LETTERS
Our island story
Sir: 1 am afraid your strong feelings con- cerning the British obligation to accept three million people from Hong Kong into Britain has led you to publish Ian Buru- ma's rather glib and simplistic account of British feeling (England, whose England?,' 9 September).
I do not claim any far sighted wisdom regarding nation, nationality or national- ism, but I am able to recognise some elementary facts. 'Seeking national identi- tY in national history' is not such a 'tricky business' as he would have us believe. British history is the sometimes sordid story of the evolution of British society. The story can be interpreted in different Ways and it can even be distorted beyond reconciliation with the facts; there is no- thing necessarily heroic of meritorious about our story, but it does reveal, incon- trovertibly, a sense of national conscious- ness. To say so is not to exalt our nation above others or to indulge in romantic meditation on our past, or to suggest that Britishness embodies a static and timeless set of values. In its more bovine manifesta- tions patriotism is indeed no more that 'ethnic pride' or racial bigotry, and a hankering for the past mere antiquarian nonsense, but national consciousness is an active fact in this country as it currently is in the Soviet satellites.
As we have inherited centuries of experi- ence so, as Ian Buruma says, we have developed ideals, one of which has been to extend succour to peoples in need, and yet another to mould a society within which we feel we belong and within which these is harmonious sense of continuity.
In declining to destroy the complexion of our society by trying to digest three million people from Hong Kong, we are pursuing the ideal of a better society in this country. This does not make us 'racist', 'bigoted' or 'mullahs'.
Richard Newbury
Flat 2, 87 Larkhill Rise, London SW4.
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