A Pledge Of Allegiance
A report on British citizenship recommends that school leavers swear an oath of allegiance to Queen and country to give them a “sense of belonging”, and to “mark the passage between being a student of citizenship and an active citizen.” This has come in for a large amount of criticism from across the blogosphere and political spectrum, with this post from Asp being the only one that I have seen in support.
I salute the Union Flag on a weekly basis and have made an oath of allegiance to Queen and country literally hundreds of times in my life, as a Scout and a Scout leader, through making the Scout Promise:
To do my duty to God and to the Queen,
To help other people,
And to keep the Scout Law.
And one of the things I do as a Scout leader is explain what this means to new Scouts before they are formally invested.
However, I myself and every other member of the Scout movement does so of our own volition. What is being suggested by Lord Goldsmith is making people do it. People who are British, and have not chosen it, unlike those who come to Britain from another country and want to become British citizens.
I think that it would be a good thing if more people chose to make a pledge of allegiance to Queen and country - but if it isn’t by choice, it is meaningless. And that is what implementing this would be: a meaningless gesture, which would do nothing but undermine Britishness, rather than reinforce it.
This entry is filed under Britishness, Scouting. You can follow any responses to this entry through RSS 2.0. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
-
No Comments
Post your comment