Immigration and Multiculturalism

[Janny]

Isn't stupid white bastards just a bit of an easy insult? Again, would you dare insult a black man as a stupid black bastard?
I don't agree with Spock, especially on the fact it is 'destroying western civilisation', but once more it expresses the concern of normal white English / Americans (ok, I know that's a bit of a grey area).

However the point raised vis a vis the non-adoption of language and culture (save the claiming of benefits) is sadly perceived as true among the poplutaion. I cannot say it is evident, but it may be so in other parts of the country (Bristol, say). Regardless, surely this perception expresses the apparently natural desire to protect one's culture?

[Insidious Rex]

So then what is your culture then? Whats the proper UK culture? do you draw the line at the norman invasion? Those damn foreign contenintals!!! Ruining the native land and destroying our nice celtic tounges with their germanic psuedo-english!! itll never catch on I tell you!! or the saxons? the angles? norse? or whatever unknown band of vagabonds on a conquest pilgramage deep in the mists of time? good luck to you my friend in pinpointing it so perfectly. and good luck to your theories 5,000 years from now when england has transformed into a land so radically different from anything you would recognize that the very idea of 21st century identity will have vanished like the unstable shadow that it really is. welcome to the gene pool.

[Last Child of Ungoliant]

i say british culture is the celts,
that makes me a native, and hardly no one else!!

[Coney II]

Originally posted by Insidious Rex
So then what is your culture then? Whats the proper UK culture? .

His name is Callum and he lives on a small mountain in wales

[BeardofPants]

Originally posted by Janny
Isn't stupid white bastards just a bit of an easy insult?

Hey man, if I want to insult my own culture, then I will.

[Hemel]

Last Child of Ungoliant:
i say british culture is the celts,
that makes me a native, and hardly no one else!!

Nope. That would make you an immigrant.

That's because the Celts were from the middle of Europe .. and no classical writer, btw, ever ever referred to the inhabitants of Britain as 'Celts'. According to Dr Simon James the idea that the western and northern sides of Britain were Celtic comes from the name given to an aspect of a philological analysis in the 18th century, which analysis was later extended to apply to the people who spoke this particular group of languages. It took off because it was a means of referring to people who for various reasons didn't feel completely allied to the then new identity of 'British'. (Oh, and the Picts, btw, according to similar theorising, didn't really arise as an identity until well into the times when the Romans were over here in the UK - as a response to them.) Btw, the word 'Celt' was contingently chosen, it would seem ... because probably 'Gallic' would have been preferred - but couldn't be used because at the time we weren't at ALL friendly with France, and he'd probably have been hanged, drawn, and quartered - or worse! - were he even to DARE to suggest that there might have been connections between the new Brits and the Frenchies.

The point of all this is that to a great extent identities and ethnicities would seem to be contingent - they arise from particular situations, are lived things, and performed also, ie created as we live. They tend to emerge (or we are aware of them) only when we know what the 'other' is and have something to define ourselves against. So in a way this idea that Britain IS multicultural is divisive. It's also a bit daft to say it, because it's nothing new - we have always had a multiplicity of different ways over here, but can only recognise it when there's sufficient communication between groups to understand that people do things differently. We've been through a period when there was an attempt to impose an hegemony, and that was linked with particular values. Resistances to that is where this idea of multicultural comes from. But, apart from this blip, throughout our history (if it can be called ours) it would seem that we've tended to adapt and adopt.

S'pose that brings me back to Janny's posts ... my opinion is that people can say what they like. Freedom of speech is an essential. But at the same time, there are such things as respect and responsibility, and people should beware that if they are perceived as being short on them then they raise the possibility or even likelihood of backfire.

[Janny]

IR, quote me on what I'm saying not what you think I'm saying.
While I'm fascinated by this Callum ( ), the point about immigratants prior, which I have already made, is that they added to British culture, not kept pockets of their culture in someone else's country.

Also concerning free speech, I can't believe people so fast to condemn terrorism can be so permissive of incitement of it.

BoP, I don't care if you want to insult your culture, you can't insult my culture. I reiterate you would never say 'Stupid Black Bastard' ad suggest that what you are saying, regardless of your origin, remains racial prejudice against Westerners.
I apologise that my piece is less biased, but I don't have much time and I have to get the points to answer you out - but I'm not going out to join the BNP and the British KKK!

[Spock]

OK enough of the demonization of Whites please. As for the comments on the C.S.A., it's heritage and we'll not give it up. That has nothing to do with the comments about non-assimilation. The fractionalization is what is destroying Western Civilizaition. If we maintained the idea of "a melting pot" instead of a "tossed salad" we would grow and gain unification. IMO and some sociological studies, the framework of W.C. is changing, degrading and eventually will disolve. That is all I am and was saying.
....GM/IR..remember white hoods conceal other races too and you'd do well to trade yours in.

[Insidious Rex]

So are you saying we are racists and hate mongers for suggesting that western civilization has no more right of legitimacy then any other? And for saying embrace others?

[Spock]

Originally posted by Insidious Rex
So are you saying we are racists and hate mongers for suggesting that western civilization has no more right of legitimacy then any other? And for saying embrace others?

NO That's exactly what I am NOT saying. What I'm commenting on is the sociological phenomena of people perceiving a better life in countries of the West (for lack of a better title) and then not embracing the culture to which they moved to; keeping the very culture they left within the country they move to. It is good and IMO important never to forget your cultural heritage but it also benefits all involved if you can blend those differences into the society as a whole. Doing so makes the entire society stronger.

If the giving of informaion is to be the cure of your inquisitiveness, I shall spend all the rest of my days in answering you."......Gandalf to Pippin

[Insidious Rex]

ok Im seeing what you are getting at now. Its just you are teetering in an area that can easily roll over into misinterpretation and intolerance. I think "non western" peoples tend to come to "western" countries more for economic and/or political reasons then any other. Not so much to be western. Its almost impossible to simply dump your own culture and shift, chameleon like, immidiatly into a culture quite alien to your own. And thats never been the case. In america the germans and the dutch and the irish and the italians were VERY distinct from the "americans" when they first got here. And they were often treated like crap as well because of that. But in two or three generations you got yourself americans. the same will be true of any first generation group that immigrates today. Once they leave their native land for good the evolution into something different begins. And theres no turning back. what is an "american" today is going to be different from what is an "american" in 50 years. But I dont think thats necessarily a bad thing. Its a gradual continual process and in 50 years, unless you are rip van winkle, it wont even make you blink. because it will simply be what america IS.

[Spock]

.......at last.
The long run view is desirable but with the problems of today you can see why the concern exists. At least I think you can.


...........................
If you are not a liberal in your twenties, there is something wrong with your heart.
If you are still a liberal in your forties, there is something wrong with your head.
----Winston Churchill----

[Insidious Rex]

its interesting though. countries all around the world are decrying the "westernization" of their OWN cultures because america is by far the most powerful and influential exporter of cultural themes and trends. look at hollywood. i have talked to a number of "traditional" hispanic people in their 40s, 50s, and 60s who think its horrible how their media has adopted the worst of what was first popular in american media such as all these sleazy sad talk shows where midget lesbians throw chairs at their abusive priests and such. they deplore this kind of garbage and blame america for bringing it to their countries and filling their programs with it (apparently this kind of stuff is massivly popular in places like Mexico now). So which is better, "traditional" older individuals who do their own thing and dont really fit into modern american society and reject the sleaze or younger more "americanized" folk who embrace the sleaze and the flash and the garbage and popularize the very stuff we are looking down on? Ill take the former quite frankly.

[Spock]

Originally posted by Insidious Rex
So which is better, "traditional" older individuals who do their own thing and dont really fit into modern american society and reject the sleaze or younger more "americanized" folk who embrace the sleaze and the flash and the garbage and popularize the very stuff we are looking down on? Ill take the former quite frankly. [/B]

I must agree completely with this observation. The traditionalists don't agitate against the society they live in they merely want to maintain their cultural ties to their originating country. That's understandable. They should bear some responsibility for their young people abandoning the old totally or isolating themselves from their new country and festering negative feelings. TeleMundo and Univision are filled with such programs. When I lived in Tucson the Mexican stations were also filled with mindless shows and degrading stereotypes but they flourished because the Mexicans themselves watch and wanted them that way.
My wife is from Seville and we have discussions each year when she comes back from her visits about how the society there has adopted more US idioms and yet decries the infuence of the West and the US. They can't have it both ways yet many countries try to.

[Janny]

Originally posted by Insidious Rex
In america the germans and the dutch and the irish and the italians were VERY distinct from the "americans" when they first got here. And they were often treated like crap as well because of that. But in two or three generations you got yourself americans. the same will be true of any first generation group that immigrates today.

But this is the problem facing Britain at least. There remains a significant proportion who, even after two, three generations don't get themselves British and go on, like recently, to incite racism against British people and terrorism. (I know the former is an odd term, but this is what it amounts to, and if the situation were inversed there would be no hesitation in using the words.) It's not so much the refusal to become British as the refusal to contribute to and desire to destroy the society chosen by the immigrant.

BTW, thanks for not burning us before we got our point across!

[Insidious Rex]

Originally posted by Janny
But this is the problem facing Britain at least. There remains a significant proportion who, even after two, three generations don't get themselves British and go on, like recently, to incite racism against British people and terrorism. (I know the former is an odd term, but this is what it amounts to, and if the situation were inversed there would be no hesitation in using the words.) It's not so much the refusal to become British as the refusal to contribute to and desire to destroy the society chosen by the immigrant.

BTW, thanks for not burning us before we got our point across!

hang on Ive still got my torch and pitch fork here....

So are you saying theres a large scale movement among immigrants in britain who have been there for THREE generations who not only have not diverged into mainstream british culture but actually as a group desire the destruction of british society? I truly have a hard time accepting that. Its SO hard for a human being to live somewhere for two or three full generations and totally resist asimilation unconciously let alone coniously. Who are these people who have been able to do this in such numbers?

[Janny]

Okay, I'm not saying large scale, I'm saying significant proportion. Read, minority. But they exist. The people burning the Union Jack outside Regent's Park mosque and preaching their hatred against the Queen and the police and Mr. Blair and the government in general are third generation.
There were people arrested in Crawley near London and although they remain innocent 'til proven guilty, they were found with 600kg of Ammonium Nitrate fertiliser. These 5 men are third generation.
But the problem remains that some mosques still refuse to condemn extremist violence. That just hurts as a little hippocritical for people not to mind this while condemning as 'animals' (says JD ) the action of hostage takers.

And lay off with pitch fork, we're not into persecution and deportation of peaceful, good citizens.

[Radagast]

All this is damned dithering over pedantic terms. I saw a pathetic interview with some Labour MEP who agreed that multiculturalism was out of date and suggested some other term they use over in Brussels. Why can't they see that this does NOT need to be addressed? Immigrants coming to this country need to consider themselves British, NOT, whatever backwater they may have pulled themselves out from! Why are we holding summits on this issue? Why is assimilation such a problem?

[Last Child of Ungoliant]

Originally posted by Radagast
Immigrants coming to this country need to consider themselves British, NOT, whatever backwater they may have pulled themselves out from! Why are we holding summits on this issue? Why is assimilation such a problem?

did you know civilisation developed in the Indus Valley?

and if it weren't for the peoples from Israel to Assam,
we wouldn't have civilisation as we know it

[Spock]

J&R thanks for proving to me that there are people who understand the issues.

R is this the artist once known as RTB?