{Nationality and Race}[3rd February 1973]

[Redbook1:275-276][19730203:0226]{Nationality and Race}[3rd February 1973]

(Saturday) 197302030226.

            I remember recently in Lincoln’s Inn I found myself dining next to a tall thin African.  As an opening gambit: ‘Where are you from?’ I said, turning to him.

            He drew himself up proudly.  ‘I’m an African from Nigeria.’ (-- I think it was Nigeria.)

            ‘Oh.’ I said, not wanting to cause trouble.  ‘I’m an Englishman from England.’

            The Bangladeshian across the table – that’s what he called himself, but he had trouble pronouncing it later on – was braver than I was.

            ‘What do you mean, you’re an African from Nigeria?’ he said.  ‘It’s perfectly obvious you’re an African....’

            As my father said, they may not be brave, but they sure can be foolhardy....

            In fact the Bangladeshian, as a member of a splintered part of an unreal State, and I, as a member of a people at least in theory abandoning one nationalism for another, enjoyed ourselves provoking the African from Nigeria about regressive Nationalism and reactionary tendencies in the brotherhood of Man.

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