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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

To think it's all so hypocritical re. War Heros and modern day immigration

23 replies

Toomuch2young · 02/08/2015 19:48

I am getting so fed up of work colleagues and aquantinces ranting and raving about 'immigration' 'protecting the British way of life' and linking it in some bizarre way to the 'lest we should forget' remembering War Heroes?
Don't get me wrong I am very grateful and thankful to all the people who died in the first and Second World Wars and I think the bravery was staggering and the conditions horrendous. They have my upmost respect and I always buy a poppy etc.
What I find abhorrent is how so many people now seem to be twisting this and making it about modern day policies. 'Share this if you are against immigration and upholding the British way of life' and 'they didn't die for it to be a Muslim state'. The two just are not linked! Do they not know the basics of history. I have deleted a couple of right wing loonies off my facebook. But got into a very heated discussion with a colleague who called me shameful and unpatriotic because I won't oppose immigration, am not in favour of modern day wars and don't feel an inaate Pride in a country I just happen to be born in, why am
I more deserving of privilege than someone who wasn't born here?
So AIBU that it is they the deluded ones who need to learn a little on history and politics or am I mistaken??

OP posts:
happymummyone · 02/08/2015 22:20

YANBU. I personally don't subscribe to all that rubbish either. It's almost shameful to admit it, because the majority lap it up! Immigration bad! Send em all back! Taking all our jobs! Scrounges! Causing trouble for our troops! I sometimes wonder if the people that spout this crap have actually considered whether it's what they actually think and feel or what they think they should think and feel.

SeenSheen · 02/08/2015 23:52

Well you've come to the right place OP. I'm sure the Mumsnet mafia will be along soon to pat you on the back and welcome you into the fold. Just ignore the majority at work they obviously have no idea and sound like they read the Daily Mail. Shocking!

ghostyslovesheep · 02/08/2015 23:56

YANBU - my grandfather who was at D day and fought all through Europe and into Africa would agree with you as well if he was still alive x

CuttedUpPear · 02/08/2015 23:58

YANBU

GiddyOnZackHunt · 03/08/2015 00:01

My grandad was called up from a previously protected job. He didn't skip off to war on a principle particularly as he had a mum and brothers to support. Did he want his home overrun by Nazis? Of course not. Who was he fighting for? His family.
He was a good man who saw awful things as he moved across Europe.
I don't profess to know what he thought and the 'They fought for ...' posts annoy me.

GiddyOnZackHunt · 03/08/2015 00:02

My friend's dad was an immigrant. An immigrant who flew Spitfires.

PausingFlatly · 03/08/2015 00:18

It would come as a bit of a shock to those folk, then, to realise many of the War Heroes were furriners?

It was British and Imperial troops who fought in both wars - West Indians, South Africans, Somalians, Australians...

The Indian Army in particular bore a huge burden in the early years of WWI. Makes sense as soon as you think about it: the professional British Army was comparatively small in number at the outbreak of war, so the professional Indian Army was shipped in to fill the breach while all those Kitchener recruits were training.

Indian Army during World War I

mimishimmi · 03/08/2015 00:20

I think the wars and the psychological aftermath have had a lot to do with the demographic/economic need for immigration frankly. My grandfather fought in WW2 (and forebears in the wars before that). It was our own who blew us up (by funding and arming the states we fought against in the first place amongst other dastardly deeds) and made a very comfortable living from doing that. I'll not turn murderer for the state because they are feeling uncomfortable with the consequences (only to live in abject poverty again like relatives did during and after wars).

We fight for, and come back to, nothing. ALWAYS. Why people fall for this same shit over and over again is beyond me.

Dontloookbackinanger · 03/08/2015 00:23

I don't feel an inaate Pride in a country I just happen to be born in

Methinks you have it too good. Try going to live in a 3rd world country for a while and you might just learn to appreciate the British justice system, the liberties we enjoy, the NHS, that we have a benefits system.

Also, I don't know your particular circumstances, but I didn't "just happen to be born here". My DM wasn't a nomad just passing through. My parents and ancestors are British.

Nibledbyducks · 03/08/2015 01:40

My Grandfather was one of the first Radar instructors in WW2 and ended up stationed in Turkey, where he lied with a Muslim family for 4 years. He was an art teacher and spent his time off making the most beautiful drawings of Mosques. He taught me all abot the Muezin and the call to prayer, and how to tell when to pray in the desert by the lenght of your shadow. He was a commited Christian who beleived that fighting the Nazis was a moral obligation, not just to Britain but to everyone. He and many others fought for freedom of person, speech and religion. It makes me sick that his memory is twisted into some sort of anti-Islam agenda by people who have no idea what they're talking about.

Bleakhouse1879 · 03/08/2015 02:32

I'm delighted I have this evening discovered I'm not the only one that hates this mentality regarding immigration and trying to connect to the second world war. I have friends that call me unpatriotic (as if that is an insult) because I welcome immigration and diversity. Everyone here has given me a bit of ammo for the next time the St George's Day Anti-immigration England-til-I-die mob start lecturing me on why we should fill the Channel tunnel with concrete. The other argument I hate which usually comes with this is that we should pull out of the EU to protect Britain. An argument so ill-conceived I can no longer be bothered to challenge it.

Atenco · 03/08/2015 03:14

Nibledbyducks Your grandfather sounds lovely and you describe him beautifully.

TheseventeenthSixteen · 03/08/2015 04:20

I totally agree. In y WW2 allied troops were utterly horrified at what was happening to 'furriners'. Many were traumatised by what they saw when they went into the concentration camps. There was pride in defeating tyranny and liberating the oppressed.

The people desperately leaving Syria, Eritrea, Sudan etc, are also escaping dreadful lives, but throughout Europe they appear to be 'swarms' of opportunists, who must be sent back to whatever hell they risk their lives to get out of.

If it wasn't for the UK's attitude at the time to 'others', as a 2nd generation Brit from a Russian Jewish family, I wouldn't be here typing this. I'd not have been born because my grandparents would have been murdered in the pogroms that wiped out the population of the ghetto they lived in. I'm bloody lucky the Brits in the early years of the last century, didn't want to send my grandparents back home to die, when they grabbed everything they had to escape the next wave of pogroms.

My Dad was always proud and grateful to be British. He taught morse code and electronics in WW2 and was honoured to be able to do his bit for the country that had given his parents the chance of a new and safer life. There is a growing number of people now who have de-humanised the desperate individuals who make up the 'swarm' in Calais. They are just a threat and a problem to be rid of.

OfaFrenchMind · 03/08/2015 04:43

Connecting WW2 heroes and today immigration is stupid.
So is going the other way and opening the doors to all and sundry because "they fought so that every body and their dog could live in Europe (and UK)"....

Moopsboopsmum · 03/08/2015 05:11

My grandad was an Irish traveller immigrant to the UK as a baby. He suffered racism and religious intolerance all his life. He was conscripted (for his building skills, of course) to the British Army in his 30's to fight for a country that hated him. He landed at Sword Beach, fought through Europe then on to Malaya. He had severe PTSD which robbed him of his faith and sanity and lead him to commit suicide in his early 70's. He was a true hero and I am afraid to say he hated EVERYONE who wasn't white and Catholic. He would be totally horrified and disgusted to see the state of his adopted home in South London. But I do think it is wrong to use their experiences and sacrifices in WW2 to fight today's political and ideological battles.

PtolemysNeedle · 03/08/2015 07:25

YANBU.

But I do think that we should be linking what happened in WW2 to events that are making people suffer horrifically today. If we hadn't colluded with America to invade Palestine and turn it into a Jewish state where people are oppressed and continue to have their homes stolen from them today, we might not have such a problem with extremists hating us.

Original poster
Toomuch2young · 03/08/2015 07:49

Thank you. I did realise that I wasn't the only one to have those views, it's just seems the 'other side' are shouting loudest at the moment.

dontlookback I think you misunderstood me. Of course I am endlessly grateful to of been born into a country that offers such comparative safety and freedom. Everyday I feel privileged in that respect. However how can I feel some claim over that if that is to mean denying others such freedoms? How can I be 'proud' of something I have had the fortune to be born into? Should someone born into a war torn poverty struck country therefore feel shame? I am proud of my family, my achievements, friends successes, things I have fought etc. I do not feel the same sense of 'pride' over a country I am born, as its not some personal triumph to of had the privelege of being born here. Grateful yes. Proud no. Is a difference.
And in that is actually in recent years with the tories cuts and divisive policies, their selling off of our institutions and further separating the gaps between the rich and poor, forcing the most vulnerable members of society into poverty I am not sure all those things you talked about will even stand in the years to come.

OP posts:
Mrsjayy · 03/08/2015 10:06

Many many displaced europeans settled in the uk after the war where i live there is people with Zs in their surname that isnt a traditional scottish surname this rubbish folk spout about migraints and the war heros is shit we went to war to fight for liberty not to keep them out. The likes of EDL adopted the war heros thing and its dripped through to mainstream

RachelRagged · 03/08/2015 10:13

Interesting Mrsjayy

Like Lena Lazaroni ?

Mrsjayy · 03/08/2015 10:23

Where i live there is loads of polish (easter european) and italian surnames that are more than likely 4th generation

Mrsjayy · 03/08/2015 10:23

Eastern not easter Blush

LazyLohan · 03/08/2015 10:26

The U.S. didn't invade Palestine.

RachelRagged · 03/08/2015 10:33

Thanks for explaining ,

I do believe Lena was of Italian heritage wasn't she

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