What makes people English? Many people claim it is a cultural thing and many others claim it is an ethnic thing. But it is not just that. Just as every nation has its stereotypes (Roman noses for Italians, blonde hair for Germans, big stomachs for Americans) every nation has its purely civic definition of nationality.
So if you don’t have, for example, a Lancashire accent, if you’re not white, if you’re not an agnostic Christian, if you don’t think pantomime is the purest form of comedy, you are still English.
But no-one’s told the (typically useless) Home Office that. They thought that someone with a Lancashire accent, a Blackburn birth certificate and a European Union, United Kingdom passport was more than likely Pakistani. You can see why: they had a Lancashire accent and everyone knows that’s the one you learn when you join Pakistani spy school; they had a British passport, and we all know how trustworthy government databases and identity-verification documents are… So why not think that?
But then thinking that someone’s from a different country is a bit different to trying to deport them. Worse, imrprisoning them for two months while you try to find evidence that said English person is actually Pakistani.
I think the Guardian, in their low-key article a couple of months ago has done an injustice to this story. If we cannot trust our governors in this case not to abuse their powers when it comes to depriving people of their liberty, why do we entrust them with so much power?
And if this was an isolated case it would be slightly more tolerable, but the Guardian reassures us that it is not!
I have just one question: Why did the Guardian say “British Asian”? Surely the fact that he was British was key? The British Asian label is as bad as saying ‘nigger’ in my opinion. The relevance is clearly there — and could be highlighted in the story — but the fundamental point of this whole story is that the government is imprisoning its own people without justification.
The fact that his parents (or, by the “British Asian” definition that, frankly, the BNP would be pleased with, any one of his earlier ancestors) were Pakistani must not take away any of the horror or shock that any reader of that article should feel.
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#1 by Dave on May 29th, 2007 - 5:21 pm
*Tony Blair claims to be English because he has two English parents yet he was born in Scotland.
*Joanna Lumley was born in India, yet she is English..
There are many other examples but you get the point.
Yet strangely by comparison when a child is born to two pakistani parents in England they are automatically English, or more likely British..?
Can’t have it both ways.
Is Lumley an Indian or not?
Not, I think most people would answer…
If I was to take an English girlfriend to China and have a baby with them, would the child be described as Chinese? No, no, no, not by the vast majority of people.
This kind of situation is typical of the liberal double speak about race, everyone else can be either British or English but if someone who was clearly ethnically English pretended to be someone else no one would take it seriously.
Another point, if skin colour doesn’t matter at all why are the Conservatives planning to allow school selection based on skin colour? Clear they think it does matter when it suits them and doesn’t when it doesn’t.
#2 by Gav on May 29th, 2007 - 5:38 pm
Well, I cannot speak for the Conservative Party but I’m consistent on this: yes, Joanna Lumley could be civically Indian, though obviously she’s ethnically European. But it’s as meaningless as the cover of a book. Basically: who cares.
Unfortunately, the Conservative Party has recently succumbed to the racist double-speak that is modern Socialism. Positive discrimination is racism.
Task for Cameron: Write 1,000 times:
Positive discrimination is racism.
#3 by Dave on May 30th, 2007 - 6:28 pm
Who cares?.
Well quite a lot of people actually.
http://ukcommentators.blogspot.com/2007/05/now-thats-what-i-call-racist.html
There are similar things all over the world. Its Western Europe that is the exception not the norm regards denying racial issues.
#4 by Gav on May 31st, 2007 - 11:35 am
I still find your position hard to understand. Are you saying that because this person should not be considered ethnically English, he should be illegally imprisoned and threatened with deportation to a foreign country?
#5 by Dave on May 31st, 2007 - 4:45 pm
Well no ofcourse not and I feel sorry for the guy but I can understand why happens. My opinion is Britain has lost its identity and the balkanisation will get a lot worse in the future.
This is an inevitable consequence of out of control immigration, we are not a unified common people as we used to be, but we just try to pretend nothings changed.