I am from the UK and we are no longer a nation of Englishmen/women so to speak we are considered as a" multi culteral" nation and the UK have to accomodate all races of people who have chosen to settle in the UK however what i do find upsetting is that the UK is appearing to loose the English/British identity in doing so.
I am not a parent so i am sitting on the fence when i say this ( so please correct me if im wrong) but i find it quite disturbing when schools are no longer allowed to have christmas trees up at christmas and are no longer allowed to have our traditional nativity play because there are many children who do not celebrate christmas !
This is not law as far as im aware and some schools as far as im aware still do have the above but i am aware at work when i hear mothers talking that "joey's school " isnt having a navivity play this yr as the school authorities wont authorise it.
I remember when i was at school back in the 60's and 70's if the school were doing something out of the norm we all had letters sent home asking parents to be aware that this or that was being done at school and parents had to given permission before we could attend ie sexual eduction classes just as an example but back then we still had muslim,hindi,bangledeshi children and they all joined in , in what ever was going on Christmas then wasnt a problem so whats happened ?
i am in a mixed culteral relationship and i absolutely would not stand in his way for him to follow his faith but just how far doing we go before loosing what ever country we live in 's identity to ensure that other communities are catered for?
I absolutely love culture and totally find it facinating and all throughout my college years all my friends were from overseas,iranian,iraqy,polish,french,chinese,thai as i preferred their company to English people , my Fiance is Turkish and so im not writing this with venham or hatred i guess im just thinking out aloud lol but when i see/hear or read about other religions being accomodated within the UK and yet our customs/religious celebrations are slowly but surely being stopped "incase" it offends it does upset me.
I hope you can see where im coming from as it is sometimes hard to express oneself in writing without actually hearing in what context its being said.

Kind Regards

Jackie

xx

Jacky, that is exactly my point. I too love other cultures and their traditions and habits, but up to what limit and costs regarding own laws and traditions?

Well, first of all, be careful not to call people from the UK "English" - Joey will not thank you for forgetting the Scots, Welsh and Northern Irish

I have mixed feelings about your comments. I can understand that you are saying, but my feelings are that we MUST lose this nationalistic approach. The world is changing, especially Europe, and there are no borders within the EU now. People are free to come and go as they please.

With regard to Christmas, I would agree with you if we were a devoutly Christian country. However, most people have no interest in the church or religion until a "nice" festival like Christmas comes along. It is hypocritical of us to be offended.

If you believe that people who move to the UK should embrace our culture and religion, then perhaps you should look at the bad record of the English, in particular, and their "colonies". We had no respect for other's culture, we created "little England's" all over the world - and still continue to do so as people move to the sunny resorts to live permanently.

We are getting a taste of our own medicine, and sometimes medicine tastes bitter eh?

True again aenigma. My country is also not so innocent when it comes to colonizing. But my point is, if I just do accept other cultural behavings and point of views but do not accept 'they' (?) want to change things back in time, am I a racist then? Let me explain: some of my students do want to get rid of laws according gay marriage, abortion and living unmarried together because they are against it. They think it is normal calling names at gays, normal to abuse women who dress - in their opinion - not decent. I think they are absolutely entitled to their point of view but not to the behaviour going with it as they say. My 'problem' is not different religion or ideas, my problem is the action some people take to convince others of their ideas.