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.

No offense taken! Just a great exchange of ideas among dear friends...

fanx

Maybe by writing this i will be changing the topic slightly
within my job role i do come into contact with homophobic and racist incidents and over the past 2 yrs instead of maybe 3-4 reports a year they are a weekly occurance now and this increase is racism reports !! some of these reports are tit for tat where neighbours cannot live next door to each other peacrfully whilst others is sheer and pure unprovoked attacks,mostly i am pleased to say are verbal and not phyical however,i havent been subject of any kind of racisim UNTIL i started going out with a Turkish national.
Then the abuse started.
My close friend who actually introduced us in the first place turned the tables and started saying he's no good and she only introduced us for a bit of fun and didnt think it would go anywhere and that i should get rid of him, when i went out, her husband started having a go and this is where i really got a taste, friends of his who i didnt actually know and were strangers to me after a few beers would come and tap me on the shoulder and start, saying they hear i am going out with a Turkish ba****d, what the hell am i doing going out with a foreign ****(well i wont even partly spell the next word that followed) what am i after a free f'ing kebab? the abuse was endless and in the end i stopped going out, i became very depressed, if he was a white or English guy i would have had a pat on the back and would have been told well done girl im pleased for you but no, endless abuse,
he's ugly, he's usless, he cant speak English properly (so??) what could ever offer you (love,kindness,loyalty,respect?), even his name was scoffed at,he's a f'ing muslim,it went on and on and yet my friend who introduced us went out with his friend for 2yrs but her approach to her boyfriend was totally different to my approach and so her treatment from her's was so different from mine , hers was jealous and so she would deliberately play on that and then she got a reaction and that then made her do it even more ,hers hated her going out beause he knows what she's like where as mine begs me to go out (he doesnt know what abuse ive had) he really doesnt want me to loose my contact with my friends which is unusual for a Turkish man, he is so happy when i say im going going with a friend but my friend can only see what Turks are like from her own experience and mostly her fault ! and thinks if i settle down with Ahmet im going to get the same treatment, she has no idea just how different we are!

I am a peaceful person and i so wanted to stick up for him but i know in the situations i was in, a crowded pub, men & women fired up with alcohol would have probably inflamed the situation so i just turned my back but when you are actually out with some of the people who are doing this you havent really got anywhere to go but home and so i stopped going out i just wanted a few drinks with a few friends not abuse like this. People ive discussed this with say why do you go around with them , well i dont , its just one friend i go around with and its her friends and her husbands friends who we meet up with along the way that do it and my friend still doesnt like the idea but says its my decsion and she will support me even if she doesnt agree with it .
I still dont go out much , my friend still says he's not rightfor me ,her husband says no more as he says i know his views
but now i can actually stand up and say ive been faced with racism personnaly and although it wasnt frightening as my life wasnt being threatened it was still a horrible situation to hear people saying these things about my partner and future husband , again if he had been white and they didnt like him things would have been said behind my back and not to my face and i know it would, but ,as he wasnt English or white it made them think they had the absolute right to verbally abuse him when the majority of these people had not even ever seen him let alone have met him.
Phew sorry i harped on a bit




Kind Regards
Jackie
xx

I found this very very uncomfortable to read and I know it will indirectly offend many people here. I don't know what part of England you live in, but this is outrageous!

However, I can agree with you that racism has increased, and we can look directly to the media for this (particularly the Daily Mail and Daily Express - the most racist, disgusting, headline scare-mongering papers of all). They are using scare tactics to create racism. Check the headlines of any news report in the past few months and you can guarantee that at least half of them will be about problems with the muslim communities.

I dont know what else to say - this is very worrying...

after reading aenigma's post perhaps i shouldnt have written what i did and i read the forum rules before i joined!
i am a new member and the last thing is to start something and get banned .
but i totally agree the media if they dont stop is going to whoop everything in to a frenzy
why o why cant people just live their lives the way they want no matter where they live as long as its not harming anyone's health??
we are supposed to be the most intelligent species on earth so why arnt we behaving as such at times i wish i were a simple snail who's daily life consists of leaving slimy trails everywhere and innocently munching heads off flowers ! second thoughts perhaps not as snails are bl***y pests as well lol

Kind Regards
Jackie
xx