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Mulitcultural England - good old Boris...

275 replies

Janh · 05/08/2005 01:22

From the Telegraph yesterday:

OP posts:
peachskin · 25/08/2005 10:15

Blu - thanks for your kind thoughts. I had no intention of getting myself into this. I am relatively new to this website and not familiar with what goes on here. But to be honest I am getting fed up.

Moondog made a sarcastic remark about show offs who read books, etc. I didn't realise (not since I was 8 years old any way when a girl in my class accussed me of "showing off" because I was better at painting than she was !!) that sharing knowledge and talking about one's academic experience was showing off. That is where all the bitchness started off.

I think it is ok being offensive to me and my background, but I don't think it's ok being offensive to a whole race, nation or religion.

I have shown the threads to other friends and they seem to think that quite a lot of what is said about Muslims and the Middle East in general by SOME posters on this website are thinly veiled racism.

Blu · 25/08/2005 10:15

JanH has a smattering, too, I believe...

ark · 25/08/2005 10:17

peach it is with much embarrassment that I also admit on first viewing I did not see the masada website as a rascst website, one sided yes ! it was only on further investigation that realised the full extent of its bigotry.

However that said I think we haver all had very interesting conversations and I am only sorry that this has desended into this mud slinging. Whatever your intentions with regards your post about moondog and janh were you came across as agressive and rude, and it looked uncalled for imo. We've all been wound up before on mn!

Surely we can all turn the page and be nice to each other?

MaloryTowers · 25/08/2005 10:17

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

Blu · 25/08/2005 10:24

Peackskin - I would agree that the tenets of much argument is based on received notions which are not rigorously analysed for racism - and I find a lot of quite naive (in the best sense - not meaning to insult anyone) responses to the idea that the world is ceratinly not a 'level paying foield' for many races and religions.

But I don't think MN is a racist environment, on the whole, and for a parebting site (i.e not specialising in politics), quite interesting and illuminating.

I was really disheartened by some of the discussion in the immediate wake of the London bombs, and have been staying off these threads a bit - but am now creeping back.

Yeah - Moondog is v upfront and rude sometimes (go on Moondog - admit it ) but she gives good discussion - and you DID describe Wales as a dump - ahem!

We do need serious discussion on MN...and I think the people with tiny amounts of logic and intelligence are also the ones most able to weather the off heated discussion without flouncing!

monkeytrousers · 25/08/2005 10:24

Hello MT!

MaloryTowers · 25/08/2005 10:26

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

monkeytrousers · 25/08/2005 10:27

My sentiments too Blu.

monkeytrousers · 25/08/2005 10:28

(Baby has learnt to climb up te fireguard. Hence I am very busy!)

Papillon · 25/08/2005 10:32

and talking to fellow super wise and extremely intelligent Paps - don´t forget MT

Its us wise one´s that let go of the mud-slinging which intelligence so often descends to

MaloryTowers · 25/08/2005 10:35

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

Papillon · 25/08/2005 10:37

very wise of you MT

monkeytrousers · 25/08/2005 10:41

This just won't do!!

See, it can be fun sometimes Peachskin

peachskin · 25/08/2005 10:46

I was trying to explain to Janh that the website she was posting from was racist. But she persisted in saying that it's historical references must be accurate because one particular sentence mirrored a link I had posted from the Guardian. She seemed very persistent although I had already read the offensive texts on its homepage.

Janh - I think you were trying to prove this:

It is true that the Palestinian Arabs rejected a division of their homeland put forward by the UN in 1947. But their decision in NOT wishing to have their homeland divided seems entirely logical to many historians and political commentators. Britain and the other colonial powers who had very nicely divided up the ME among themselves (see the secretly signed Sykes-Picot Agreement) had PROMISED the Arabs independence after the end of WWI in return for the Arabs fighting on the Allied side. That promise was broken again and again. Throughout 1930's Britain allowed massive Jewish immigration into Palestine. Although one can sympathise with the plight of the Jews in Europe at that time, to the Arabs it was yet more evidence of British duplicity and cunning.

It is always worth putting things into historical perspective just so that one can get the full picture.

The Arabs missed many other subsequent opportunities in the 1950's, 1960's and 1970's to share Palestine with the Jews. The main culprit for this intransigence was Arab nationalism as promoted by Gamal Abdul Nasser. As always nationalism has got in the way of logic !

Ironically, despite Egyptian-Arab nationalism, Egypt remains the only Arab nation to have "recognised" the exsitance of Israel (1978 Camp David Treaty signed between Egypt and Israel). Arab "nationalists" then decided to assasinate Sadat for making peace with Israel.
Israeli prime minsters have also been assassinated by Jewish fanatics for wishing to make peace with the Arabs.

So the debate to me remains one of fanatical nationalism on both sides - NOT about Jew versus Muslim.

happymerryberries · 25/08/2005 11:00

Peachskin, you have seen all of wales I assume?

The beautiful seaside of the Gower, the wonderful family resort of Tenby, Snowdonia, the vibrant new development of the Cardiff bay area, How about the struggling ex mining comminities (who incidentaly pioneered a basic form of the NHS well before the rest of the UK) ?

You have seen every town, village and coastline?

Wow! if you have. I haven't done that and I lived there for 18 years. But you catagorise a whole country as a dump. That might not make you a racist, but at best it makes you foolish.

happymerryberries · 25/08/2005 11:05

peachskins idea of a dump?

And please I know that there are less attractive aspects of Wales, as I said I lived there for 18 years but to damn it all is just insulting, bigoted nonsense.

iota · 25/08/2005 11:11

more lovely pics of Wales

MrsDoolittle · 25/08/2005 11:12

That's my boyfiend, that is

iota · 25/08/2005 11:13

boyFIEND Mrs D?

happymerryberries · 25/08/2005 11:18

Iota, there , we have proved her point, it is all a dump isn't it?

And there is even a pic of the Rhondda where I grew up! Great. It isn't the most beuatiful place on earth, but has some of the most wonderful hard working, far thinking, passionate people that I have even met. But there they must be second rate cos they live in a 'dump'.

peachskin · 25/08/2005 11:18

HMB - you are right - I have only seen bits of Wales - what I saw was very beautiful indeed. So I lied !

In fact the comment was INTENDED to be offensive quite deliberately to prove a point about generalisations about Muslim countries, Mulsim men and Muslim women which I have read here some of them easily construed as racist.

I don't have time to post the many things I have read about Muslims and Muslim countries here. One poster had decided that a particlar Muslim country was bad because a few men had followed her and tried to pester her. I said that this could have happend here in London by some drunken louts or any where else for that matter - wherever you find MEN in fact !! This kind of predatory male behaviour is not inherently "Islamic".

I will stick to my guns in saying I don't approve of nationalism though, whether Welsh or otherwise. Most forms of nationalism breed prejudice - they have to by definition because the person who is a "nationalist" thinks that his nation is the greatest on earth.

It is the opposite of "cosmopolitanism" which is what I like, sorry !!

happymerryberries · 25/08/2005 11:19

Oh yes, the old 'I acted like an arse to prove my point' line. Yawn

iota · 25/08/2005 11:23

hmb - dh is from Cardiff and I'm pleased to say that since I've known him I have discovered the beauty of Wales - he proposed on a visit to Snowdonia - happy days

happymerryberries · 25/08/2005 11:24

I married 'out' (dh is a scot ) and he propesed to me on the phone....not quite as romantic!

MrsDoolittle · 25/08/2005 11:29

Oooh errr

BoyFRIEND, although he's a fiend sometimes