jollytiddlywink wrote:Gubbins wrote:(...) What it means to be "Scottish", or "British", or whatever, only makes sense when you take the national average which reflects a distribution of views. The likeness of this distribution to that of another nation determines how similar they are.
A fair point, but we don't spend time sitting down and going through a list of questions to determine if someone is British or Scottish, we just know. And I think that anyone arguing that immigrants have failed to assimilate should point out in which regards they want immigrants to assimilate: should they adopt proper Brummie/South London/Weegie accents, or should they subscribe to things like tea and biscuits and being vaguely dismissive of the French?
Generically speaking, I think what is at the heart of integration into the community is defined by social interaction: understanding why "natives" act the way they do (be it via language, customs, practices, etc.), and interacting with the community in a way which conforms with that. I should also have perhaps used the word integration rather than assimilation because it better reflects what must be a two-way process: the "native" population must also respect the customs and traditions that the incoming population brings.
Gubbins wrote:(...) I've mentioned what happens with lack of integration in the certain countries, but such a bimodality is at the heart of problems in South Africa, and the Israeli-Palestine and Sunni-Shia conflicts in parts of the Middle East.(...)
Unless I've managed to miss a whole load of rioting on this island, I hardly think that a lack of assimilation here can be compared with the enormous divisions caused by apartheid, 80 years (or many centuries) of ethnic/sectarian violence in the Middle East, or a nearly 1400 year old religious split. The last two of these would better apply to the relations between England (and later) Great Britain and the United Kingdom and Ireland than they would to the situation of immigrants in 21st century UK. Any nobody on the thread has yet suggested kicking out all the Irish. [/quote]
Equally, I don't think anyone is saying that these situations would not occur in a system without immigration. I am merely saying that immigration without integration exacerbates such situations and makes such situations more likely. As for modern immigration-related riots in the UK, you can start with the 1958 Notting Hill riots, progress through the 1981 and 1995 Brixton riots, pass the 1985 Handsworth riot, the 1995 Bradford riot, the 1998 rioting over the Stephen Lawrence inquiry, the 2001 Oldham riots, and end with the 2009 Birmingham riot. People have a natural tendency for any difference between two populations to spark antagonism: cultural, religious or racial background is a very strong divider, mainly since it is usually immediately visibly obviously.
Gubbins wrote:jollytiddlywink wrote:As an insular nation which has not suffered external invasion for the best part of a millenium, the concept of a native population applies better to Brtain than to most parts of the world. The majority of Britons can't name any of their ancestors who were born outside of Britain. Most probably had substantially more than half their medieval ancestors living in Britain: something that can't be said of most other European countries, certainly. We are often ridiculed on "the Continent" for our insular mentality, which the debate over immigration is bound up in, and which is why this debate has such poignancy in this country.
I'll have to call you on that one. Neither the island nor the political grouping Great Britain was a nation, at any point in history, and the label 'nation' applies even less well to the current UK, and even less well to the UK as it was prior to 1922. And as for foreign invasions, off the top of my head, there have been several French invasions and occupations, of varying sizes, on Scottish territory (it was the guns of a French fleet which levelled St Andrews castle), both before and after the Treaty of Union, various French and Spanish landings on what is now Irish territory, and Spanish, Dutch and French landings at various points on the coasts of England and Wales. For that matter, William of Orange invaded England in 1688, dispersed the garrison of London, effectively deposed James II and summoned Parliament to retrospectively issue him an invitation.
I should have said successful invasion. I'm not sure that monarchical usurpers, minor skirmishes and civil war count. They have not caused the same massive changes in population that the Ancient and Medieval invasions did. Regarding which...
jollytiddlywink wrote:If the majority of citizens in the UK can't name any of their ancestors who were born outside the UK, then a great many of them are not well versed on their family histories, and there's no need to go any farther back than about 1939. Large swathes of the population on the west coast have Irish ancestry, and there was an influx of tens of thousands of refugees from all over Europe before 1939, and then of exiles and members of governments in exile and Free Forces.
Perhaps a great many aren't, but a great many are. I am quite well versed on my own family history. None of my antecedents (who have been traced) come from outside the UK - that record is complete back to at least the 18th Century, and likely much further. It's not something I'm necessarily proud of, it's simply fact. Historically (at least between the Norman invasion and the 20th Century), it was only groups like the elite, the educated and the merchant navy that contributed significantly to population shifts. We are living through the first few generations after a uniquely isolated period in the British Isles.
And I'll stand by my point that, strict immigration controls or not, nobody has yet figured out a way to stop immigration from happening. The US may have strict immigration laws, but they've still got roughly 10 million illegal immigrants in the country, approximately 1 in 30. And they don't seem to be turning into a new South Africa or Israel-Palestine. I still don't really see what the fuss is.
The US also has a rather more porous border with Mexico (and Canada, but they seem to mind that one less). Not many people swim the Channel. Tighter controls in the UK are an option if it is deemed necessary.
The situation in the US is also rather different. It is a nation of immigrants with a very different mindset to the UK and a lot more space to move around in and lose oneself. You'll remember, however, that the aboriginal populations of the Americas didn't respond well to immigration when it was their turn to be drowned out of their own country.
The situation is different with each generation of immigration to each individual place. "The fuss" as far as I am concerned, is to prevent the UK's mild discontent at the rate of immigration and integration escalating into a much worse situation. It wouldn't be the same situation as we are seeing in the countries I mentioned, because we are not those countries, but it could nevertheless end up at a level of violence through which I would not like to live. The situation requires careful governance, and the current reactionary and often antagonistic response elicited from both the liberal and conservative arguments is not helping that process.