UK and the royal family......

[Ickleevul]

I can't really imagine the British public being too chuffed if the Americans had started bombing London to force British troops to stop fighting the IRA and pull out of Northern Ireland.

They just allowed fund raisers to equip the IRA to do it.

 

[Culanan]

I think we are brewing up a whole new wave cultural strife, I have for my whole life never had the slightest problem with foriegn cultures, but I visited the Lake District few days ago and found myself thinking...'jeez the amount of Muslims around here'.
QUOTE]

Strictly speaking it's not the fault of immigrants that they are all in one area.

In southall during the last census white brits constituted 14% of the total population, now you got to think where they all went, pretty sure there was no canibalism? Ok, so they must have moved. Why did they move? It's a phenomenon that the yanks have observed for many years and have labled it white flight, although it's not practiced by whites alone obviously.

As sad as it is (my landlord and neighbours are pakistani and absolutely brilliant people) there are a lot of people who can't stand to live around others who are not of their own, this applies to pretty much everyone.

Muslims choosing to live together and form their own communities, schools, shops and so on eventually leaves white english people (or those of other descent if culturally mis-aligned enough) feeling shut out.

People do like to blame the past multi-cultural system for this, the arguement is that we didn't integrate immigrants into our way of life enough and we ended up with self-segregation.

Nothing new for this green and pleasent land, nor for anywhere else in the world, about all we could do or have done is to have operated a tighter immigration system, limited resources, limited housing and so on.

The far-left want to think that the goverment is being nasty on immigration and so unfair to immigrants, the far-right wants to be harsh on immigrants whilst pretending it's all very reasonable because the countries stretched.

Politically the end solution is hard to reach, we know the facts, we just need to adress it practically and with some compassion.

And the royal family are fine (even if they didn't receive "wages" key members are filthy rich, inherited wealth eh?) in fact most of the minor members have jobs (32 room mansions are expensive to maintain), the queen is a figurehead that's excellent for tourism and aside from the moralising at other family members for what they can or can't do (hey every family does that) they are pretty human.

No point dehumanising them, unless ofc it makes you feel superior and justifies hating them insanely

 

[Culanan]

I hardly think there's going to be a racial cleansing programme in the UK like there has been in the Balkans, its not in the nature of the English to take action in such a way anyway, we've always been reactionary rather than revolutionary - that's something that will never change.

True enough, we have a civil revolt over the poll tax, meet the king on the field of battle and go "look m8, don't abdicate or anything, it's just this stupid poll tax that's pissed us right off, get rid of it and everythings hunky dory and we can go home and have a nice cuppa".

I don't think we want to change a great deal here, just enjoy what we got

 

[Job]

No easy answers no easy answers for anything really.
From my own experience, I feel racism brewing in my mind when confronted with large amounts of people displaying a foriegn culture in my country.

You can't just tell me not to feel this, the only solution is for me to get used to it.

We feel comfortable with the people around us because they act and dress in a way that makes me trust them not to do anything dodgy, any person in the street could harm or kill you at a whim, our culture is a reassuring barrier between anarchy and civilisation, large amounts of people who don't observe the 'rules' are a threat, until we accept their presence.

You may say 'ffs i don't think the Indian guy in the shop want's to kill me'
This reaction is much deeper, it is a survival mechanism, evolved in our primal past, which surfaces as racism.

 

[Rookiescot]

Good thread this .... have enjoyed reading peoples comments.

When people feel threatened they often go on the offensive. Some people feel that their "British way of life" is currently under threat from a perceived influx of immigrants.
Hence the rise in popularity of the BNP for example.
Fact is people have freely moved from one country (or area ) to another for 1000's of years but since we became more "civilised" border controls have steadily tightened as countries became more insular.
The media do have to shoulder a great deal of the blame for the recent hype over immigration. In fact the media often create headlines just for something to print.
Currently we here in Scotland are being subjected to just such a tactic. The Sun newspaper is running a campaign to get all its readers to back Croatia in the Euro 2004 competition (seeing as how the Scotland National team decided not to take part by letting everyone beat them ).
Almost every day its front page news and pictures of some numpty wearing a Croatian scarf. Hell they even got the girls on page 3 wearing nothing but a Croatian scarf.
Now I might be a little cynical here but if their campaign takes off will the English version of the Sun newspaper be carrying headlines about racist and bitter Scots supporting Croatia rather than "Backing our Boys" ?

 

[Culanan]

Now I might be a little cynical here but if their campaign takes off will the English version of the Sun newspaper be carrying headlines about racist and bitter Scots supporting Croatia rather than "Backing our Boys" ?

If I know the scots well enough it's more like "back anyone but the english"

My fathers a glaswegian, I remember the attitude towards chinese and indians quite well and although the comments were quite politically incorrect I remember no malice or ill will. Certainly those who settled in Scotland seemed to have adopted many scottish values (as well as the accent ofc!) and are quite proud to be considered scottish as well as their own ethinic background, something that is a lot less common amongst young bengalis (for example) I know in london, who seem to despise the english, support saddam hussain and think sep 11 was a great moment for them.

I think they themselves suffer a crisis of cultural identity, with many young men having sex outside of marriage, drinking, smoking weed and so on. At some point they have to try and contend with what is required of them by their own culture or risk being shut out by family and the larger community, I think the natural thing for some of them is to turn against the opposing culture.

 

[Job]

Yeah, but it won't last 3/4 generation Muslims/Indians will reject their culture for the 'easy' western one.

Have noticed how badly the BNP have done it UK elections though.
Trounced is a good description.

Though I will have to say, most easily led people I know who were considering a BNP vote, didn't vote at all.

 

[Culanan]

Yeah, but it won't last 3/4 generation Muslims/Indians will reject their culture for the 'easy' western one.

Have noticed how badly the BNP have done it UK elections though.
Trounced is a good description.

Though I will have to say, most easily led people I know who were considering a BNP vote, didn't vote at all.

Voterapathy4tehlackofchange

Don't underestimate the binding nature of extended family cultures, they work very well in their own way.

Voting for the BNP is the nasty way to regulate immigration controls anyway, most immigrants I know (those who work and pay taxes) feel the UK can't handle so many people but the black market economy lives on.

Mind you the demand for east european builders is so high that maybe if our own weren't so damn dodgy in the quality of work they do they wouldn't be needed quite so much

 

[dub]

<Being a history student, as well as being British, I'd like to claim I know a little about the British monarchy. As far as the thread goes, well...>

*being an uneducated european there was some of your points i didnt quite catch.

<Its pretty much gibberish, nobody seems to have any idea about what the role of the monarchy is, why it exists and what could be done to make it better suit present day situation.>

*was under the assumption that monarchy didnt have a role to play in a democracy , mainly because rights of birth dont go well with 1 man 1 vote.

<As far for the Sweedish royal family, it is hardly realistic to compare them to the British royal family. Its laughable to look upon them in the same light. Through my studies I occassionably happen upon information about them and well without going into specifics, they have left little or no impression on me. They are in historical terms an irrelivance. It not like anything they ever did, or probably will do effects anything of any significance in the world. I suppose here you can argue they are profiting from doing nothing of any significance.>

*maybe a google search will help , try Gustavus Adolphus or something , through my gapfilled and highly sporadic knowledge of swedish history i seem to recall they were major players at a time in european history.

<Luther once said of the diposing of Kings and Princes, "why run the risk of removing a Prince you dislike, when all it achieves is the chance for an even more dislikeable Prince to take over". When the French Chopped of Louis the XVI head all they got in reward was Napoleon. After the russians got rid of the Tsar, Lenin and Stalin. After William the Second of Germany abdicated due to revolution Germany got a string of Generals and eventually Hitler.>

*well the french got the republic , the russians got the soviet union and the germans got the weimar republic , all was better tries than their predessors , anything that claim right to govern by divine rights cant really be replaced by anything worse.

<Only fools criticise something they know nothing about. I think the royal family deserve what we give them, for what they give us. It is much easier to forget all the great things they have achieved then remember. We pay modern politicans a lot more for doing a lot less in my opinion.>

*it is very hard doing a cost benefit analysis of royalty , because goodwill is difficult to translate into a hard number , actually i think its a general loss in terms of profit to uphold royalty and money could be better spend , but even if it turn out they they should generate an income i still rather have a president , presidents usually suffer less from to much inbreeding.

<Maybe its becuase you are not British you can't understand the positive influence of monarchy, maybe its because its convenient to blame them for problems created elsewhere. I don't know, all I know is that we British are luckier then any other nation when it came to our royal family.>

*no it is because democracy so flawfilled it may be works better than royalty
and then you cant really have people born to certain jobs.

 

[SilverHood]

+ the point i was trying to make is that this englishness we are so proud of comes from the fact we are a nation of immigrants. There is no such thing as an english aboriginal, they were all wiped out by successive invaders.

The Welsh and the people of Cornwall have always been here. For as long as it mattered, anyway.

Of course, the people of Wales call themselves Welsh, rather than English...
And the people of Cornwall... well, they speak Cornish, and call themselves whatever they like

 

[Culanan]

The Welsh and the people of Cornwall have always been here. For as long as it mattered, anyway.

Of course, the people of Wales call themselves Welsh, rather than English...
And the people of Cornwall... well, they speak Cornish, and call themselves whatever they like

And the People in the SE of England are of stlong saxon descent and those in the midlands have stlong Viking roots

Only have to look at the appearence of people and their names for that.

 

[Bunnytwo]

When it comes down to it I don't think that we could get rid of the monarchy legally anyway, would require a bloody revolution (or threat of) or buying them off, as when comes down to it it would require the monarch to sign the act of parliament authorising the dissolution of monarchy. Can't really see that happening myself.

As for whether the monarchy provides value for money, you can't really count the income they receive from the state as a straight expence as you have to right it off against the value of the land which was given in exchange for this income which if I remember rightly was a rather prime part of central London.

As for immigration I'm all in favour, but at very least think we should operate the systems used by most countries of granting people residency on the grounds of the skills they will be bringing to the country.

 

[Ormorof]

some of the things people say about immigrants is quite amusing though, especially when they try and convince me that immigrants are evil (like the BNP guy who come to my door) and apparently britain should be strict on immigrants...... i didnt bother telling him i was an immigrant before he left

 

[Ormorof]

hmm, i wanted to clarify my post but ran out of time to edit while typing

basically what i find amusing about some people's opinions in UK is that im considered more "british" than another friend of mine who's family have been living in the UK for around 50 years.... where as i only moved here 6 or so years ago

(he is from a pakistani family, im danish, or at least so my passport tells me!)

and then you get the people talking about "damn foreigners stealing our jobs" right in front of you! it can get very frustrating sometimes but the look on their faces when they remember im not british is priceless

 

[Bunnytwo]

(like the BNP guy who come to my door) and apparently britain should be strict on immigrants...... i didnt bother telling him i was an immigrant before he left

Lol