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NOTES FROM A MOIST ISLAND
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I suppose I camiseta everton fc should have been in for a shock after a thirty-one year hiatus. You see, my parents did the politically incorrect thing and emigrated to South Africa in the troubled year of 1976, when I was of the impressionable age of eight. Aside from three or four brief holidays in England over the thirty-one years I spent most of my time in South Africa. Although I harboured a closet kind of Englishness I considered myself to be a South African.
Why then did I return to England in 2008? Was it geographical escape in the psychological sense? Fear of dwindling job prospects in South Africa? Seeking pastures new (to use an awful hackneyed phrase) or was it to rediscover my Englishness? I guess it was, to some degree, the latter. I was born in the North of England, Wigan to be precise and to Wigan I returned, much to the consternation of my South African acquaintances who have settled, or know someone who has settled, in the south of England, or London to be precise, and who consider Lancashire to be a backwater or economic wasteland, comparable to the less salubrious parts of South Africa. I almost get the sense that to have settled up North was in some way indecent or improper. But I like the north and that is another essay for another day.
Have I rediscovered my Englishness? No, not really or maybe not yet. I am still trying to discover camiseta as roma what it means to be English.
I had been in the country a matter of days when I broached the subject of politics with my cousin. Without a moment's hesitation he stated that in the next election he would probably vote BNP as they were the only party he would trust to rid the country of all the foreigners. At the time, I didn't know much about the BNP except that they were far-right and probably a neo-Nazi organisation, much like the old National Front. I discovered later that the BNP does have links to both the National Front and some European neo-Nazi parties but that it is striving for a middle-of-the-road image and it seems to be working. I have since encountered many people who seem to view the BNP as a viable alternative to Labour, the Tories and the Lib-Dems and it is very, very worrying. In fact, my camisetas baratas de futbol beloved Everton have to move one of their matches from a Saturday to a Sunday because the police will be busy policing a BNP march through Liverpool on the Saturday. I have been a witness of ultra-right nationalist politics. Growing up in apartheid South Africa meant that you were never far away from it. In the town that I lived in, the Conservative Party (who believed that the ruling right-wing nationalists were too left of centre) were the party controlling our council. I remember for example, fishing at a resort on the Vaal River and the police were called in to forcibly remove an Asian party who dared to enjoy the whites-only facilities - is this what my cousin and Britain wants? The BNP seems to be thriving in the current uncertain economic climate - echoes of 1920's Germany perhaps?
Xenophobia is very real and very prevalent, particularly among the working class. Although nobody has been overtly rude towards me I have been given the distinct impression that I am different and not ‘one of them'. Luckily, most people, because of my accent, think that I am an Australian or New Zealander. I say luckily because the English appear to have a particular fondness for their Australasian cousins. To some degree, my born and bred South African wife is considered to be something of an oddity - after all, why would somebody leave the sun-kissed plains of Africa to move to working class Lancashire? However, she has become fond of the Northerners and they her but my mind begs the question, as possible BNP members would they wish her to be deported along with the Polish, Somalis and Albanians - British jobs for British workers and all that?