A belated St Georges day to you all – I received a politically incorrect text this morning that made me chuckle:
May the Morris men of England fill your anglo-saxon heart with joy.
Happy St. Georges day. This txt not available in punjabi, urdu, hindi, polish, german, french or any other fuckin immigrant tongue.
God save the Queen!
I know, foul language not really necessary but I found it mildly amusing because the governments need to send out letters with translations in every language going irritates me.
Save the tree’s! Make ‘em learn the language of the country in which they’ve chosen to live instead!
If I moved to another country I’d make a concerted effort to learn to speak the language and I don’t see why those coming here and living off the taxes of the natives cannot make the effort to do the same.
It’s not a lot to ask is it?
They don’t have to become protestants (even though that is the national religion) they don’t even have to SPEAK English at all times, but they should at the very least learn to read it and speak it well enough to be understood. It would be nice if they could also abide by the laws of the land instead of our government allowing the English identity to be slowly eroded away into rampant multi-culturalism leaving only the football fans and lager louts to represent us across the world.
It’s a sad fact that I no longer like being British. When I see the flag it doesn’t stir up any national pride – I just feel shame. Shame because the image it evokes is of skin headed thugs and drunken idiots. The union jack is not quite as evocotive for me, but it’s not far behind.
This is the reason I can’t get behind any of our sporting events, I don’t want to support anything to do with this country, I feel let down and ashamed by our government and the majority of the people it represents.
This isn’t England anymore, it’s some kind of weird hybrid that’s gathered together the dregs of every other nation and allowed them to simmer into a culture of drink and violence that’s abhored only marginally less than the warmongering Americans the world over.
I know there are many people about who would say “What are you talking about? The English had no identity to lose” Yes, they may be right to some extent, but the England I remember from only 20 years ago is a vastly different England to the one I see now.
I know I’m looking back through the somewhat hazy view of childhood, but I remember the street parties and the sense of community spirit that used to exist, I remember how the neighbourhood kids would go out and play together and few of the parents worried, there was no fear that a gang of kids would meet up late at night another gang and come to blows, kids were in bed late at night, or at home doing homework or sitting with their families. Stabbings or shootings only happened in America, any over here were BIG news, not seemingly every day occurrences and I don’t seem to remember any teenagers wandering around with a baby unless it was a sibling.
Why has all that changed? What has happened to England? More importantly – why does nobody seem to care?
Some of the things you seem not to like about your country are the things I like best about my mine. I love that you cannot tell a Canadian by the colour of their skin, or the religion they practice, or they language they speak. In fact, we already have 2 national languages.
I think for me, it’s not that they speak a different language – I don’t mind that, what I mind is that this country DOES have a single recognised tongue and yet many of the people who come to live here won’t speak it, I dated a pakistani guy a while back and he said his mum refused to learn English because she was proud to be pakistani – if that’s the case, why was she here?
The cost of translators is astronomical and takes up a fair bit of the local authority budget that could be put to use improving the community instead of catering to people like her. That’s what pisses me off about our so called multi-culturalism, we’re supposed to accept them yet they can do as they wish.
It’s the whole idea of a global community. I too am not sure if homogenizing everything that makes countries unique is such a good idea either.
God no! hogenizing is just as bad, but you need a certain uniformity in order for a common ground to be reached – you need common ground for a community to form, If I were to pull out a copy of the local paper from 20 years ago and compare it to this weeks edition – I wonder how much violent crime there would be reported in each, what type of community events were going on that you just don’t see now.
Language is integral to the identity of a culture – as Stef says we used to be invaders and we forced our tongue the length and breadth of the known world – perhaps it is fitting that people come here and refuse to speak it, but in my head that was then and this is now, neither myself nor my contempories had anything to do with the invasions and the bloodshed – there is no-one alive today who had any part in it, as a victim or aggressor.
We need to look at NOW and our society and see what we can do to maintain a balance and I personally feel it starts with communication, if we all speak the same language at home we can be more tolerent of other differences.
Hang on a mo, I know your just ranting as you havn’t thought this through.
We are a mongrel nation – invaded by Romans, Celts, Angles, Viking tribes etc…..
But we are also an invading nation, re the British Empire – how many Brits bothered to learn Punjabi or other Indian languages, African languages, Aborigine or even Native American Indian languages, when they we’re made part of the Empire? I could go on etc….
It’s not multiculturalism that’s the problem – it’s social laziness and the media driven commercial “I want it now” society that the world is producing. I blame the internet! Burn it, burn it down!
Then again you could be right, lets get the bastards out, grab your pitch forks and flaming torches.
PS No more curries or trips to Puccini’s
NOooooooooooooooooooo!
You do have a fair point there though Stef. But my gripe is with the country in the last 25 years or so, not the last millenia. I know bigotry, racism and all the other isms have been around for a long time, but I remember a time of community spirit, I remember being able to play out with my friends without worrying about having my things stolen – I also remember having a healthy respect for authority figures, maybe I’m getting old and maybe the view I have of these things is obscured by a rosey mist, but i can’t help looking back and thinking – things were different in my day..
I have to second Jay. That is what Canada is about, and Jay lives in one of the most Multicultural cities in the world. Canada is a person of Chinese Decent, a person of Indian decent and a person born in Canada all gathered around the radio listening to a hockey game, all all cheering at the same time when the Calgary Flames scores (true story, back in the 2004 season when they made the Stanley Cup finals).
One of Canada’s biggest strengths is our multiculturalism. Almost everyone in Canada or their parents, grandparents, were immigrants. i see it as a strength.
Too bad Quebec can’t get that through their thick skulls though,
It’s a strength if they can bond despite their cultural differences – that is something that unfortunately this country seems unable to do K. From the way you and Jay talk it sounds as though Canada has managed to forge it’s own identity – I think the difference is that your country is a LOT bigger and it’s population has grown together, our population is bunched together a great deal closer and yet they still have not managed to find a common ground.
A lot of the English are becoming more and more resentful of immigrants coming into the country because the government seem to have the dice loaded in their favour as opposed to people who have been contributing to the nation their whole lives, then you also have people like my ex’s mum who come here, never work and still refuse to learn the language. These people tend to congregate into a single area so you end up with nicknames like ‘little beirut’ or ‘little india’ and the situation gets worse until you end up with political parties like the BNP and riots (see oldham race riots)
I would love to see a TRUE multi-cultural society, but England is not one, instead we are a home to several different cultures and none of them seem to mix. All that’s happened is the community/ society that I remember from my childhood has disintegrated completely as we are forced to try and accept other ways of life.
You are so right about the politicians feeling like they should go the extra 10 miles to put everything into a dozen languages. And it goes all the way down the stream: business, schools, etc.
It’s time the “politically correct people” stop being that and start being the “common sense people.”
Sadly Mark, common sense is being bred out of the human race slowly but surely – there’s no escaping it.
Hey love,
Happy St. George’s day!!! For some wonky reason, I always thought you were from Australia…I have no idea why:)
I tagged u on the Bad Girls Guide.
HEH Me? An aussie? maybe it’s the humour? mind you – don’t Americans always get the brits and the aussies mixed up?
Stef, while I see the point you’re making, I do think there is a difference between invasion and immigration.
In an invasion, the invaders barge over to the country of choice with the intent of utterly taking it over. There is a war, and if the invaders win, they impose their laws, customs, religions, language etc on the remaining unmassacred people indigenous to the country invaded. Or, to put it another way, the losers. The defeated. “I’ve got a bigger army than you so what I say goes”.
In immigration, individual people and families make the choice to up sticks and move their lives, in a peaceful fashion, to the country of their choice. There should not therefore be any aspect of wishing to change the country you have chosen to move to. You are moving in, not taking over.
For the most part, this does happen in a peaceful fashion. Most immigrants work hard, pay taxes, raise their families and start to identify as “British” to whatever extent. And most indigenous Brits I know can’t say much other than “cheers!” and the contents of the takeaway menus in a non-European language. Women still wear miniskirts. Men still shave. Restaurants remain open during Ramadan. Whatever.
BUT, there is a small core of people who believe the world should rearrange itself around them. Who perhaps accept the failings of the country they have left, and the positives of the country they have come to, but want to create Me, me, me-ville. Who get upset, for instance, because emergency personnel aren’t fluent in half a dozen foreign languages.
I don’t want “the bastards out”, but I would really like that noisy selfish minority to shut up and acknowledge that there must be give, as well as take, between them and their hosts.
I think you and I are DEFINITELY on the same wavelength Mary.