Tbh, it's not unexpected that two *extremely* different countries chose two different paths. But now they are both sending contestants to Eurovision, if I have understood correctly.
When I was a university student in England, I went on long, rambling, half-earnest-half-joking rants about how I was considered an "international student" even though my countrymen had fought for the Empire in multiple wars, my mother tongue was English, and I was a citizen of the Commonwealth; whereas Germans (Britain's opponents in those wars) were considered local students because they were part of the European Union.
Portugal is an interesting contrast to the UK for post-imperial identity within Europe. Portugal lost its empire, but never fully disowned the identity and still promotes some cultural continuity with it. The age of maratime discoveries, primacy of the Lusophone sphere, the idea of Portugal as outward facing and civilisational are all still openly taught in schools and are supported by institutions like state broadcasters. There's little of the pretence found in the UK that empire either never mattered or was irredeemably bad. It's just reframed as heritage, culture, and soft power. It's not even a huge point of contention in culture wars eg. the far right supports prioritised paths to citizenship from former Portuguese colonies for reasons of nostalgia and language ties, the far left as some kind of postcolonial recompense.
My first Australian passport in the early 1970s described me as a “British Subject” and “Australian Citizen”. That changed, I think, about five years later. What remains bizarre is that as an Australian (or Canadian or Kiwi, and maybe other countries of the Commonwealth) I can still become a UK parliamentarian and even PM. Presumably I would still have to have the right of abode I used to have in the UK and be on the British electoral rolls….
We should have given Victoria or South Australia to found a new Zion to the European Jews in the early twentieth century, from memory there was a rather optimistic idea to offer SW Tasmania.
Tbh, it's not unexpected that two *extremely* different countries chose two different paths. But now they are both sending contestants to Eurovision, if I have understood correctly.
When I was a university student in England, I went on long, rambling, half-earnest-half-joking rants about how I was considered an "international student" even though my countrymen had fought for the Empire in multiple wars, my mother tongue was English, and I was a citizen of the Commonwealth; whereas Germans (Britain's opponents in those wars) were considered local students because they were part of the European Union.
Criminal
That's what I kept telling them!
Portugal is an interesting contrast to the UK for post-imperial identity within Europe. Portugal lost its empire, but never fully disowned the identity and still promotes some cultural continuity with it. The age of maratime discoveries, primacy of the Lusophone sphere, the idea of Portugal as outward facing and civilisational are all still openly taught in schools and are supported by institutions like state broadcasters. There's little of the pretence found in the UK that empire either never mattered or was irredeemably bad. It's just reframed as heritage, culture, and soft power. It's not even a huge point of contention in culture wars eg. the far right supports prioritised paths to citizenship from former Portuguese colonies for reasons of nostalgia and language ties, the far left as some kind of postcolonial recompense.
Interesting!
My first Australian passport in the early 1970s described me as a “British Subject” and “Australian Citizen”. That changed, I think, about five years later. What remains bizarre is that as an Australian (or Canadian or Kiwi, and maybe other countries of the Commonwealth) I can still become a UK parliamentarian and even PM. Presumably I would still have to have the right of abode I used to have in the UK and be on the British electoral rolls….
Powerful reader anecdote!
Australian citizens who are resident in the UK can vote in UK elections!
Knowing my parents enjoy a Sunday evening watching Midsomer Murders with their almond Magnums, I know there’s still a bit of British soul left
Much more than a bit!
We should have given Victoria or South Australia to found a new Zion to the European Jews in the early twentieth century, from memory there was a rather optimistic idea to offer SW Tasmania.
From memory it was a slice of NT or something. Grim
WA, but no less grim. It was called the Kimberley scheme.