Anglophobia (from Latin Anglus "English" + Greek φόβος -phobos, "fear") means hatred or fear of England or the English people.[1] The term is sometimes used more loosely for general Anti-British sentiment.[1] Its opposite is Anglophilia.
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In his essay "Notes on Nationalism", written in May 1945 and published in the first issue of the intellectual magazine Polemic (October 1945), George Orwell wrote, 'Welsh, Irish and Scottish nationalism have points of difference but are alike in their anti-English orientation.'.[2]
In a 2003 survey of 500 English people living in Scotland, one quarter said that they had been harassed or discriminated against by the Scots.[3]
A 2005 study by Hussain and Millar of the Department of Politics at the University of Glasgow examined the prevalence of Anglophobia in relation to Islamophobia in Scotland. One finding of the report suggested that national ‘phobias’ have common roots independent of the nations they are directed toward. The study states that:
Scottish identity comes close to rivalling low levels of education as an influence towards Anglophobia. Beyond that, having an English friend reduces Anglophobia by about as much as having a Muslim friend reduces Islamophobia. And lack of knowledge about Islam probably indicates a broader rejection of the ‘other’, for it has as much impact on Anglophobia as on Islamophobia.[4]
The study goes on to say: "Few of the English (only 16 percent) see conflict between Scots and English as even 'fairly serious'". Hussain and Millar's study found that Anglophobia was slightly less prevalent than Islamophobia, but that unlike Islamophobia, Anglophobia was correlated with Scottish identity.
In 1999 an Inspector and race relations officer with Lothian and Borders Police said that a correlation had been noticed between the establishment of the Scottish Parliament and anti-English incidents.[5] However, Hussain and Millar's research suggested that Anglophobia had fallen slightly since the introduction of devolution.
In 2009 a woman originally from England was assaulted in an allegedly anti-English racially motivated attack.[6] Similar cases have been connected with major football matches and tournaments, particularly international tournaments where the English and Scottish football teams often compete with each other.[7][8][9] A spate of anti-English attacks occurred in 2006 during the football World Cup,[10] in one incident a 7 year old boy wearing an England shirt was punched in the head in an Edinburgh park.[11]
The Laws in Wales Acts 1535–1542 also known as the "Acts of Union", passed by the Parliament of England, annexed Wales to the Kingdom of England, and replaced the Welsh language and Welsh law with the English language and English law.[12][13] In particular, Section 20 of the 1535 Act made English the only language of the law courts and stated that those who used Welsh would not be appointed to any public office in Wales.[12] The Welsh language was suplanted in many public spheres, with, for example, the use of the Welsh Not in some schools. This would later be adopted as a symbol of English oppression, although evidence suggests its enforcement may have been largely voluntary.[14]
Since the Glyndŵr Rising of the early 15th century, Welsh nationalism has been primarily nonviolent.[15] However, the Welsh militant group Meibion Glyndŵr (English: Sons of (Owain) Glyndŵr) were responsible for arson attacks on English-owned second homes in Wales from 1979–1994, motivated by cultural anti-English sentiment.[15] Meibion Glyndŵr also attempted arson against several estate agents in Wales and England, and against the offices of the Conservative Party in London.[16][16][17]
In 2000, the Chairman of Swansea Bay Race Equality Council said that "Devolution has brought a definite increase in anti-English behaviour" citing three women who believed that they were being discriminated against in their careers because they could not speak Welsh.[18] Author Simon Brooks recommended that English-owned homes in Wales be "peacefully occupied".[16] In 2001 Dafydd Elis-Thomas, a former leader of Plaid Cymru, said that there was an anti-English strand to Welsh nationalism.[19]
During the Troubles, the IRA exclusively attacked targets located in Northern Ireland and England, not Scotland or Wales.[20]
In the Protestant community, the English are identified with British politicians, and are sometimes resented for their perceived abandonment of loyalist communities.[21]
There is a long tradition of Anglophobia within Irish nationalism. Much of this was grounded in the hostility felt by the largely Catholic poor for the Anglo-Irish gentry, which was mainly Anglican. In Ireland before the Great Famine, anti-English hostility was deep seated[22] and was manifested in increased anti-English hostility organised by United Irishmen.[23][24] In post-famine Ireland, anti-English hostility was adopted into the philosophy and foundation of the Irish nationalist movement. At the turn of the 20th century, the Celtic Revival movement associated the search for a cultural and national identity with an increasing anti-colonial and anti-English sentiment.[25] Anti-English themes manifested in national organisations seen as promoting native Irish values, with the emergence of groups like Sinn Féin.
The Gaelic Athletic Association (GAA) was itself founded in 1884 as a countermeasure against the Anglo-Irish Athletic Association, which promoted and supervised British sports such as English football in Ireland. The GAA was founded in the anti-English ideas of Thomas Croke, Archbishop of Cashel and Emly.[26] From 1886 to 1971 the GAA focused national pride into distinctly non-English activities.[27] Members were forbidden to belong to organisations that played "English" games, and the organisation countered the Anglicisation in Irish society.[28][29][30] With the development across Ireland of Irish games and the arts, the celtic revivalists and nationalists identified characteristics of what they defined as the "Irish Race". A nationalistic identity developed, as being the polar opposite of the Anglo-Saxons, and untainted by the Anglo-Irish community.[31] A sense of national identity and Irish distinctiveness as well as an anti-English assertiveness was reinforced to Catholics by teachers in hedge schools.[32]
A feeling of anti-English sentiment intensified within Irish nationalism during the Boer War leading to xenophobia underlined by Anglophobia. [33] Resulting in two units of Irish commandos who fought with the Boer against British forces during the Second Boer War (1899–1902). J. Donnolly a member of the brigade wrote to the editor of Irish News in 1901 stating;
"It was not for the love of the Boer war we were fighting; it was for the hatred of the English."J. Donnolly letter to the Irish News 1901[34]
The pro-Boer movement gained widespread support in Ireland and over 20.000 supporters demonstrated in Dublin in 1899 where Irish nationalism, anti-English and pro-Boer attitudes were one and the same. There was a pro-Boer movement in England however the English pro-Boer movement was not based on anti-English sentiments. These opposing views and animosity led the English and Irish pro-Boer groups to maintain a distance from one another.[35]
The W. B. Yeats play The Countess Cathleen, written in 1892, has anti-English overtones comparing the English gentry to demons who come for Irish souls.[36] Films set during the Irish War of Independence, such as The Informer (1935) and the Plough and the Stars (1936), were criticised by the BBFC for the director John Ford's anti-English content,[37] and, in recent years, Michael Collins[38][39] and The Wind That Shakes the Barley[40][41] have led to accusations of Anglophobia in the British press. In 2006, Antony Booth, the father-in law of Tony Blair, reported anti-English vandalism and discrimination while living in County Cavan, Ireland, with his wife.[42] In addition, in August 2008 an English pipefitter based in Dublin was awarded €20,000 for the racial abuse and discrimination he received at his workplace.[43]
In 2011, tensions and anti-English or anti-British feelings flared in relation to the proposed visit of Elizabeth II, the first British monarch to visit Ireland in 101 years. The direct invitation by the President of Ireland, Mary McAleese, and the Irish government, was hailed by the Irish press as a historic visit,[44] but was criticised by Sinn Féin President Gerry Adams.[45] An anti-English Queen demonstration was held at the GPO Dublin by a group of Irish Republicans on 26 February 2011,[46] and a mock trial and decapitation of an effigy of Queen Elizabeth II were carried out by socialist republican group Éirígí.[47] Other protests included one Dublin publican (the father of Celtic player Anthony Stokes) hanging a banner declaring "the Queen will never be welcome in this country".[48] [49]
After the Norman conquest in 1066, French replaced English as the official language of England. However, in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, the Plantagenet kings of England lost most of their possessions in France, began to consider England to be their primary domain, and turned to the English language. King Edward I, when issuing writs for summoning parliament in 1295, claimed that the King of France planned to invade England and extinguish the English language, "a truly detestable plan which may God avert".[50][51] In 1338, Philip VI of France authored the Ordinance of Normandy, which again called for the destruction and elimination of the English nation and language. The so-called Hundred Years War (1337–1453) between England and France changed societies on both sides of the Channel.
The English and French were engaged in numerous wars in the following centuries. England's ongoing conflict with Scotland provided France with an opportunity to destabilise England, and there was a firm friendship (known as the Auld Alliance) between France and Scotland from the late-thirteenth century to the mid-sixteenth century. The alliance eventually foundered because of growing Protestantism in Scotland. Opposition to Protestantism became a major feature of later French Anglophobia (and conversely, fear of Catholicism was a hallmark of Francophobia). Antipathy and intermittent hostilities between France and Britain, as distinct from England, continued during later centuries. It has become more and more political. Nowadays, this feeling seems however often to be exaggerated by newspapers or politicians and the real number of true anglophobes appears to be quite limited. It is replaced by a more widespread stance consisting in light-heartedly making fun of Britishness, in a similar manner that the French are made fun of in Britain.[52]
In 2002, academic John Moser said that, although anglophobia is now 'almost completely absent' from United States society, this was not always the case. He states that 'there were strains of anglophobia present in virtually every populist movement of the late 19th and early 20th centuries', with the Populist Party, for example, "referring to England as a 'monster' that had 'seized upon the fresh energy of America and is steadily fixing its fangs into our social life.'"
Reasons suggested for the decline in anglophobia included the impact of the Second World War, and reduced political support for Irish nationalist movements compared with that in earlier periods. Moser also said:[53]
"In an age when the wealthiest and most influential Americans tended to be associated with things British—the vast majority were of Anglo-Saxon descent, wore English-tailored suits, drove British-made automobiles, and even spoke with affected British accents—it was quite natural for Great Britain to fall within the sights of disaffected populists. In more recent years, however, this has changed. When one thinks of wealth and influence in contemporary America, particularly when one considers those who have made their fortunes in the past thirty years, English culture does not immediately spring to mind.
The Irish-American community in the United States has historically shown antipathy towards the English in particular.[54] Anglophobia has been a defining feature of the post-famine Irish-American experience. Bolstered by their support of Irish nationalism, Irish-American communities have been staunchly anti-English since the 1850s and this sentiment is fostered within the Irish-American identity.[55][56] Irish immigrants who settled in the United States often prospered there, retained the bitterest animosity to England and many of them subscribed from their weekly wage to keep up the anti-English agitation.[57]
This was due in part to the nature of their history and manner of their emigration, when they brought with them a strong specific sense of Anglophobia.[54][55] Irish-American newspapers, like the pro-Catholic "Truth Teller" which was founded in 1825 by an anti-English priest, were influential in the identity of the community.[58] Anglophobia in print was also seen in the autobiographies of noted Irish-Americans; Elizabeth Gurley a leading American socialist,[59] and William Z. Foster who reported in his own memoirs his own father died at over eighty, he never said the word England without adding “God damn her!”.[59]
In 1842, the first national gathering of Irish-Americans took place in Philadelphia:
“The convention ended with anti-English speeches and three cheers for Ireland…[]…Thus they influenced the progress of nationalism in Ireland and shaped their Irish-American identity”[59]
Anti-English feelings among Irish-Americans spread to American culture through Irish-American performers in popular Blackface minstral shows. These imparted both elements of the Irish-Americans performers own national bias, and the popular stereotypical image that the English people were bourgeois aloof or upper class.[60] Sentiments quickly turned into direct and volent action when in the 1860’s the Fenian Brotherhood Society invaded Canada to provoke a United States-British war in hope it would lead to Irish freedom.[61] Violence included direct action by Fenian sympathisers with the assassination of Thomas D'Arcy McGee himself an Irish-Canadian and Irish nationalist who was against the invasion.[62] Goldwin Smith, Professor at Cornell University, wrote in the North American Review that ‘hatred of England’ was used as a tool to win the Irish-American vote.[63] An observation shared in 1900 by the Secretary of State for the United States John Hay who openly criticise the Prairie Populist and his own Democratic Parties political pandering to attract the support of the Irish diaspora:
"state conventions put on an anti-English plank in their platforms to curry favor with the Irish (whom they want to keep) and the Germans whom they want to seduce. It is too disgusting to have to deal with such sordid lies."John Hay Secretary of State for the United States in 1900[61]
Well into the early 20th century anti-English sentiment was increasing with famine memorials in the Irish-American communities, quote “served as a wellspring for their obsessive and often corrosive antipathy”, as noted in the British Parliament in 1915:
”There is no part of the world where anti-English influences worked so powerfully than in the United States. Almost every Irishman there is the son or grandson of and evicted tenant – evicted in all the horrors of the black 40’s. And most of them have heard stories of them from their mother’s knee.”The great famine and the Irish diaspora in America By Arthur Gribben
Some newspapers, including the San Francisco Leader and ‘New York Irish World’ first published in (1823) were renowned for their anti-English articles.[64] The Irish World blamed England for the depopulation and desolate state of Irelands industries.[65] One newspaper, the ‘Gaelic American’, called a student performance of the English national anthem by some girls of Irish heritage from a convent school an act of disloyalty, where they were taught to reverence the traditions of the hereditary enemy of their race and religion.[65]
A commemorative stamp by philanthropist Andrew Carnegie on a century of peace between America and Great Britain was criticised by the Irish-American press.[65] In recent years American statesmen like Pat Buchanan has highlighted the anti-English stance of the Irish Diaspora in the United States of America.[61]
The film industry is widely perceived to give an English nationality to a disproportionate number of villains.[66] Lyndon LaRouche, a perennial candidate for US President and a movement leader known for theories of conspiracies, has been called the "most illustrious" Anglophobe in American politics.[67]
Anti-British sentiment, sometimes described as Anglophobia, has been described as "deeply entrenched in Iranian culture",[68] and reported to be increasingly prevalent in Iran. In July 2009, an adviser to Ayatollah Ali Khamenei called Britain "worse than America" for its alleged interference in Iran's post-election affairs.
Animosity has been dated back to the early 19th century, when a British diplomat, Sir Gore Ouseley, was responsible for drawing up the country's boundaries after the First Russo-Persian War.[69] In the first half of the 20th century, the British Empire exerted political influence over Iran (Persia) in order to control the profits from the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company. As a result, British influence was widely known to have been behind the overthrow of the Qajar Dynasty in the 1920s, the subsequent rise of Reza Shah Pahlavi, and the successful coup d'etat overthrowing prime minister Mohammad Mosaddeq in 1953.[70][71][72] In November 2011, attacks on the UK's embassy in Tehran led to the closure of the embassy and the expulsion of Iranian diplomats from the UK, with the Iranian parliamentary chairman Ali Larijani stating that the incident was the outcome of "decades of domineering moves by the British in Iran".[69]
The classic Iranian novel My Uncle Napoleon, published in 1973, lampoons the widespread belief that the English are responsible for events that occur in Iran.
"Pommy" or "Pom" (probably derived from "pomegranate", rhyming slang for "immigrant")[73] is a common Australasian slang word for the English, often combined with 'whing[e]ing' (complaining) to make the expression 'whingeing Pom' - an English immigrant who stereotypically complains about everything. Although the term is sometimes applied to British immigrants generally, it is usually applied specifically to the English, by both Australians and New Zealanders.[74][75] From the 19th century onwards, there were feelings among established Australians that many immigrants from England were poorly skilled, unwanted by their home country, and unappreciative of the benefits of their new country.[76] In recent years, complaints about two newspaper articles blaming English tourists for littering a local beach, and headed "Filthy Poms" and "Poms fill the summer of our discontent", were accepted as complaints and settled through conciliation by the Australian Human Rights Commission when the newspapers published apologies. However, letters and articles which referred to English people as "Poms" or "Pommies" did not meet the threshold for racial hatred.[77] In 2007 a complaint to Australia's Advertising Standards Bureau about a television commercial using the term 'Pom' was upheld and the commercial was withdrawn.[78]
Movies such as Gallipoli and Breaker Morant have highlighted anti-British sentiment felt by many Australians.
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