Good morning America! James has kindly allowed me a slot on his blog to bring you discussion on the European political scene. And I think this is going to be fun...
You may be aware that us Brits like to sneer at the American political climate: With its semi-literate president, corporate democracy and environmental naval gazing ("Do you know how much Kyoto will cost?!"), America is an easy target.
We patronise you don't we!? And we forget to mention that we lap up your popular culture, borrow your nuclear bombs, and here's my own pet favourite; could learn a lot from America about immigration.
While America had it's open door policy, its melting pot, we Brits were empire building, oppressing and trying ever so hard to sustain Kipling's White Mans Burden. America, very wisely wanted no part in this absurdity. Now we're all Little Englanders: The empire is gone, we've retreated to our island and pulled up the drawbridge. We have a general election in a month and the main issue is immigration. Let me re-phrase that: We have a left of centre government following a pre-emptive war doctrine, an uncertain relationship with the European Union, a crumbling national health service, under-funded schools, an ageing population, a fatter population, and inadequate environmental policies, but the main issue is immigration.
We seriously need to grow up. America realised long ago that a culture is enriched when subject to outside influences. He may be a chimp, but even Dubbya embraces the diversity of America in his administration. The melting pot produces a tasty soup! Britishness is not under attack, it's evolving each day as it must, augmented and tweaked by Indians, Pakistanis, Chinese, Nigerians, Bosnians.
So far, so simple.
Now the contentious bit. Globalisation has helped keep Britain and America rich. A single global system of finance and culture is taking over the world. That system is our system, the American and British system, and we haven't given it for free; we sold it to the rest of the world. From Manchester United Football Club shirts through BBC World and CNN to Baywatch and Friends, we sell our shiny comfortable institutions to poorer countries (Evidence? The most watched TV program in Beirut during the war was... The A-Team). We sell them an idealised view of our culture, put the money in the mpv fund, then wonder why the untapped markets, I mean poorer countries want to sample the real thing for themselves. No western democracy seems to be entirely comfortable with this notion yet, but Britain seems years behind the US.
I say "Immigrants, come one, come all!" : You're welcome to sample our country, if you can stomach the hideous tabloid press, constant rain and tiny, tiny minds.
To quote West Side Story: "Smoke on your pipe and put that in!"
Richard Leyland
6 comments:
Bravo!!!
An excellent first post my friend. You should hear some of the comments in the states about Mexican immigration. Not very nice. I agree with you that immigration makes a country great. Giving new energy and spice to an already great country.
Sorry, Buddhist Blogger is actually me. Hehe.
Gread post, Richard. Since I'm from the West of the US, I must say that the US also has immigration on the brain, and not in a way much different from Britain and the Continent.
It is, perhaps, one thing in Dubya's favor that he is more relaxed [even liberal] than his 'party of nutjobs' on immigration. But in any case, the idea of melding pot is nowadays passe. 'Cultural pluralism' is the new PC term, for good or ill.
The trouble is that for a government (I wouldn't call "New" Labour left-of-centre, but anyway...) to sustain the pre-emptive war doctrine, mismanaged NHS, schools and pensions policy (the main danger of an aging population) and to have inadequate policies on environment, obesity and countless other important issues, attention has to be diverted elsewhere. The best method is to scare people - terrorism is used where possible, although it's harder to keep pounding on about it here than it is in the USA - this might change if the IRA start targeting mainland Great Britain again, which looks possible. If you can't scare people by constantly emphasising the threat of terrorism, others have to be invented; immigrants and Gypsies are the chosen targets.
These are the means by which the inequalities that are institutionalised in the international arena (so the G8 can exploit "untapped markets" etc. through mechanisms like the IMF, the World Bank, the GATT, under their control) become domesticised. It's a process that's been described as "Third Worldization" - ie increasing concentration of wealth and power in the hands of the few, at the expense of the majority.
I agree, the people of this country need to grow up. But first, many need to wake up.
Wow uk plc! Do they call that a stream of consciousness?
I agree with most of that. In fact I think I said some similar stuff on my blog here
does html work in comments? we'll soon see.
And yes, i take your point about New labour not really being left of centre. I think perhaps that was just wishful thinking.
UK PLC,
I really like you comment that people need to wake up before they can grow up. There are a lot of people here in the states who think that we can just push people around and run the world but the days of the "super power" are gone. I really would like to see the EU get more power to help balance off the states.
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