John Cleese: London no longer English

London has always been full of immigrants, be they Huguenots, Italians, Jews Indians etc. The whole UK is built on immigration going back hundreds of years, it's what makes it the country it is. Do not see the problem.
 
OldCoals said:
People self segregate, birds of a feather flock to together.
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people do self segregate naturally, but only if their identity and cultural confidence are strong enough in the first place for them to want to preserve it. we as white generally europeans do not. we are too busy engaging in meaningless hedonism :/
 
Do you know what's wrong with the UK? It's the damn dirty locals. It's all rights and wants without responsibility, pride and hard work
 
placeholder said:
You know what i mean.

My point is that the biggest City in the USA is made up of people who are derived from a large number of countries and backgrounds.
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Like white - Europeans, who technically arent 'Americans'.

(Native) Americans have been a minority in America for a very long time.
 
Welcome to Earth. Multicultural in nature. Multiculturalism is the future of mankind, like it or not. If we don't work and live together, we're doomed to either destroy ourselves or just toil away on our dirty little speck in the Universe, ruining eachothers lives.

Unfortunately tolerance has changed from accepting another's culture and living alongside it, to allowing it to take precedence over others.

Multiculturalism is a fundamentally wonderful thing, but when it becomes mismanaged, then it becomes a problem. Kinda like the NHS.

It also doesn't help that we're part of the EU that allows member states that are disproportionately poorer, and then allows those people to move and work freely across the EU to places that are significantly richer. I can't blame most of the people coming from the old eastern bloc ex-soviet countries where people earn ~£100 a month, to our country where they can get at least ~£200 a month for nothing or significantly more for working. If I had a family, and I had an opportunity to provide for them, I'd take it.

That and they'll do crap jobs, for crap pay, in crap conditions for 60+ hours a week, while the general British wants a good job, good pay, specific working conditions and 40 hours a week. And while that's all very fair, companies who exist just to make money, are going to choose the option that saves them the most cash.
 
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Gackt said:
Multiculturalism is a fundamentally wonderful thing, but when it becomes mismanaged, then it becomes a problem. Kinda like the NHS.
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Maybe so, but multiculturalism in some parts of the UK has been a complete joke for as long as I've been alive. I would rather prefer all people who live here to integrate and and least learn how to speak English.
 
bhavv said:
Maybe so, but multiculturalism in some parts of the UK has been a complete joke for as long as I've been alive. I would rather prefer all people who live here to integrate and and least learn how to speak English.
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That's where it has become mismanaged and mishandled. You can't just chuck loads of different cultures into one place and hope they get along.
 
I am UK's minority myself and was born outside of UK.

To me the british society in this country appears to be heavily divided along the class system and this is not counting immigrants like myself.

I believe diversity in a major world famous city like London definitely enriches it and people living in such city have a gift of world cultures at their doorstep.

However the problem seems to start with a 'sense of belonging' when so many cultures are gathered in one place. This is where tensions seem to arise and lack of tolerance occurs.

No two people are same even if they happen to be from same culture. However these two certain people will definitely identify with each other much more strongly based upon shared values, language, ethnic culture and appearence.

I suppose this 'sense of belonging' is natural and this is what John seems to be referring to. I think he would like to see more english people preferably of his age, so he can share his experiences, likes, dislikes, have a humorous laugh with them as they would identify with him more than any other ethnic group.

In my 16 years of being in this city from the time when I came to this country, I have had an excellent opportunity of making friendships with fellow young people (students) from different parts of the world and this includes British aswell. This has definitely enriched my life and it is something my native city couldn't have provided as it is pretty homogeneous, population-wise.

I think of London as my home city. So while I was growing up in this city interacting with fellow londoners, I always used to look upon London society as one and thought of it as part of my identity.

However when I became more mature, I used to travel about different parts of London critically observing the social environment around me and the people. As much as I wanted to be part of this 'society', I always found myself on the edge. I think this was partly due to my background being different and partly due to lack of social interaction outside school, college life etc.

What I found was that I could only interact with people in this city, country as long as I knew them. The moment I went in a place surrounded by strangers, it would be impossible for me to hold a friendly conversation as people in this country just seem reserve.

Now in my native city I don't face any such social problems as I am part of that very culture and can have more social interaction in 5 weeks than I can have in 7 years in London, sadly.

So to sum up my personal experiences as an immigrant, multiculture is only as good as making friendships and learning about different cultures. To have a deeper relationship and to have a sense of belonging, mono-culture will always come on top.

Ofcourse these are my personal opinions and experiences. Others may have different viewpoints.

I always have a broad outlook of any place where I reside. However imo London is definitely becoming secluded along different ethnic communities and I fear London may end up becoming like a world with each ethnic community becoming a country.

At the end of the day, whites stick with whites, arabs stick with arabs, chinese with chinese, asians with asians, africans with africans, etc.
 
I think another problem is that a lot of the cultures that come into England and London specifically tend to be tight-knit communities very strongly tied into their cultural beliefs while the English tend not to be so inwardly focused, or more independent I suppose. I think a lot of people don't really have that kind of tight-knit, easily identifiable culture and as such, they feel saturated or drowned by these often confusing, strange and different cultures. But then that's almost part of what England is. It's been very much multicultural for almost two-thousand years. It's been conquered and re-conquered, it's had immigration from all parts of the world, and then during the Empire years, you had forced integration of much of the entire world.
 
placeholder said:
Have a day off.
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He is right though. Most Americans are not American ethnically, ethnic Americans are in a minority. For example, there are less than 5000 members of my mothers specific ethnic group left, which is about a quarter of their original numbers, until relatively recently that number was significantly less than that.

However, you are also an American if you are a citizen of the United States by birth, or have American born parents.
 
Gackt said:
I think another problem is that a lot of the cultures that come into England and London specifically tend to be tight-knit communities very strongly tied into their cultural beliefs while the English tend not to be so inwardly focused, or more independent I suppose. I think a lot of people don't really have that kind of tight-knit, easily identifiable culture and as such, they feel saturated or drowned by these often confusing, strange and different cultures. But then that's almost part of what England is. It's been very much multicultural for almost two-thousand years. It's been conquered and re-conquered, it's had immigration from all parts of the world, and then during the Empire years, you had forced integration of much of the entire world.
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Most of the cultures that have come into the UK are simply crap for all the people that are made to live within them their entire lives.
 
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