(Published 21st August, 2016.)
In Britain, a policy of 'immigration' was started after the Second World War. Every government since has continued it, blind to its social consequences.
It may be argued, that just as with recent EU inward movement from the east, this has benefitted those with capital but disadvantaged the traditional 'working class'. This may explain in part an emergence of racsim in the latter but liberalism in the former.
Your experience Ben, I would suggest, is fairly typical of the psychological response by many to being 'swamped' by a new culture, distinctly different to the preceeding one. It was evidenced in the 'fifties' by the Notting Hill riots but of course an objection to 'invaders' can be traced back to earliest times.
The English character and constitution (note small 'c' but it applies equally to the big one) has taken hundreds, if not thousands of years to form. It no doubt has good and bad points but it is recognisable and distinctive.
'Multi-culturalism' may be the prevailing politically correct view, but just like Eurocentric ones, they may not reflect the predominant mood or spirit of the country, if such can be distilled.
As a result it has produced yet another gulf between the govenors and the governed. Immigration was seen to be an issue because it was too big and too fast and was proved to be out of control.
Any country can expect to have and keep a prevailing identity and there is an inchoate angst in Britain that it is losing its traditional values from a range of factors, of which immigration is but one.
On the up-side, we may well be more tolerant and caring in many areas of life and social policy than we once were. The history of a nation never stands still. Nor can the clock be turned back to some non-existant perfect elysian state and time, so we must cope with what we have.
But we must also be honest with ourselves and the problems that have been created by a naive approach to uncontrolled immigration policy, on the basis of 'multi-cultualism' rather than 'integration'.
Somehow in a multi-cultural world, with huge economic divergance, where modern media cuts through division like a butter knife, we still have not learned how to cope with the destabilizing consequences of a mass movement of population about the world, trying to escape poverty and violence.
Perhaps we need a crash course in how to do so?
Following added 10.5.2024 in response to Jeremy Corbyn article:
Not so sure about that. What is clear is that American/European policy, still being effectively played out in Ukraine and Gaza and other centres of the world has largely been the CAUSE of the flood of migration that Europe, including Britain, has experienced. We have brought it on ourselves and governments have been impotent to solve or stop it. But this should not blind us to the destabilising consequences or to the longer-term political ones, as the arithmetical inevitabilities reveal themselves in the political system. Many urban centres are becoming predominently foreign and England divided along cultural lines, as it has on the continent. Some might think this was planned all along as a destabilizing force of the centuries-old European culture and heritage? Whether so or not, the Conservative's Rwanda policy is a belated, ironical and irrelevant 'clutching at straws' of a metaphorically, 'drowning' man. https://veaterecosan.blogspot.com/search?q=immigration
Following from:
Refugees aren't problems to be processed. They are human beings to be cared for.
Read my full piece for Tribune Magazine here: https://tribunemag.co.uk/.../jeremy-corbyn-our-political.../
In Britain, a policy of 'immigration' was started after the Second World War. Every government since has continued it, blind to its social consequences.
It may be argued, that just as with recent EU inward movement from the east, this has benefitted those with capital but disadvantaged the traditional 'working class'. This may explain in part an emergence of racsim in the latter but liberalism in the former.
Your experience Ben, I would suggest, is fairly typical of the psychological response by many to being 'swamped' by a new culture, distinctly different to the preceeding one. It was evidenced in the 'fifties' by the Notting Hill riots but of course an objection to 'invaders' can be traced back to earliest times.
The English character and constitution (note small 'c' but it applies equally to the big one) has taken hundreds, if not thousands of years to form. It no doubt has good and bad points but it is recognisable and distinctive.
'Multi-culturalism' may be the prevailing politically correct view, but just like Eurocentric ones, they may not reflect the predominant mood or spirit of the country, if such can be distilled.
As a result it has produced yet another gulf between the govenors and the governed. Immigration was seen to be an issue because it was too big and too fast and was proved to be out of control.
Any country can expect to have and keep a prevailing identity and there is an inchoate angst in Britain that it is losing its traditional values from a range of factors, of which immigration is but one.
On the up-side, we may well be more tolerant and caring in many areas of life and social policy than we once were. The history of a nation never stands still. Nor can the clock be turned back to some non-existant perfect elysian state and time, so we must cope with what we have.
But we must also be honest with ourselves and the problems that have been created by a naive approach to uncontrolled immigration policy, on the basis of 'multi-cultualism' rather than 'integration'.
Somehow in a multi-cultural world, with huge economic divergance, where modern media cuts through division like a butter knife, we still have not learned how to cope with the destabilizing consequences of a mass movement of population about the world, trying to escape poverty and violence.
Perhaps we need a crash course in how to do so?
Where paranoia and racism can lead.
ReplyDeleteA new video that was removed just days after being published (see the update at the end of this article to learn why) released by a pro-Israel public relations group has a startling message for Europeans: their continent is about to be obliterated by Islamic armies, and if they don’t stop the movement to boycott Israel, Jerusalem will permit the catastrophe to occur!
See: http://whatsupic.com/news-politics-world/1471684395.html