To be deeply disappointed in John Cleese

[drspouse]

I have no idea if this is typical but he just tweeted that London isn't an English city any more
What is it then pray tell? What's not English about it??

No, because I would still be English

I’m a Brit living in a foreign country for over a decade, i speak the language, i work here, Im completely integrated into local culture, I have dual nationality but to the people here I’m the British person.

Just like a Spanish person coming to live in England isn't then suddenly English, they are still Spanish. There is nothing wrong with this at all.

At what point do you stop? Are their children not really ''wholly English'' because of the ''still Spanish'' parents, at which point does the Spanish dilute enough to become English? Or are you setting the benchmark at having been born in England?

My grandmother wasn't born in England but she still speaks fluent English and is in every way English, lived here most of her life.

London has always been multicultural. I don't think that's a bad thing. In fact, I think London has until recently been doing multiculturalism quite well, much better than other cities like Paris.

I grew up in London. I left at 18. I would have loved to return but I have been priced out. I hear lots of people tell me that London has changed for the worse over the last decade or so, but I have never heard anyone blame multiculturalism.

It's the cost of housing. It's the fact that young people who have grown up there have a choice between leaving to find secure housing, or staying and living in poor quality insecure privately rented accommodation.

Most of my childhood friends grew up in a large high rise council estate. It has been knocked down and replaced with "affordable" and shared ownership apartments. Whole communities were lost in one swoop.
I know an elderly couple who owned one of the original flats. The council bought it on a compulsory purchase order, and then offered to sell them one of the new apartments for double the price of their flat, which they obviously couldn't afford. They were forced out of London.

Only the wealthy can afford to live there comfortably now. The working classes and immigrants are left to fight for the scraps, and then they blame each other instead of blaming the policy makers who created the situation.

If I had children there and brought them up in Spain then they would be Spanish children yes, but with a Spanish mother.

@diaduittoyou

No other nation is held hostage to its own history in the way that Britain seems to be. We wouldn’t think of holding modern Germans accountable for the sins of their ancestors during the Holocaust. Yet they too are hostage to their history, as the mass immigration of 2016 proves. And it’s not necessarily a good thing. I don’t believe they should feel obligated to atone for the wrongs of their forefathers. Some wrongs cannot be righted. Years (and perpetrators) have passed. All we can be is just and fair in our own time. To ourselves as well as others. There is no shame in wanting to preserve and treasure what we are, because we know it to be good, and worth treasuring.

My FIL wasn't born in England, but my DH was - is my DH English?

My DM wasn't born in England, she now has British nationality, when she goes "home" she's seen as English. Is she English? Is she allowed to say she is English if she wants (she says she really feels English when she goes home to her country).
What about me, I was born here but have dual nationality. Am I allowed to say I'm English?
And my DCs, they were born abroad (they are adopted) and they have dual nationality too. Can they say they are English? (I hope so, as they tend to say they are, but that they were born in X).

(All of my DM, my FIL, and my DCs spent/have spent a much greater proportion of their lives in England than in the countries of their birth).

"No other nation is held hostage to its own history in the way that Britain seems to be. We wouldn’t think of holding modern Germans accountable for the sins of their ancestors during the Holocaust. "

Are you serious? German high school students still go on trips to concentration camps and are told to think very seriously about the things that happened there. Most Germans still feel bad about waving the flag or singing the anthem, it's only in the last 10 years that that has started to change (and sadly brought some Nazi sentiments back with it.)

Meanwhile, I have met plenty of British people who think the empire was a great thing, that we helped out those countries big time, that they are all grateful, that we didn't do anything that bad. That's if they know anything about the empire at all.

Mention Germany to people and one of the first thing they think of is how awful the Nazis were. Mention the UK to people, and if they think of the empire at all, it's not looked at in any way as badly as the second world war was.

I hear you @IsabellaLinton ,however with Britain I feel the difference is the repeating of history time and time again over hundreds of years, failure to learn from mistakes and then and then an arrogance and ignorance about why other nations might have issue with them. Take Northern Ireland for example - the legacy that's been left there, the very recent results of British involvement. Really, if you grew up in NI during the troubles, witnessed the deep divisions that still exist there today and how the population don't even have access to the same human rights as the rest of the UK and yet......so much ignorance from the rest of Britain regarding their involvement in this. And dreadful arrogance at times to boot. It's soul destroying. That's a slight digression however, so I apologise!

Exactly @IAmAlwaysLikeThis - it's difficult to articulate but there is this frequent underlying tone of this great empire, its vast achievements etc - if you're from a country that's suffered the consequences of British imperialism it's truly appalling to witness!

@diaduittoyou

Maybe because, as with Germany, we have given much to the world and have made wonderful contributions to humankind. We don’t judge Germany only by its lowest ebb, it’s worst moments in a long history. We can look at it in the round. Which is not to excuse wrongdoing and cruelty, simply to say that it’s not the whole picture.

diaduittoyou yup. You just have to look at how Queen Victoria is revered to know that no-one really thinks the empire was actually that bad.

I was also pretty misinformed about it, we weren't really taught about it at school and I didn't realise the atrocities that had been committed til I read up on it.

Britain wasn't the only, empire though, It's just the one we, here in the UK, hear about.

We also hear about the ramifications of other empires and have the ills of those impuned upon us.

Most countries (yes, even you Ireland) have colonised others at some points in their history, almost always dismantling at least part of the existing culture. The British Empire wasn't as a bad as that of some of our close European neighbours... but I never get a proper response to anything said about that!

If someone could write down what it is that is required of any colonising country to 'make good' show adequate contrition etc. Frankly, whilst I can see the effects and understand how horrible some of them are, I can't see what is supposed to be done about it.

Offers of help, financial and otherwise are often said to be patronising, or an attempt to 'get back in'. So what, what is to be done?

"We don’t judge Germany only by its lowest ebb"

But people do! Far more than they do the UK. You only have to go to a Germany-England to see that.

I live in Asia, in a country never colonised by the UK, and people seriously look up to the UK because we colonised so many countries. No one looks on it as a bad thing.

I have lived and travelled in many countries and I rarely meet people who criticise the empire. But everyone thinks the holocaust was awful (which obviously it was) except the most appalling racists.

I sort of agree with him. I've been saying the same for years, albeit in a more diplomatic way. London (and New York) is a World City, it doesn't really belong to any one country. It attracts so many people to it from all over the world for work and leisure, not just low-level immigrants but high-tier businesspeople. It's a centre for everything, and in an increasingly globalised world it's going to look more like everything than just one thing.

Is he 'dog-whistling'? Possibly. FWIW I don't find the above to be a negative whereas he seems to, and he's of a generation that isn't used to increased diversity. Equally though I could say the people who wax lyrical about how multiculturalism and diversity make London so much better than everywhere else are dog-whistling that there is something inherently wrong with more ethnically homogenous places; I've seen a fair number of people doing it in the replies to him, and on here tbf.

This is getting ridiculous now. @CuriousaboutSamphire - please do tell us the countries Ireland has colonised?! Ireland never had the money or power to!
Time and time again we return to this rewriting of history and sheer ignorance of the facts! Good lord a lot of you need some better history education.

"The British Empire wasn't as a bad as that of some of our close European neighbours... but I never get a proper response to anything said about that!"

Oh really? Up to 30 million people died in India during the famine because they exported all their grain to the UK.

There were literal concentration camps during the Boer war.

1 million were killed during the partition of India.

That's all ok though, is it? Because the French did some bad shit too?

I don't really think stuff like that is a competition.

You could say the Japanese concentration camps were worse than the German ones, but really, how can you compare such atrocities?

Downplaying stuff like that is really inhumane.

I have lived and travelled in many countries and I rarely meet people who criticise the empire.

That’s just British PR at work. The friendly educator, spreading its civilised customs and institutions.

www.google.co.uk/amp/s/www.globalresearch.ca/crimes-against-humanity-the-british-empire/5597781/amp

And as for making good. It cannot be made good. We should all be aware that the extremely wealthy country we have today is a direct result of inhumane policies carried out under the empire and yes we SHOULD feel bad about that. No one is asking for self flagellation but at least knowing the history and not being so ignorant as to claim that we are somehow villified for the empire or that other countries were worse would be a great start.

See!

diad look it up!

IAm just as Britain was not the only colonising country India was not the only country colonised. Look it up!

That's all ok though, is it? Because the French did some bad shit too Frankly that is precisely the kind of answer I expected. I didn't say that, but many posters will now respond as though I did.

...

I think this map highlights which county has the most extensive history of colonisation.....yes, at other points in history (15th century for example) other European countries were involved in more colonisation than the UK, however throughout history, overall.....

And the people who came here as a result of colonialism, came here because they were British. With British passports. To work here.

No YOU tell me @CuriousaboutSamphire , seeing as you've made the statement. Looking it up won't produce information that doesn't exist. So I'll ask again - which countries did Ireland colonise?

*with an English mother not Spanish