fucking don't necro threads.

To the question: No. If they feel they are offended by a law in a country they are going to, then that country dosnt have to change its laws. You dont just barge into someones house and demand they bake a cake differently just to accomidate their needs.

Dahni:

Do you believe it is right for immigrants to enter a country like Britain or the USA and ask for laws and traditions to be altered to include an increasing number of their traditions as to avoid "offending" them?

Well, letting dark-skinned people stay in hotels was a step in the right direction.

Seriously though, I can't really think of any examples of entire immigrant populations activly trying to change British law and culture as a whole, can you give me an example?

As much as I support immigration, this is the one issue that annoys me. Immigrants are now part of British culture, we are one of the most integrated nations on Earth and I love it. To quote Dylan Moran, London is a "Cosmopolis".

But the radical change such as different schools, and the Political Correctness Police changing names of things to stop people from being offended annoys me. If people want to move here, there should be some semblence of adapting to the culture.

I think part of the issue is religion. Muslims are allowed to wear a full body Niqab when teaching children in a school, but a women is sacked from British Airways for wearing a small cross? It seems to have lost all semblence of all Common Sense.

Now, its not as bad as some commentators have said (I mention no names *cough*Daily Mail*cough*), and it probably won't get that bad. But it is becoming a bit of an issue.

Dahni:
In Dundee, they have re-named the switching on of the Christmas Lights to "Winter Light Night" as to avoid offending any ethnic people.

Most people of an ethnic background that I know really couldn't care less whether you call christmas lights what they are or "winter lights". They couldn't care less if you celebrate christmas, in fact, some use christmas as an opportunity to pass gifts around, still referring to it as Christmas.

As a lifelong American Jew (who's also celebrated christmas my entire life) I have to say I appreciate it when a community takes steps to be inclusive of non-christian faiths. I don't think it has anything to do with ethnicitiy, at least not in the U.S.

Dahni:

But anyway, my question is:
Do you believe it is right for immigrants to enter a country like Britain or the USA and ask for laws and traditions to be altered to include an increasing number of their traditions as to avoid "offending" them?

I can't honestly say I've ever heard of an immigrant asking for laws or traditions to be altered...

Well not from the immigrants we'd want to kick out anyway...

The whole re-naming and cancelling of events is usually thought up by some out of touch middle aged white woman who thinks they know better than everyone. They force the race issue and it offends most ethnic groups when such a lady attempts to 'speak for them'. Pisses me off too...

One thing you seem to be forgetting is that "culture" isn't static. It's ever-shifting. Things change over time and under various influences. This isn't a modern phenomenon, and nor is it limited to immigrants or so-called "ethnic people". It's not just religion either.

Xenophobia often goes hand-in-hand with this.

Cultural Relativism and an inclusive approach are not bad things.

It's important not to look to extremist groups when thinking about this stuff. Most immigrant populations just want steady, well-paying work that allows them to have kids and eat food with curry in it.

There are extremist immigrant groups in any country that do want things changed. Ask us Canadians about issues with the Tamil's this year. The thing to remember is that even the "indigenous" people have these extremists. BNP, for example.

You can't preserve a culture in amber, and often the culture that people are trying to preserve is an idealised version that never really existed in the first place. Immigrants change a nation, and that nation in turn changes them. Look at the mass immigration that took place in the fifties and sixties. We now have what are termed as 'British Asians'- people that are recognisably British in their outlook and culture, but a brand of British that never existed prior to their showing up.
What concerns me about modern immigration is the lack of a plan to it. The recent immigration of, say, Polish into England, feels more like a stop gap measure, like hiring temp workers, rather than a genuine immigration, like that of people from India in the fifties. Either way, nations constantly change and evolve, and what I as a White English person consider to be 'English' is massively different from the model my equivalent would have consider English, say, a century and a half ago- you'd have a hard time putting forward the idea that we should ressurect the Empire, for example.
The other thing to bear in mind is that the notion of a nation is becoming increasingly antiquated and impractical. I think we'd be better off as a species if we just put the whole thing to bed and start working on the admitadly gargantuum task of fashioning a truly global community rather than maintaining these fractured little groups observing bizarre flag rules and imaginary lines drawn out on maps. Its just so, primitve basically, and a little embarrasing.

Such is the way of human cultures... its how culture changes and grows.

In this case, though, it is the consequence of becoming more globalized- dealing more with all the countries of the world as a whole more than ever in our history.

Its how America happened, Britain would not be what it was without cultures incoming from all around them. Hell, Britain itself used to be a colony of the Romans.
and the Romans... well thats a whole case-study on cultures coming together.

I don't really care.
But that might be because I'm not a Christian so I don't mind it if Christmas-decoration was changed to something else.
One thing, though: Just because the majority of people follow one particular religion doesn't mean that all others can be ignored.
So, I guess what I'm saying is, I'm in favor of PC-ness. At least to an extent.

Now, on a strictly political level, I'd have a problem with religion creeping in. But I am against that no matter what religion we're talking about.
"Traditional" religion (i.e. "whatever the majority happens to believe") is not excepted from this.
In a globalized world like ours, people still put too much importance on local traditions.

Political Correctness does annoy me, but i can understand why it is prevelant here in the UK, and perhaps other countries as well. Hunderds of years of slavery and imperalism, followed by the world wars which led to liberal ideas and beliefs about equality become ingrained into society. Britain is a standard bearer for ideals such as equality and tolerance, however we are quite well aware of our history of imperalism in the 19th century, which results in a guilt culture, and a want to earn "penance" for what we did in the past, this is earned by overly accomidating immigrants from different cultures. I'm not saying that this is what all British people think, many don't, but a significant number, especially those who grew up in the 60's and 70's, probably think like i have suggested above.

Really, rationally speaking, we have no reason to feel guilt for what are great-great grandfarthers did, because, quite simply we did not exist in the 19th century, so we are not responsable for what we did. In fact, most of our ancestors where not even involved in Imperialism and slavery. Britain is no more obliged to be extra-accomidating to immigrants than any other country.

With that established, the question is how should immigrants be treated? My view is that while Multi-culturalism is not a bad idea, but the obvious drawbacks are that it results in "ghettos" of Muslims, Blacks, maybe even Asians etc. In these ghetto communities, which are often poor, its hard to intergrate into British culture, by for instance not learning the language. This, along with multi-culturalism, also means that immigrants can keep some traditions which may be contary to British culture, like for instance the burka. I know that you carn't really tell people what or what not to wear, but i don't view the burka as very respectful. This is because face to face commication is valued in the west, if your hiding your face it can be quite unnerving. I certainly find it strange not not perticualry respectful. I do not think that western women should flaunt their bikini bodies in Dubai or Egypt because that's offensive to the local custom, likewise i don't think Muslim women who wear the burka are respecting Western culture, which is equally entitled to respect as Muslim culture is.

So i think more should be done to intergrate immigrants into Western society. Scrap state supported religion segregated schooling and have them mix with white kid's so they learn something about the locals. Do more to promote the learning of the English language, altough granted most immigrants do this anyway. The government could also do more to disperse immigrants across the country to discourge ghettoisation. Finding a way to end the political correctness hype would also be an improvement.

With respect to the OP, the anecdote about the couple playing the race card to get other people to do their work for them does not entirely relate to the problems of immigration. There are always people trying to scam other people into doing their work for them. Immigrants might play the race card, but non-immigrants have their own methods. The boss should have just told them to make a complaint if they wished, and shown them the door.

Immigration also only tangentially relates to faith schools. Specific faith schools existed before immigrants. All the last few decades of immigration have done is bring in new religions to provide specific schools for. I'm against them in entirety, mind, including the Christian and Jewish ones colonised largely by non-immigrants.

* * *

What I feel about immigrants is that if they've got citizenship, as individuals they have all the same rights that people whose families lived here for 1000 years do.

It's a completely false dichotomy to determine "non-immigrant" and "immigrant" culture as if there are only two sides. Non-immigrant culture is not homogenous, and doesn't always agree - many Britons each with long family histories in the nation can have very different ideas about British culture. Culture also changes, even without immigration: new fashions, new ideologies. There's no compelling reason to say immigrants need to knuckle down and do what non-immigrants want, any more than a non-immigrant Christian Briton should stop ringing his church bells because his neighbour is an atheist.

If someone wants to defend "British culture", I might wonder why on earth they aren't more concerned that our TVs and cinemas are filled with American productions espousing American values, and McDonalds rules the high street (I want to stress I am not against American culture, I'm just using it as an example). Fact is, people let a ton of cultural influences from outside pass without notice, and then bizarrely pick up on a few oddments with which to launch complaints against an Other.

I'm kinda sad at the insistence of immigrant groups here in Southern California. I don't care if you immigrate in, I don't care what you speak at home. I do care when I see 12 billboards in Spanish and 1 in English. You may say you're preserving your culture, I say you're destroying mine in the process.

Cultures, some would be shocked to discover, change and evolve.

It really rather annoys me when people complain about immigrants ruining a culture, lobbying for it to change etc. The culture of Britain is made up of an amalgamation of all kinds of cultures. Saxon, Norman, Norse and Roman expansion, as well as the British Empire resulted in a mish-mash of different traditions and cultures that all culminated in the British culture there is today.

You can't arbitrarily draw a line at where you want outside influences to stop having an effect on the culture.

Lebynthos:
Cultures, some would be shocked to discover, change and evolve.

It really rather annoys me when people complain about immigrants ruining a culture, lobbying for it to change etc. The culture of Britain is made up of an amalgamation of all kinds of cultures. Saxon, Norman, Norse and Roman expansion, as well as the British Empire resulted in a mish-mash of different traditions and cultures that all culminated in the British culture there is today.

You can't arbitrarily draw a line at where you want outside influences to stop having an effect on the culture.

I should be able to at least keep my language and be able to see it in the street if I live in a primarily English-speaking country. I do admit cultures change, but seriously, its not like they're trying to assimilate to American quasi-ideals, they insist on speaking only Spanish.

My mom gets a call a few times a week, where someone calls and says, "You speak Spanish?" When she says no, they then place a book order IN ENGLISH. That's worse. Being able to speak the native language, but refusing to do so unless there is no way to advance without it is wrong.

x434343:

Lebynthos:
Cultures, some would be shocked to discover, change and evolve.

It really rather annoys me when people complain about immigrants ruining a culture, lobbying for it to change etc. The culture of Britain is made up of an amalgamation of all kinds of cultures. Saxon, Norman, Norse and Roman expansion, as well as the British Empire resulted in a mish-mash of different traditions and cultures that all culminated in the British culture there is today.

You can't arbitrarily draw a line at where you want outside influences to stop having an effect on the culture.

I should be able to at least keep my language and be able to see it in the street if I live in a primarily English-speaking country. I do admit cultures change, but seriously, its not like they're trying to assimilate to American quasi-ideals, they insist on speaking only Spanish.

My mom gets a call a few times a week, where someone calls and says, "You speak Spanish?" When she says no, they then place a book order IN ENGLISH. That's worse. Being able to speak the native language, but refusing to do so unless there is no way to advance without it is wrong.

Yeah, but English isn't the native language of America. Most of the native languages of America were killed off long ago. Additionally, there is no Federally Official Language, so it's a bit of a non-argument. The only requirement to speak English in America is to get other English speaking people to understand you. If someone's mother tongue is Spanish, they would (I imagine, as I would do in the case of English) see if someone understands the language in which they can communicate most fluently.

ravensshade:
that may be true but as far as news about these comes out off the middle eastern side if you don't respect their culture you're gone...

also in the context of immigration it's not to much to ask that if you go live in a country that you will speak their and so officially YOUR primary language in public places

So... we've reverted back to the playground school of thought? "Well if you won't let me do this, I won't let you do it either!"

The thing about differing cultures is that they're different. People have learned to do things different ways over time.

And I really disagree with the second point. I want to go and live in a lot of different countries at some point in my life. I don't plan on learning the languages until i get there. The places immigrants want to go are places where they will have a 'better life'. The likelihood is, the places they want to go are a long way away, increasing the chances of them speaking a different language there.

All this immigration talk just seems to solidify feelings of 'us' and 'them'. We're all one species, and it's wholly against my views to think you should be able to restrict where on the earth (that we all share, and have no claims over purely because we were born in a particular place within imaginary borders) people are allowed to go and live. Sure, some regimes will stop that happening, but that kind of regime probably has a significant number of other human rights issues to go along with it.

All cultures are in a constant state of flux-- the "deep-set cultures and values" you refer to are themselves the products of influence from various groups of people.

Change is healthy for a society. It keeps us from becoming stagnant in pools of our own endlessly recycled filth.

bagodix:

Lebynthos:
You can't arbitrarily draw a line at where you want outside influences to stop having an effect on the culture.

How about when a barbaric and backwards culture, like Islam, attempts to subjugate and destroy your culture and everything you have accomplished? Or is that an arbitrary line too?

Bagodix...

I have Muslim friends, have had many Muslim colleagues at various workplaces, and I have taught dozens of Muslims. None of them fit your view of Islam, so I think your comment is inaccurate and insulting.

Can you please explain where your attitude comes from? It's tempting to just ignore you as a bigot, but if you're going to continually trudge round these forums spouting that sort of stuff, I think you should explain your reasoning.

Khell_Sennet:
And for clarity's sake, it is "Us" or "Them". Many of the various cultures in the world are totally incompatible to each other, and no "one united planet" will ever happen because at the end of the day, there will always be a large number of Americans who consider anything socialist to be communism, and would rather die than see their nation go that way. There will always be groups of Muslims who see western culture as evil, and would willingly martyr themselves to eliminate that influence. And there will always be conflict between two or more Asian groups because thousands of years of one dynasty or culture absorbing or annihilating another has led to the creation of very large, very fractured nations.

Oh yeah, I'm not under the illusion 'world peace' is possible or even preferable, I just find the way nationalism has developed in the past few hundred years to be a particularly silly way we divide ourselves.

bagodix:
How about when a barbaric and backwards culture, like Islam, attempts to subjugate and destroy your culture and everything you have accomplished? Or is that an arbitrary line too?

Sorry, lol, I didn't realise people weren't allowed to have different morals these days.

Islam isn't at all barbaric or backwards. There are certainly those who take texts written over a thousand years ago more literally than is necessary, but people do that with all religions (Christian fundamentalists are a popular laughter-target these days). The ancient Greeks were seen (by themselves, and by many today) as the pinnacle of cultured civilization, yet there are many elements you could see as 'backwards' by today's standards (hell, the invading Persians thought it was a grubby little backwater). It's all about perspective. It's not surprising a religion forged in the crucible of war is going to have much about what to do 'right' when it comes to violence, but that is, as always, just one part of many.

Khell_Sennet:
Well, it beats the hell out of killing each other until there is only one race left standing. But even then we'd find some reason to hate the surviving people. I'll take the whole "This is the line, you stay on your half, I'll stay on mine" approach over hoping my kind win the global genocide any day.

That's the thing, if it's not one reason we're hitting each other, we'll just find something else.

bagodix:

Lebynthos:
You can't arbitrarily draw a line at where you want outside influences to stop having an effect on the culture.

How about when a barbaric and backwards culture, like Islam, attempts to subjugate and destroy your culture and everything you have accomplished? Or is that an arbitrary line too?

Are you kidding? Can you cite some evidence?

Really, can anyone here give me an example of someone who has been "Islamified" against their will?

Is there a single tea shop owner in Dorset who has to tell her customers: "Sorry dear, we're not allowed to serve a scone until after dark as it's Ramadan."

Do radio stations have to start the day: "Allaaaaah - ah-aaaah allaaaaaah. Good morning, this is BBC Radio Sussex calling you to prayer."

No, and no. Ok, so housing benefit forms are now printed in other languages. So what? They are still in English too. Why should we actively try to make life difficult for other people?

Seeing as how the USA is comprised entirely of immigrants, this doesn't seem to make much sense. Immigrants are necessary (at least from an economic standpoint) to provide a workforce for our aging population.

cuddly_tomato:

Ok, so housing benefit forms are now printed in other languages. So what? They are still in English too. Why should we actively try to make life difficult for other people?

how does it make sense though, that someone whose first language is not English, to move to a predominantly english speaking country to live and never bother to become fairly fluent in the language? I would rather not get a job and know that the tax I'm paying is keeping a foreigner waster who is sitting on his backside in a council house, in my country. These people make MY life difficult because the government needs more revenue because they spend ridiculous amounts of money on immigrants. When I ever get round to paying tax, I expect it to be used to first help the British & the immigrants who pull their weight, before it is spent on the wasters who have come here to live off benefits.