Re: 16yo Girl hung in Iran....
 

Hehehe, I don't think you can blame NuLabour entirely for this one, as much as we would love to. Practices of arranged marriages have been with us for donkeys years. A colleague of mine escaped an arranged marriage and was alienated by her family 15 years ago...way before Nulabour. I do agree with 'When in Rome' I love travelling and am always careful to respect the customs and practices of other countries and I do feel that this should be a mutual thing. However, I think it is getting worse in this country with the moronic PC brigade coming up with reasons why we can't fly the George cross etc for fear of offending non-christian communities. Most of the non-christians I know couldn't give a toss whether we fly the cross or not.;) I will concede that the PC aspect is worse since NuLabour..:)

Re: 16yo Girl hung in Iran....
 

Considering plenty of non-Christians were flying the 'George cross' during the World Cup that is ridiculous isn't it?

Re: 16yo Girl hung in Iran....
 

It most certainly is. The worst thing is that the people who come up with these ridiculous PC rules probably get paid 3 or 4 times more than we do for spouting this rubbish. I am all for not being offensive but some of this PC drivel takes the biscuit and invokes bad feeling between communities.:(



Hehehehe, can you tell I'm in a bad mood.....:)

Re: 16yo Girl hung in Iran....
 

Well just to make your bad mood worse:

I am all for not being offensive but some of this PC drivel takes the biscuit and invokes bad feeling between communities

I thought if you integrated, there was only 1 community? I'm English, but live in a true and singular German community, and I know this is well appreciated by my neighbours.
The Turks live in their own ghettos, and have created their own community, distincly apart from the rest of the Germans. No different to the UK really!!

There's no excuse for not integrating, except that they don't want too. Is that the way for a guest to behave?? I for one would welcome anybody who wanted to work and live in the old English way!!

Re: 16yo Girl hung in Iran....
 

This is what I said before about PC. Making something illegal doesnt stop people feeling one way or other. What it does do is make more people turn against people. Like for instance you get name calling. Well people call names for a reason and mainly because of what they think of a group or community. Now if somebody uses a word and doesn't mean bad by it they are grouped now as racist or not PC with the rest so that gets their back up. What I was saying is that if there wasn't a law about it or banning people from websites or words used then ther'd be less aggro between people.

If somebody wants to use a word in a bad way and they can't use a word starts with P and ends with I they just find a differnt word. It doesnt stop them saying something. but if somebody not feeling any bad feelings uses a word and gets told its illegal then they feel angry and it starts something off which was never there. My opinion. If somebody calls me a name its their problem not mine.

As for flags whats the problem? And Christmas. Its no sense to ban things of one community and still promote other which gets the first lot angry. This leads to the problem its all meant to be preventing. IMHO there wasnt as much racism before the Race people started trying to stop it!

Re: 16yo Girl hung in Iran....
 

I don't necessarily agree with Ifty about names not meaning anything, some expressions can be demeaning. Changing the way we talk about people can have an effect on the way we see them. However I do think that PC causes more trouble than it would ever be worth. Any form of discrimination, positive or negative, reinforces stereotyped ideas, which can only be bad. The trouble is really that when people want to be separate, to live by separate rules, and to follow a different social and moral code than the natives (i.e. us), then they set themselves against the natives in a very real sense.

What is worse is that we are constantly told that we should respect the cultures of others, when a great many of them seem to have little or no respect for our culture, and in fact seem to want to replace it with their own.

Re: 16yo Girl hung in Iran....
 

Yes I think we are in real danger of losing our culture. We seem to be expected to apologise for being English at times let alone encouraged to be proud of who we are.

Re: 16yo Girl hung in Iran....
 

Hehehehe, Darby, how could you possibly make my mood worse? What you have said is true. There are lots of different races and religions living in the UK, and in some areas people haven't integrated well, learned the language etc. I was talking to a woman who has lived here for 20 years (since the age of 16) through an interpreter because she claimed to speak no English. How can this be possible when one of our students who is Kosovan and came to Blackburn with the refugees at the age of 14 is now fluent, has passed all her NVQ's and is in Nurse training, and I can vouch that her verbal and written English are excellent (she's been here roughly 6 years). I think that different races have got to want to integrate, if they don't want to then they just won't, no matter how hard everybody tries.:)

Re: 16yo Girl hung in Iran....
 

Well Lettie, you say that, and how true. My friend Linda teaches, she used to be at St Nicholas and then at Hyndburn Park - can't remember where she is currently. She told me that some of the children say that their mother doesn't speak English, to which Linda's response is "Well I taught your mother at school and she did then". The response is, "Well Miss, she doesn't now." Sad but true.

Re: 16yo Girl hung in Iran....
 

Just to throw my 5 pennyworth in,I think there are two distinct attitudes with our country's immigrants.
There are those immigrants who seek to adopt in every way to their new country in language and cultural matters.
Then there are those who seek to maintain the 'old ways' reinforcing their anscestoral country's traditions and religions.
The trouble comes when perhaps the third generation seek to break away from community ties and beliefs,the young person sees some of his friends lifestyle and thinks,"I'll have some of that!" This in turn disgusts their elders who are more traditionalists.
My feeling is that give it another 20 years or so and these issues will have been watered down by peer pressure.
For example many Asian people(that phrase itself is too imprecise)enjoy the same TV programmes, soccer,cricket and other sports as we the white population do,whilst we in turn enjoy the imported taste in Asian cuisine.
I know many Asian people and believe me most if not all are a credit to any profession that they undertake.
The problems come with the extremists of all ilks trying to impose their often twisted beliefs on the rest of us.We should keep to the middle ground.
There I have finished now!!

Re: 16yo Girl hung in Iran....
 

I agree with you, and I do think the fundamentalists/extremists are in the minority. The problem now seems to be that, with poor economic conditions and an ever increasing gap between those who have and those who don't, a large number of young Muslim men are becoming disenchanted with Western society and turning back to Muslim extremism. They haven't achieved the affluent lifestyle, they haven't got jobs, and so they are turning back to a culture which says they don't need those things in this life, just fight for Islam and you'll live for eternity in luxury. It is a fertile ground for the loonies who crop up in every culture.

Separatism just increases the feeling of isolation (and that is a choice that some of their parents have made).

There are huge numbers of Asians in this country, both immigrants and those who were born here, who are hard-working and valuable members of the community.

There's also a vast difference between those of Asian heritage who came from the Indian subcontinent and those who came over from places like Kenya and Uganda.

So far as I can see, the fundamentalists are about at the stage that we were when we went on the Crusades. Only 800 or so years to go!