Lib Day is the time to take stock of island identity

I am sure that it was with much relief that his retirement from public office has at last made it possible for him to tell at first hand some of the difficulties experienced by his grandfather when as then Bailiff he led our island through the Occupation.

I cannot be alone in deploring the way in which some persons, Madeleine Bunting for one and Maurice Kirk for another, have chosen to run down the good name of Guernsey.

Let us not forget that we have been a self-governing community for some 800 years. We do not need rank outsiders to tell us how we should have behaved during the German Occupation nor do we need them to tell us how to govern ourselves now or in the future.

I suggest that this 70th anniversary of the Liberation should be a time to take stock of who and what we are.

We have a proud history of service to the English Crown and to the wider community. I defy anybody to identify any isolated town of comparable size anywhere in the United Kingdom that has produced so many eminent people or contributed so much.

Unfortunately, children leave school without any real knowledge of our history, our constitution, how we are governed and what are our unique laws. Without such knowledge of the things that make up our island identity we lack the pride of being what we are and fall easy prey to outside forces.

Sir de Vic touched upon the way in which Guernsey was abandoned in 1940 and left to starve from mid-1944 until Liberation. Churchill was prepared to sacrifice the Channel Islands for the good of the United Kingdom.

This is the great lesson to be learned from the Occupation years. We cannot trust the United Kingdom government to look after the welfare of the islands. However loyal we may be to the Crown, it counts for nothing if that loyalty is not recognised in Whitehall.

Our politicians must be forever vigilant and assertive in maintaining our independence and also our rights under the Charter of Elizabeth I.

Can I suggest a few ways in which we can use this occasion to revive our island community?

Firstly, we should ensure that every child leaving an island school has a good knowledge of the history of Guernsey, including the contributions made by persons such as Admiral Lord de Saumarez, Sir Isaac Brock, and of the part played by Guernsey in international trade, the gallant service in WWI and so on down to this present day.

No excuses from the Education Department please.

As an adjunct, can 'Sarnia Cherie', the rallying song of evacuees, be formally adopted as our island anthem and taught in all our schools and sung at their assemblies?

Secondly, all schools should teach our constitutional position, how the island is governed and what its unique laws are. This is not an exercise for those who wish to delve into such things, but a necessary part of understanding our island.

Without a strong sense of island pride and identity we shall just become absorbed into something larger. Again, no excuses from the Education Department.

Thirdly, nobody should be given a permanent post in the upper levels of the Guernsey Civil Service unless they can pass a simple examination that shows that they understand the history of Guernsey, how it is governed, its constitutional position and its legal system.

Without this, how can they advise politicians or understand islanders' attitudes? Or, if teachers, how can they relate to the community that they serve?

Lastly, I make a plea for the urgent revival of our native language as a means of asserting our island identity. We lag far behind both Jersey and the Isle of Man in this respect. If a language is not used it will die, if it is used it will develop. I urge all those who can speak even a few words to use them on every possible occasion and I urge those who know it as their mother tongue to speak it without shame and make it their task to assist others to learn it.

If we lose our language, abandon our laws and forget our history, we shall lose our identity and become absorbed into a bigger state.

Independence follows from an attitude of mind. If we forget these things and lose our identity, then those islanders who fought and gave their lives in the two world wars, and those who suffered the Occupation, deportation or evacuation, will have done so in vain.

Dr NICK LE POIDEVIN,

Le Morpaye,

St Peter's,

GY7 9AN.