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?

It was friendlier in the past as long as you:

weren't black, Irish or a gypsy
weren't Jewish
weren't an unmarried mother or an illegitimate child
weren't divorced
weren't a slatternly housewife
didn't have SEN or any sort of physical disability
stayed in your social class/gender box and didn't get ideas out of your station
weren't homosexual, bisexual or transgender

I prefer what we have now.

thing is, if someone was paying for their petrol and had say a speech impedient, or a hearing disability, or had trouble seeing their coins...would you offer patience to THEM, NothingIsAsBad?

I dont see how not having English as a first language is a reason to be angry with another customer at a petrol station - horrific attitude if it does make you so angry. Look into getting that fixed before you give yourself high blood pressure or worse

Op do you ever eat that furrin' food? Like Chinese or Indian?

Well given that I made the effort to learn the language of the country I only lived in for a year I feel that others should also make the effort...

Unfortunately when your ds is desperate to 'go' but wont as there are too many people 15 minutes to pay for fuel is far too long

Oh please NothingIs. Take your DS to wee against the wheel of your car if he is so desparate, dont make it a pathetic excuse to barage someone who doesnt understand the language of the cashier

eugh

Well given that I made the effort to learn the language of the country I only lived in for a year I feel that others should also make the effort...

You have no idea what effort people have put into learning the language. Different people have very different linguistic abilities.

I'm sure this has been said but I've only so much time to spend on another bigotry thread before my blood pressure goes through the roof.

But ... did you mean to imply eastern europeans don't 'contribute' to society? Had I better tell my DH to bugger off with his good degree and his hard work and the taxes he pays, then? After all, then I could get the tax payer paying all my council tax! Excellent!

Morning.

We don't want to censor discussion of this country's immigrants patterns (although it might be quieter day at MNHQ if we did!).

But we'd like to remind you all of our Talk Guidelines, please - in particular the rules about no personal attacks (feel free to attack the opinion but not the poster) and about making generalised, negative and discriminatory statements about a particular cultural or racial group.

I dont see how not having English as a first language is a reason to be angry with another customer at a petrol station - horrific attitude if it does make you so angry. Look into getting that fixed before you give yourself high blood pressure or worse

It wasn't the fact that english wasn't their first language that was the problem it was the fact that they didn't know a single word that the person on the tills could understand. How long would they have had to wait if they hadn't been rescued by someone who knew both languages? I'd have been so stressed if I couldn't communicate well enough for someone to know what I wanted

Ooh yes. Let's send everyone back where they came from except for white people born in Britain.

So there go my DF and his family.... And the lady who runs the Oxfam branch I volunteer at... And an aunt and uncle on my DM's side... Oh, and DW and her family becase they're black. Except that would mean sending them to Romford and DD to Leicester. Hmm.

you dont know the circumstances that the person was in the country for

• on holiday?
• fleeing a wartorn country? having lost many family members already?
• on a work trip or a language course?!!!!

I would prefer an intergrated Britain. Multicultural seems to be to divide more than unite.

very close to asking MN HQ to pull each and every one of these threads with a strong undercurrent of racism disguised as 'I was only saying...'

it's as incendiary of the OPs who start such threads as going and taking part in a riot if you ask me. I mean, it is akin to going and starting a street riot by the OPs...except they are doing it behind their net curtains and their laptops while eating pot noodles most likely

nothing - how do you know?

Either you speak both languages (in which case I don't get why you didn't help out), or you're assuming she couldn't communicate but you don't actually know what she was trying to say, right?

My old boss had a thick Glasgow accent and regularly thought he was speaking perfectly clearly to the locals who spoke broad (flat!) Midlands. People often asked me why he didn't just say what he wanted. He was saying it, they just couldn't understand.

Maybe this person thought she was saying the right words, and was making an effort. Maybe she thought she'd got it down and she hadn't. Maybe she was used to pay-at-the-pump stations where you don't need to interact with someone.

You cannot possibly judge someone on seeing one tiny snapshot of their life.

My brother is getting on for fluent in German, but still occasionally it deserts him. His wife is fluent in English but very, very rarely there used to be situations where she was stumped. You might well judge them in those situations, but you don't know they are working on their languages and also contributing.

Or just having a bad day ifso

I live in another European country and went to book a table at a local restaurant the other day. Normally I can do this in the local lingo (I'm not fluent but speak enough to get by). On this occassion for unknown reasons I got into a complete panic and my brain emptied of every bit of language I'd learnt. Thankfully the receptionist spoke English so I was saved, although I did look like a complete numpty.

I disagree strongly with the views on these threads ifso but I would never ask MN to pull them. And nor should they

People are entitled to their views and we are entitled to disagree with them.

Cantspel
I don't agree, if multiculturalism unites then why do people come in to britain but want their own shops places of worship etc? I don't think that is what they want, I think they want the best of both worlds, to leave their own country and turns ours into a mini version of theirs but only with the bits that suit, what happened to when in Rome?

What people mean when they worry aloud against multiculturalism is money, specifically theirs. The fear is that new people will take the cash or services of the existing people. The facts are:

1. White working class people, specifically men, are being outclassed at school by everyone else. That's due to poverty of aspiration, not their poverty or the poverty of anyone else - if you're foreign-born, you tend to be less well off.

1. In what first appears to be a gift to the BNP, welfare claimants are miles more likely to be foreign-born than Brits of any size/colour. That's because UK welfare pays out to the eligible the moment you hit Dover, unlike most of the rest of Europe where you have to live there for a bit. But you can hardly blame someone who is skint & not working for claiming what's legally theirs. Anyway, UK welfare (for the unemployed) is very mean compared to the rest of Europe.

1. Still talking about people who haven't paid in but are taking out? The huge welfare burden is pensions, not immigrants.

1. The huge NHS burden is pensioners, not immigrants. Although the NHS refuses to give figures, apparently 90-95 per cent of NHS spending goes on OAPs. Heard anyone suggesting flying the contents of a geriatric ward overseas?

1. Housing. I live in Central London, and flats designed for 1 person are often inhabited by 4 or 5 people, or, in the case of the lads across my hall, 12 people. They all came over from Pakistan and all work in badly paid service jobs. Of course housing is a huge social problem now in England, but I don't think UK natives are the ones suffering most. Yep, 12 people = 1 bedroom.

The government won't deal with it because the inflated value of the housing stock is the only thing in this country that's worth money these days (no industry, big firms owned abroad etc) - UKplc is a property business.

charlie - I'm sure you're lovely and delightful and ignorant of the meaning of 'cretin', but it is one of my bugbears because it's originally a nasty term for someone with severe congenital learning disabilities. It's up to you of course, but if by any chance you didn't know that, maybe you'd think about using something else?

As you were, folks.

cantspel Wed 12-Dec-12 12:08:07
"I would prefer an intergrated Britain. Multicultural seems to be to divide more than unite."

So exactly how integrated would I have to be to avoid dividing this country?

Is it ok if I speak my own language in my own home with the door and windows closed? What about speaking it in my garden where the neighbours can overhear? What about when ds and I are walking down the road?

Does every meal I cook have to be British or can I get away with the same amount of foreign food as my English neighbours? And does it have to be the same kind of foreign food?

Can I watch foreign films on TV if they are not from my own culture?

monkey, what's wrong with wanting the best of both worlds?

Do you really mean, you'd much prefer it if we all ignored all imports just to spite the nasty nasty immigrants?

I read somewhere that about the only edible thing that's properly native to Britain is kale.

Yep.

I think I like imports!!

monkeyfarm Wed 12-Dec-12 12:12:46
Cantspel
"I don't agree, if multiculturalism unites then why do people come in to britain but want their own shops places of worship etc? I don't think that is what they want, I think they want the best of both worlds, to leave their own country and turns ours into a mini version of theirs but only with the bits that suit, what happened to when in Rome?"

You mean like the Anglican church in my Swedish hometown?

monkey - they dont bring their places of worship etc with them, such buildings have existed for many many years, even before you were born

what is your ideal world? I can but guess...

Want their own shops????

You mean local shops that actually sell food? Rather than fags, spongy bread, pot noodles, baked beans and an awesome variety of confectionary?

How strange.

And are white British people not allowed in the shops that sell this food?