The need for Saxon Sibbandry

Why is Saxon Sibbandry needed?

It was once said that the English didn't need to make a song and dance about their national identity. They were confident in who they were, and they lived among their own kind according to age old English customs, without having to think about the issue too much.

In recent times though England has become a home to an increasing diversity of people from all corners of the world. For the existing Saxon English people this can be a cause of insecurity. Especially if they are unsure of their own identity in the first place, as many are, then brushing up against diversity can seem a challenge.

A problem for many Saxon English today is that they want to imagine they live in a nation state despite all appearances to the contrary and the discordance between the imagination and the reality can be a cause of anguish.

It can seem that a multi-ethnic society is a very strange and modern development. Yet if we take a global and historical view then it has been quite a common thing for different ethnic groups, different tribes, to live alongside each other in the same territory.

Of course there is always a possibility of friction between people in these circumstances. But it is also possible to make it work reasonably well.

What is important is that everybody feels reasonably secure in their position. If they feel insecure then hostility can arise leading to unhappy outcomes.

So whatever their political hopes we think Saxon English people should adapt to the situation they are in - that they are one ethnic group living alongside other ethnic groups in a multi-ethnic empire.

They should start seeing themselves more as a tribe with an ethnic identity rather than simply as residents of one particular place or other.

Saxon Sibbandry aims to offer a possible route to make this a practical reality. It suggests we need to act in a more deliberate way to build and sustain Saxon English cultural communities, so that people of Saxon English origin feel they belong somewhere, that they are part of something that represents them and is for their benefit, and to which they can contribute.

This of course this is no different than any ethnic group has tried to do all round the world and throughout history.

January 2025