I’ve been thinking a lot lately about national identity. Actually, I started reading Samuel P. Huntington’s Who Are We? America’s Great Debate, and it got me thinking. What is it that gives some nations a stronger sense of national identity than others? Why are Americans so much more passionate about the Stars and Stripes than Brits tend to be about the Union Jack? Why does it take an event like 9/11 to spark patriotism in many people?

Fascinating questions, and I don’t know if I can offer definitive answers; nobody can. But I have some thoughts...

One of the most striking differences that I have encountered between America and Britain is the emphasis placed by the general public upon national identity. Despite our past empire and our long history, there seems to be something about the British mindset that takes nationality for granted. That is, unless opposed by a conflicting viewpoint: a criticism from the French, say, on our cooking or our language. Then we puff up our proud British chests in defiance. And, of course, we mustn’t forget the Last Night of the Proms, when all British pomp and circumstance is displayed in all its Union Jacketed glory.

Now, I don’t think that it is necessarily the case that the British are not proud of their Britishness. I think it’s just that our culture tends not to confront us with our Britishness as often as Americans are reminded of their Americanness. Take the phrase “All-American”, for instance, variously used to refer to anything from ball games to consumables to people. We don’t really have an “All-British.” The “Best of British” is usually limited to discussions of food. Now, we do get patriotic over our food. “British Beef”, for instance, is (rather ironically) a stamp of quality in supermarkets. The crispest English accents are used to advertise bangers and mash, crumpets, scones, and Jersey cream by Marks & Spencer. We (some of us...!) love our food. But is that true patriotism?

On the other hand, Americans tend to be very aware of their national identity. Flags are, of course, a very tangible example. What is it that these two flags mean to us? The Union Jack represents the unity of the Kingdom and dates back to January 1801, after the 1800 Act of Union, which merged the Kingdom of Ireland with the Kingdom of Great Britain. In its very essence, the flag represents the joining together of the countries that make up the Union. Perhaps the tensions that have arisen over the years between these countries -- arising as they do from a desire to be distinguished as a separate entity, to be Scottish, English, Welsh, or Irish rather than British – can partly answer for the lack of awe with which the British view their flag. Certainly, when the World Cup rolls around, each country displays its own flag much more proudly than they wave the Union Jack. But then this sentiment is much more about football than nationality.

But I think there’s more to the transatlantic difference in our attitude to our flags than the fact that the Union Jack represents more than one country. After all, the Stars and Stripes, by its very nature, represents more than one State. In a sense, just as the Union Jack merges the flags of the separate nations of the Union, the American flag allows one star to each state that makes up its Union. For Americans, the flag represents a much more recent history; it is a much more definable symbol. It is inseparably intertwined with other prominent symbols of what Huntington in his book terms “The American Creed”: the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, each of which tangibly represents the values of democracy, freedom, equality, liberty, words that are used as catchphrases nowadays but which still have a much more concrete meaning to millions of Americans than they tend to do to Europeans. In schools, American students salute their flag, pledging allegiance not to a piece of cloth but to a set of values which they are taught from a historical and cultural perspective. Some say this is indoctrination. I think it is a way the American education system attempts to link the symbols, catchphrases, and emblems that surround students with the very real history they represent. In this way the flag comes to embody lessons learned, wars fought, and the overcoming of mistakes like slavery that halted the progress of democracy in the New World. The same sense of possibility, of freedom and adventure, that inspired the Founding Fathers of the United States to create what they defined as a “more perfect union” still lives on, albeit in an extremely diluted fashion, in the way in which Americans identify themselves as Americans. In the way that, no matter which State they are from, and no matter the rivalries that exist between States or between North and South, Americans will stand side by side proudly to declare, hand on heart, their allegiance to an ideal that forms their identity.

At a party last week an American asked me why I had any desire to live in the US. He asked me to give reasons. Then on Sunday I spoke to Chris on the phone and he asked me the same thing. Perhaps it is in part this sense of national identity – of unity based upon an ideal, a value, a history. There is more to it than this, but I know it is a part of what I love about America. Patriotism is intoxicating.

Of course, that isn’t always a good thing. Patriotism can be blind. But for the most part I tend to believe that Americans can be extremely critical of their government and their social systems without altering the importance they place on being American. This does have its exceptions. In France I was with a number of Americans who declared themselves Canadians to any French people they thought disagreed with the War in Iraq. I was almost ashamed of them. I think it’s so incredibly important to separate politics from nationality. It is the notion that the two are inseparable that leads to innocent Americans being targeted just because they are American.

Finally, one more thought. It has always struck me as ironic that an event like September 11, designed to cause so much damage and disarray to a nation (and in loss of life it certainly did), would end up in many ways having the opposite effect. For those Americans on September 10, 2001 who considered their nationality of lesser importance to their identity, the events that were to follow the next day made their Americanness paramount. Even international critics of America waved the Stars and Stripes that week, partly in pity, partly in an expression of unity. Look, they said, we support the same values. The tragic irony, of course, is that 9/11 pushed American patriotism, American love-for-country, into high gear.

But another element of that irony is that it would take something so tragic to ignite that patriotism in some people. Now that five years have past and the War in Iraq is still drawing on, is that patriotism waning? Huntington suggests that identity is an “us-versus-them” phenomenon. A female doctor in a room full of male doctors will identify herself as a woman. The same female doctor in a room full of non-medical women will identify herself as a doctor. We define ourselves in opposition to others. National identity becomes strongest in comparison to other, differing identities. When we go abroad we tend to identify more strongly with our own country in comparison to others (erm... I may be an exception here...!). So the Brits defend their cooking in the face of French criticism, even if they prefer French cuisine themselves. Patriotism during wars is often stronger than it has ever been; that is, if we have an enemy against whom we compare ourselves and find strongly in our favour. Take the World Wars. Take 9/11. But when we start to question the actions of our own country, or those who represent our own country – as in Vietnam and as in the War in Iraq – we are less able to find a locus for that identity.

Okay, I rambled tonight. Big time!