London teachers on alert for morally ambiguous patriotic sentiments.

From a report published by Michael Hand and Jo Pearce from the Institute of Education at the University of London:

"Patriotism is love of one's country, but are countries really appropriate objects of love?
"Loving things can be bad for us, for example when the things we love are morally corrupt.
"Since all national histories are at best morally ambiguous, it's an open question whether citizens should love their countries."

Are countries appropriate objects of love?
What a silly question.
Now, if they’d asked: "are countries appropriate object of no-questions-asked love", then perhaps, just maybe, they might have had a point.

It is as natural and as honourable to love your country, your birth-place, as it is to love your parents. Of course, it isn’t (and they aren’t) perfect; it and they do things which they shouldn’t, but the inconvenient fact remains that there is a indefinable, but perfectly acceptable, bond of loving attachment between you and your family, you and your country.

Other findings?

.9% of teachers think schools should teach patriotism.
.75% of the teachers felt they had an "obligation to alert their pupils to the dangers of patriotic sentiments".
."Almost" all the teachers questioned felt that they should present "a balanced set of views on patriotism, while nearly half said schools should remain "strictly neutral" on the issue."

But it was hardly a very representative or diverse subsection of the British education system delivering these answers:

The researchers questioned more than 300 teachers in London secondary schools and pupils aged 13-14.

Despite what Londoners sometimes presume, the terms "London" and the "United Kingdom" are not one and the same; I'd be interested to see what the findings of a UK-wide survey would deliver on this question

Quote of the Day

The Barnett Formula and the West Lothian Question are like two mad people in the attic: everyone can hear their creaks and groans but nobody wants to talk about them.

Professor Iain McLean arguing in the Holyrood Magazine for a widening of the National Conversation.

Second-Class Citizenship

SDLP Youth activists have mounted a demonstration at the Dáil calling for northerners to be allowed to vote in Irish Presidential elections.

(Note: “northerners” is nationalist-speak for people living not in Donegal, who are perfectly entitled to vote in such elections, but those residing in Northern Ireland).

Speaking at the event, SDLP Youth Chairperson Gary McKeown said, "People living in the north have the right to identify themselves as Irish, so it is only fair that they should be allowed to vote for their head of state. This is in-keeping with the spirit of the Good Friday Agreement and strengthens democracy. We believe that anyone who is eligible to vote in the north should be allowed to cast a ballot in the race for Áras an Uachtaráin."

That "strengthens democracy" quote is interesting. Despite representatives from all parties on the Republic being invited to the demo, the poor Baby SDLPers were told that most of the parties had "no policy on this matter".

I find that last quote hard to believe, more a case of most parties in the Republic have no desire whatsoever to see their democracy corrupted by the type of narrow communal and sectarian politics that takes place on a daily basis in both Stormont and the various councils across Northern Ireland. The SDLP and Sinn Fein should just accept the reality; the Republic’s polity are happy enough to dole out the passports, but when it comes down to actually making real and meaningful sacrifices for their brethren in Northern Ireland, then that’s quite a different matter altogether.