Dear Sir/Madam,

I think that there is probably some truth in the suggestion, quoted in today's Telegraph, that the wide-spread British hate of Germans is a form of self-hate ("Germany attacks British hate and schadenfreude").

After all, most of us have more German blood in our veins than any other. A mixed crowd of ethnic Germans and English you will have great difficulty in telling apart - unless you hear them speaking or they are each wrapped in their respective national flag. And it is not just our blood that we share with Germans, there are also the roots of our respective languages, as well as much of our culture and history, not to mention all of our prehistory.

Sometimes I wonder if our embrace of non-Europeans (the more distantly related and more foreign their culture the better, it often seems) is not connected with the hate we foster for ourselves and those most closely related to us (The ethnic French and Germans).

We (ethnic/native Brits) hate the Germans because they are so much like ourselves.

And I'll be hated all the more for pointing it out.

It also occurs to me that Christianity, with its teachings of original sin and inherent human wickedness, must bear much of the responsible for our self-hate.

I think it time we caste off the Curse of Christianity and returned to our pagan roots (see An Atheist's and Agnostic's Guide to God).