IDENTITY
London pride, British ambivalence
Dulwich boarders possess a unique perspective – coming from one country but growing up in another. Finnian Robinson (Year 13) speaks to three about their hybrid identities
P olitical philosopher Jeremy Waldron argues that cultural identity is best understood not as a monolith but as a ‘mélange’ of affiliations. My conversations with some of our Year 13 boarders from overseas seem to vindicate this view. Charles Cheung, originally from Hong Kong; Shamil Amirov, from St Petersburg, Russia, and Kamil Aftyka, from Dansk, Poland, are at one in identifying themselves as both members of their respective nations and proud Londoners. Charles, however, is keen to differentiate between overlapping identities that a boarder might acquire here in Dulwich. ‘I can associate myself with the title “Londoner”’, he muses, ‘but “British” is quite hard. I haven’t been to a lot of places in Britain – although I do support Liverpool!’ (Cheung’s steadfast support for the Merseysiders is something for which I can personally vouch, having been the recipient of countless excited Snapchats when Sadio Mané scores.) On further probing, however, even the relatively delimited identity of ‘Londoner’ is not specific enough
Russian ‘depends on the aspects of my personality or whatever activity I’m doing’. This seems particularly understandable in Shamil’s case. Having come to the UK at the age of nine, he has spent half his life here. Linguistically, he thinks himself ‘roughly as strong in English as in Russian, because I speak English 24/7, but I only speak Russian during the holidays’. Indeed, he jokes that, at home, many of his fellow-countrymen see him as English. Interrogating the identities adopted by émigrés, we have, perhaps, been too quick to leave unexamined the notion of a first ‘national identity’, given and cohesive. ‘I think I would regard myself as Chinese’, Charles explains: ‘I’m ‘yellow’; I speak both Mandarin and Cantonese; I love Chinese culture; I love my country, relatively speaking – although I do not necessarily represent the majority opinion of Hong Kongers, most of whom probably identify, after 170 years of British colonial rule, as Hong Kongers and not Chinese’. Despite numerous attempts on Charles’ part to educate me, a
fully to satisfy Charles. ‘Perhaps even “Londoner” goes too far. I love the local community and for me, that’s Peckham, Norwood, Dulwich, Crystal Palace – South London’. (Charles and his notorious bike – his second since arriving in the UK, as the first was eventually written off after multiple collisions – have certainly become a fixture of South London society. Is even the red-stockinged Dr Spence as famous a cyclist?) Kamil and Shamil concur. Kamil tells me he feels ‘more of a Londoner than British’. Shamil, a self-professed ‘Londonist’ – there is a cultic charm to this, I suppose – considers Britain ‘very different’ to the metropolis he has come to love. Working through the difficult UCAS process this year, he says he felt a need to differentiate between London universities and British ones. That’s an interesting reflection on identities to be forged in the future tense. What of the continuous present? When returning home to their countries of origin, the boarders’ sense of identity remains hybrid. Shamil confesses that his ‘mind is split, really’, and explains that, whether he feels more British or
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