Uploaded June 2012 | Updated September 2026, 2 weeks ago

---

Unclaimed Baggage


My country is not Roman Catholic.
Any more than it's vegetarian.
It's not white, alcoholic,
Heterosexual or sectarian.

My country is not Conservative,
And I wouldn't call it Liberal,
And it's not defined by those
You find loitering in the middle.

It doesn't confirm anyone's views,
Or stand in judgement on the rest.
So it can't be accused of the worst of us,
Or given credit for the best.

It is supremely indifferent to
The presence of mystery.
And cares not a flying fuck
For the vagaries of history.

It doesn't support the rich
Those acolytes of prosperity
And it doesn't comfort the poor
Those martyrs to austerity

It's shape is determined by the
rising of the sea,
And it's colour by it's climate.
But it is not now, nor will it ever be
How any one group would care to define it.

It's people who make a country
Stand for this, that or the other,
And some make the claim
That certain groups are to blame
For making the rest of us suffer.

They idealise an imperfect past
In support of their way of thinking
And are forced to ignore
Whatever went before
That contradicts what they're pimping.

What my country is today
Would be impossible to say
If you only listened to one voice
For that's a view that denies you
Your plurality of choice.

And whatever it is, or whatever it's not
It's choice that makes it great.
So that whatever you choose,
Whether you win or you loose,
There's still a place for you in this State.

So if you want your leave to be free
To believe, those things that you hold dear,
Then there's no room here for the rhetoric
of fear, and it's impulses to deceive.

Because like it or not, we're all in this
Together, we all must share this land.
And you should never put yourself
Above someone else unless you
Are offering them your hand.



*******************

Music:
Artist: Liam O'Flynn
Track: The Winter's End
Album: Out To Another Side

*******************


Not all the comments here were left on my own videos. Thankfully, I only get these kinds of comments occasionally, but even at that I find them depressing. It's essentially an argument from authority, but it supposes that a country, and entire nation, is more than the sum of it's parts. Those parts being the people who call it home. And as anyone who has ever attended a community meeting can tell you, even in the smallest village or suburb it impossible to find unqualified unanimity of beliefs and values. Or anything else. The gall of claiming an entire nation for your own cause makes me furious.

You can't put limits on freedom without putting your own freedom in jeopardy. If you are a red-headed racist and succeed in creating a white state, how will you feel when people start mistrusting gingers?

In a free country you are free to be a racist. You can cut yourself off from all foreigners and live in a white bubble of your own creation.

In a secular nation you are free to practice whatever religion you choose. You wont be forced to have an abortion, or surrender your virginity before saying 'I do'.

Yes, you can go back 80 or 100 years and say that this was a Catholic country, and that this was a white country. It was also a poor country. A country forever at war with itself. But why stop there? Go back a little more and it was an English country. Back some more and it was a hungry country. A country where many died young, after hard and brutal lives. Things don't improve if you go back further still.

The nation that gives you the luxury to complain about your lot is the nation that stopped defining itself so narrowly in order to offer it's citizens a better life. And if you want to deny that to anyone in my name, then Fuck you, because this is a Free Nation!