A brilliant article and thanks to Elberry too! Yet there are several themes that need some elaboration although coming neither from the discipline of History nor Philosophy I may be too legalistic in my analysis: 1. 'citizenship is not enough, and it will endure only if associated with meanings to which the rising generation can attach its hopes and its search for identity.' This will demand a sea change in the educational system, in how History is taught. Does he mean that we must focus once more on the benefits that the English Empire brought so many parts of the world? The Mother of Parliaments exporting democracy worldwide? I suppose this is what he means, that we souldn't be ashamed of this country's past to the detriment of singing its achievements. 2. The concept of Citizenship: Open any book on British Constitutional Law and you will read that we are subjects too, of the Monarchy.We are citizens too, but the anomaly is certainly there. Perhaps the young regard the Monarchy, actual behaviour of current incumbents if not the concept itself as hypocritical. Is the solution then a move to a Republic or reformed Monarchy to infuse the 'young' with some new shared common purpose? 3. 'By sending out the message that we believe in what we have, are prepared to share it, but are not prepared to see it destroyed, we do the only thing that we can do to defuse the current conflict.' I agree that the idea of sharing is important. This is what lies behind the idea that there should be some Marshall Plan for the Middle East i.e. assistance to prevent the people turning to Islamism. This is one of the ideas of Israel's President Shimon Peres (among others) although he has been talking about this since the 80s. A problem, though: Does the West have the Capital (both financial and will) to do this with a possible Depression looming? Off topic, shouldn't we be concerned with the Neo-Nazi and assorted hangers on demonstrating in Budapest and Dresden? The numbers appear to be quite large and allied to the NPD's electoral success we seem to have another headache on our hands.

I agree that the financial crisis means it is unlikely there will be some sort of Marshall Plan in the Middle East (to range no further). I hadn't realised Peres was an advocate of such a thing, but thanks for telling me. Of course, that begs the question of why the region's extremely rich rulers don't come up with such a plan themselves, rather than sponsoring Wahhabist subversion in mosques in Europe (and beyond). I certainly agree with Roger Scruton about the need to end the culture of self-repudiation which unfortunately has a head lock on our educational systems, churches, the BBC and so forth. As to the last comment, a friend pointed out to me that in a globalised economy, the poor old Chinese saver is actually contributing to the sort of systemic collapse we are seeing, even though he or she is obviously being individually prudent.   

I wonder whether Europe and the United States don't stand in the same relationship to Saudi Arabia and the Gulf States as Iceland does to the UK. Wealthy Arabs invested heavily in the West, but they got the same rude awakening as Western pensioners and investers received last autumn. Maybe call it payback for sponsoring Wahabist subversion? With regard to Chinese savers, I sense that Arab potentates and the Western man-in-the street have much more control over investments. Aren't Chinese savings the consequence of deliberate steps to limit consumption with the money held by state-controlled banks?

And it's not just the oil revenues. Watching the Dow fall, along with the other global exchanges, I'm starting to wonder whether we won't all be eating squrrel and possum soon.