Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ

Northern Ireland should learn give respect in any human race, People that migrated is not just there to steal local people job but to share help for their country by applying they professionalism.

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As an aside, the NYTimes recently published a correction for describing Judge Sonia Sotomayor's parents as immigrants. They were not immigrants, merely people who moved to New York from Puerto Rico, as such they were United States citizens.[1]

[1]

I'm reading Jonathan Sacks "The Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ We Build Together."

He has excellent thoughts on these issues. Would it be difficult to get him on the show, Will?

GV

Will, well said. I had the misfortune to listen to Stephen Nolan yesterday (parse that if you can ;-) fielding calls from some people on this topic, and even allowing for Stephen's faux-outrage hamming up, it was not pleasant listening. There is some deep prejudice in our society, and like you say, we are all immigrants. Indeed, we are all *AFRICAN* immigrants - our little tribe of ancestors only left Africa less than 3,000 generations ago.

If you could hold your mother's hand, and she held her mother's hand, and so on, back to our African Great^3K mother, the chain would only stretch about 3 miles. Indeed, you wouldn't even get as far as half a mile before you hit the first people to get to Ireland. Just over a hundred yards, and there's no such thing as a Christian; 30 yards, and there is no such thing as a Protestant.

For any of you who haven't seen it, Dr Alice Roberts has had a nice little documentary series on Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ2 called "The Incredible Human Journey". It's relatively lite on the science, but actually does a fairly good job in showing how we all got to be where we are. It's on Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ iPlayer [Look under "I"] - I would highly recommend it (and, sorry, William - she's a *teensy* bit cuter than you :-)

Full credit to some of the churches in their rapid response to this crisis. Next step - rid our society of the *real* spongers, benefits cheats, wasters and thugs - i.e. the fascist idiots who carried out these attacks.

-H

My goodness H - you mean Anglo-Saxon blood isn't pure?!

I think if you look under the rug, you'll find this all over Europe. Only the details will be different, the essence of it will be the same. The backlash against 100 Roumanians who are EU citizens and have the right to live anywhere in the EU from what I can tell including the UK and NI doesn't bode well for the future of the EU. The EU has so many inherent contradictions that cannot be reconciled, it's surprising that it has lasted as long as it has.

Graham, dear boy, there is no such thing as pure blood. Even the Chosen People of Teh LRD YHWH OMG have had their genetics "contaminated" from Moabites and Ishmaelites and Hittites and Georgians and Russians and what have you. And at core they're Arabs anyway. We love assigning people to categories, to "races", but these are not discrete entities.

But even if they were (and it would be a largely meaningless concept anyway), it would not excuse this sort of behaviour that is emanating from the shallow end of the NI gene pool. I wonder what the "British Israelites" would make of it all.

-H

I sort of thought the Anglo + Saxon sort of undermined tha whole purity notion anyhows(-:

What is the racists argument here - that they are purebreed halfbreeds.

A bit of research indicated at least four nationalities in me - and that's only going back 2 generations. It would be interesting to see how much of an immigrant I am.

Then the nazis can kick themselves out of the country.

GV

A recent experience Of "immigrants":

Just before Christmas, my wife discovered her purse (along with several credit card, money and other important documents) had gone missing. She new the last time she had it was in the Abbey centre. We went back to BHS the next morning. The staff searched high and low. My wife was becoming increasingly frustrated. Rather than cancling all the credit cards (a real hasle since most were under joint names) we decided to wait for a while and see if it turned up. That evening, when she returned from work, two Polish people were standing outside our door, purse in hand, complete with all it's contents. Even though they had no transport they had made their way on foot to our house. Obviously we were indebted to these people for their honesty and consideration and very , very grateful.

In an era of increasing credit card fraud and all the rest of it, that kind of attitude is really hard to find. I felt ashamed at what was being broadcast around the world yesterday. Romanians are welcome in my street anytime.

On the Calvin thread Helio asked a question about what we might actually do.

Well, one person on their own can't do much but, a few suggestions. Those of us (like me) working in schools can continue to promote and actively encourage respect for all people and all cultures and welcome those new to our shores by doing all we can to include them and help them settle in. Having safety, security and a good education for our kids is important for all of us and we can make this happen for those who wish to come and live here.

The same is true in some way or another for all of those working in the public sector, we can actively support, indeed we can go out of our way to ensure that 'others' are treated as fairly as we would like to be treated.

Those of us who are neighbours to immigrant people can offer friendship and welcome. Cook a meal welcome them into your home. Those of us who work with immigrants can support them in the work place, speak up for them openly condemn the violence.

We need to create a culture of welcome and it begins where we are, in our communities leisure centres and work places. Simple things matter, speak to people, smile, offer assistance and so on. Some churches are running English classes, our community centres could be opened up for the same purpose. In short a lot of it is about attitude and each of us needs to be careful and generous with our own.

BTW

The new Moderator has some worthwhile thoughts on the issue here:

Language is a funny thing. When did "foreigner" become a bad term? I think when we try and reinvent language we can make thing worse. The term "new Irish" has been used as if we are doing people a favour, being inclusive by describing people who are nigerian or latvian in this way. They are foreign but we should be pleased by that, pleased that foreigners want to come here. But we also need to be accurate when we speak about the law because inaccuracy leads to the sort of "these people get free cars" statements. EU citizens aren't entiteled to live in any part of the EU as such - they are entitled to travel to seek work - that's the right under the EC treaties. Of course in practice that means for most people you can live where you want. I did think it was a bit rich the Romanian ambassador talking so scathingly about northern Ireland, given Romania's own practice in treating the Roma.

Is it a Loyalist thing, or is it just that they always seem to end up living in loyalist areas?

McCamel

"When did "foreigner" become a bad term?"

Personally where I live, we prefer the term "aliens" as in illegal aliens and enemy aliens, and space aliens. Martians, Venusians, Irish
:-)

Just to be very pedantic, remember that the rules for Bulgarians and Romanians working in the UK are different:



They are entitled to live in the UK, but must not become an unreasonable burden and they must have permission if they intend to work there.

And unfortunately, the racism which many of these people would encounter in Romania is just as bad as in N.I. (Obviously this does not excuse the acts of violence perpetrated by the small-minded, uneducated, xenophobic racist morons of South Belfast).

(And yes, I am living in Romania at the moment)

A fairly wise analysis of our problems, and a way forward -







Although, it has to be said, some people will use any excuse for a riot.

Have to fly here - but surely the more communities we have, the more competing views, the better the debate, and all the better for democracy? Isn't it in our *interest* to have a variety of settled communities in NI?

GV

M2
We Irish are way weirder than any Martian.

gveale, I read or saw on TV maybe 20 years ago that about 40 million Americans have at least some Irish blood in them. Perhaps that explains in part why we are also so wierd. Now on Saint Patty's day like most other Americans, I'm willing to wear something green but this has its limits. I'll eat corned beef and cabbage but I refuse to put green food coloring in my beer. And I refuse to switch away from the brew I like best...which is not Irish. And I don't march in "no stinkin' parades" sober or otherwise.

You talkin' to me?

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Come on moderators, re-instate 20 - it's a perfect illustration of Will's thesis.

This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the house rules. Explain.