deur Annemarie Pretorius
In England: An Elegy[1] lewer Scruton ’n onsentimentele getuienis van dít wat Engeland eens was. Hy bied egter nie net ’n onbetrokke bestekopname nie, maar ’n elegie oor ’n magtige koninkryk, bewondereniswaardig in sy benadering tot vraagstukke en uitdagings; een wat was en wat nooit weer sal wees nie.
In hierdie boek kyk Scruton na die aspekte wat Ou Engeland gevorm het om sy spesifieke aard te hê. Hy skets dit aan die hand van verwysings na elemente soos die karakter van Engeland, gemeenskap, geloof, die regstelsel, die samelewing, kultuur en die platteland. Op so manier lewer hy ’n persoonlike huldeblyk aan die samelewing wat hom gemaak het en wat vandag nie meer bestaan nie.
Eers vra hy die noodsaaklike vraag: wat is Engeland? Want sonder om te besin oor die mees basiese faktor wat die aard van ’n ding bepaal, kan daar nie ’n huldeblyk gelewer word nie. Hier beskou Scruton noemenswaardige idees soos wat dit beteken om ’n nasie te wees.
“Nations are useful, because they enable people to rationalise their common fate, to define themselves as a ‘we’, and to prepare themselves for the competition – which may, at the limit, become a life-and-death struggle – between ‘us’ and ‘the others’. But not all ways of forming a first-person plural are so concious. There are other, more instinctive and more immediate, forms of membership which serve the purpose just as well or better, and which have the desired result of making it possible for people to live together in a state of mutual support.” (p. 6)
’n Ander idee wat Scruton aanraak en wat toenemend aktueel geword het sedert die boek verskyn het, is die vraagstuk rondom vreemdelinge (immigrante). Hy beskryf dit as iets wat vir Engeland baie nou verband gehou het met die oorspronklike betekenis van patriotisme , soos die Romeine daaroor gedink het, waarvolgens die tuisland, eerder as die ras, die fokus van lojaliteit was.
“The Nationality Acts of the twentieth century were emergency measures. They built upon and modified the ancient loyalty of the English by extending citizenship to people who had come ‘here’ from ‘abroad’. There new citizens were ‘naturalised British subjects’ – in other words, not really Englishmen at all, but people who had become British, by a strange process which overcame the unnaturalness that distinguished foreigners. The disquiet over immigration was the result, it seems to me, not of racism, but of the disruption of an old experience of home, and a loss of the enchantment which made home a place of safety and consolation.” (p. 7)
Scruton verwys ook dikwels op ’n humoristiese en liefdevolle wyse in die boek na die eksentriekhede wat aan Engeland en sy mense hulle spesifieke karakter verleen. Hy meen dat hierdie eksentriekhede voorkom wanneer mense tuis voel. Soos mense wat saam in ’n huis woon dinge doen op hulle eie spesifieke manier, was hierdie nasie saamgestel.
“Home is a place where you can be yourself and do your own thing. Respect the rituals and the household gods, and for the rest you can please yourself. Therefore, when people feel at home, they allow themselves freedoms, hobbies and eccentricities. They become amateurs, experts and cranks. They collect stamps, butterflies or biscuit tins; they grow vegetables so large that nobody can eat them, and breed dogs so ugly that only an Englishman could look them in what might charitably be called the face. The eccentricity of the English follows as a matter of course, once it is recognised that they were at home in their world and safe there.”(p. 16)
Die skrywer bied ook ’n besonderse waarneming van die wyse waarop die Engelse samelewing tot stand gekom het, wat dit laat funksioneer het. En dit is interessant om dit te vergelyk met die rigting wat die Afrikaner vandag inslaan, om sy eie voortbestaan te verseker.
“Almost the entire social order of the country arose from private initiatives. Schools, colleges and universities; municipalities, hospitals, theatres; festivals and even the army regiments, all tell the same story: some public-spirited amateur, raising funds, setting out principles, acquiring premises, and then bequething his achievement to trustees or to the Crown, with the state appearing, if at all, only after the event, in order to guarantee the survival and propagation of good works that it would never have inisiated by itself … That is the English way. It is the way of people who are at home, and who refuse to be bossed about by those whom they regard as outsiders. Their attitude to officialdom reflected their conviction that, if something needs doing, then the person to do it is you.” (p. 17)
Hierdie idees is egter iets van die verlede, daar is nie meer plek vir hierdie behoudende idees in die neo-liberale samelewing waarin daar luidkeels aangedring word op regte, sonder dat daar verantwoordelikheid geneem word. “England, I was tought, preferred duties to rights, and quiet cooperation to the obstinate demands of idleness.”(p. 21)
En die uiteinde daarvan is die einde van Engeland en dít wat met die term geassosieer word. “True culture had been wiped out by a mass-marketed substitute, and real feelings replaced by sentimental fakes.”(p.38)
[1] Scruton, R. 2006. England: An Elegy. Continuum.