RE: Across the Pond.....
June 3, 2014 at 11:50 am
(This post was last modified: June 3, 2014 at 11:52 am by Fidel_Castronaut.)
I'll be succinct as this is the topic of my PhD and also Nap (above) has covered some great points already.
1. Lack of town planning at demographic and physical structural level - 'White flight' in the 60s created de facto ghettos of poverty among minority ethnic communities which was increased by the lack of cultural and social integration at a nationwide level by successive governments.
2. Social and cultural divergence as a result of the above - Competing systems of 'how to do things' are beginning to see cracks in social cohesion (riots in cities, lines of segregation being drawn, sometimes literally).
3. Widening gaps between rich & poor - Amplifies the above 10x regardless of community and further degrades any hope of having integration. And this in fact happens to both 'white' and 'non-white' communities. I actually live in Birmingham that Nap mentions above, but in a comparatively wealthy area where integration is seemless. Go 5 minutes down the road though and you see white and non-white 'communities' and the lines that divide them. They are generally poor, financially, educationally, health (etc), and it shows. As Nap says, you can physically see the degradation.
4. (finally) Massive failure of multicultural policies over the past 3 or so decades. And I don't mean the physical fact of multiculturalism, I mean the norms, implemented by convention and law. This was exemplified by the phrase 'a community of communities', to which the egalitarian in me dies a little every time I hear someone trot it out. If there's one thing seeking to work against community cohesion as much as it says it's working to foster it, it's the notion that every community should get its own rights enshrined in a law or legal exemption (eg. not banning halal or kosher foods when, had it not been a 'religious right', it would have been banned immediately and people prosecuted through, for example. the Slaughter houses act).
But nothing represents this more insidiously than FGM, and the fact it's gone unabated for decades because politicians and police have been too scared (or inept) top confront it. Indeed, I can add the same argument to Male circumcision, but as that is not illegal and FGM is, the fact that the élite have turned a blind eye to it when they know it goes on and they know who does it pisses me off no end. And I, too, have been labelled a racist when I confronted a Muslim guy in a research seminar debate during my research on this topic with my thoughts above. Arguing against cultural or religious barbarism is NOT an act of racism, but all too often it is viewed as such by the powers that be.
Little things like this build to big things like disenchantment with the entire political system in the eyes of the average person.
1. Lack of town planning at demographic and physical structural level - 'White flight' in the 60s created de facto ghettos of poverty among minority ethnic communities which was increased by the lack of cultural and social integration at a nationwide level by successive governments.
2. Social and cultural divergence as a result of the above - Competing systems of 'how to do things' are beginning to see cracks in social cohesion (riots in cities, lines of segregation being drawn, sometimes literally).
3. Widening gaps between rich & poor - Amplifies the above 10x regardless of community and further degrades any hope of having integration. And this in fact happens to both 'white' and 'non-white' communities. I actually live in Birmingham that Nap mentions above, but in a comparatively wealthy area where integration is seemless. Go 5 minutes down the road though and you see white and non-white 'communities' and the lines that divide them. They are generally poor, financially, educationally, health (etc), and it shows. As Nap says, you can physically see the degradation.
4. (finally) Massive failure of multicultural policies over the past 3 or so decades. And I don't mean the physical fact of multiculturalism, I mean the norms, implemented by convention and law. This was exemplified by the phrase 'a community of communities', to which the egalitarian in me dies a little every time I hear someone trot it out. If there's one thing seeking to work against community cohesion as much as it says it's working to foster it, it's the notion that every community should get its own rights enshrined in a law or legal exemption (eg. not banning halal or kosher foods when, had it not been a 'religious right', it would have been banned immediately and people prosecuted through, for example. the Slaughter houses act).
But nothing represents this more insidiously than FGM, and the fact it's gone unabated for decades because politicians and police have been too scared (or inept) top confront it. Indeed, I can add the same argument to Male circumcision, but as that is not illegal and FGM is, the fact that the élite have turned a blind eye to it when they know it goes on and they know who does it pisses me off no end. And I, too, have been labelled a racist when I confronted a Muslim guy in a research seminar debate during my research on this topic with my thoughts above. Arguing against cultural or religious barbarism is NOT an act of racism, but all too often it is viewed as such by the powers that be.
Little things like this build to big things like disenchantment with the entire political system in the eyes of the average person.
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