So when you are off on your little do-gooding adventures, I hope you never use the word 'culture', because there is no-one 'pure' (the word 'pure' being entirely yours) enough to warrant being part of a 'culture'. This won't happen of course. You probably use the word 1000 times a day, when you are lecturing all and sundry to 'respect their/my/our' culture. Do you specialise in defending islamic 'cultural practices' by any chance? I mean, there are a billion muslims, and some branches of it detest each other. Doesn't sound very 'pure' to me. Heck, even your favourite word 'multiCULTURALism' has the word bang in the middle of it Anyway, I'm pretty sure the English know whether or not they are English. I have never heard a single one of them describe themselves as 'nothing really'. You even said you aren't English, but a 'Brit'. There was no 'trick question'. Just a simple question. If you felt 'tricked and cornered' then that says it all really. You don't need to answer it.ForCruxSake wrote:But you didn't ask. You framed a question hoping to trap me into some kind of answer that might suggest they were racist. And here you are trying, rather poorly, might I add, to do the same thing.vegetariantaxidermy wrote:It's their country isn't it? When my father went to Japan in the early 1970s as a journalist he was taken aback when Japanese wouldn't get into lifts with him. He certainly didn't get all precious about it. I think he thought it was quite funny. I asked if you think they are racist for wanting to protect their culture (they are especially adamant about keeping muslims out).ForCruxSake wrote: Did I say the Japanese were racist??? I said they had a right to their culture. It's you who considers them racist. It's all a game to you. You don't care about anyone, you just want to appear an intellectual warrior. However I would have replied, my answer would have been something for you to try to beat me to death.How do you even know? Your clearly did not ask the question, preferring to ask what I thought of the Japanese not allowing immigrants, and I stated they had a right to self-determination. You've somehow deluded yourself into thinking my answer suggests more than it states.vegetariantaxidermy wrote:Clearly you do not.vegetariantaxidermy wrote:Yet you dismissively effectively say that the English should suck it up and accept that their own cultural identity is fast disappearing, citing some minute minorites from centuries ago that were readily absorbed into the general population. You can hardly compare that with turning the host population into a minority group.
Who on earth is this 'pure' host population? It's not the English, because a lot of the second generation Somalians , and second, third and fourth generation Pakistanis around my way, are English. We're a mix of different cultures... Particularly in the cities. The 'purest' form of culture in England is displayed by the Cornish, or so they claim, out on the limb of England, and even they are 'riddled with' other Brits.
This is my country, as much as anyone else allowed citizenship here, and we have freedom of movement, freedom to worship and freedom to do just about anything as long as no laws are broken. Suits me fine.
You are inventing the idea of an indigenous population becoming a minority group. I live here and I see plenty of white people whose families go back generations, I don't really care about flag waving nationalism or who feels they have the greatest right to live here, and how, because generations ago their French forefathers beat the English at the Battle of Hastings. I care about now and the country our children are growing up in. I don't want them to carry the filth of your sort of divisive hatred. Pushing people to fight, Backing them into corners so you feel that you have the right to hit them over the head.
I seek to live in peace, as pleasantly as possible with those around me, and only kick out at bullies, which you and Harbal show yourself to be, time and time again, in some sort of pathetic game of wits aimed at demeaning those who would openly discuss subjects with you.Now let me spell it it out for you: I call people racist HERE for refusing to accept other cultures HERE with grace. Cultures change over time, nothing remains pure anyway. To lash out with hatred at people of different cultures, who you've invited, or allowed in HERE, to your space, who live without breaking the law, a bit differently, is an affront to humanity. Valuing your culture is not the problem. Despising others for theirs, and how it pollutes or overtaken yours, is a value loaded judgment that leads to the kind of hatred I call 'racism'. That's the problem. Is that clear enough or are you determined to twist the sense of that, too?vegetariantaxidermy wrote:Let me spell it out for you. You call people 'racist' for valuing their culture, but that 'racism' only seems to apply to certain cultures. You think it's fine for the Japanese to do this. I was simply wondering why. Is that too difficult a question for you?
I say what I say. You take what want from it but do not try repackage your understanding of what I am saying, to suggest that that is what I am actually saying. You do that an awful lot and much time is wasted, as people have to repeat over and over again the statements they make, that you have bent to fit your own agenda.
''I seek to live in peace, as pleasantly as possible with those around me, and only kick out at bullies''.
You really must stop spoiling me with all this irony.