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English vs. Polish hostility [323]
Having read all the Posts and spent several minutes creased in laughter (at the banter; not the serious points being made), I've had to remind myself that the Thread origin was that immigrants should adapt to fit in with us and not us to fit them in.
I think it's fair to say that multiculturalism does not work on a large scale. On a small scale it possibly does; as per the China Town's around the Country. Most people enjoy the cultural island around, say, Soho's Gerard St but are happy that it doesn't spread out. We like having Indian, Bangladeshi, Javanese etc restaurants in our towns but, again, they are contained and are somewhere for us, the British, to visit. These examples of multiculturalism are contained and abide by British laws, standards (not sure about Kosher and Hal Hal) and, where appropriate, bye laws.
This is not new, of course, We have absorbed waves of foreigners over the centuries and they are living, mostly un-noticed, in amongst us now. Some groups, such as the Jews can still be identified and mainly by their religious customs. Would anybody now be able to identify a former Lombard or Huguenot (of which that great British engineer I K Brunel was a descendant of)? There seem to be little in the way of records kept at the time of how they were assimilated. Did they change the Nation (I K B aside) in some way? I don't know. I stand to be corrected, but I think we have seen since the end of WW2 a greater proportion of our overall population arrive here than we ever have and still they arrive.
We Brits are largely tolerant people and if a town has, say, a proportion of East European settlers, we are happy for them to set up an Eastern Orthodox Church. The problems arise when a large foreign element sets up its own "ghetto". They would probably argue that "we" force them down that route by being different to them. The point is, though, that it's easier for them not to change and set up their own Community. Hence we have vast tracts of formerly industrial towns and cities that are "little" Indias, Pakistans, Jamaicas (don't forget the West Indians are still in this topic), you name it. The next step in having retained there own cultures and, usually, language is the assertion of their "rights". This is point where friction is created. Do we allow them their "rights" to effectively annex parts of our Country for the themselves or do we say "fit in or ship out"? Many of us have been thinking the latter but have been restrained by the Liberal and Socialist experimenters and appeasers not to express it. The Human Rights legislation has compounded the problem further. The analogy is that the Householder must now treat the Lodger as an equal and with no powers of eviction nor tenancy termination.
