Renouncing Romance. Sort Of.

So today I drummed it into my head that I'm probably not going to have a romantic relationship for at least three years or something.
For one thing, I'm unlikely to find anyone in the near future with whom a state of mutual attraction will be established. With one-and-half exceptions, and one more doubtful exception, any guy I've ever remotely fallen for has been straight. And I don't see this changing any time soon.
For another thing, I'm completely incompetent at this thing we call romance. The few who have ever been able to see in me in a romantic light have been put off pretty quickly. My head just isn't anywhere near the ballpark of dating and such.

~AN IMPORTANT SIDE-NOTE~
This is NOT the point you go "aww" and feel sorry for me.
Anyone feeling sorry for me right now will be slapped in the face. Twice. With a brick. Because you are completely missing the point of everything.

I have decided that romance doesn't matter. Or, it only matters when it is actually present in your life, making pining for it or chasing it a worthless endeavour.

I have a new theory regarding relationships.  

It is not the types of relationship in your life that matters; it's the people.
Everyone you ever meet has the power to change the life for the better. Everyone can give you lessons to learn, and new experiences to taste. And since every human being is at least slightly different, the inspiration and teachings they can give you are at least slightly different as well. And, most relevantly, the way in which they will teach and/or inspire you is different.

Humans don't just establish relationships with people. When all goes well, we establish the specific type of relationship that will allow the other person to help us the most. Sometimes it's a friendship, sometimes a surrogate-family affair, sometimes it's a mentor/student collaboration, and sometimes it's romance. 

Therefore romance, as with any other type of relationship, has no objective value. It is a means to an end. It's a bit like a pen- if you give a pen to an average five-year-old child, it's going to have a lot less value than if you give it to Shakespeare. In the same way, if you establish a romantic relationship with someone who had done more good as a friend or as a source-of-inspiration-from-afar, then none of the wonderful things you've heard about romance will happen. But if you build one with someone who can help you most via romance, then awesomeness will ensue.

Of course, it's not always possible to tell how someone can help you most. The only real-life advice I can give, I'm afraid, is follow your instincts wherever possible, and don't try to convince yourself into feeling anything.

So, to clarify the title, I'm not actually renouncing romance- I'm renouncing my obsession with romance. I've spent too much time wanting a boyfriend, when I'm probably just as well off without one.

THE END! 

It's Not As Easy To Blame Religion As You Might Think...

People blame religion for a lot of things. I've heard it said, many a multitude of times, that if it wasn't for religion there would be less war, less conflict, less oppression. I can see exactly where this argument is coming from, and for a long time, I kind of agreed with it. But recently, I reached the conclusion that this is not the case.

Take the Taliban. They claim to be acting on Islamic principles, but it's pretty plain to see that their only objective is power for themselves. They don't care who they kill or suppress, whether it's an obedient Muslim or a blasphemous atheist. They only try to justify what they are doing in Islamic terms to try and convince the moderate Afghan majority that they are the good guys. 

As a Christian example, look at Northern Ireland. To the casual viewer, the conflicts here would seem to be an entirely religious issue. The reason the majority of Northern Irish wanted to stay united with Britain was because they were Protestant and Britain was a Protestant nation; the reason the IRA objected was that they were Catholic and Ireland was a Catholic nation. Virtually all the conflict in Northern Ireland still comes from those two groups; Catholics and Protestants.
But this is not a religious conflict. The division between those who call themselves Catholic and those who call themselves Protestant is not rooted in strong opinions about transubstantiation. To all extents and purposes, the two terms are merely words, words that represent abstract notions of community that you are born into, and does not change with your religious beliefs. Again, religion is only used as a scapegoat for those who would divide themselves from others. 

It's the same everywhere. Yes, people have done atrocious things in the name of Christianity, Islam, Hinduism  et al. But those actions, or actions very similar to them, would have happened regardless of whether those faith systems had been set up beforehand.

Acts of destruction and divisiveness are motivated by the same things they are always motivated by; desire for wealth, desire for power, the desire to belong to an "us" at the expense of a "them". The fact the perpetrators of those acts then tried to justify what they did in religious terms is irrelevant. People have done the same with national identity; Hitler declared he was doing what he did in the name of/ for the sake of Germany. Does this make the existence of Germany the cause of Nazism? Of course it doesn't!

The point is, people don't start out completely innocent, then open a bible or hear a pastor and are suddenly filled with the desire to oppress, divide, destroy, dismantle. It doesn't work like that, and has never worked like that. Those who kill and create misery in the name of religion already want to commit the acts they commit before finding a way to justify themselves with their interpretation of a certain faith. 

If organised religion was to disappear, the world would remain 100% as conflicted as it is now. That is what I believe. Of course, not all of you will agree, and you are welcome to put your counter-arguments forward. Just keep it civil, please!

Happy websurfing!

A Highly Admirable Pastor

"One reason, I think, is that it's easy to condemn homosexuality if you are not gay. It is much harder than condemning pride, or lust or greed, things that most practicing Christians have struggled with. It is all too easy to make homosexuality about "those people," and not me. If I were to judge someone for their inflated sense of pride, or their tendency to worship various cultural idols, I would feel some personal stake, some cringe of self-judgment. Not so with homosexuality. 

"

These words (amongst other words) from a man who used to publicly condemn homosexuality and  gay rights, Pastor Murray Richmond.
Three things delight me about this:

Firstly, Richmond fills me with admiration, because it is so hard to admit you're wrong in this pride-filled world. Also, I'm a sucker for a "redeemed villian" story.

Secondly, the argument itself is excellent. The whole thing is really worth reading if you travel via the link above, and it highlights the hypocrisy of those who express anti-gay sentiment with wonderful clarity and eloquence. It provides good ammunition, as it were.

Thirdly, it gives hope to all those who have been fighting for LGBT equality for so long. We can change the minds of the opposition. It's happened and shall happen again.

"The First Amendment Doesn't Count for Muslims"

The First Amendment to the US Constitution was the act of legislature that ensured no law could be passed that would infringe on the right of American citizens to openly practice their religion. It provided the protection that America was essentially founded over- that is to say, the various groups of Pilgrim Fathers travelled to the New Continent to practice their religion without fear of the theocratic governments of the Europe of the time, and the First Amendment ensured their journey was not wasted.

Now, Bryan Fischer, a major commentator of the American right-wing, has said it doesn't apply to Islam. His justification for this basically goes that there were no Muslims in America at the time the amendment was written, so it's authors were unaware of this horrific threat to American democracy and culture and the Western way of life.

Wow. What total idiocy.

First-off, it shows how completely ignorant Mr. Fischer is of the nature of Islam. As always, he simply looks to the Taliban and Al-Qaeda and thinks "right, well, all Muslims are out to kill/suppress me then!". This is roughly equivalent to someone looking at the Westboro Baptist Church in order to judge all Christians. Declaring that all Muslims are out to destroy democracy is pure fearmongering, as I have stated many times before. He conveniently forgets, or perhaps he hasn't bothered to find out about,  the moderate majority of Muslims, who are happy to dwell in or co-exist with a Western democratic state. It is never acceptable to condemn the 95% because of the actions of the 5%.

Secondly, it's more hypocritical than I can even begin to say. The First Amendment does not contain a clause saying "well, as long as we happen to like the religion being expresses, that is". There are plenty of people, liberals, gay people, Native Americans, as well as Muslims, who object to a lot of what Fischer says. But due to the First Amendment, he has the right to say it- as he and his supporters so gleefully point out every few minutes. Now he has come across a religious disposition he doesn't like, and he's trying to find a loophole in the Amendment protecting him, so he can suppress his opponents.

The rights of those who follow Islam are under threat all over the west. We have to stand against this demonisation of one of our most prominent minority groups, or disastrous consequences will follow. What it's easy to forget is that a great number of people do listen to people like Fischer, and their British counterparts. Support for Islam has to be expressed, and those measures which would spread division amongst different religions and ethnic groups in our respective homelands must be challenged at every turn. 

What We Should Be Cutting

In the light of the anti-cuts marches happening today, and constant criticism from the Tories that no-one on the left has provided a credible alternative to their deficit reduction programme, I've decided to come up with things I would cut before withdrawing funding from education and public services. There are a lot of things the government wastes money on that not many people (except the Green Party) bring up.

1. The House of Lords
Pretty much everyone agrees that we need to reform the Lords, to make it more democratic. We should only allow them to continue if they are elected, with shorter terms. But I would go one step further, and say we shouldn't continue them at all. The House of Lords has no real power. They have to pass a bill once it reaches them from the Commons. They can delay it for a year, but after that, it must be passed, even if the Lords were to unanimously object to the bill. They are essentially the Royal Family without the tourist income. No plan for reforming the Lords says anything about giving them more power. So why not do away with it completely, and have a unicameral parliament? I really don't see the disadvantage. While the Lords don't recieve a salary, we would save 792 lots of expenses, as well as however much we spend on upkeep. 
2. Trident
   There is presently a fairly extensive campaign including people from Greenpeace, the SNP and the Greens not to renew the Trident nuclear weapon system.There are a number of cheaper alternatives than the full replacement plan currently in the works, or we can replace the programme as plan but cut the number of submarines. It goes without saying that the present threat of nuclear attack is much lower than it was when Trident was initially bought, and nuclear armament is nowhere near so important that it should be immune to the cuts all other departments are facing. 
3. Replacing Petrol With Hydrogen
4. Okay, so this one is complication, would initially cost money, and would take a long time. However, oil prices are going up and up, and with so many alternative fuels available for cars, it's ridiculous not to replace them. Mass-production biofuel requires a lot of land space, and while it releases a lot less carbon extra carbon than crude oil, it's difficult to prove that it's entirely carbon neutral. Hydrogen, therefore, is by far the best option.
5. Carbon TaxesDetailed here, a carbon tax would provide more money for tackling to deficit while deterring people from releasing too much carbon. 

So, that's that. I'm sure there are many more options I could have put here given the need. The point is, there are many ways the Tories could be protecting our public services etc, they just aren't. So don't believe them when they say it's inevitable.  

Gender Identity

There's a serious lack of understanding going around regarding non-heteronomrative gender identity. I thought I'd provide everyone with a glossary to promote basic comprehension. ^_^

Sex: Whether you are male or female physically.

Gender: Whether you are male or female behaviourally, and whether you identify emotionally as male or female.

Transgender: Someone who's gender is the opposite of their sex. A transgender woman is a person who identifies as a woman but has a physically male body, and a transgender man is vice versa.

Transsexual: Someone who has undergone sex change surgery (though sometimes used interchangeably with transgender).

Genderqueer: Someone who does not identify as "man" or "woman"; who has no gender. Distinctly different from transgenders/transsexuals, since trans people do identify to a single gender, it just happens to be the one different from the sex they were born with. Those who consider themselves genderqueer, however, do not identify as a gender.


Transgender, transsexual and genderqueer people are presently subject to more intolerance and prejudice than homosexuals/bisexuals. People are coming to terms with same-sex attraction, but alternative gender identity is still considered "weird" by most.
If you think about it, it's not that strange. I find it far more peculiar that sex and gender do correlate so much of the time; because they are essentially completely different things.
Belonging to one of the three demographics outlined above is not unhealthy or damaging in any way. It is not a delusion or mental illness, as too many people still think. There is no reason to object to it other than "oh no! it's different from me!"

Lets overcome that reaction, and throw the arms of social acceptance wide open to those who weren't lucky enough to be born the the physical body of the gender they identify with. 

Evidence That People Are Basically Awesome

We hear so much about how people are basically selfish, that kindness doesn't exist, that every action of man eventually leads to his own benefit.

We are so often told of a dog-eat-dog world in which we must fend for ourselves, because no-one helps anyone.

We are subject all the time to the sentiment that faith in humanity is misguided and naive, that only the cynical are making any sense.

There are moments, like these, where I just want to stick two fingers up to the cynics and say "suck it, bitch!". But I can't, because I'm too moved to do anything but stand and gape.

http://uk.news.yahoo.com/5/20110318/twl-nuclear-ninja-suicide-mission-to-sav-3fd0ae9.html

It's not the first time something like this has happened, either.
Life-sacrificing heroes were present at Chernobyl, 9/11, in every major war, in every earthquake and Tsunami. It's a sad world where more people know about Adolf Hitler than Edith Cavell.

Yes, people are willing to lose everything to make a safer, better world for others. No, it's not just those trained in the art of rescue and sacrifice like soldiers or firefighters. The men involved in the operation detailed above are technicians, engineers. This is the first time, almost definitely, their work has been anything remotely life-threatening. Yet they have walked into the face of such immense danger with no hope of reward and virtually no hope of survival.

One of the most commonly-asked question in the world goes: "are people basically good, or basically bad?"
The answer goes: "Neither."

People are basically awesome. That, my time-killing web-surfing friend, is the simple truth.

Libya

Enough slacking. I am going to blog every from now until my birthday. Here goes.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

So, Libya.

I'm all for the rebels trying to oust Gadaffi. But the US, UN, Europe et al getting involved is a terrible idea that is, in so many ways, another Iraq.

Firstly, it's not going to help anything.
Obama and Cameron say they want to stop Gadaffi bombing the rebels or attacking them with chemical weapons. They allegedly want to protect the people of Libya, so they are going to shoot down his planes and bomb his strongholds. Sounds like a good idea at first, but it's complete nonsense.
Attacking Gadaffi's cities will lead to Lybian deaths. Gadaffi's inevitable counter-attack will lead to more Libyan deaths. They may well stop the battle reaching the cities held by the rebel, but they're not going to stop the battle happening. They're just going to move the fighting to a different part of Libya. Either way, innocent civilians die from being in the wrong place at the wrong time. So where's the advantage?

Secondly, as harsh as this may seem, this is kind of how civil wars work.
Rebels attempt to overthrow their government, government retaliates, fighting ensues, the strongest side gets to run the country. It's happening in various non-Libya places around the world as we speak. It just seems so illogical to get stuck in with the rebels in this war when we aren't bothering/haven't bothered with all the others. If we support a particular side, we can provide resources etc., rather than sending over troops and making the fighting worse.

Thirdly, you cannot justify this on a humanitarian basis, which is what the NAmerican/European leaders are trying to do.
A similar argument to the first, but to genuinely help the civilians of Libya, one would organise evacuations (which, in fairness, has been happening) and provide aid. Introduce more belligerents to a war, and you cause more fighting, and more deaths. You can only justify the attack on Libya from a political point of view, so Western leaders are misinforming us when they try to say "we're doing it for the innocent civilians!".

Fourthly, this will be damaging to the rebels in the long term.
The US and it's merry band of allies invaded Iraq in 2003, and they're still paritally in occupation. When the rebels began their fight against Gadaffi, their aim was not US occupation for eight-plus years. Let them win the fight on their own, and they can form (or at least attempt to form) a government by the Libyan people, for the Libyan people. But now that's not going to happen.

Fifthly, it's all about the oil.
I mean, seriously. Obama et al have let however-many civil wars pass them by with never anything more than a speech on how lovely it is that democracy is spreading. Now for the first time since 2003 they've leapt in with guns blazing (literally), and the country fighting over itself just happens to be very rich in the black stuff? It's all fairly obvious.

Oh well. Maybe the war will be won in a matter of days, saving thousands of lives, control being handed over to the Libyans immediately afterwards, and I'll be thrilled to have been proven wrong. But it's not looking very likely.

Everyone Must Compete!

Today, I'm going to try starting a blog post with an anecdote. Just to see if I can pull it off.

So, I like cycling. It makes me exercised and allows me to appreciate the sun and outside air. But I do NOT cycle fast. I am really, really slow. As with most things I do in life. So it always annoys me when faster people (read: everyone with legs over the age of four) overtake me.
I've learnt to deal with it since most people who cycle at the same time as me where actual cycling shorts and cycling shirts and proper helmets and things, so I figure they must be far more committed to the whole cycling thing than me. I've managed to hammer into my head the simple equation "latex equals fast," and if anyone over takes me wearing leatex, it no longer bothers me. And it usually minimises anxiety/inferiority complex content during my cycling escapades.
So, I was out cycling last Saturday. Being overtaken by millions of latex-wearing cyclist people of an incredibly wide range of ages; as usual. Thanks to my latex equation, I was happily pedalling along, virtually unaware of my lack of pace. Then, some NON-LATEX WEARING bastard, about my age, hurtles past my at comparatively twice the speed the sound. This, of course. led to a huge metaphorical kicking of my irrational male pride, and so I hurtled after him attempting to re-overtake him. It was only about ten minutes later (or four and a half minutes after he left my line of view) that I realised: hold on, what is the actual point of this? It affects my life in no way whatsoever if some flashy git is a faster cyclist than me, and I've just pushed my leg-muscles to far greater their usual capacity, in the full knowledge that they will punish me when I get home, even more than they usually do after a bike session.

And it got me thinking, why are people so competitive?

Competitiveness isn't an inherently bad thing. It pushes people to do the best they can, academically and professionally; and  it leads to a hell of a lot of interesting multi-national festival things. But there does seem to be a hell of a lot of unnecessary competitiveness in our lives. Every day, we hear voices or see images that tell us to "Be more muscular than your friends! Be the skinniest girl in your school! Smell better than anyone else on the train! Appear affluent! Make people envy you!"

I know what it sounds like I'm going to say next- "commercialism! bragh!" But this process of making people compete unnecessarily is by no means a sin only advertisers are guilty of. Our whole society from education upwards seems to be based around not only making people want to be good, but making people want to be better than everyone else. When you were in primary school, the teacher would let the tidiest table go first. Your secondary school ran "gifted and talented clubs" and started sports teams that you always wanted to stand out and be a part of. I don't know how you're parents raised you; but it's likely they encouraged you throughout your years to be better than the next kid, to make everyone think you were cleverer and more athletic and more talented than everyone else. None of these are particularly bad on their own, but it all builds up and up until you are so ridden with the need to be better than your friends that you pick the socially inept and less intelligent to hang around with, to make yourself look good, and you find yourself envying your best friends every success.

Why isn't it enough to just be good at the things you are good at, and bad at the things you are bad at? This desperate need to compete we have set up in our society draws everyone to the same goals- which is neither realistic nor beneficial. Everyone is good at different things. Yes, we have all heard this sentiment in our junior years of school; but it's never enough. The teachers rarely act by that principle in any other situation, and outside of school, we are bombarded by images telling us to be pretty, to look clever, that to be normal is not enough- we must be elite. It's arguable that young children are not affected by this attitude in society the same way as the rest of us, but my experience is to the contrary. My sister is nine, and only recently she told me she thought she was fat and ugly. Needless to say, she is neither of those things.

I do it too. My subconscious is saturated in competitiveness as much as anyone else's. Whenever anyone, even someone I love very dearly, has a big success, there is always a part of me that is envious in the midst of my euphoria. "Why wasn't it me?" The dickhead inside of me says.
I personally feel we'd all have similar confessions, if we thought about it enough.

I don't know what the solution is- I may do a second post in which I attempt to find one. But hopefully I've at least established that there's a problem- we are being driven to desire achievements we don't need to achieve, and the empathy and love we so need in life are being compromised by envy and the drive to compete unnecessarily.   

I Will Be Blogging During Lent

Because blogs are more important that Jesus. Or something.

I was initially just going to be like "oh yeah, hey guys, blogging during lent now after all, what'm I like!" at the start of my next real post. But the next real post is going to be about something kind of important that needs lots of words said about it, so it would be better to get stuck right into the topic. As such, I thought I'd let you know about my non-lentiness now. 

My thinking behind continuing to blog is that this blog isn't actually unproductive or time-wasting; it's probably a better way to spend my time than most other things I do with my life, Facebook or no Facebook. I'm still giving up Facebook, Formspring, Youtube, and other people's blogs amongst other things, and I'm only going to use Blogger to swiftly paste posts I've written in Word into the box of postingness. I won't read blog comments or go through blogger stats until Easter. That's my vague attempt to justify myself, anyway. 

So, yeah.

I love Jesus really. 

Scrapblog 1

So I'm giving up the internet for Lent in two days. Which means I have forty days worth of opinions to inform you of before I hand the baton over to my Guest Bloggers (assuming my Guest Bloggers are willing to Guest Blog).

So here's an attempt to summarise as many of my thoughts regarding The World As It Is as possible. Have fun!

• Are political parties necessary? I've been thinking about this a lot, and I'm seriously wondering if the government would be better if every MP stood independently. We could then have a separate presidential/prime ministerial election, as they do in the States and other such lovely places. Lower house representatives in every democratic system often find themselves having to "choose the lesser evil" and throw their lot in with the party they disagree with the least, even if the leaders of the party are proposing something the rep. in question happens to really strongly object to. It would be so much better if every representative actually said and did what s/he genuinely believed in. It would be better for voters as well- we would vote for a candidate who was actually going to stand up for our constituency, then a governmental leader who was actually going to make beneficial changes, rather than gut-reacting to the labels of "Labour," "Tory," "Lib Dem".
  
• I support the separation of church and state. Despite believing that Christianity happens to be true, it is only one opinion represented amongst the population of Britain, and I see no reason to give it special status above every other religious/spiritual opinion. Christians should not be in the business of trying to force our morals onto people who have not decided to follow the same path as us. All we can do is try to demonstrate the arguments supporting our view the best we can. See also this post I wrote a while back about not assuming our interpretation of God's will is superior.
  
• Why is Christianity intrinsically linked with the right of the political spectrum? I am a liberal, as is the man I broadly consider my spiritual/theological mentor. There is a lot in the bible that supports the agenda of the left, such as the emphasis Jesus put on the sharing of possessions (welfare state/socialism), and Paul's claim that "there is neither Jew nor Gentile, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Jesus Christ" (a basic support of the idea that people should be treated equally regardless of demographic groups, and minorities should be protected).
  I think the only reason we have this link is that the social-conservatives can only really justify their plugging of the traditional family in traditional religious terms. As such, they have had to present their views as the "Christian" option for as long as they have existed.
  But it's not true. There are open Christians on every position of the political spectrum, and every position can be justified with at least one Bible verse. The conservatives do not have a political monopoly on Christian ethics.
  
• I like revolutionaries. I may have touched on this before, but it's worth stressing again my utmost admiration for those who speak up for freedom in places they may well die because of it. I would raise a glass to you all, if I had a glass. The support of the major players in the international community for the protesters in Libya and southern Sudan, and for those trying to build new governments in Egypt and Tunisia.
   
• Earthquakes suck. My thoughts go out to those suffering in New Zealand. Big amount of support needed there too. 

That's probably enough for now. As you may have guessed by the numerical qualifier on this post's title, I'll be doing at least one more of these prior to LENT*. If there's anything you'd like my opinion on before Ash Wednesday, or anything in this post you'd like me to expand upon after Easter, let me know! Emails are welcome, my web address can be found in the Self-Absorbed Box Of Vaguely Informative Introductory Narcissism. 

*Lent needs to be said dramatically now it's going to affect my life so much; hence the capitals. 

Like Children

This is an extract from A Darkling Plain by Phillip Reeve. The book is set in a time where nearly the entire human population has abandoned the monotheistic religions, in favour of a vague henotheistic tradition. The character Oneone is one of the few Christians left in the world, having converted because she believed Christ helped her through an exceedingly difficult task in the book prior to this one. The conversation below is between Oneone and her companion Hester, after their friend, Theo, has run back into a war zone, and they have had to leave him behind.

"You should have prayed to that old god of yours! To keep him safe! To bring him back!"
...After a while, Oneone said "If God could do things like that, the world wouldn't look the way it does now. He can't reach down and stop any of us from doing the things we choose to do."
"What use is he, then?"
Oneone shrugged. "He sees. He understands. He knows how you're feeling. He knew how Theo felt. He knows what it's like to die, and when we die we go to Him."
"To the Sunless Country, you mean? Like ghosts?"
Oneone shook her head patiently. "Like children. Do you remember what it was like to be a tiny child? When you knew everything was possible, and everything was given to you, and you were safe and loved, and the days went on forever? That's what it'll be like in Heaven. That's what it's like for Theo now."  

Multiculturalism

So a few posts back, I spoke in the Burqa and why I believe banning it would be a bad idea. It seems right that I should address the issue of multiculturalism in general, as it's relevant to a great deal of what I believe.

Multiculturalism- the belief that several different cultures can co-exist peacefully and equally in a single country.


I believe that the multiculturalist approach is the only sensible way for a democratic society to exist. If you want  a state to claim an area of land as big as Britain is, you are always going to have to deal with cultural differences among the population. You can allow everyone to express the culture, faith and heritage they desire, or you can force everyone to submit to the culture of the majority. The latter reaction is undemocratic, and undermines basic freedoms that few in Britain deny exist.

That's a very basic outline of my view on the initial concept of multiculturalism (MC). I'm not going to go into it further, because I want to move on to focus on the issue facing Britain in the 21st century, regarding Muslims and immigrants from Asia and Africa.

Multiculturalism has always existed in Britain. Before the borders were open to immigration from the East, we had distinctly non-English minorities thriving in our United Kingdom. Specifically, Celtic cultures- Cornish, Scots, Welsh, Irish. These have now been totally accepted by the dominant Anglo-Saxon descendants. A Scottish school teaching classes in Gaelic is seen as something to be encouraged, not feared. A Welshman living in London who displays a Ddraig Goch outside his flat is not begrudged his right to do so by the English- unless those English happen to be drunk rugby fans.
But it's a different story, for some reason, when it comes to people displaying Muslim, Arabic, Asian cultures. A Muslim who openly practices her faith is seen as a threat to Western democracy and tradition and freedom and God knows what else. Many cringe at the sight of a Pakistani flag in a major British town. Even speaking Hindi or Urdu is somehow an outrageous anti-British statement. While Scots are something we've come to tolerate, Indians and Pakistanis are somehow just "too different".
[Before we go further, I am by no means accusing the entire White British population of objecting to openly expressed Asian culture. I'm only arguing against the very vocal section of our society who do. Is that clear? Good.]

There is no sensible thinking behind that train of thought which says Islam should be practised behind closed doors, and Asian culture should be tucked away into the corners. How does the presence of an Indian man being Indian make you any less white, or any less British? If you are proud to be a Brit, that's great. But it doesn't mean everyone else should act like Brits as well.
The thinking seems to end up saying that the British culture is simply better than Asian or African cultures. This is not true, and can not possibly be true. No one culture improves the world to such an extent that all other cultures are primitive by comparison. Level of development isn't even relevant to culture- think of James Caan, as an example of a successful businessman who is also an openly-practising Sikh. Just one of many- and they are no worse at their job than their white Juedo-Christian counterparts.

I return to the point about Celtic culture from a different angle, and point out that this British culture we are so proud of would not even exist if Anglo-Saxons, Normans, Vikings and Celts had not been able to co-exist. What more proof do you need that fear of co-existing with other cultures is irrelevant and irrational?

Also, let's not forget the anti-Gaelic measures sparked by the Duke of Cumberland after the battle of Culloden. That was an example against irrational fear of another culture- one that we look back on now and completely fail to see the point of. I strongly believe that this is how future generations will look upon the right-wing movement against openly expressed Islam and Asian culture.

One of the most important lessons from history is that it is not the differences between people, but fear of those differences, that causes the most suffering in the world. Let's take the opportunity we have to learn from history, and not succumb to our uneasiness about those who live, worship, cook and meet in different methods to the ones we are used to.