Cambridge University is teaching students that the Anglo-Saxons never existed as a distinct ethnic group, in an effort to “dismantle the… myths” of English nationalism, the Telegraph reported on Saturday. Liberal academics have long decried the term for its association with “whiteness.”
Cambridge’s Department of Anglo-Saxon, Norse and Celtic (ASNC) will seek “to dismantle the basis of myths of nationalism – that there ever was a ‘British’, ‘English’, ‘Scottish’, ‘Welsh’ or ‘Irish’ people with a coherent and ancient ethnic identity – by showing students just how constructed and contingent these identities are and always have been,” the British newspaper reported, citing information from the university.
By denigrating the idea of a distinct Anglo-Saxon identity, the university said that it aims to make its teaching more “anti-racist.”
The controversy over the term ‘Anglo-Saxon’ began in 2019, when Canadian academic Dr Mary Rambaran-Olm resigned from the International Society of Anglo-Saxonists over the “inherent whiteness” of the field. Rambaran-Olm, who is not white, went on to write that “the Anglo-Saxon myth perpetuates a false idea of what it means to be ‘native’ to Britain,” and that the term is “historically inaccurate.”
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This is such IdPol but it’s funny
Eeeh it’s RT. Russian media been scaremongering about euros trying to “erase traditional culture and values” for a while. Sure there’s plenty of liberal shite out there, but let’s not kid ourselves as to why RT is concerned
Yeah definitely, I shared it because I thought it was funny
That ancient history is irrelevant. Myths and beliefs about anglosaxon national identity penetrate deeply into the collective subconscious. They have real world impact and won’t be undone by some history nerds (nothing against history nerds, i am one myself) going “um, actually…”. What matters is the fact that today there very much is such a thing as an anglo ethno-cultural sphere that includes not just most of the UK but the US, Australia and Canada. This anglo world is absolutely toxic and a breeding ground for racist, imperialist attitudes and a source of constant malfeasance in the world. Denying the existence of the white anglosaxon identity group is an attempt to wriggle out of the historic criminal record of this group and to blur the lines between victims and perpetrators of crimes against humanity.
This is not “anti-racist” this is the academia equivalent of people going “i don’t even see color”.
Denying the existence of the white anglosaxon identity group is an attempt to wriggle out of the historic criminal record of this group and to blur the lines between victims and perpetrators of crimes against humanity.
Indeed, it feels like a “stop racism against the whites” thing
I guess the thing that matters is if these “Anglo-saxxons” saw themselves as “Anglo-saxxons” at the time that they were living. Even if they only identified themselves with the land they were on by descriptions like that, I find it irrelevant. We call them that as a tool to identify the people that lived there.
Sounds like trying to disperse the blame.
Even the anglos don’t want to be anglo
Why is this IdPol?
What im seeing here is that a scholar is saying the Anglo Saxon identity is effectively a retroactive construction that serves a nationalist function.
This seems pretty intuitive to me. It’s hardly the first time history has shown us that ethnicity is a social, cultural construction just as race is.
A lot of nationalist narrative are a fairytale like this as well.
