Flying (or fucking on) the flags of nationalism

Of course everyone realized that the attacks in London would trigger what at its face looks like a mirrored response, a surge in British (or English) nationalism. A counter-strike would reassert rule over the collective consciousness.

The Guardian recently reported that revenge attacks were in the works as far right groups and organized associations of football hooligans joined forces on anti-muslim websites to plot counterstrikes against Muslims:

Football hooligans communicating over the internet have spoken of the need to put aside partisan support for teams and unite against Muslims. Hooligans from West Ham, Millwall, Crystal Palace and Arsenal are among those seeking to establish common cause.

As some imagined and convenient umbrella of nationalism trumps what are normally vicious local allegiances organized around football team colors and chants, I think about the bombers themselves--the lads from Leeds. I don't think it is any accident that they came from disaffected parts of England not far from and not disimilar to areas struck by race riots a few years ago such as Burnley, just across the border in Lancashire, and also Bradford and Leeds. That the BNP's stronghold is knitted together out of these old milltowns suggests that there are bigger forces shaping consciousness here besides the selected ministrations of zealot immans, brainwashed kids, and small sleeper cells.

I'd like to propose a slightly different version of British nationalism, one that's NSFW (those kinds of nationalisms are always the hottest). I've recently been studying with my ethnographic eye a recent Triga film, Scallyboy Orgy. The soundtrack is not by Vaughn Williams, and the pleasant refrains about England's green and pleasant land are replaced by DO ME 'ARDERs and JAMMY BASTARDs. The description describes for us where authentic England resides:

The location is a tough London council estate; the set, a rented flat designed purely to fuck & crash in.

Well, aren't they all?

And in this particular film, the true Englander is a scally:

Scally

Noun. Slang. Pronounced: skali, it rhymes with rally.

An abreviation of scallywag in the same sense. A reprobate. A disreputable fellow. A good-for-nothing. A rogue. A rascal¹. Scally in this meaning developed in the northern dialect but is now moving into general slang use. It is however, still associated with the Lancashire-Liverpool area.

These boys are all white of course, the lot of them chavs. But the four London bombers looked a little chavy too.

The scenery of the film is festooned with Union Jacks, and the actors, who rarely are seen completely naked, flash their England gear in every shot, the England logo as important as an erect cock.

Are these scenes, in which a man gets fucked on a table covered in the Union Jack, meant to make fun of British nationalism or perpetuate it? Is a stain on the flag a sign of desecration or allegiance?

I see a particular triangulation...suicide bombers, gay men who dress up in working-class English gear and have sex on and surrounded by the banners of nationalism, and actual BNP party members and football hooligans who have found a rather different way of directing their homosocial energy. Why might muslim terrorists and nationalist football hooligans find common ground against homosexual orgies? Do football hooligans know that videotaped homosexual sex orgies on flags are part of a western culture that terrorists are in opposition to?

torrent: scally boys; those are proper scally trainers--put your hat like that, proper back; am i scally?; as we speak, a bald man in a cross of st george t-shirt accelerates past in his van and shouts 'bastards!';

Posted by jason at July 19, 2024 01:44 PM