Proud to be English?

This post was prompted by a facebook group.

I am a bunch of genes that happened to be assembled in England. I was lucky enough to be born into a country that had a number of very good things to it that made it a fortunate place to be born. However, I fail to see what pride has to do with it. There are a huge number of things I like about England..mostly things that are being lost as we "progress" like small villages, the countryside, freedom of speech, privacy, small businesses ("a nation of shopkeepers" as we once were called), cheese-rolling (and all the other weird festivals and traditions we have) etc. I like these things but I can't see what there is to be proud of. There are good and bad things- hopefully we can change the bad things over time and save the good things- if we can change the bad and protect the good then maybe we can individually be proud of being part of that movement, but otherwise what point is there in "being proud" of things we didn't contribute to ourselves?

For me personally, even being part of a movement for change to increase fairness to all, reduce division, protect our liberties, look after whats left of our wild spaces and work on all the other good causes isn't something to be proud of, its just something that is important to do for all our childrens' sakes.