On what being a Brit means...

What does being a British mean? Paradoxically, my mind at once came up with a lot of answers, and none at all. Such is the dilemma that no doubt Brits are debating among themselves. It's particularly interesting to note that, unlike young countries like American and Australia who would need such a statement of identity to define the goal of assimilation of their large immigrant population, the British government would even make such an attempt of defining what it means to be British, after thousand of years in existence.

It is perhaps the British secret source of success, that they would introspect periodically, and would reinvent and define their course of actions. I would not have imagine the French, or German, or Italians, or Spaniards, to even think about doing such thing.

It is equally important too, in this day and age, when the immigrant population, Muslim in particular, is growing in numbers across Europe, that Britain really needs to think of how to assimilate these once-foreigners, than to repel them.

So, what does it mean to be British really? Perhaps Brits themselves would come up with lots of things, or none at all, as the article rightly reports. Observing them afar, they probably do not realize that British come across as: aloof, emotionally suppressed, disciplined, intelligent, diligent, stubborn, very class conscious (still !!!), and would persevere against the odds.

Then again, Britain is a collection of peoples and places. Irish are different from those in Midlands, from those in Edinburgh, from those in Wales. It's almost a sin to try to set a caricature.