my reaction to visiting this part of the country: it made me think again about what we mean by Britishness and belonging.
What is Britishness? It is a maddeningly fluid and opaque term; for some it is a politically expedient but worthless concept and for others it is the glue that could bind us together, if only we knew what it meant. Often when we try to isolate the essence of Britishness the discussion settles on a celebration of a shared set of values, a common history or a particular sense of humour. Even trying to define Britishness is for some distinctly not British. As someone whose heritage lies elsewhere it is both more complicated and necessary to try to explain in what ways I feel British. These days my sense of being British rests on comparing it to my family: I may not agree with every member of my family all the time, sometimes they may infuriate me and we often argue, but they are still my family, and the only one I have.
So how to encourage this sense of belonging and Britishness in others? One suggestion, floated by the government, is to hold an annual ‘Britishness Day’, which would give people permission to celebrate everything they like about the country. This week the immigration minister Liam Byrne outlined, in a Demos pamphlet entitled ‘A More United Kingdom’, his suggestions for ways to celebrate a national day. Among the suggestions are to celebrate Britain ‘through drinking’. Morris dancing, decking public spaces with posters of Winston Churchill and multicultural street parties are also offered as ways to appreciate this country. Perhaps a Britishness Day could have a place, but to celebrate the best of Britain surely it would be better to spend less time drinking and more time exploring the country we live in.
For Hamlet it was death that was the undiscovered country, but these days, for too many, that undiscovered country is Britain. A recent survey revealed that only a third of Britons recognise St Paul’s Cathedral — evidence of what the historian Tristram Hunt has described as a ‘crippling ignorance of British history and our cultural heritage’.
And so I return to the image of me walking along the beach in Durness. Inevitably, during the days I spent in Durness, I did not encounter any other Asians. I thought that this would have made me more selfconscious and yet the truth is I actually felt rather liberated; it felt like slipping out of the clothes of my ethnicity and just being another person staring at the sea. Today there are people growing up in de facto segregated communities where they hardly even see a white face; if their sense of this country is defined by their limited experiences, it makes me wonder how this affects their sense of being British.
In ‘This is Your Land’ the American folk singer Woody Guthrie sings ‘I roamed and I rambled and I followed my footsteps, to the sparkling sands of her diamond deserts, While all around me a voice was sounding, saying this land was made for you and me.’ Guthrie’s song was patriotic — it was written as a response to Irving Berlin’s ‘God Bless America’ — but it was also fiercely political; the song was celebrating America and reminding his listeners that they had a stake in that nation.
Growing up, I wondered why there was not a British version of Guthrie’s song, something to reassure me that I had a stake in this country. That fragility of belonging was partly because I had no experience of Britain beyond the claustrophobic limits of my family and my hometown. It makes me think whether I might have felt differently if I had had a chance when young to see Britain in all its wild, rural and scenic beauty. The truth is I do not know if it would have made any difference and I certainly am not suggesting that the only solution to eradicating anger, alienation and extremism is a few more camping holidays in Devon or the Lake District. That would be hopelessly naïve.
But my short visit to Durness — a place to which I shall most certainly return — did make me wonder whether encouraging a greater awareness and regular exposure at an early age to the richness and, yes, diversity that lies within this country might not help foster a stronger sense of being British. It might even remind those who most need to remember that this land is their land.
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