To not like this Idea of a new multicultural Britain

[monkeyfarm]

I suspect this probably won't go down too well but I'm just being honest as I'm interested to see if I'm the only one who feels this way?
I hate how things are changing, how I can be in a store feel like I'm in eastern europe, why are we one of the only countries that do this? why can't we take a leaf out of the book of Australia and open our doors to people who have something to contribute and not just all and sundry?
Am I on my own in feeling this way?

margaret, I am afraid it was. You have to remember the visceral hatred of the left, of the impact of Thatcher. I also happen to believe the intentions of the Gramski movement to be a real policy plan. No other ideleology makes the illogic of what has happened in our country in the last 15 years, have any sense.

In 2009 Andrew Neather, a former Labour Home Office and Downing Street adviser, revealed that mass immigration was a deliberate policy by the Left to change the social fabric of the country and to ?rub the Right?s nose in diversity?.
This was never discussed publicly because Labour strategists feared it would upset the party?s traditional white working-class support. For self-interested political reasons, the public could not possibly be consulted.
Mass immigration gratified the Left in two ways that have inflicted enormous damage on our country. It furthered the notion of multiculturalism ? undermining national identity and common values, and preventing the successful integration of immigrant communities into the British cultural mainstream.
Moreover, at a time of growing economic crisis, it added an enormous number of people to Labour?s client state.
Recent immigrants were grateful for their admission to the country, and for the costly safety net of the welfare state that was provided for them: a gratitude that, Labour hoped, would help it garner more votes at elections.
That aside, it is generally accepted that new arrivals to a country ? who are often relatively impoverished ? are more likely to vote for Leftish governments.

Also at this time Gordon 'I have ended boom and bust' Brown saw the immigration of low-skilled labour, as another way of keeping inflation down (remember we were in a boom). Immigrants undercut wages and therefore kept a lid on rising costs.

Instead of parrotting the self-hating mantra 'multiculti is marvellous and everyone luffs eachother' MN should try and raise the debate a little bit more and project what might happen in the future. What will happen in Tower Hamlets and Bradford in 10 year's time? It that OK?

Gramscianism: nicely proven by reams and reams of MN luffliness. Lots of Useful Idiots (Lenin) in these political discussions. Also showing how effective Progressive State Education has been!

The idea of a ?third face of power?, or ?invisible power? has its roots partly, in Marxist thinking about the pervasive power of ideology, values and beliefs in reproducing class relations and concealing contradictions (Heywood, 1994: 100). Marx recognised that economic exploitation was not the only driver behind capitalism, and that the system was reinforced by a dominance of ruling class ideas and values ? leading to Engels?s famous concern that ?false consciousness? would keep the working class from recognising and rejecting their oppression (Heywood, 1994: 85).

False consciousness, in relation to invisible power, is itself a ?theory of power? in the Marxist tradition. It is particularly evident in the thinking of Lenin, who ?argued that the power of ?bourgeois ideology? was such that, left to its own devices, the proletariat would only be able to achieve ?trade union consciousness?, the desire to improve their material conditions but within the capitalist system? (Heywood 1994: 85). A famous analogy is made to workers accepting crumbs that fall off the table (or indeed are handed out to keep them quiet) rather than claiming a rightful place at the table.

The Italian communist Antonio Gramsci, imprisoned for much of his life by Mussolini, took these idea further in his Prison Notebooks with his widely influential notions of ?hegemony? and the ?manufacture of consent? (Gramsci 1971). Gramsci saw the capitalist state as being made up of two overlapping spheres, a ?political society? (which rules through force) and a ?civil society? (which rules through consent). This is a different meaning of civil society from the ?associational? view common today, which defines civil society as a ?sector? of voluntary organisations and NGOs. Gramsci saw civil society as the public sphere where trade unions and political parties gained concessions from the bourgeois state, and the sphere in which ideas and beliefs were shaped, where bourgeois ?hegemony? was reproduced in cultural life through the media, universities and religious institutions to ?manufacture consent? and legitimacy (Heywood 1994: 100-101).

The political and practical implications of Gramsci?s ideas were far-reaching because he warned of the limited possibilities of direct revolutionary struggle for control of the means of production; this ?war of attack? could only succeed with a prior ?war of position? in the form of struggle over ideas and beliefs, to create a new hegemony (Gramsci 1971). This idea of a ?counter-hegemonic? struggle ? advancing alternatives to dominant ideas of what is normal and legitimate ? has had broad appeal in social and political movements. It has also contributed to the idea that ?knowledge? is a social construct that serves to legitimate social structures (Heywood 1994: 101).

In practical terms, Gramsci?s insights about how power is constituted in the realm of ideas and knowledge ? expressed through consent rather than force ? have inspired the use of explicit strategies to contest hegemonic norms of legitimacy. Gramsci?s ideas have influenced popular education practices, including the adult literacy and consciousness-raising methods of Paulo Freire in his Pedagogy of the Oppressed (1970), liberation theology, methods of participatory action research (PAR), and many approaches to popular media, communication and cultural action.

The idea of power as ?hegemony? has also influenced debates about civil society. Critics of the way civil society is narrowly conceived in liberal democratic thought ? reduced to an ?associational? domain in contrast to the state and market ? have used Gramsci?s definition to remind us that civil society can also be a public sphere of political struggle and contestation over ideas and norms. The goal of ?civil society strengthening? in development policy can thus be pursued either in a neo-liberal sense of building civic institutions to complement (or hold to account) states and markets, or in a Gramscian sense of building civic capacities to think differently, to challenge assumptions and norms, and to articulate new ideas and visions.

IvyKatie - can you check the history section I've left you a post?

Thanks wobbly. Interesting reading.

My dh lived in Sydney for 6 months, its incredibly ethnically diverse and fantastic.

As for us I couldn't give a shiny shite what colour or creed my neighbour is as long as they abide by the law, live productive, fulfilled and happy lives and spread good cheer all year.

"My dh lived in Sydney for 6 months, its incredibly ethnically diverse and fantastic."

Apart from a noticeable absence of Australia's indigenous black population.........

There are some monumentally stupid statements on here.

My farming friends have been using migrant workers since the early 90s. That is a long time!
Immigrants cannot work until they are "legal".
Immigrants will have no access to benefits etc unless they have completed a lot of requirements including often being in full time employment for 5 years.
My mother, married to a person with a British passport, will not be allowed to move to the Uk unless she jumps through some pretty substantial hoops for a 60 year old!
And as for all immigrants being working class I can't think of more than 10% of my DC's school class who are "white British". This is a few paying school with like minded immigrants who have come to work hard and get the best for our children whilst paying immense amounts of tax! There are barristers, solicitors, doctors, dentists, accountants, actuaries... Yes a bunch of scroungers :-/

Ivy Katy can you find me in the family history section

Hear hear numerical mum. A lot of this gets lost in the far right / daily fail rhetoric.

'There are some monumentally stupid statements on here. My farming friends have been using migrant workers since the early 90s. That is a long time!'

The person who is being momumentally stupid here is you, Numerical. Telling people they are monumentally stupid sadly for you, doesn't make them so. You are comparing apples (migratory labour pattens of the 90s) with oranges (uncontrolled immigration and the imposition of multicultural theory), for a start, but you are also overlooking something. Think that statement through! Think about it!

WHY, in the early 90s, were farmers required to import labour, when there was a large pool of unemployed in Britain? I also come from a farming family. The pickers used to be the women from the surrounding villagers, why did that change?

Remember the question is; WHY? Leave out the fall of the Berlin Wall. (the answer is not party political)

Answers (economic, not rhetorical, insulting or emotional) on a back of a post card. Think, Mumsnet, Think!

Click, grind whirrrrrr...

Were farmers "required to" import labour, though, and if so, who required them to?

seeker, there are urban indigenous people in Sydney, though unless you go to the wrong right bits you are not likely to meet them. i say this because one way for Australians and Americans/canadians not to deal with the problem of indigenousness is to say that only full-blooded tribal people 'count' as indigenous. But as a former land rights campaigner, I used to hang out in Redfern with a lot of people with the usual range of problems caused by poverty, and some of them were indigenous Australians. Redfern has now been gentrified, and so have the sites on the harbour headlands which also had a significant Koori population in my childhood, often living in the sandstone caves where the Iora saw the white sails in the sun.

All this points to the vicious ghettoisation of Sydney, of which most tourists remain blissfully unaware. get a train west, towards Campbelltown, and you will leave the prosperous harbourside - white-dominated - and move into areas where the majority of the population is Asian. The temperature rises, and the westerlies are grilling, and the pollution becomes noticeable, and so does the poverty. None of this is their fault, and they are all working like mad to get out. But it's not the pretty picture most tourists get, either.

oh that's right seeker I've seen you on other threads...you backpacked around Australia for a month and that makes you able to get on this fucking soap box of yours about Australian Aboriginals...

Wrong person, I'm afraid. I've never actually been to Australia.

And I can only remember mentioning Austalian aborigines once.

Biut I am hqppy to claim the soapbox- it's certainly one that needs to be brought out a bit more often.

oh sorry seeker (then there is someone with a very similar name to yours who hates all Australians and thinks they're all a bunch of racist twats. If that's not you I do apologise!)

Seeker, I don't disagree with the need for the soapbox but if it's not from an accurate and informed perspective you can hurt your case (and it's one I care deeply about).

The myth that indigenous people don't live in Australia's big cities is a fairly pervasive one, and it can be quite damaging in policy terms (or at least it was 8 years ago when I was involved in ATSI policy, before I became a filthy immigrant to these shores...)

I did once get into trouble by saying I would take no lessons on racism from Australians- could that be what you are remembering?

But immigration is not uncontrolled? EU members are allowed to work here as we are allowed to work in the EU.
Most other countries are stopped from immigrating to the UK with very rigorous laws.

no I don't think so - I agree that Australia has a long way to go, but the poster I was thinking of had travelled through Australia on a working holiday visa (for 5 months I think) and then thought they were an expert on it and came on here saying how all Australian's were racist. Which obviously is a massive generalisation and utter bollocks (some are some aren't...)

Jassy I have lived in Sydney and Brisbane and saw plenty of Aboriginals living in these cities. Where I didn't see them though was in my professional/corporate world in these cities which might be where the myth comes from? (no idea, just speculating!)

NumericalMum, how is being allowed to work in the EU beneficial to most British people?

I guess you should ask all of the "ex-pats" working in Europe?
I have seen many of those "escape to " style programs with people heading to all sorts of countries setting up gites, hotels etc. I assume people prefer the warmer climate?

WhataSook (love your username!) I think that's about right and your point earlier about ghettoisation resonates.

And seeker, while I won't deny that Australia has a racism problem that doesn't make every Australian a racist - surely you see that's pretty offensive?

Australia has a pretty dark history both with its indigenous population and when it comes to non-white immigrants. But some of the made-up rubbish I've seen spouted on these threads about when things became legal/illegal in Australia make me despair for people's ability to fact check (ie use Google properly).

Fill yer boots

The pickers used to be the women from the surrounding villagers, why did that change?

I don't know. Considering that pickers are paid the absolute minimum which farmers can get away with, I imagine some people did the sums and realised they were better off doing other work, or on benefits.

I realise that statement will cause people to get upset with me, but it is a fact. Jobs such as picking fruit/veg are tough, and the local population of most Western countries are loath to do them. See: Mexican immigrants in the US, or Polish summer workers in Germany (even before the EU Germany had special visas just for Polish people to come pick asparagus, the locals could live better off their generous benefit system than do the work themselves).

People think farmers aren't "forced" to take foreign labour, but it's a very slim profit margin when the population demands cheap fruit and veg.