Prejudice toward the United Kingdom, British people and British culture
Anti-British sentiment
is the
prejudice
against,
persecution
of,
discrimination
against, fear of, dislike of, or
hatred
against the
British Government
,
British people
, or the
culture
of the
United Kingdom
.
Argentina
[
edit
]
Historically, anti-British sentiment in Argentina has its roots on the
Falkland Islands sovereignty dispute
and the 1982
Falklands War
, as well as the perception of disproportional political influence that Britain was once seen to wield in the country due to the large amount
British investment in Argentina
at the beginning of the 20th century, as exemplified by the controversial
Roca?Runciman Treaty
in 1933.
[3]
[
page needed
]
. Due to these sentiments, protests against the
government of the United Kingdom
have occasionally occurred in Argentina.
[4]
Germany
[
edit
]
Gott strafe England
(
English
: May god punish England) was an anti-British
slogan
coined by poet
Ernst Lissauer
during
World War I
. It was used by the
Imperial German Army
as well as the German public during
World War I
.
[5]
In 1946, a crowd of Germans in
Hamburg
chanted the song.
[6]
South Asia
[
edit
]
In India, Pakistan and Bangladesh, the
Indian independence movement
encouraged this sentiment, which was borne out of opposition against British colonial and imperial activities in these countries, called
British Raj
.
[7]
Iran
[
edit
]
Anti-British sentiment, sometimes described as Anglophobia, has been described as "deeply entrenched in Iranian culture",
[8]
and reported to be increasingly prevalent in
Iran
. In July 2009, an adviser to
Ayatollah
Ali Khamenei
called Britain "worse than America" for its alleged interference in Iran's post-election affairs. In the first half of the 20th century, the
British Empire
exerted political influence over Iran (Persia) in order to control the profits from the
Anglo-Persian Oil Company
. The
British government
took an active interest in Iranian affairs, being involved in the overthrow of the
Qajar dynasty
in the 1920s, the subsequent rise to power of
Reza Shah Pahlavi
, and the
successful coup d'etat
overthrowing prime minister
Mohammad Mosaddeq
in 1953.
[9]
[10]
[11]
On Monday 9 August 2010, the senior Iranian minister and Iran's first vice president
Mohammad Reza Rahimi
declared that the
British people
were "stupid" and "not human". His remarks drew criticism from Simon Gass, the British ambassador to Iran, and also from the media in Britain.
[12]
In November 2011 the Iranian parliament voted to downgrade relations with the UK after British sanctions were imposed on Iran due to its nuclear programme. Iranian politicians reportedly shouted "Death to Britain".
[13]
On 29 November 2011, Iranian students in Tehran stormed the British embassy, ransacked offices, smashed windows, shouted "Death to England" and burned the
Union Jack
.
[14]
Parts of the Iranian media campaigned against the reopening of the British Embassy in Tehran in August 2015, referring to Britain as an "
old fox
" – a term popularised by the Pakistani writer
Seyyed Ahmad Adib Pishavari
(born
Peshawar
1844, died Tehran 1930) – and accusing Britain of having provoked protests against the re-election of
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad
in 2009.
[15]
Ireland
[
edit
]
There is a long history of anti-British prejudice and of specifically
anti-English sentiment
within
Irish nationalism
; it is rooted in
Irish history
starting with the
Anglo-Norman invasion of Ireland
and, even more so, in the policies and actions of the British government during the
prolonged occupation of Ireland
including the
Great Famine
,
the Penal laws
and the
religious persecution
of the
Catholic Church in Ireland
from the reign of
King Henry VIII
until
Catholic Emancipation
in 1829. Much of this was grounded in the hostility felt by the largely Catholic poor for the
rackrenting
practices of the
Anglo-Irish
landlord class, who were the backbone of the
Protestant Ascendancy
and the
anti-Catholic
Whig
single party state
in Ireland until the late 19th century events of the
Land War
. At the same time, however, during the
Peninsular War
against the even more anti-Catholic
Napoleon Bonaparte
, thirty per cent of the
Duke of Wellington
's Army was composed of
Irish Catholics
. This figure rose steadily over the following decades. By 1831, forty per cent of the British Army was Irish. By the 1860s, the number peaked at sixty per cent claiming to be either Irish-born or of Irish descent. The number then gradually reduced until by the
Boer War
, twenty per cent of
Britain's fighting men
were of Irish descent. In post-
famine Ireland
,
anti-English sentiment
and
anti-colonialism
were adopted into the philosophy and foundation of the Irish nationalist movement. At the turn of the twentieth century, the
Celtic Revival movement
associated the search for a cultural and national identity with
decolonisation
and
language revival
.
[16]
By 1914, the British Army numbered 247,000 troops, of whom 20,000 were Irish. There were a further 145,000 ex-regular reserves, 30,000 of which were Irish. Thus, in 1914, Irishmen made up twelve percent of the total British Army. Approximately 50,000 Irish soldiers died in the
First World War
,
[17]
including the
war poets
Tom Kettle
and
Francis Ledwidge
. The subsequent events of the
Easter Rising
and the declaration of the Irish Republic by the
First Dail
in 1919 were swiftly followed by systematic atrocities by Crown Security Forces during the
Irish War of Independence
, which continue to be remembered and regularly discussed in the communities where they took place. During
World War II
, an estimated 70,000 Irish citizens decided, despite
Irish neutrality
, to serve in the British Armed Forces, together with 50,000 or so from Northern Ireland. 7,500 of these lost their lives in service. Virtually all who served were volunteers. In Southern Ireland at least, decisions to volunteer and serve were mainly individual.
[18]
During
the Troubles
(1969?1998), the sheer amount of
Provisional Irish Republican Army
(PIRA) sympathy among the populace in the Republic of Ireland allowed PIRA activity to flourish in the country and use it as a base of operations against Northern Ireland and England, contributing to the longevity of the campaign.
[19]
[20]
Hundreds of Irish citizens in the Republic joined the IRA,
[21]
including
Martin Ferris
(known for a failed plan to import weapons onboard the boat
Marita Ann
),
Thomas McMahon
(responsible for
assassinating Lord Mountbatten
), and
Daithi O Conaill
(credited for introducing the
car bomb
to Northern Ireland). Southern Irish PIRA Volunteers, however, also included
Sean O'Callaghan
, who became a highly damaging
mole
within the organization for the
Special Branch
, the
counterterrorism
wing of the
Garda Siochana
.
On 2 February 1972, an angry mob, in an outraged response to
Bloody Sunday
committed by British paratroopers a few days earlier on 30 January and consisting of an estimated 20,000-100,000 people,
burned down the British Embassy in Dublin
. On 12 May 1981, during the
1981 Irish hunger strike
, 2,000 people tried to storm the British Embassy in Dublin.
[22]
In 2011, tensions and anti-English or anti-British feelings flared in relation to the proposed state visit of
Queen Elizabeth II
, the first British monarch to visit Ireland in 100 years. A republican demonstration was held at the GPO Dublin by a group of Irish Republicans on 26 February 2011, and a
mock trial
and decapitation of an effigy of the Queen were carried out by a republican group
Eirigi
. Other protests included a Dublin publican hanging a banner declaring "She and her family are all officially barred from this pub as long as the British occupy one inch of this island they will never be welcome in Ireland" during her visit.
[23]
It may have been with this in mind that, during
Queen Elizabeth II
's
state visit to Ireland in May 2011
, the Queen made an official visit to the
Garden of Remembrance
in Dublin, which is dedicated to the generations that fought and died in the struggle for Irish independence. During her visit,
Liam mac Uistin
's poem
An
Aisling
("We Saw a Vision") was read aloud in the
Irish language
and the Queen also laid a wreath at the Garden in honor of
glunta na haislinge
("the generations of the vision"), whom Liam mac Uistin's poem both praises and gives a voice. The Queen's gesture was widely praised by the Irish media.
Even so, following the announcement
of Queen Elizabeth II's death on 8 September 2022
, a video of hardcore
Shamrock Rovers
fans chanting "Lizzie's in a
box
, in a box, Lizzie's in a box!" to the tune of
KC and the Sunshine Band
's "
Give It Up
" at a
UEFA Europa Conference League
group stage match
in
Dublin
circulated on social media.
[24]
Israel
[
edit
]
The relationship between Israel and the UK is generally regarded as close and warm,
[25]
and as a strategic partnership of the two nations.
[26]
According to the a
BBC World Service
poll in 2014,
[2]
five in ten Israelis (50%) have favourable attitudes to the UK, and only 6% of Israelis hold negative views towards the UK, the second lowest percentage after Japan.
Occasional criticism is also found. In Israel, anti-British sentiment may historically stem from British rule and policies in the
mandate era
, and in modern times from the perceived anti-Israel stance of the British media.
[27]
[28]
[29]
[30]
The Jewish population of the United Kingdom was recorded as being 269,568 in the 2011 Census. Reacting to 609 anti-Semitic incidents across the UK in the first half of 2009,
[29]
and to the announcement of numerous UK organizations to impose a boycott on Israel,
[30]
some Israelis claimed that the UK is anti-Israeli and
Antisemitic
.
[27]
[28]
According to an opinion piece by Eytan Gilboa, "the British media systematically supports the Palestinians, and openly slants its reporting about Israel and Israeli policy. The left-wing Guardian and Independent newspapers regularly print accusatory, anti-Israel editorials, and their correspondents in Israel file biased, and occasionally false, reports. The supposedly prestigious BBC has long been a sounding board to trumpet Palestinian propaganda."
[30]
In 2010 Ron Breiman, a former chairman of the right-wing organisation "Professors for a Strong Israel", claimed in one of Israel's leading newspapers,
Haaretz
, that the United Kingdom has raised and armed Israel's enemies in Jordan and the Arab Legion and described the British media as anti-Israeli.
[31]
Reacting to the UK government's decision to expel an Israeli diplomat because of Mossad's forging of 12 British passports for
an assassination operation
in 2010, former National Union members of the
Israeli parliament
Michael Ben-Ari
and
Aryeh Eldad
accused the British government of being "anti-semitic" and referred to them as "dogs".
[32]
[33]
Spain
[
edit
]
Anti-British sentiments evolved in Spain following the ceding of
Gibraltar
to the British through the
Treaty of Utrecht
in 1713 following the
War of the Spanish Succession
.
[
citation needed
]
In August 2013, Spain was considering forging an alliance with Argentina over the status of the
Falkland Islands
.
[34]
United States
[
edit
]
President
Thomas Jefferson
complained of an unreasonable hostility towards the British state by the people in the United States during the
Napoleonic Wars
, brought about by the
American Revolutionary War
.
[35]
During the
American Civil War
, anti-British sentiment in the U.S. ran rampant over the
British unofficial role
in supporting the
Confederacy
:
blockade runners carrying British arms supplies
,
Confederate Navy
commerce raiders
built from British shipyards (e.g.,
CSS
Alabama
),
[36]
[37]
[38]
and British tolerance of
Confederate Secret Service
activities in its territories as an anti-U.S. base of military operations (such as
James Dunwoody Bulloch
, the
Chesapeake
Affair
, the
St. Albans Raid
, and the
Confederate Army of Manhattan
) all in violation of British neutrality laws.
[39]
[40]
[41]
[42]
[43]
For example, Irish
war correspondent
William Howard Russell
wrote in his diary on November 13, 1863, that based on his experiences in the
North
:
The sentiment of dislike [there] towards England is increasing, because English subjects have assisted the South by smuggling and
running the blockade
.
[44]
The U.S. administration of President
Ulysses S. Grant
sued Britain in 1869 over its complicity in allowing commerce raiders to leave British ports for use against the
United States Merchant Marine
shipping in the
Alabama
Claims
. Blockade runners from Britain was later added to the charge, as many U.S. officials claimed that without the arms supplies being smuggled by British subjects through the
Union blockade
to the Confederacy, the war would have ended by 1863, and American casualties and cost of war would have been greatly reduced.
[45]
[36]
[37]
[38]
The international
arbitration
in
Geneva
in 1872 however rejected claims for compensation from the British blockade running, but did order Britain to pay $15.5 million to the U.S. as a result of damages caused by British-built Confederate commerce raiders.
[36]
During the World War II alliance, anti-British sentiment took different forms. In May 1942, when conditions were highly problematic for British prospects, American journalist
Edward R. Murrow
privately gave a British friend an analysis of the sources of persistent anti-British sentiment in the United States. He attributed it especially to:
- partly the hard-core of anglophobes (Irish, Germans and isolationists); partly the frustration produced by war without early victories; partly our bad behaviour at Singapore; and partly the tendency common to all countries at war to blame their allies for doing nothing.
[46]
Senior American military officers often tried, with little success, to push against Roosevelt's support for Britain.
Fleet Admiral
Ernest King
had been noted for these views which affected his decision-making during the "
Second Happy Time
" (in the
Battle of the Atlantic
).
[47]
Joseph Stilwell
, a four-star general in the China, Burma and India theatre of the
Second World War
was another noted for anti-British views (for example, in this diaries he wrote, "Boy, will this burn up the Limeys!" when Myitkyina was finally taken). Curiously, he got on well with British military commander
William Slim
, even volunteering to serve under him for a time rather than under
George Giffard
. Slim noted that Stilwell had a public persona that differed from his private relations.
In the 21st century, the
Special Relationship
between the United States and the United Kingdom has come under attack by advertising executive Steven A. Grasse who published
The Evil Empire: 101 Ways That England Ruined the World
,
[48]
although this work is partly tongue in cheek and forms part of a larger media project launched by the author.
Roland Emmerich
's
2000
movie
The Patriot
drew controversy for its depiction of British forces during the
American Revolutionary War
,
[49]
depicting them as engaging in acts such as the burning of a church with civilians inside it in the
Thirteen Colonies
during the
American Revolution
. The
Liverpool City Council
went on to claim that the film misrepresented British general
Banastre Tarleton
and sought an apology from the producers.
[50]
Other commentators noted that a similar incident was committed by German troops in the
Oradour-sur-Glane massacre
in
World War II
, and suggested that the film producers may have had, consciously or subconsciously, an anti-British agenda in changing the nationalities and relocating the event to an earlier and different conflict
[51]
[52]
and one stated that it was similar to a "
blood libel
".
[53]
Derogatory terms
[
edit
]
In Spanish
[
edit
]
See also
[
edit
]
References
[
edit
]
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.
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- ^
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