Re-building The Englisc Theod

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Theod (Þeod) is the Anglo Saxon English word for Tribe. The English Tribe or ‘Engliscan Þeod’ is the sum total of the indigenous Anglo Saxon English people. It is made up of different family groups and clans – but it is one Englisc Tribe.

England itself is now home to people of many different ethnic identities. However, Englishness is not simply a term based on residency or whether you happen to be born in England. It is certainly not an optional add on to another ethnic identity.

But neither is it a definition based exclusively on race or genetic background. People of non-ethnic English backgrounds can become part of the Theod, absorbed into the tribe. Numbers of such people in any generation will be small and their ability to be accepted will in large part depend on their physical and mental similarity to the typical Anglo Saxon. Some people will be much easier to absorb than others.

What is Englishness?

For much of our history, up until modern times, most people living in England were ethnically English. We are the descendants of the Germanic ‘Dogger Bank’ people who inhabited a fertile area from modern day England, across what is now the North Sea and into North Western Europe. Even as sea levels rose, the peoples of this area maintained contact with each other and several major migrations from Europe took place (notably the Anglo Saxons and the Danes.) And so whilst the indigenous English may have origins in several migrations – this is mostly a history of the same, or very similar, people interacting with each other over many thousands of years.

The indigenous English can trace their origins back to around 30,000 BC when these islands were resettled after the last major ice age. Furthermore, there was very little immigration from the Norman Conquest in 1066 right up until the last hundred years or so. We are therefore entitled to call ourselves indigenous and identify with a specific North West European ethnic identity that has defined us for thousands of years.

As England became the focus of a great world Empire, the concept of being English subtly changed to become more focussed on culture and loyalty to the Crown. Here we see the emergence of what we now call ‘Civic Nationalism’. Englishmen could be created!

For a long time, it didn’t really matter as the people that came to our lands for the most part looked much like us and quickly became ‘invisible’. Those that were visible were very small in number and confined to the big cities and seaports.

It was not until after the Second World War that mass immigration from outside Northern Europe began. And this was not just large and increasing numbers of people, but people who were very different to the English. They were mainly from the old Empire; initially West Indians, Asians from the old Indian Empire, East Asians from Hong Kong and Southern Europeans from Italy, Cyprus and Malta. As time has gone by, this trend has grown and the diversity of people coming to our homeland has widened. The last twenty years has seen a steady stream grow into a tidal wave and people are now openly talking about the indigenous English becoming a minority in our own homeland in the foreseeable future. In many areas of several cities we already are.

As far as the State is concerned, all of these people are or will become, English – or at least British. Integration and unity in diversity are the buzz words of our modern world. The emphasis now is not so much on multi-culturalism, but on integration. People have reacted in different ways to this. On the one hand there is a marked increase in ‘white flight’ leading to large non-English ghettoes. But mixed relationships and marriages are also becoming more common.

Restoring Our Identity

There is an urgent need to restore a sense of an Anglo Saxon English identity and a pride in that identity amongst our people. We need to be clear that Englishness is an ethnic identity and not a civic one, in which anyone living in England can be considered ethnically English. We are not a set of values as Government like to tell us these days. We are a people, a distinct ethnic group with a strong sense of who we are and who we are not.

We need to be clear that the English look a certain way, act a certain way and hold certain values. We are a Tribe, a Nation of people with common physical and cultural characteristics, not just a citizenship. People will not understand the need to protect our identity if they do not understand this. There are strong forces determined to prevent this sort of thinking, but we must resist these forces and exert our rights.

People naturally group themselves into ‘communities’. This is a primitive survival instinct. It may be Northerners against Southerners, Yorkshire against Lancashire, Protestants against Catholics and so on. But these distinctions are no longer what should divide us. The real distinction now is between ourselves as the indigenous ‘Engliscan Theod’ (whether Northerner or Southerner) and the alien communities growing up around us.

Social cohesion should mean just that. English communities used to be very cohesive. Breaking them up, importing millions of alien people into them and then telling us we must embrace diversity in the interests of social cohesion is Orwellian nonsense.

The truth of this view point is becoming more obvious every day. The idea that West Bradford is as English as Little Deeping (or wherever) is laughable. Large ethnic communities do not become English. They are strong enough to maintain their own identity with only cosmetic changes towards Westernisation and Anglicanisation. We are different people, we think differently, do things differently and have created different forms of society.

England was created by the English. The English were not created by England!

Thinking Tribally

This piece started by introducing the Anglo Saxon (or ‘Old’) English word ‘Theod’ meaning tribe. We have not really had to think as a tribe, at least within our native England, for a very long time. But we clearly need to start doing so now. In particular, we need to encourage young people, who have been brainwashed into thinking of themselves as ‘world citizens’ rather than as a tribe. Young people from ethnic communities do not think like this. They take great pride in their own tribal origins. Like King Theoden from Lord of the Rings, we need to WAKE UP!

To help this process of tribal bonding, we need to identify more closely with our ancestors both in terms of the bonds of blood and with their culture, whether this be food & drink, literature, history, music, religion or even language. Social, cultural and religious events are needed that reinforce these bonds and nurture a feeling of belonging to the Theod. We need to start thinking and acting more as a tribe, a community with interests and political clout. We need to live in the modern world, but be clear where our roots lie and be determined to protect our communal identity. We need to live together, work together, socialise together and inter-marry within our community. This practice of only marrying within your community is known as ‘endogamy’ and is common amongst many cultural and religious groups around the world.

To this end, we need community organisations, think tanks and media outlets that actively identify issues of interest to us as a tribe and pursue these interests both internally within our community and externally in the wider world. We need a tribal newspaper – maybe the ‘new’ Anglo Saxon Chronicle! We need legal organisations to advise and defend our interests and political groups not just to stand for election but to lobby for our interests within existing power structures. From a religious perspective, we need a mechanism to encourage capable people to take up positions of leadership within the movement, work within existing Church jurisdictions and form the basis for a new one.