Community Feeling

[alhewison]

Our Golden Street Party has just finished; 2 roads normally full of 
cars were blocked up and the cars parked elsewhere. For 9 hours we 
partied! What felt brilliant though was the fact that of the 250 
people there, all ages and many different cultures and religions were 
all involved. For a small area we do have quite a range of peoples - 
students, lawyers, teachers, musicians, Christians, Muslims, Sikhs, 
Hindus and Jews; the very young, the very old and many imbetween ( a 
small nursery and old people's home are next door to each other.

I believe that in Britain today we can be very ambivalent about our 
culture and patriotism can be seen as jingoistic, and something other 
countries do. Most people I know would probably associate the Union 
Jack with the extreme right, and very few would actually own one. We 
owe our allegiance to "Queen and Country" but over the past few years 
the Monarchy has come under heavy fire. Mass media has exposed 
weaknesses and oh! Horror of Horrors! despite their privileges etc, 
the royal family are normal people! The Queen's Popularity though has 
remained steady and there has been a general upsurge in popularity 
this year following the Queen Mother's death, and the Jubilee itself. 
On the whole though, it has left us as a nation confused about what 
we are - or what we should be. It's worse if you are English. It's ok 
to be Scottish or Welsh, but if you're English - should we be more 
inclusive and call ourselves British... or what?

Anyway, I waffle. The Golden Jubilee has coincided with the World 
Cup, and the two combined have brought about a mass of flag-waving 
and general community feeling. I remember the Silver Jubilee, and 
certainly the Golden Jubilee does seem more muted in comparison. But, 
peopel have enjoyed the atmosphere and it has felt really good to be 
part of it.

I confess to being rather jealous of the US and other countries that 
have a special day to celebrate being themselves. It's strange that 
more and more pubs in Britain celebrate July 4th, and yet we have 
nothing comparable to latch onto. Our history is almost against us 
here - celebrating our past might seem confrontational, un-PC, and 
not the inclusivity we need to keep our changing population together.

I suppose for our 2 streets, the Jubilee has provided us with an 
excusse to get together, and whether people wanted to party because 
they were celebrating the Queen, or were rather bemused about the 
whole thing, we all ended up celebrating [with the Queen].

We had loads of different entertainment including Tug-of-War which 
the women won but I guess that had more to do with the amount of beer 
the blokes had drunk than innate strength! We had rain of course, but 
then we're used to that!

Ali

Apologising for waffling on about her day and going back to lurk, but 
who enjoys celebrating and thinks that we all ought to have a World 
Culture day, or something so that we can celebrate together.