Daktari on "Identity and immigration"

Daktari — Wed, 10 Jan 2007 09:46:34 +0000

I also enjoyed this article, and it brought to mind a question posed in the '90s by one social scientist/academic: 'Do people from different cultures live in different worlds, or do they live the same world differently?'.

In my early (naive) days I assumed the first; but I now believe people have much more in common than they think, or expect...

Pink Cloud of Death on "Identity and immigration"

Pink Cloud of Death — Mon, 08 Jan 2007 06:18:31 +0000

I really enjoyed this article, and agree with most of it. I am not sure that relations between Jews and Muslims have become so poisonous that we can't hold a decent dialogue.

Quie often we may be talking to each other without evening realising the other is 'Muslim' or 'Jewish'. Quite often my non-Muslim friends spark conversations about Muslims with me , without even absorbing the fact that I am Muslim. I suspect people now place emphasis on visible markers of faith. But I always keep protesting, oh, but I am a Muslim, but this always invites curious silences. We don't mean Muslims like you, dear.

I attended an all-Bangladeshi school in the heart of East London in the UK, my parents still maintain a halal home, don't entertain non-Bangladeshi people in their homes and their English neighbours all invite each other ot BBQs but forget to invite them. But peace still reigns in their housing estate luckily. Someone once said my family don't get racist trouble on their doors like the other Bangladeshis because my folks keep potted flowers at the front door - apparently there is something peculiarly English about this and this brings some familiarity and wards off hostility. Although after 7/7 bombs i London even the potted plants came unstuck and broken.

Even with this insulality, for want of a better word, I still feel reasonable comfortable inviting my Jewish friends to my home, and they feel comfy I imagine, inviting me to theirs. We didn't have a childhood in common but the future I hope is open enough for us to still fight for the things we believe in. I tend to agree there are sporadic bursts of anti-semitism in our midst - leaving aside, the reprisals of 9/11. Those of us who are not Jewish/Muslim probably hear about the other spoken about in an indecent tongue. But I suspect that 9/11 has disrupted a fragile tolerance towards Muslims which we should all be desperate to recover, resurrect and replenish for the good of our common civility.

My up-bringing as parochial as it was, served me well. But there is something different about the world now and i suspect this is because mainstream society is less certain about the future - and so the real poison and instability begins.

Identity and immigration, Linda Grant

Fri, 05 Jan 2007 00:00:00 +0000

Whatever their backgrounds, newcomers to Britain have more in common than they might think. Linda Grant reflects on family history and real-life experiences. Read the rest of this post...

open Democracy News Analysis - Identity and immigration, Linda Grant - Comments

Daktari on "Identity and immigration"

Pink Cloud of Death on "Identity and immigration"

Identity and immigration, Linda Grant