Post #68
June 7, 2023
Claire Bodanis
Claire is bemused by a new ‘controversy’ over an ethnonym that had been well understood in her undergraduate days…
Ever since I gave an online talk to Ireland’s software engineers on what we corporate reporters could learn from the Venerable Bede – a bright spot for me in the dark days of lockdown – I’ve been wanting to find an excuse to write a blog about my beloved hero. Little did I expect that, when the opportunity finally arose, it would be in the context of seeing this 7th/8th century monastic, biblical scholar, teacher and historian (on whose works I wrote my MPhil a zillion years ago) as a potential rallying point for English nationalists of the racist persuasion.
I refer to the recent presentation over the weekend of my (also beloved) old university department, Cambridge’s Department of Anglo-Saxon, Norse and Celtic, in a story by the UK right-wing paper, The Telegraph. With its judicious use of inverted commas in headline and intro, the story implies that my department has recently gone ‘woke’: Anglo-Saxons aren’t real, Cambridge tells students in effort to fight ‘nationalism’. And: University aims to ‘dismantle the myths’ around British and English identities as it seeks to make its teaching more ‘anti-racist’.
For those who haven’t read it – and many won’t, because it’s behind a paywall – the controversy lies principally in the term ‘Anglo-Saxon’ used in the department’s name: ‘with some in academia alleging that the ethnonym is used to support “racist” ideas of a native English identity,’ says the article. While it’s true that the term Anglo-Saxon is often used in a racist context, the notion that my department has caved in to the woke agenda is first of all ludicrous, and second, completely misrepresents what it has always taught about the subjects described in its own name. And that is, rigorous, thorough analysis of a complex, often misunderstood subject, one that is far from easily pinned down in simple sound bites.
But hey, we’ve got to call ourselves something, and the ‘department for studying the history, archaeology, language and literature of the British Isles between the invasions of various tribes (mostly) from the Continent (or “European mainland”) from around the middle of the fifth century (although maybe earlier, we can’t date it exactly), and the Norman Conquest at the battle of Hastings in 1066 (although whether it was really a battle and can truly be termed a “conquest” is hotly debated)’ is a bit of a mouthful …
I still remember my first Anglo-Saxon history lecture, 30 years ago, when I was only a baby ASNAC (the nickname for those of us in this tiniest department of the university, some 21 students in my entire year). Dr Keynes proceeded to inform us that really, we wouldn’t be studying Anglo-Saxon history at all, and, for those doing the Celtic history paper, we wouldn’t be studying much of that either. Because, of course, ‘Anglo-Saxon’ was a rather lazy term to describe a series of invasions by various different tribes from the Continent, who proceeded to push back the native British population – themselves not one homogenous group either – to the fringes of the island of Great Britain and beyond, including to the island of Ireland. (And even that’s a simplification.)
I’m sure the irony won’t be lost on you – ie that the word being used to support a notion of native Englishness, often in the context of an anti-Europe agenda, actually refers to a bunch of sword-wielding marauders from Europe, who forced the then native population out of their homes…
How did this come about? I’m sorry to say that it may well have been the best known work of my hero, the gentle Bede, which inadvertently gave rise to this misrepresentation of ‘Anglo-Saxon’ as somehow meaning ‘native English’. In what was perhaps an effort to promote peace and harmony in an island of various immigrant kingdoms, in c.731 he wrote my most treasured book, Historia Ecclesiastica Gentis Anglorum, or The Ecclesiastical History of the English People, which promoted the concept of a ‘nation of England’. In this beautifully clear book, he presented the idea that the people inhabiting this land – who were constantly fighting amongst themselves – should have more to unite than to divide them. I can almost hear poor Bede turning in his grave in Durham Cathedral at the thought that his notion of ‘England’ should be used to divide rather than unite people 1,300 years later.
All very interesting, I hear you mutter, but what does this have to do with 21st century business and reporting, which is the promised subject matter of #WTFW?
For me, there are two lessons here – one for writers, and one for readers. First, as writers, especially of complex subjects such as those covered by reporting, we need to be very careful about how we use language, and how we define our terms, particularly when they can be taken so easily out of context. Depending on how it’s used, language can bring people together or set them at odds. And too often today, in a world of short attention spans and a seemingly endless appetite for sound bites, it is used both inadvertently and deliberately for the latter. That does not mean we should perform ridiculous verbal gymnastics to avoid using a term – but rather that we should do our readers the courtesy of saying what we mean, and being clear and confident in how we explain ourselves.
And as readers? Let’s give writers the benefit of the doubt when we spot a term we may not like, and do them the courtesy of paying attention to what they’ve written, particularly when the subject has as much depth and complexity as reporting – or even, dare I say it, Anglo-Saxon history.
Rest in peace, blessed Bede – those who read your work will know what you meant!