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Source: (consider it)
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Thread: Purgatory: Is the UK really 'multicultural'
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Yerevan
Shipmate
# 10383
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Posted
As a foreignor (Irish) who has only moved to the UK in the past five years I vaguely assumed from media debates on issues like immigration, Islam and multiculturalism that the UK was indeed a multicultural, multifaith society. So I was genuinely surprised to discover recently that according to the last census (2001) over 85% of UK inhabitants self-identify as 'white British' and 70% as Christian, with Muslims, Jews, Sikhs, Hindus and Buddhists combined accounting for only 5% of the population. Even allowing for population changes in the past decade and for the possible under-representation of minorities in census statistics, is it really accurate to describe the UK as 'multicultural'? I should probably stress here that I have no axe to grind against multiculturalism, although it does occur to me that the right's obsession with immigrants and minorities looks even more ill-founded in light of the UK's surprising lack of it. Ditto perhaps a particular left-wing, Londonocentric image of contemporary UK identity. Any thoughts?
[ 05. January 2015, 23:38: Message edited by: Kelly Alves ]
Posts: 3758 | From: In the middle | Registered: Sep 2005
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amber.
Ship's Aspiedestra
# 11142
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Posted
If you include ethnic minorities who are white, the most recent accurate figure is 12%. 8% if you discount white ethnic groups. (Census 2001)
Posts: 5102 | From: Central South of England | Registered: Mar 2006
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Yerevan
Shipmate
# 10383
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Posted
quote:
It depends where you live. Cities are certainly multi-cultural - the last school that I taught in had about 10% 'ethnic minorities' whereas the first, rural school I worked in had about 0.1%
It does, but alot of people across the political spectrum casually talk as if 'the United Kingdom' is a multicultural, multifaith society, whereas it would seem to be more accurate (if a bit more long-winded) to say that the UK is a society where a large majority of people are Brits of white English/Scottish/Welsh/Northern Irish ethnicity with a residual Christian identity, while a moderately sizeable minority are Brits or immigrants of other ethnicities and/ or religions. And that the latter is overwhelming concentrated in urban England. I'm interested in the gap between rhetoric and reality and why it exists.
Posts: 3758 | From: In the middle | Registered: Sep 2005
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Moth
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# 2589
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Posted
It really does depend where you are and what you do. The law course I teach on is over 60% non-white, and I would guess that about half of my students are Muslim. If I taught at a different university, no doubt the figures would be very different; even at this university the students studying English or history are mainly white.
I am always vaguely surprised by how white other areas are when I go there, as I'm used to living/working in a very multicultural area. I must say, I much prefer the situation here now to the rather 'white bread' sameness of this area in my youth.
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"There are governments that burn books, and then there are those that sell the libraries and shut the universities to anyone who can't pay for a key." Laurie Penny.
Posts: 3446 | From: England | Registered: Apr 2002
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Anglican't
Shipmate
# 15292
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Posted
I think the non-white non-British population is concentrated in places such as London and Leicester (which is often said to be on course to be the first ethnic minority majority city; not sure when, though).
I dislike the word 'multi-cultural' because I never know what it means. One definition would be that Britain is a country in which there are people of more than one race and religion, which I think is a statement of the obvious.
Posts: 3613 | From: London, England | Registered: Nov 2009
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Yerevan
Shipmate
# 10383
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Posted
I think definition is part of the problem. For me describing a place as 'multicultural' means that different ethnicities and/or religions are pretty evenly balanced i.e. Leicester, parts of London or of inner city Dublin (where I lived for most of my 20s). By that measure very little of the UK is actually 'multicultural'.
Personally having lived in both monocultural and multicultural areas and having belonged to two overwhelmingly white, 'indigenuous' churches and one largely non-white immigrant church, I don't think 'multiculturalism' per se is a good or bad thing. It depends on the cultures involved and how they interact.
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RadicalWhig
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# 13190
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Posted
I remember being at primary school and having text books full of names like Sanjit and Mohammad. At the time I lived in a small, rural, all-white community, where names like that just didn't exist. It was a very odd experience. I also remember the first time I met a black person: i was about ten years old. That was about twenty years ago. At that time, at least, large parts of the UK really were not multi-cultural at all, unless you count people from the next village, who were as good as foreigners for most purposes, or people form the next county, who might well have been aliens from outer space.
However, from 1939* to 1997 the whole of the UK was governed centrally - and with quite relentless centralisation and standardisation - from London. Everyone who counted, in terms of making policy and broadcasting our self-image, was based in London. The faces they saw were London faces. The people they met were London-dwelling people. And those faces came in all colours. I think that gave our governing elities a very false impression of what the rest of the UK was like. Moreover, they saw the relatively free and unimpeded movement and interaction of people of different races and cultural backgrounds in London, and didn't necessarily have much experience of the situation of near-apartheid that was developing in England's industrial towns of the North and the Midlands. That was a disaster waiting to happen.
* The outbreak of WWII really kick-started centralisation; prior to that point there had been a fair amount of de-facto localism.
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Radical Whiggery for Beginners: "Trampling on the Common Prayer Book, talking against the Scriptures, commending Commonwealths, justifying the murder of King Charles I, railing against priests in general." (Sir Arthur Charlett on John Toland, 1695)
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mrs whibley
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# 4798
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Posted
In contrast, I was brought up in St Albans, which is not really London. I've just looked up the 2008 OFSTED report on my old primary school which begins: "This is an average size primary school. Almost half the pupils come from White
British backgrounds and about one quarter from Sylethi Bangladeshi families, while
the rest represent a wide range of ethnic heritages, such as Indian, Pakistani,
European and mixed race." - that's a little fewer white kids than 30 years ago, but certainly the school I remember.
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I long for a faith that is gloriously treacherous - Mike Yaconelli
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Ricardus
Shipmate
# 8757
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by RadicalWhig:
I remember being at primary school and having text books full of names like Sanjit and Mohammad. At the time I lived in a small, rural, all-white community, where names like that just didn't exist. It was a very odd experience.
I remember that, too. I went to a Church of England primary school in the posh part of town with very few ethnic minority pupils. If these textbooks were supposed to inculcate us with respect for our fellow-citizens then they didn't work - our reaction was "Hee hee hee! Look at that, he's called Cameljit!"
Actually there was a single non-white boy in our year, and none of us thought anything of it at all.
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Then the dog ran before, and coming as if he had brought the news, shewed his joy by his fawning and wagging his tail. -- Tobit 11:9 (Douai-Rheims)
Posts: 7247 | From: Liverpool, UK | Registered: Nov 2004
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Orlando098
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# 14930
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Posted
"Multiculturalism" doesn't just mean a mix of people from a lot of different ethnic groups, or the existence of relatively large percentages of ethnic minorities. It also means the idea that it is good to encourage groups originating in other countries to continue with their ancestors' religious and cultural practices (festivals, food, dress, languages etc). I think in this sense the UK is a bit more multicultural than France, where I live, where there is more an ethos that your colour isn't a very big deal, but if you live here, and especially if you take French citizenship, then you are somewhat expected to integrate into the local culture and share certain values of the French Republic. Nothing is ever translated into other languages in French administration, religious symbols are banned in schools and now there is this burqua ban etc.
Posts: 1019 | From: Nice, France | Registered: Jul 2009
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Eutychus
From the edge
# 3081
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Posted
This obviously caught my attention just at the same time as another French resident.
On the one hand, Britain shows much better integration of ethnic minorities in terms of mobility and social visibility. We've only just acquired the first non-white news anchor here in France, and students in the 'grandes écoles' (which prepare people for the kind of jobs top university graduates in the UK can expect to go to) are overwhelmingly white.
On the other hand, each time we visit the UK we are struck by what we here in France term "communitarianism": people asserting their culture virtually to the exclusion of that of their host country. Many ethnic groups seem to live alongside one another rather than mix, and the gap between them seems to be widening. I'm not sure France does much better in terms of integration, but the differences are less visible.
[ 03. August 2010, 07:45: Message edited by: Eutychus ]
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Let's remember that we are to build the Kingdom of God, not drive people away - pastor Frank Pomeroy
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daisymay
St Elmo's Fire
# 1480
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Posted
Definitely schools in London have got more and more mixed-race, with more and more ethnic people, more languages many of the youngsters speak and often some of their family don't manage to also understand/speak English unlike the youngsters usually.
Many schools are multicultural, but also many are very fixed on a narrow ethnic group and so the pupils and parents are still very much from their background, not "English" UK multicultural.
At New Wine camping every year, our group seems to be the most multi-cultural, with more multi-ethnic than most of the others, though there will be always plenty of different coloured people there. When I first came to London, the baptist church I went to had been one that honoured and accepted all sorts of ethnic people and was definitely multi-cultural ![[Yipee]](graemlins/spin.gif) with varying ethnicity elders/deacons unlike many churches then who didn't accept, and so that still explains why we have churches mainly full of black people. ![[Frown]](frown.gif)
And another place in UK is still less multi-cultural - IMO Scotland accepts Polish, Indian/Bangladeshi, Irish, but not English...
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London
Flickr fotos
Posts: 11224 | From: London - originally Dundee, Blairgowrie etc... | Registered: Oct 2001
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Marvin the Martian
Interplanetary
# 4360
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by daisymay:
At New Wine camping every year, our group seems to be the most multi-cultural, with more multi-ethnic than most of the others, though there will be always plenty of different coloured people there.
Pace the posts about France above yours, is multi-ethnic the same thing as multicultural?
I mean, if you're all at New Wine together that would indicate to me that you're all from broadly the same culture, regardless of your ethnic backgrounds.
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Hail Gallaxhar
Posts: 30100 | From: Adrift on a sea of surreality | Registered: Apr 2003
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Moth
Shipmate
# 2589
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Ricardus:
quote:
Originally posted by RadicalWhig:
I remember being at primary school and having text books full of names like Sanjit and Mohammad. At the time I lived in a small, rural, all-white community, where names like that just didn't exist. It was a very odd experience.
I remember that, too. I went to a Church of England primary school in the posh part of town with very few ethnic minority pupils. If these textbooks were supposed to inculcate us with respect for our fellow-citizens then they didn't work - our reaction was "Hee hee hee! Look at that, he's called Cameljit!"
Actually there was a single non-white boy in our year, and none of us thought anything of it at all.
Whereas when I wrote my land law textbook, I just used the names of my real students and other friends and acquaintances in the examples. I tend to prefer to work through the alphabet, so I often use Ali (which is excellent, as I know a number of male Muslims called Ali and also a number of white girls called Ali for short!) and Ben. Later on in one chapter, I have Tom, Udish, Vera, Wayne, and then back to Zosia and Abu. I know people living in England called all of those names! It is OUP policy to be all-inclusive, so we used same-sex couples in our examples as well as a variety of names.
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"There are governments that burn books, and then there are those that sell the libraries and shut the universities to anyone who can't pay for a key." Laurie Penny.
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daisymay
St Elmo's Fire
# 1480
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
quote:
Originally posted by daisymay:
At New Wine camping every year, our group seems to be the most multi-cultural, with more multi-ethnic than most of the others, though there will be always plenty of different coloured people there.
Pace the posts about France above yours, is multi-ethnic the same thing as multicultural?
I mean, if you're all at New Wine together that would indicate to me that you're all from broadly the same culture, regardless of your ethnic backgrounds.
No, definitely different "cultures" in our group - not all originally Christians, although that is a "culture" but we also come from different Christian cultures, and now mainly "Inclusive", and also with many parents still not Christians, and many of us in various Recovery. It also has to do with what different food we eat - only one vegan, and several veggies, and food cooked by people from varying places in the world... etc etc And at NW as well as elswhere, how many would accept that someone was marrying a Muslim?
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London
Flickr fotos
Posts: 11224 | From: London - originally Dundee, Blairgowrie etc... | Registered: Oct 2001
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MrsDoyle
Shipmate
# 13579
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Posted
Certainly here in our Manchester parish our geographical area is 90% Muslim; our Church School 98% Muslim (mostly from the indian subcontinent) and our parishioners are 65% non white, mostly from the West Indies/Nigeria/Uganda and Sierra Leone(now generally second generation). Whether this makes us(as a Church) multicultural depends on how much we explore and aknowledge each others cultural heritage and understandings (which we are doing). As for the area itself secularly, I would describe it as polycultural.
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Marvin the Martian
Interplanetary
# 4360
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by daisymay:
No, definitely different "cultures" in our group - not all originally Christians, although that is a "culture" but we also come from different Christian cultures, and now mainly "Inclusive", and also with many parents still not Christians, and many of us in various Recovery. It also has to do with what different food we eat - only one vegan, and several veggies, and food cooked by people from varying places in the world... etc etc And at NW as well as elswhere, how many would accept that someone was marrying a Muslim?
Different beliefs and/or eating preferences don't of themselves make for different cultures. At least not in the sense that I've always understood "multiculturalism" to be about.
You might as well say a high school is multicultural because it has goths, emos, jocks and nerds learning side by side.
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Hail Gallaxhar
Posts: 30100 | From: Adrift on a sea of surreality | Registered: Apr 2003
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Angloid
Shipmate
# 159
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Posted
Middle-class culture is still largely white. Insofar as it is possible to judge from appearances, visit any art gallery or museum in London, the most multi-cultural city in the UK. Apart from (predominantly young, back-packing, student types and tourists) there is a much smaller proportion of black and Asian people than in the streets outside. Even more so with theatres, whereas Opera is very exclusive.
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Brian: You're all individuals!
Crowd: We're all individuals!
Lone voice: I'm not!
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ken
Ship's Roundhead
# 2460
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
Different beliefs and/or eating preferences don't of themselves make for different cultures. At least not in the sense that I've always understood "multiculturalism" to be about.
So what do you understand "multicultural" to mean?
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Ken
L’amor che move il sole e l’altre stelle.
Posts: 39579 | From: London | Registered: Mar 2002
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Anglican't
Shipmate
# 15292
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Angloid:
Middle-class culture is still largely white...visit any art gallery or museum in London [and] there is a much smaller proportion of black and Asian people than in the streets outside. Even more so with theatres, whereas Opera is very exclusive.
If we adopt the definition of 'multiculturalism' that Orlando098 uses above, i.e.
quote:
It also means the idea that it is good to encourage groups originating in other countries to continue with their ancestors' religious and cultural practices
then it seems to me that this is an inevitable result. You can't say to a group of people 'come and live in our country but please do carry on as you have before' and then at the same time say 'oh, but why don't you want to do the things that we do, like visit art galleries?'.
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Marvin the Martian
Interplanetary
# 4360
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by ken:
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
Different beliefs and/or eating preferences don't of themselves make for different cultures. At least not in the sense that I've always understood "multiculturalism" to be about.
So what do you understand "multicultural" to mean?
You and I both know that it's not about whether you're vegan/vegetarian/carnivore/etc - these preferences are all part of our shared culture. The dividing lines of multiculturalism are drawn along boudaries of nationality, language, and so on. We don't tend to get Bangladeshi/Polish/etc immigrants joining in with the dominant culture, we get them forming a "Little Bangladesh/Poland/etc" and refusing to even try to engage with that culture.
I'm not against anyone moving to live in Britain, I just think that if they're going to do so they should become British rather than trying to replicate their home culture.
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Hail Gallaxhar
Posts: 30100 | From: Adrift on a sea of surreality | Registered: Apr 2003
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RadicalWhig
Shipmate
# 13190
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
...they should become British...
Define?
Also, what about the many born-n-bred UK citizens who do not regard themselves as British, or as having much loyalty to the UK - such as Scottish and Welsh nationalists? Do these have to conform too?
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Radical Whiggery for Beginners: "Trampling on the Common Prayer Book, talking against the Scriptures, commending Commonwealths, justifying the murder of King Charles I, railing against priests in general." (Sir Arthur Charlett on John Toland, 1695)
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Sioni Sais
Shipmate
# 5713
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by RadicalWhig:
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
...they should become British...
Define?
Also, what about the many born-n-bred UK citizens who do not regard themselves as British, or as having much loyalty to the UK - such as Scottish and Welsh nationalists? Do these have to conform too?
Many regard themselves as English before British (me for one!) What on earth are you to do about those from Yorkshire and Cornwall?
To be serious, so long as people obey our laws, and so long as our laws don't impose discriminatory restrictions on them, I'd rather we had diverse cultures as the absorption of immigrant cultures has made British culture.
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"He isn't Doctor Who, he's The Doctor"
(Paul Sinha, BBC)
Posts: 24276 | From: Newport, Wales | Registered: Apr 2004
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Marvin the Martian
Interplanetary
# 4360
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by RadicalWhig:
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
...they should become British...
Define?
When in Rome, do as the Romans. When in Britain, do as the British.
You know how some British expats have a bad reputation because they form little British enclaves and don't associate with the culture of their host countries? That's exactly the same thing I'm talking about, just the other way round. Maybe I'll get a fairer hearing if I phrase it as something bad that we do rather than something bad someone else does...
quote:
Also, what about the many born-n-bred UK citizens who do not regard themselves as British, or as having much loyalty to the UK - such as Scottish and Welsh nationalists? Do these have to conform too?
Most Scots that move to England tend to just integrate with the people in their new home towns, which is all I'm talking about. You don't get little Scottish enclaves where everyone wears kilts* and every shop sells haggis* and from which the occupants seldom venture, you just get people who, apart from their accent, are the same as everyone else.
*= may contain traces of excessive stereotyping.
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Hail Gallaxhar
Posts: 30100 | From: Adrift on a sea of surreality | Registered: Apr 2003
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Marvin the Martian
Interplanetary
# 4360
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Sioni Sais:
I'd rather we had diverse cultures as the absorption of immigrant cultures has made British culture.
Is what we see today absorption (like oxygen being added to water), or suspension (like oil being added to water)?
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Hail Gallaxhar
Posts: 30100 | From: Adrift on a sea of surreality | Registered: Apr 2003
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Matt Black
Shipmate
# 2210
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Posted
I agree with Marvin in so far as - trying to discard labels such as 'British' - there should be an effort on the part of an immigrant to adapt to and integrate into the culture of the 'host' community. His example of Brits abroad as the antithesis of this is a good one: last time I visited the Costa Blanca, I was dismayed to discover that there was an 'English Party' organised to fight the local elections there.
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"Protestant and Reformed, according to the Tradition of the ancient Catholic Church" - + John Cosin (1594-1672)
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RadicalWhig
Shipmate
# 13190
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
When in Britain, do as the British.
Let's assume for a moment a thing called the British nation exists (I'm very sceptical about the whole idea of nationhood and national identity). You are still going to have to break that down by region, gender and class. What do "British people" do? How does one "Act British"?
Some sort of functional, conditional loyalty to the political unit known as the United Kingdom might be expected of immigrants - to obey the laws, pay taxes, and not go out of their way to be an embarrassment to the UK authorities. Use of the English language as the primary means of communication in public places might also be expected. But can you go beyond that?
Are you demanding a loyalty which is emotional as well as functional - like Norman Tebbitt's "Cricket Test"? Are you demanding conformity to some sort of median-three-quintiles Middle English norm?
I've just had a late lunch: fried tomatoes, chorizo, potatoes, peppers, onions and garlic, drenched in olive oil and washed down with a glass of red wine - that's not very British, is it?
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Radical Whiggery for Beginners: "Trampling on the Common Prayer Book, talking against the Scriptures, commending Commonwealths, justifying the murder of King Charles I, railing against priests in general." (Sir Arthur Charlett on John Toland, 1695)
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Sioni Sais
Shipmate
# 5713
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
quote:
Originally posted by Sioni Sais:
I'd rather we had diverse cultures as the absorption of immigrant cultures has made British culture.
Is what we see today absorption (like oxygen being added to water), or suspension (like oil being added to water)?
I don't think that is an adequate similar (but thanks for correcting my chemistry: that always was dodgy!)
British culture is nowhere near as homogenous as water. You could probably compare it to the geological Earth. Lots of levels, irregularities, outcrops of this and that, and naturally some parts more attractive than others. There are homogenous elements but for the most part it mixes up in time, but surface water varies a lot too!
The Bangladeshis, Poles and others that come here won't integrate quickly. People don't and it shouldn't be forced. From what I can see in Newport it is usually done though children: they can't help but mix.
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"He isn't Doctor Who, he's The Doctor"
(Paul Sinha, BBC)
Posts: 24276 | From: Newport, Wales | Registered: Apr 2004
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Marvin the Martian
Interplanetary
# 4360
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Matt Black:
I agree with Marvin in so far as - trying to discard labels such as 'British' - there should be an effort on the part of an immigrant to adapt to and integrate into the culture of the 'host' community. His example of Brits abroad as the antithesis of this is a good one: last time I visited the Costa Blanca, I was dismayed to discover that there was an 'English Party' organised to fight the local elections there.
That's exactly the sort of thing I'm talking about. If they like the British way of life so much, they should fucking well stay here.
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Hail Gallaxhar
Posts: 30100 | From: Adrift on a sea of surreality | Registered: Apr 2003
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Ricardus
Shipmate
# 8757
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
Most Scots that move to England tend to just integrate with the people in their new home towns, which is all I'm talking about. You don't get little Scottish enclaves where everyone wears kilts* and every shop sells haggis* and from which the occupants seldom venture, you just get people who, apart from their accent, are the same as everyone else.
If we did get little Scottish enclaves what would you do about it?
I agree that immigrants "ought" to integrate (and I've lived in foregin parts myself), but what can we legitimately do to make them integrate?
Within the limits of their economic circumstances people are free to live where they like, dress how they like, eat how they like, be friends with whoever they like, and speak whatever language they like (to each other, if not to officials). I can't see how you can "make" people integrate without violating one of these freedoms in an unacceptably authoritarian way.
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Then the dog ran before, and coming as if he had brought the news, shewed his joy by his fawning and wagging his tail. -- Tobit 11:9 (Douai-Rheims)
Posts: 7247 | From: Liverpool, UK | Registered: Nov 2004
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Anglican't
Shipmate
# 15292
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Matt Black:
[L]ast time I visited the Costa Blanca, I was dismayed to discover that there was an 'English Party' organised to fight the local elections there.
Sounds ghastly but I'm intrigued. Do they have a website? A quick internet search isn't yielding any results.
Posts: 3613 | From: London, England | Registered: Nov 2009
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Sioni Sais
Shipmate
# 5713
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
quote:
Originally posted by Matt Black:
I agree with Marvin in so far as - trying to discard labels such as 'British' - there should be an effort on the part of an immigrant to adapt to and integrate into the culture of the 'host' community. His example of Brits abroad as the antithesis of this is a good one: last time I visited the Costa Blanca, I was dismayed to discover that there was an 'English Party' organised to fight the local elections there.
That's exactly the sort of thing I'm talking about. If they like the British way of life so much, they should fucking well stay here.
I've seen expats and been one, and you're talking about people who don't like the British way of life, but yearn for some British Way of Life™, which never existed and if it had wouldn't have involved Bangladeshis and Poles.
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"He isn't Doctor Who, he's The Doctor"
(Paul Sinha, BBC)
Posts: 24276 | From: Newport, Wales | Registered: Apr 2004
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Saul the Apostle
Shipmate
# 13808
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Posted
It is a clearly imposed multi culturalism (social engineering exercise)and we have messrs Blair and Brown for more and more foreigners on our shores. These foreigners just built on the millions already here pre 1997.
Having said that I enjoy a Balti or a Chinese, but there are sadly too may foreign folk on our shores IMO. This will foster community unrest and if you care to Google map the UK, we are a tiny island. The island is busting - too many freeloaders IMO.
Crowd rats into too small a cage and they start fighting and eating each other.
My solution is an immediate moratorium on non EU immigration. Now!
Being Irish is less obvious as you are white I expect (as are most of the EU immigrants), but the eastern european folk in West Sussex have caused very real tensions and unexpected racism from my fellow English compatriots.
I fail to see if we import say a few hundred thousand more West Africans, what they can add to our already overcrowded island?
Saul
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"I cannot forecast to you the action of Russia. It is a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma; but perhaps there is a key. That key is Russian national interest."
Posts: 1772 | From: unsure | Registered: Jun 2008
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Matt Black
Shipmate
# 2210
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
quote:
Originally posted by Matt Black:
I agree with Marvin in so far as - trying to discard labels such as 'British' - there should be an effort on the part of an immigrant to adapt to and integrate into the culture of the 'host' community. His example of Brits abroad as the antithesis of this is a good one: last time I visited the Costa Blanca, I was dismayed to discover that there was an 'English Party' organised to fight the local elections there.
That's exactly the sort of thing I'm talking about. If they like the British way of life so much, they should fucking well stay here.
And, conversely, if certain individuals want to live under a sharia legal theocracy*, they should live in Saudi.
*As opposed to merely having sharia or Beth Din as an alternative dispute resolution mechanism.
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"Protestant and Reformed, according to the Tradition of the ancient Catholic Church" - + John Cosin (1594-1672)
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Angloid
Shipmate
# 159
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Anglican't:
You can't say to a group of people 'come and live in our country but please do carry on as you have before' and then at the same time say 'oh, but why don't you want to do the things that we do, like visit art galleries?'.
I agree entirely. I'm not quite sure now why I made the comment I did, unless it's something to do with middle-class people being able to pontificate about multiculturalism without it directly affecting them; the working class experience it at first hand. Which is why, I suppose, that the BNP's main support is not in middle-class areas (where multiculturalism is generally accepted, from an intellectual position) and not in mixed working-class areas (where people get along together quite happily), but in more-or-less exclusively white working-class and lower-middle where Daily Mail attitudes (and worse) prevail.
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Brian: You're all individuals!
Crowd: We're all individuals!
Lone voice: I'm not!
Posts: 12927 | From: The Pool of Life | Registered: May 2001
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Matt Black
Shipmate
# 2210
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Anglican't:
quote:
Originally posted by Matt Black:
[L]ast time I visited the Costa Blanca, I was dismayed to discover that there was an 'English Party' organised to fight the local elections there.
Sounds ghastly but I'm intrigued. Do they have a website? A quick internet search isn't yielding any results.
It was May 2007 and I saw posters for it in Xavia and Denia. (Presumably they gave the lager-louts of Benidorm a miss as I didn't see any electioneering posters there!)
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"Protestant and Reformed, according to the Tradition of the ancient Catholic Church" - + John Cosin (1594-1672)
Posts: 14304 | From: Hampshire, UK | Registered: Jan 2002
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Anglican't
Shipmate
# 15292
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Angloid:
I agree entirely. I'm not quite sure now why I made the comment I did, unless it's something to do with middle-class people being able to pontificate about multiculturalism without it directly affecting them; the working class experience it at first hand. Which is why, I suppose, that the BNP's main support is not in middle-class areas (where multiculturalism is generally accepted, from an intellectual position) and not in mixed working-class areas (where people get along together quite happily), but in more-or-less exclusively white working-class and lower-middle where Daily Mail attitudes (and worse) prevail.
I know I'm generalising and stereotyping here, but the hand-wringing Guardian-reading brigade do seem to go in for the despairing 'why don't black people go to galleries?; why don't Asian people enjoy rambling?' cries when it seems to be the consequence of the multiculturalism that they espouse at the same time.
I also agree that the working classes 'bear the brunt' of immigration, if I can put it like that. It's all very nice living next door to an Asian doctor, having a cheap au pair on hand and a wider choice of restaurants, but that's not the working classes experience of immigration.
Posts: 3613 | From: London, England | Registered: Nov 2009
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daisymay
St Elmo's Fire
# 1480
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Posted
I feel more Scottish than "British" and when I have to fill in a form that asks if we are white, black, British, Asian, etc etc and also "to note something else if we are not one of the countries they mention; I always put myself as Scot.
My son wears a kilt on formal occasions as does my brother, his son, my niece's in-laws etc etc.
And we have the "Rob Roy" Scots pub just down the road, where they celebrate St Andrews, Rabbie Burns, Scots football, rugby etc etc and often have kilted musician playing bagpipe.
But we're in a very Muslim area - and my friends, Bangladeshi, Tunisian, etc are involved very much in education and working appropriately and being involved in the local Police Community. So that seems to me to be multi-cultural.
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London
Flickr fotos
Posts: 11224 | From: London - originally Dundee, Blairgowrie etc... | Registered: Oct 2001
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Angloid
Shipmate
# 159
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Posted
Anglican'T: I think you've put a slant on my comments that I would disown. I think there is a wider issue than 'integration' about why black people don't go to galleries etc... I suppose Guardian readers, like anyone else, tend to want people to be like themselves, and there is of course no reason why they should be. The point I was making - which you echo - is that middle-class people are somewhat on the edge of the whole multicultural thing. The other point, which is a separate issue, is why should the arts be the preserve of a white middle-class elite?
To say that white working-class people 'bear the brunt of' immigration is to put a negative slant on the neutral fact that they mix with immigrants at first hand. In my experience this is as much positive as negative.
In any case, talking about 'immigrants' denies the fact that multiculturalism in this country goes back centuries. Most of the different ethnic communities in this city are long established and have long been as British as anyone else.
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Brian: You're all individuals!
Crowd: We're all individuals!
Lone voice: I'm not!
Posts: 12927 | From: The Pool of Life | Registered: May 2001
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Anglican't
Shipmate
# 15292
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Posted
Sorry - I was offering my own view but didn't want to try to twist your own view or put words into your mouth.
Posts: 3613 | From: London, England | Registered: Nov 2009
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Matt Black
Shipmate
# 2210
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Posted
But isn't that part of the point: the older communities have, by and large, integrated now. For example, my ancestors include Dutch and Greek merchants plus French Huguenots who fled France following the revocation of the Edict of Nantes but within a generation or two those self-same people had become fully integrated, to suich an extent that several of them ended up as diplomats in the service of the British Crown, and I certainly have no hankering to fly a foreign flag of any description; we don't seem to see that happening to anywhere near that extent with the more recent influx of immigrants.
[reply to Angloid]
[ 04. August 2010, 16:09: Message edited by: Matt Black ]
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"Protestant and Reformed, according to the Tradition of the ancient Catholic Church" - + John Cosin (1594-1672)
Posts: 14304 | From: Hampshire, UK | Registered: Jan 2002
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Angloid
Shipmate
# 159
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Posted
Matt: that's maybe the case with European gentile immigrants (except possibly the Irish). The Jewish community is still fairly distinctive, while at the same time wholly integrated. The Chinese community has been here in Liverpool for about 200 years but has still very much a life of its own. Caribbean, African and Asian communities have been here a long time now. Is it perhaps a matter of relative economic security (Jews are not noticeably richer or poorer than anyone else, whereas until recently the Irish were predominately poor working-class, as are most Black people and some Asian groups)?
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Brian: You're all individuals!
Crowd: We're all individuals!
Lone voice: I'm not!
Posts: 12927 | From: The Pool of Life | Registered: May 2001
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Saul the Apostle
Shipmate
# 13808
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Angloid:
Matt: that's maybe the case with European gentile immigrants (except possibly the Irish). The Jewish community is still fairly distinctive, while at the same time wholly integrated. The Chinese community has been here in Liverpool for about 200 years but has still very much a life of its own. Caribbean, African and Asian communities have been here a long time now. Is it perhaps a matter of relative economic security (Jews are not noticeably richer or poorer than anyone else, whereas until recently the Irish were predominately poor working-class, as are most Black people and some Asian groups)?
I agree with you...but its the sheer scale of the imposed change.
Both the scale of the importation of labour and our small island creates an unfair burden upon us IMO.
Yes, a lot of these folk do jobs we don't want to do, the care homes would all grind to a halt without the sturdy Philippinos', but we are storing up for ourselves real problems here in the UK. We have no frontier s (like they did in 19th century USA) where we can say to the immigrants: ''go West and settle the frontier''.
We are a tiny tiny island and over well over populated in the South East of England in particular. We must bid the falsehood of ''multi culturalism' good bye and good riddance.
Saul
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"I cannot forecast to you the action of Russia. It is a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma; but perhaps there is a key. That key is Russian national interest."
Posts: 1772 | From: unsure | Registered: Jun 2008
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Pegasus
Shipmate
# 1966
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Saul the Apostle:
We are a tiny tiny island and over well over populated in the South East of England in particular. We must bid the falsehood of ''multi culturalism' good bye and good riddance.
Multiculturalism and the (possible) overcrowding of the UK are two completely different issues. It is possible to have a small multicultural population or a very large monocultural one.
Posts: 1207 | From: Ruritania | Registered: Apr 2004
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Saul the Apostle
Shipmate
# 13808
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Pegasus:
quote:
Originally posted by Saul the Apostle:
We are a tiny tiny island and over well over populated in the South East of England in particular. We must bid the falsehood of ''multi culturalism' good bye and good riddance.
Multiculturalism and the (possible) overcrowding of the UK are two completely different issues. It is possible to have a small multicultural population or a very large monocultural one.
Well, thats a matter of opinion isn't it?
They are in my view, related, as we have many folk coming to our shores who are not European, not ''Christian'' (in the loosest sense of the term)and clearly then not of the ''Judaeo-Christian heritage''.
That in my mind speaks of (imposed) 'multiculturalism' and it was very much imposed on us, add then also add in the fact of a small tiny island and specifically an overcrowded England and IMO its bad news all round.
I make no apology for being ''racist'' if by that term, there should be a certain homogeneous make up of the majority of our race in our island. If that is the case I am 'racist' and proud of it.
Saul
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"I cannot forecast to you the action of Russia. It is a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma; but perhaps there is a key. That key is Russian national interest."
Posts: 1772 | From: unsure | Registered: Jun 2008
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Sioni Sais
Shipmate
# 5713
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Saul the Apostle:
I make no apology for being ''racist'' if by that term, there should be a certain homogeneous make up of the majority of our race in our island. If that is the case I am 'racist' and proud of it.
Saul
The population of this island hasn't been monocultural and homogeneous since the Celts arrived, let alone the Anglo-Saxons.
And if you really are an unrepentant racist then what the hell are you doing here?
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"He isn't Doctor Who, he's The Doctor"
(Paul Sinha, BBC)
Posts: 24276 | From: Newport, Wales | Registered: Apr 2004
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Pegasus
Shipmate
# 1966
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Posted
[Cross post. This is to Saul the Apostle, obviously]
No, it's not a matter of opinion.
Multiculturalism means encouraging diversity of ethnicity, religion and, uh, culture, and the belief that different groups can happily co-exist within a single country.
Overcrowding means too many people in the same space.
They may be related, but they are certainly not the same thing, and unless you are Humpty Dumpty the definition of words is not a matter of individual opinion.
However, I don't particularly want to debate immigration and muticulturalism with someone who blithely lays claim to the label "racist". My blood pressure won't stand for it.
[ 04. August 2010, 17:15: Message edited by: Pegasus ]
Posts: 1207 | From: Ruritania | Registered: Apr 2004
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RadicalWhig
Shipmate
# 13190
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Posted
We still haven't defined what we mean by being British and "doing as the British do". Until that's nailed down, this is going nowhere.
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Radical Whiggery for Beginners: "Trampling on the Common Prayer Book, talking against the Scriptures, commending Commonwealths, justifying the murder of King Charles I, railing against priests in general." (Sir Arthur Charlett on John Toland, 1695)
Posts: 3193 | From: Scotland | Registered: Nov 2007
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