8.10B Identity & Loyalty

• Identity and loyalty can be linked to:

  • Distinctive legal systems
  • Methods of governance
  • National ‘character’
  • Landscape 
• Distinctive legal systems:

  • In France, a person is considered guilty until they prove their innocence, whereas, the UK's legal system is innocent until proven guilty
  • The USA's Constitution Bill of Rights, Second Amendment of the 'right of the people to self-defence' and therefore, the right to bear arms
• Methods of governance:

  • Britain has the right to vote for representation in Parliament
  • The principles of the Magna Carta, 1215, is considered the foundation of British laws, liberties and principles and the first to identify 'human rights'
• National ‘character’:

  • British identity is seen as ideals of tolerance, determination, politeness and tea
  • France and 'liberty, equality and fraternity' - used to justify the ban of the burqa as a symbol of female oppression, which was incompatible with French culture and not a religious ban
• Landscape:

  • The countryside can be linked to identity
  • However, it is difficult to distinguish 'where' this should be - Lake District, Cotswolds etc.
  • Artists, poets and writers have penned a particular view of a nations countryside as a national identity
  • Wordsworth's daffodils, Constable's 'Haywain' or Bronte's 'Wuthering Heights' etc.