Writer Mike Marqusee is unusual for an American in being a cricket buff. Despite his affinity for the quintessentially English game, he's suspicious of the resurgence of English identity visible at recent sporting events.
Marqusee makes his arguments at Comment is Free and in a debate with Mark Perryman on his site. Perhaps his most significant point is this one.
Recasting English national identity as forward-looking, inclusive, free of chauvinist aggression is a more complicated business than merely "reclaiming" the St George's flag from the far right (which is not in the least depressed to see its favoured emblem so widely adopted). The reclaimers want to skip over a vital step in the process: a realistic examination of British imperial history and its current role in the world. In a climate shaped by paranoia about immigration, demands that minorities "integrate", the war on terror and the presence of British troops in Iraq and Afghanistan, an uncritical, ahistorical celebration of England remains, at the least, problematic. (CommentIsFree)
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