Announcement

Collapse
No announcement yet.

Britain and multi-culturalism

Collapse
X
 
  • Filter
  • Time
  • Show
Clear All
new posts

  • Britain and multi-culturalism

    Found this an interesting read, although something about it seems exaggerated but i wouldnt actually know. Perhaps in some parts of the UK it is not: Trojan Horse debate: We were wrong, all cultures are not equal - Telegraph

    She mentions an article published in 1984 on race and education in Britain by Ray Honeyford, who apparently lost his job over the article as it was considered to be 'racist' at the time. I looked it up and found it very informed in many ways (though not flawless) and well ahead of its time given the current discourse about immigration, integration, multi-culturalism, political-correctness, Islamism etc across Europe.

    You could argue about it being written from a point of "privilege" perhaps, but i dont find it racist at all. In fact, i find it very observant and prophetic, given that it was written in 1984 and things have obviously become a lot more segregated since then in some ways (however in others the reverse is actually true).

    Worth a read more than once.

    Education and Race - an Alternative View
    Ray Honeyford

    This article, which The Salisbury Review published in 1984, cost Ray Honeyford his job as a head teacher. For speaking the truth, he was subjected to a long, bitter campaign, including death threats and other forms of persecution, orchestrated by an assortment of vehement idealogues. Twenty-two years on, the Review says that it "salutes Mr Honeyford's courage and intellectual integrity, which has been so clearly vindicated by recent events". Here, with the magazine's permission, we exclusively republish Mr Honeyford's observations:

    The issues and problems of our multi racial inner cities are frequently thrown into sharp relief for me. As the head teacher of a school in the middle of a predominantly Asian area, I am often witness to scenes which have the raw feel of reality and the recipient of vehement criticism, whenever I question some of the current educational orthodoxies connected with race.

    It is very difficult to write honestly and openly of my experiences, and the reflections they evoke, since the race relations lobby is extremely powerful in the state education service. The propaganda generated by multi racial zealots is now augmented by a growing bureaucracy of race in local authorities. And this makes freedom of speech difficult to maintain.

    By exploiting the enormous tolerance traditional in this country, the race lobby has so managed to induce and maintain feelings of guilt in the well disposed majority, that decent people are not only afraid of voicing certain thoughts, they are uncertain even of their right to think those thoughts. They are intimidated not only by their fear of giving offence by voicing their own reasonable concerns about the inner cities, but by the necessity of conducting the debate in a language which is dishonest.


    The term 'racism', for instance, functions not as a word with which to create insight, but as a slogan designed to suppress constructive thought. It conflates prejudice and discrimination, and thereby denies a crucial conceptual distinction. It is the icon word of those committed to the race game. And they apply it with the same sort of mindless zeal as the inquisitors voiced 'heretic' or Senator McCarthy spat out 'Commie'.

    The word 'black' has been perverted. Every non white is now, officially, 'black', be he Indian, Pakistani or Vietnamese. This gross and offensive dichotomy has an obvious purpose: the creation of an atmosphere of anti white solidarity. To suppress and distort the enormous variations within races which I every day observe by using language in this way is an outrage to all decent people whatever their skin colour.

    And there are other distortions: race riots are described by the politically motivated as 'uprisings', and by a Lord of Appeal as a 'superb and healthy catalyst for the British people' and the police blamed for the behaviour of violent thugs; rather like the patient blaming the doctor because he has a cold in the head.

    'Cultural enrichment' is the approved term for the West Indian's right to create an ear splitting cacophony for most of the night to the detriment of his neighbour's sanity, or for the Notting Hill Festival whose success or failure is judged by the level of street crime which accompanies it.

    At the schools' level the term refers to such things as the Muslim parent's insistence on banning his daughter from drama, dance and sport, i.e. imposing a purdah mentality in schools committed to the principle of sexual equality; and the determined efforts of misguided radical teachers to place such as the following alongside the works of Shakespeare and Wordsworth:

    Wi mek a lickle date
    fi nineteen seventy eight
    An wi fite and wi fite
    An defeat di state.
    (From 'Inglan is a Bitch', Linton Kwesi Johnson)

    No one, of course, is allowed to describe first generation black or coloured immigrants as 'immigrants' though no other collective noun exists. In the courts it has been revealed that we now have laws on the statute book which insist that Sikhism is a race, which, as three distinguished lords of appeal were able to demonstrate, contradicts the best available dictionary definitions.

    We have, therefore, officially perverted words to such a degree that it would be perfectly reasonable in law to describe a member of the Church of England or the Labour Party as a member of an ethnic group, a manifest absurdity. (It is worth noting that in his judgement of this case, Lord Justice Kerr commented of The Commission for Racial Equality, 'The commission seemed to have created discord where there had been none before,' a view, I suspect, which is shared by the vast majority of the public with regard to most of the C.R.E.'s activities.)

    We in the schools are also enjoined to believe that creole, pidgin and other non standard variants have the same power, subtlety and capacity for expressing five shades of meaning, and for tolerating uncertainty, ambiguity and irony as standard English. A generation of cultural relativists in the field of linguistics has managed to impose on the schools the mindless slogan 'All languages are equally good' - a myth recently and convincingly demolished by Professor John Honey in The Language Trap, a monograph published by the National Council for Educational Standards.

    Those of us working in Asian areas are encouraged, officially, to 'celebrate linguistic diversity', ie applaud the rapidly mounting linguistic confusion in those growing number of inner city schools in which British born Asian children begin their mastery of English by being taught in Urdu.

    In Politics and the English Language George Orwell said, 'Political language is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an impression of solidity to pure wind.' Race speak is the language of a politics committed to that sort of deceit. There is little hope of our coming to terms with the monumental significance for our future of New Commonwealth and Pakistani immigration until we invent a language by means of which doubts, fears and aspirations can be expressed openly and honestly.

    What, in the meantime, can one do? In the absence of the coinage of honest discourse, one can perhaps make a start by reporting and commenting on one's everyday experiences. I recall, for instance, the meeting called to explain to Asian parents the importance of regular school attendance for their offspring's future. A very high proportion of Asian immigrants have a habit of sending children to the Indian sub continent during term time with obvious, deleterious educational consequences. Not only is the practice inadvisable, it is almost certainly illegal though no local education authority has had the courage to bring a test case, and the Department of Education and Science turns a blind eye.

    After much badgering from the schools, the local authority had agreed try to impose on brown parents the same obligations it demanded from white and black parents with regard to school attendance. Against all normal expectations the meeting was packed. There had obviously been a local 'three line whip' from the Pakistani leadership. It quickly became evident that what had been proposed as an act of reconciliation, based on the school's concern for the child, was to descend into a noisy and unseemly demonstration of sectarian bitterness.

    The hysterical political temperament of the Indian sub continent became evident an extraordinary sight in an English School Hall. There was much shouting and fist waving. The local authority was accused of 'racism'; the chairman insulted. One anglicised Asian stood near the door and, at regular intervals, shouted 'bullshit' at the chair. The disorder was orchestrated. Questions were always preceded by a nod from a Muslim leader. A half-educated and volatile Sikh usurped the privileges of the chair by deciding who was to speak.

    The confusion was made worse by the delays occasioned by the need for interpreting many of the audience had no English though there have been freely available English classes in the area for at least a decade. I raised my hand to speak several times but was ignored. The atmosphere was highly charged and threatening. I left before the end, bitterly disappointed.

    Needless to say, the absenteeism of Asian pupils abroad continues. The authorities have simply given up. And I am left with the ethically indefensible task of complying with a school attendance policy which is determined not, as the law requires, on the basis of individual parental responsibility but by the parent's country of origin a blatant and officially sanctioned policy of racial discrimination.

    My disappointment was compounded by a sense of irony. These people, who now so vehemently accused the authorities of denying them a right which, in reality was a privilege no other parents enjoyed, and no other group of immigrants had contemplated claiming these same people enjoyed rights, privileges and aspirations unheard of in their country of origin.

    Pakistan is a country which cannot cope with democracy; under martial law since 1977, it is ruled by a military tyrant who, in the opinion of at least half his countrymen, had his predecessor judicially murdered. A country, moreover, which, despite disproportionate western aid because of its important strategic position, remains for most of its people obstinately backward.

    Corruption at every level combines with unspeakable treatment not only of criminals, but of those who dare to question Islamic orthodoxy as interpreted by a despot. Even as I write, wounded dissidents are chained to hospital beds awaiting their fate.

    Pakistan, too, is the heroin capital of the world. (A fact which is now reflected in the drug problems of English cities with Asian populations.) It is not surprising that such a country loses more of its citizens voluntarily to other countries than any state on earth. How could the denizens of such a country so wildly and implacably resent the simple British requirement for all parents to send children to school regularly?

    It was this reflection which caused me, perhaps for the first time, to understand why so many fundamentally decent people harbour feelings of resentment. I realised, too, how little the cant term 'racism' explains. In truth, I was affronted by what I had seen in my own school hall.

    Again, I recall the reaction to an article I published recently in The Times Educational Supplement. I simply attempted to question the conceptual soundness of the ideas which comprise the term 'multi racial education'. My main argument was that the fashionable way of explaining comparative black pupil failure in British schools as a function of teacher prejudice and an alien curriculum was almost certainly bogus. There is not a scrap of evidence to support such a belief. The roots of black educational failure are, in reality, located in West Indian family structure and values, and the work of misguided radical teachers whose motives are basically political.

    Within days, The Caribbean Times carried a long letter from a group of black activists known as 'The Harringay Black Pressure Group on Education'. This letter confirmed my belief that much of the pressure for a multi racial curriculum comes from the vehement, radical left of black organisations. Its tone is strident, its contents poorly argued, its style sub standard; but the main thrust of its argument accords well with official policy edicts now being imposed on the schools by several local education authorities a process which is certain to be accelerated when the impending Swarm Committee report is published.

    The basic intention of the authors of the letter is to intimidate. It is also defamatory, and highly likely to damage me professionally. But redress would be difficult, since no one has had the courage to sign the letter. How do you sue a collective? Amongst other things I am accused of the sins of being white and middle class. Inevitably I am a 'blatant racist'. I should be immediately sacked and a public investigation carried out into how I run my school. I am even accused of trying to deprive negroes of their welfare benefits.

    The totalitarian nature of the writers' mentalities may be judged from the following quotation: 'All teachers, especially those like Mr Honeyford, should be compelled to attend massive [sic] in service training courses to bring them up to date with modern education theory, and practice, and to purge them of their racist outlook and ideology. Teachers who refuse to adapt their teaching and go on in service training courses should be redeployed or retired off [sic] early. School books with a racist content ... should be scrapped. Racist teachers should be dismissed.'

    Of such libellous and mindless bombast is the rhetoric of multi racialising composed. Of course it might be objected that such a mentality is not representative. That the Harringay Black teachers are simply the disreputable, unacceptable face of the race industry, of which the Commission for Racial Equality is the acceptable front.

    But such extremism is becoming the norm. I was recently told by an educational mandarin that, unless I attended a 'racism awareness workshop' arranged by the local authority, I would be deprived of the right to be involved the appointment of staff to my school.

    Consider, too, the following extract from Black Britain by Chris Mullard: 'Already we have started to rebel, to kick out against our jailers ... As more black Britons leave school disgruntled, as more black immigrants discard their yoke of humility, the ultimate confrontation will become clearer... Blacks will fight with pressure, leaflets, campaigns, demonstrations, fists and scorching resentment which, when peaceful means fail, will explode into street fighting, urban guerrilla warfare, looting, burning and rioting'.

    Now the writer of that is not some insignificant devotee of Marcuse spitting out his hatred of the white establishment. He is, in fact, a lecturer in education in the University of London. As such he is accorded expert status. He is influential in the training of teachers, and his views are respected by local education authorities.

    More recently, I published a simple report on my contact with Asian parents in a typical school week. The piece contained many positive references to Asian values. But I was immediately and intemperately attacked by a dedicated multi racialist who publicly accused me of being prejudiced, of fabricating the evidence, and of using phrases which 'must give cause for concern'; and my 'strategy' (whatever that means) was condemned as being 'ignorant and counter productive'.

    It is typical of the response to honest discussion of those teachers who have eagerly embraced the career enhancing possibilities of the new multi racial orthodoxy in schools. Such people never proceed through rational argument, but rather by the tactic of impugning others' good will. At no point in all this sound and fury does the plight of those white children who constitute the 'Ethnic minority' in a growing number of inner city schools merit even a mention. Yet their educational 'disadvantage' is now confirmed.

    It is no more than common sense, that if a school contains a disproportionate number of children for whom English is a second language (true of all Asian children, even those born here), or children from homes where educational ambition and the values to support it are conspicuously absent (i.e. the vast majority of West Indian homes a disproportionate number of which are fatherless) then academic standards are bound to suffer.

    This intuition is supported by the findings of the Department of Education and Science Assessment of Performance Unit on primary school English; and there is suggestive evidence in the National Council for Educational Standards' report Standards in English Schools. The absence of concern for the rights of this group of parents is due to three factors: they are overwhelmingly lower working class with little ability to articulate their social and educational anxieties; they have, so far, failed to produce a pressure group generating appropriate propaganda; and unlike non white children they have no government quango to plead their cause.

    These experiences I here report are the tip of an iceberg. Yet they seem to me important since they point up the real educational consequences of the general acceptance of the notion that multi racial inner cities are not only inevitable but, in some sense, desirable.

    Specifically, they raise for policy makers and public opinion the question of how the following unique factors now operating in our inner cities can be reconciled to produce that integrated, harmonious society we all affect to cherish:

    - A growing number of Asians whose aim is to preserve as intact as possible the values and attitudes of the Indian sub continent within a framework of British social and political privilege, ie to produce Asian ghettoes.

    - An influential group of black intellectuals of aggressive disposition, who know little of the British traditions of understatement, civilised discourse and respect for reason.

    - A small but growing group of dispossessed, indigenous parents whose schools are as a direct result of the multiracial dimension failing their children.

    - The presence in the state education service of a growing number of teachers and advisers who, quite correctly, perceive the professional advantage of supporting the notion of the multi racial curriculum urged by the authorities, and of making colour and race significant, high profile issues in the classroom.

    - The successful creation by the race relations lobby of a dubious, officially approved argot which functions to maintain a whole set of questionable beliefs and attitudes about education and race attitudes which have much more to do with professional opportunism than the educational progress of ethnic minority children.

    I suspect that these elements, far from helping to produce harmony, are, in reality, operating to produce a sense of fragmentation and discord. And I am no longer convinced that the British genius for compromise, for muddling through, and for good natured tolerance will be sufficient to resolve the inevitable tensions.

  • #2
    A Sikh Principal, Too English for a Largely Muslim School
    By KIMIKO DE FREYTAS-TAMURA
    DEC. 7, 2014

    BIRMINGHAM, England — As a Sikh and second-generation Briton running a public school made up mostly of Muslim students, Balwant Bains was at the center of the issues facing multicultural Britain, including the perennial question of balancing religious precepts and cultural identity against assimilation.

    But in January, Mr. Bains stepped down as the principal of the Saltley School and Specialist Science College, saying he could no longer do the job in the face of relentless criticism from the Muslim-dominated school board. It had pressed him, unsuccessfully, to replace some courses with Islamic and Arabic studies, segregate girls and boys and drop a citizenship class on tolerance and democracy in Britain.

    “I suppose I was a threat, giving these children more British values, for them to be integrated into society,” Mr. Bains said in his first interview since the controversy over his departure.

    His experience has helped bring to life the often deeply emotional and highly contentious conflicts unearthed by a British government investigation this year into whether organized groups of conservative Muslims were having undue influence on public schools.

    The topic has become especially sensitive at a time when Britain is concerned about the radicalization of young Muslims in the country and their involvement with jihadis in Syria and Iraq. The investigation was prompted by an anonymous letter, sent last year to local officials in Birmingham, alleging an organized Islamic takeover of British schools in Muslim neighborhoods.

    Conducted by the Office for Standards in Education, Children’s Services and Skills, or Ofsted, the inquiry found the allegations to be overstated. But the agency found much that was troubling about Muslim efforts to promote changes in secular public schools, and it has recently widened its investigation to 46 schools across the country.

    The investigation found that five schools in Birmingham, including Mr. Bains’s, shared a pattern of behavior similar to what was described in the anonymous letter. The letter also cited Mr. Bains’s impending resignation, a month before it was made official and which only a few knew about, suggesting that the author was someone with detailed knowledge of the schools.

    “The Sikh head running a Muslim school,” the letter said, “will soon be sacked and we will move in.”

    The investigation found that some teachers and school board governors at the other schools were encouraging homophobia, anti-Semitism and support for Al Qaeda, sometimes inviting speakers who endorsed the establishment of a state run under Sharia law.

    One school stopped music and drama lessons as well as Christmas and Diwali celebrations, and subsidized trips to Saudi Arabia for Muslim students.

    In another school, the report found, girls and female teachers were discriminated against, and compulsory sex education, including discussions about forced marriage, was banned. Girls and boys seen talking for too long or considered flirtatious were reprimanded, while boys were given worksheets that said a wife had to obey her husband.

    The report, released in July, highlighted Mr. Bains’s case and concluded that there had been a “coordinated, deliberate and sustained action, carried out by a number of associated individuals, to introduce an intolerant and aggressive Islamic ethos into a few schools in Birmingham.”

    Muhammad Khan, the chairman of the board of governors at the time, who is no longer at the school, did not respond to repeated requests for comment. Three governors who were also present at meetings with Mr. Bains also refused to comment on his allegations.

    Muslim leaders in Britain have condemned the report’s findings, saying it was wrong to conflate conservative Muslim practices with an alleged agenda to Islamicize school systems.

    Mr. Bains, 47, was born to Indian immigrants in a suburb of Coventry notorious for prostitution and violent crime. He grew up listening to stories of how his father, a teacher in Punjab State, walked 30 miles each day to and from school. He would study by candlelight because his village had no electricity. After arriving in Britain and securing work as a laborer, he put his son and daughters through college.

    “It made me value education more, and because it is free in this country,” Mr. Bains said. “I lifted myself out of poverty because of education. If I could do it, if I could break the cycle, other children could, too.”

    His background, he said, is that “I’m an inclusionist.”

    He added that he saw his role as being to “educate children to live and function in a multicultural Britain, to be appreciative of the views of other people, but also to express themselves.”

    In 2012, he became head teacher of Saltley, a school where grades were falling behind the national average. In spite of his ordeal throughout 2013, the school achieved its best General Certificate of Secondary Education grades ever — roughly equivalent to the high school diploma in America. Britain’s school inspectorate judged the school as one of the most improved state schools that year.

    “But I never got a single congratulation” from the school’s governing board, a mix of elected parents and other people from the community and members appointed to represent the staff and the local government, Mr. Bains said. “It was emotional harassment.”

    The chairman of the governing board took to challenging his day-to-day decision making, Mr. Bains said. In one instance he was required to justify every decision he made during a three-month period, Mr. Bains said, including why he had students walk on the right side of the corridor instead of the left, what he said at assemblies and why he made changes to the school website. He had to print and distribute the resulting 300-page document to each of the 15 members of the governing board.

    When a student threatened six classmates with a knife, he expelled the boy, a Muslim, in a decision supported by parents and the local authority. But governors reinstated the boy. Because Mr. Bains did not suspend another student, a white boy who had surrendered the weapon, talk spread among staff that he was racist and Islamophobic. He discovered a Facebook post and text messages calling on parents and students to protest against him, he said, and later learned that the message had even been circulated among local mosques.

    “Some of the children would come in and tell me, ‘Mr. Bains, they’re going to egg your car today, so you better move your car,’ ” he said. “I felt very isolated, I was despondent. I was a head teacher going into work without any power.”

    The treatment, he said, lasted 11 months, beginning just two months after he was appointed head teacher, until he resigned.

    By then, all non-Muslim governors except one at his school had left. He was immediately replaced by a friend of the chairman of the board of governors. A number of staff members at other schools cited in the government investigation also resigned because they disagreed with the attitudes taken by some administrators. They also claimed that teachers had been appointed based on their religious zeal, not their teaching qualifications.

    The government report partly vindicated him, Mr. Bains said. But if nothing changes, he said, “then it means anyone can just go in and destroy a school and get away with it.”

    Comment


    • #3
      It's interesting to contrast the writing style of The Telegraph and the NYT with these two articles. Especially regarding how differently they voice the more extremist attitudes in them.

      Comment


      • #4
        Japan got it right, and Britain got it wrong. At least when I pass through Tokyo I know I am in Japan...

        Comment


        • #5
          Originally posted by tbm3fan View Post
          Japan got it right, and Britain got it wrong. At least when I pass through Tokyo I know I am in Japan...
          Japan's answer is racism.
          Chimo

          Comment


          • #6
            Originally posted by tbm3fan View Post
            At least when I pass through Tokyo I know I am in Japan...
            And you will always be a Gai jin (foreigner) to them.

            Won't matter if you assimilated or spoke their language better.

            Comment


            • #7
              Originally posted by 1980s View Post
              Found this an interesting read, although something about it seems exaggerated but i wouldnt actually know. Perhaps in some parts of the UK it is not: Trojan Horse debate: We were wrong, all cultures are not equal - Telegraph

              She mentions an article published in 1984 on race and education in Britain by Ray Honeyford, who apparently lost his job over the article as it was considered to be 'racist' at the time. I looked it up and found it very informed in many ways (though not flawless) and well ahead of its time given the current discourse about immigration, integration, multi-culturalism, political-correctness, Islamism etc across Europe.

              You could argue about it being written from a point of "privilege" perhaps, but i dont find it racist at all. In fact, i find it very observant and prophetic, given that it was written in 1984 and things have obviously become a lot more segregated since then in some ways (however in others the reverse is actually true).

              Worth a read more than once.
              What the article ignores is the racial backdrop in the 60s & 70s which ethnic minorities in the UK faced. The Brits were coming to terms with all these people that came over from abroad and realised that they weren't going to return. Some areas were harder than others but there was a very sharp prejudice immigrants had to battle.

              Having won those battles there is a tendency now to advance further and is going to face a pushback. The code words are pc & multiculturalism in whose name one can seemingly get more than 'equal opportunity' to the point of creating fiefdoms. The point about politics i think is quite apt. Its no longer about emancipation and equal opportunity but about building power.

              How far can it go. Do we see a return o the 60s & 70s only in radical terms but the gains that have been won are here to stay. abusing them to get further however isn't.

              I would not say that the article was ahead of its time, its a lamentation (at the time it appeared) of the fact that new realities were appearing and had to be dealt with. As for your second article, there is no question of turning public secular schools into parochial ones. That is why religious schools exist. The difficulty is if the majority of people in a schools district are of a certain disposition then it can be difficult to fight against the tide. This is bad news for the kids of those schools, they are political pawns and are losing out on a better education for the political ambitions of others.

              Comment


              • #8
                Originally posted by Officer of Engineers View Post
                Japan's answer is racism.
                Maybe it depends on your point of view. Mine being culture and they are protecting their relatively small culture in today's world. Being Irish my ancestors are also from a small island nation with a unique Celtic culture. Diluted some but still can be seen. When I go to Ireland I want to see Irish and nothing else same for Norway and Sweden. In my book they are not multicultural countries but countries with very small footprints in this world with very small populations. Once gone they are gone.

                Comment


                • #9
                  Originally posted by tbm3fan View Post
                  Maybe it depends on your point of view.
                  Fourth generation Koreans borned in Japan from Korean soldiers serving in the Imperial Japanese Army are still denied citizenship to this day. Racism no matter what point of view you want to take.
                  Last edited by Officer of Engineers; 09 Dec 14,, 00:25.
                  Chimo

                  Comment


                  • #10
                    Originally posted by Double Edge View Post
                    And you will always be a Gai jin (foreigner) to them.

                    Won't matter if you assimilated or spoke their language better.
                    ...and I have no problem with that since I have no intention of living there and if I did I wouldn't try to change them to my view. However, if I did decide to move to a new country I would damn well make sure to assimilate to their culture and consequently expect them to do the same if the tables are turned. Since I am staying put I don't have to be concerned about assimilating anywhere but others seem to feel they don't have to as above.

                    Comment


                    • #11
                      I don't think the issue is assimiliation, minding your own business and not mixing is one thing. This is rejection. Trying to create something else. Rocking the boat and asserting. What is that 'something' and can you do it or not under the existing regulations or laws. How many people want the same as well.

                      What i oppose is how close minded it all is. Its not building on the existing and developing something new.
                      Last edited by Double Edge; 09 Dec 14,, 01:57.

                      Comment


                      • #12
                        Originally posted by tbm3fan View Post
                        When I go to Ireland I want to see Irish and nothing else same for Norway and Sweden.
                        When I go to France it wouldn't be the same without Algerians on every street. When I go to London, it wouldn't be the same without Indians on every street.

                        Hell, my commute to work wouldn't be the same without the train being packed with the Spanish and Chinese students blabbing on (and not necessarily just in German, English, Spanish or Chinese...), the Turkish and Russian kids whizzing through the train, the dour-faced black guy with the white Einstein hair do staring out the window, the towering 6'3 Egyptian girl always standing in the same corner and reading, or the quartet always occupying the same seats consisting of a Polish 60-year-old woman in insane heels, a gingerhaired freckled mid-40s Irish woman twice her width, a mid-50s woman who always gets weird looks for complaining that us smokers are "the modern jews" and the silent 18-year-old girl with piercings all over her face.
                        And it's been that way for at least a quarter century. The only thing missing nowadays is the odd sprinkle from soldiers in BDUs from random NATO countries.

                        Comment


                        • #13
                          Originally posted by tbm3fan View Post
                          ...and I have no problem with that since I have no intention of living there and if I did I wouldn't try to change them to my view. However, if I did decide to move to a new country I would damn well make sure to assimilate to their culture and consequently expect them to do the same if the tables are turned. Since I am staying put I don't have to be concerned about assimilating anywhere but others seem to feel they don't have to as above.

                          You could never assimilate enough. That is the point the Colonel is making. That mindset imposes that limitation. You can be 10th generation and more 'assimilated' to Japan than you currently are to the US and you will never be Japanese. If Britain had never accepted a single non-white immigrant it would still not have been like Japan. Britain has been a multi-ethnic society for as long as we have written records & even before. The only people who delude themselves that it was monoculture are some English (only some, mind).

                          Meanwhile Japan's insularity and cultural purity sees it heading for a demographic cliff. Should be an interesting sociological experiment.
                          sigpic

                          Win nervously lose tragically - Reds C C

                          Comment


                          • #14
                            Originally posted by Bigfella View Post
                            Meanwhile Japan's insularity and cultural purity sees it heading for a demographic cliff. Should be an interesting sociological experiment.
                            A giant aged facility maintained by robots who care for the needs of the patients who in turn get to watch the last generation migrate to other regions of the world with better work prospects and potential spouses.
                            If you are emotionally invested in 'believing' something is true you have lost the ability to tell if it is true.

                            Comment


                            • #15
                              Govt incentives to have more kids.

                              Comment

                              Working...
                              X