faetal on 14/7/2016 at 00:29
Quote Posted by Brethren
My impression was that Tony wasn't talking about either Muslims or North Africans, but extremists in general. Might be wrong on that though.
Pays to communicate clearly with controversial topics. It's way too easy to let the mask slip and then claim
post facto to have been misunderstood.
demagogue on 14/7/2016 at 02:20
I feel Tony is talking about his time living in Middle Eastern countries. I'll grant my foreign Muslim friends, almost all of whom are themselves very tolerant (so by themselves they disprove the Middle East & S Asia don't have tolerent people), are also frustrated by the dominant culture from their home countries & feeling cowed into silence (for things like gay rights or religious minorities), and some refugees are going to naturally bring some of their culture with them.
But it's still unfair for a lot of reasons to use their home countries'culture as an excuse to ignore humanitarian assistance & basic compassion. One, refugees are going to be on the liberal end of the spectrum. They're actively leaving their home country to go to the West exactly because of its openness for diversity they can't get at home given their own persecution; they're themselves victims of intolerence. And speaking of the Syrian refugees, nobody has shouldered the burden more than its neighbors Lebanon, Jordan, and Turkey. So to say Arab/Turkish culture can't be tolerant or humanitarian when it comes to refugees would be greatly unfair. And there's other reasons Tony's argument was unfair. But I wouldn't deny that he was unhappy about the culture in middle eastern countries with the ambient intolerence he probably saw around him day to day.
But that's not why I wanted to post here. The post I want to make is the observation, now that it's been a few weeks, the interesting thing about Brexit now is that it wasn't like a car wreck where you're left picking up the pieces but the worst is over. It just keeps going and going, eating up everything else, like you can never just wake up from it and the turmoil is over.
faetal on 14/7/2016 at 10:24
It's not like a car wreck, it's like a bridge with a missing section right after a blind corner.
Starker on 14/7/2016 at 19:34
It's like an episode of Blackadder where Baldrick has one of his cunning plans.
Yakoob on 14/7/2016 at 23:05
Quote Posted by Starker
Um... Yakoob...
Aaah... well, somewhat comforting. Still, could be based on actual police data :/
Quote Posted by demagogue
One, refugees are going to be on the liberal end of the spectrum. They're actively leaving their home country to go to the West exactly because of its openness for diversity they can't get at home given their own persecution
This point really can't be stressed enough.
Starker on 15/7/2016 at 02:08
Quote Posted by Yakoob
Aaah... well, somewhat comforting. Still, could be based on actual police data :/
Just a glance at the Daily Mail article gives a strong whiff of BS. They claim that over 700 convictions are handed out by British courts each week, but those "convictions" that they are talking about are actually notifications which are sent whenever there is an update to a conviction, including detentions, releases on bail, appeals, breaking of court orders, etc.
I haven't really looked into UK crime statistics, but I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that the Polish are not especially prone to crime compared to other immigrants or UK citizens.
BEAR on 15/7/2016 at 03:11
This is all very unfortunate to see. I feel like we could live in absolute paradise and one side would find a way to tap into discontent and use it to dismantle the best standard of living humans have ever achieved. It kills me to see people in America acting as if our country is totally broken, while large parts of the rest of the world are in utter poverty dealing with murderous dictators and civil war. To hear some people here you would think America is the worst its ever been, not the most peaceful its ever been. Granted we have some comparatively minor issues to solve (student loans, healthcare, etc), but it is nothing, fucking NOTHING compared to what people are dealing with elsewhere. Unsurprisingly immigrants are being used as a cudgel, just like they have for I assume the entirety of human civilization, the gift that keeps on giving.
I'm hoping the US doesn't follow the trend to utter insanity that seems to be taking hold in the west but I'm having to fight to not be pessimistic. It just seems to be so much easier to stoke anger and breed discontent than to speak reason and calm. It will take a lot of hard work to maintain what we have, but a handful of racist/xenophobic tweets can do a surprising amount to bring out a countries dark side.
Sorry to be all bleak, overall I think we can overcome these issue (in the US and UK) but we can't be complacent and hope for the best.
nickie on 15/7/2016 at 07:27
Quote Posted by Starker
I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that the Polish are not especially prone to crime compared to other immigrants or UK citizens.
I'll join you on that limb with some anecdotal agreement. We have a very large Polish community 3 miles away and I live in one of the safest towns in Wales according to stats which I'm not going to link. There was a sexual assault in 2012 but that did not involve any Poles.
It's been my opinion for a very long time now that the Mail, and the Express, should be prosecuted for inciting racial hatred. They are despicable newspapers.
demagogue on 15/7/2016 at 08:14
It's the strange paradox all the recent advancements in culture, communication, social media, &c. There's probably always been this latent discontent in rural areas that mixed nativism/nationalism and skepticism to different cultures with economic and cultural frustration, so I don't think it's a "new" movement, and if anything they're better off now than ever in history, people are more educated, and have travelled more, more tolerant in general, but the core of nativists and those leaning that way who are left are connected, networking, and organizing like hasn't happened in the recent past. It's like a broad multiculturalization generally, but then a radicalization of the core group of nativists that are left.
Granted there's been definite demographic changes in the US & UK (and a lot of developed countries), in terms of being more multicultural that's had an impact on the culture over the last 2 decades, more than anything seen since at least WWII. So it's not like it's inexplicable. But people may forget with the big Irish and Italian migrations in the mid-19th to early 20th Centuries, they weren't actually considered "white" at that time either, at least not in the US (hard as it is to imagine now); the nativist & racialized backlash we see now isn't too different from the movements from that time, at least on the surface.
faetal on 15/7/2016 at 12:10
Quote Posted by nickie
I'll join you on that limb with some anecdotal agreement. We have a very large Polish community 3 miles away and I live in one of the safest towns in Wales according to stats which I'm not going to link. There was a sexual assault in 2012 but that did not involve any Poles.
It's been my opinion for a very long time now that the Mail, and the Express, should be prosecuted for inciting racial hatred. They are despicable newspapers.
I've lived in Southampton for 18 years, which has the second largest Polish population in the UK (1 in 10 people in Southampton are polish) and I have never caught so much as a whiff of trouble from Polish people. In fact, every problem I've had (Southampton is a pretty violent city) has been from the homegrown idiots, particularly football idiots.
Immigrants are not a problem, they contribute to the economy, provide amazing skills diversity and are more productive than the average British citizen (demonstrated as percentage who start business and percentage who claim benefits).
