COMPARING BRITISH AND CARIBBEAN NATIONHOOD IN THE LONELY LONDONERS
COMPARING BRITISH AND CARIBBEAN NATIONHOOD IN THE LONELY LONDONERS

Summary/Abstract: Concepts of nation and nationalism have been among mainly debated points in the fields of social sciences since the spread of nation-states in Europe which goes back to especially the last decades of the nineteenth century and the first decades of the twentieth century. However, these concepts have been discussed not only among the European nations but also among the Third World countries which gained their independence and which were left by their native citizens who wished to immigrate to the European metropolises because of a variety of reasons and attractions. As a member of such immigrants from the Caribbean islands who floated into London after the Second World War, Sam Selvon touches upon the perceptions of nation and nationalism in The Lonely Londoners by reflecting these concepts from the viewpoint of the British nation and the Caribbean nation in the light of the Caribbean immigrants in Britain through different norms which play the basic role in defining a nation. Selvon can be thought to assert that while the British society bases its principles in defining a nation on discrimination and racial characteristics, particularly its superiority over the black immigrants and nations, the Caribbean immigrants identify these norms by emphasizing their common cultural elements and their potentials rather than racial and ethnic divisions and by adapting themselves to their collectively generated and fused values over time.

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