In this essay the author examines the nature of his allegiance to Britain, his mother's country, and in the process asks what is meant by the terms race, culture and ethnicity. He aims to lay bare hypocrasy of both the Little Englander mentality of the New Right, and the pieties of the traditional Left, both of whom, he believes, generate or assist the confusions which led to, for example, the death of a British child in a school playground in Manchester. Maja-Pearce was born in Lagos and educated in Britain. He also wrote Loyalties and other Stories and In my Father's Country.