I Want To Be A Nationalist

Whichever direction I glance in it seems that Nationalism is on the rise.

Be it Sinhala Buddhist Nationalism over your way, the good old US Trump flavoured Southern fried variety out West or the drink tea and keep calm we're British and let's get rid of all the foreigners and fuck the country in the process kind that we have over here, it's all the rage.

Of course, the intelligent types will tell you that it's always happened historically whenever there has been mass migration of people and I'm sure that's true. Hitler, Castro, Napoleon, Boris Johnson, all these truly powerful and mental leaders have used it as one of their weapons of choice.

So I was thinking the other day that I might give it a try. I'm fifty three and open to new ideas. I bought my first ever pair of raw denim jeans the other day so it must be true. To tell you the truth they do still hurt my balls a bit after about a month of wear but I'm persevering, with the knowledge that after merely a year they should feel like a second skin.

But the thing is I've realised that I don't think I can qualify to be a nationalist. Here in the UK I'm brown. Well I'm brown wherever I go but you know what I mean. I'm brown, with a proper South East England accent, the kind that no one understands in Sri Lanka.

If I was white, apart from my name, people here in the UK would never think I was a foreigner. But I'm brown, which I love by the way, and it means I can't really enrol into the whole Nationalism thing. Thai is somewhat counterbalanced by the fact I can wear many colours and I never look pasty and washed out and I have a decent sense of rhythm.

Then, in the motherland, I'm half Muslim and half Tamil, which well and truly fucks me up on all fronts.On top of that no one there ever thinks I even look Sri Lankan. I continually have arguments with tuk tuk drivers and the like when I tell them I'm Lankan and they insist that I can't be; that I must be Thai or Nepalese or something. 

So I'm a bit stuck on this one. Nationalism, that club that everyone wants to join, is not going to let me in.

But, the good news on thinking about it, is that my balls are hurting a bit less from these jeans now.