Are ethnic minorities insecure about their British identity

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We all are, by land and nationality British. I know a lot of people which would give their left testicle to say that.

We should be proud of our countries achievements and hope our country improves further. But at the same time we should be allowed to criticize the country without being called Anti-British.

I think we largely can in this country. Again what I love about the UK is that we don't have a sizable percentage of people (cough Texas cough) who are blindly patriotic, and who can't take a single bit of criticism.

Though this is annoying on TSR ie: I'll make a point critical of the West, and I'll know at least three/four white English people who'd agree with me, and in comes someone saying something along the lines of "You're anti British. You hate the UK" etc....

(edited 10 years ago)

Reply 61

felamaslen

Original post by Almar

Am the only one who feels that way? To be honest I can't really explain it. I mean I have always admired British people for, all the advances in science and technology that they have achieved but apart from that the label carries negativity to me. Maybe this might have something to do with the area I live (not far from a council estate), it's full of narrow minded dumb British people who act like sluts and thugs. I generally feel that British society is degenerate in nature at least compared to my country of origin. I know my view is not representative of all British people, but it's hard to shake of this view if you only hang out with your own people and all you experience of Britishness is my neighbourhood and EastEnders

I can't afford to :cry2:

All countries have slobs, degenerates and parochial self-important knob-heads. Not all countries can honestly claim to have built a large part of the modern world, like Britain has. That being said however, I do think it is rather strange and irrational to feel pride in your country of origin. I never chose to be born where I was, when I was, in my situation, and neither did anybody else. I love Britain though and everything it stands for (pretty much); I recognise its contributions to freedom, prosperity, science, peace, justice and many other things. I also admire America for largely the same reasons, so this has nothing to do with which country I, personally, was born in, but which countries I think deserve defending the most. But of course, when I say "country" what I am really talking about is ideas; one of the great things about the USA is that it doesn't matter where you come from, you can call yourself an American if you emigrate there and believe in American ideas. I think the same is true about Britain, although to a lesser extent as the UK was not founded by immigrants.

Reply 62

felamaslen

Original post by de_monies

Though this is annoying on TSR ie: I'll make a point critical of the West, and I'll know at least three/four white English people who'd agree with me, and in comes someone saying something along the lines of "You're anti British. You hate the UK" etc....

To be fair, many people get sick and tired of the West being held up to a higher standard of morality than everybody else, given that the West has saved humanity multiple times, and we all owe our freedom to it.

Reply 63

The_Internet

Original post by felamaslen

I don't "owe" my freedom to any nation. I didn't choose to be born here, just as I didn't choose to be born in Zimbabwe. Im glad I was born here, but I don't owe my freedom to any one. It's pure luck where you are born, and you act as if it's only the West that has "saved humanity" or protected freedoms. That's happened with other non Western nations as well...

This is the kind of blind patriotism I'm talking about ie: The West can do no wrong

Reply 64

felamaslen

Original post by de_monies

I never said the West can do no wrong, and I never said the West was the only heroic civilisation (and agree with neither statement, just to make things clear).

Listen, you do owe your freedom to the West, whether you like it or not. Everybody does. If it weren't for Britain and America, you would be living under the swastika or under the hammer and sickle, or under Japanese tyranny, or some other totalitarian or authoritarian system. It may be a little difficult to grasp, but freedom was handed down to you - by the West - before you were even born (as it was to me). Freedom is not a default condition of humanity, it is something for which many human lives were sacrificed; it is an idea which is extremely precious because we did not evolve with it, it was thought of and implemented over centuries. Please at least show a little humility and recognise this truth.

Reply 65

DorianGrayism

Original post by felamaslen

How long will it be before the WW2 argument becomes invalid?

(edited 10 years ago)

Reply 66

felamaslen

Original post by DorianGrayism

How long will it be before that the WW2 argument becomes invalid?

Centuries, given what happened. But that's hardly the only argument in favour of the West or in favour if the idea, specifically, that we owe our freedom to the West. The West practically invented human freedom.

Reply 67

PeaceTreaty

A lot of people at school I knew felt like foreigners and wouldn't call themselves British (adults and students). Some felt they were treated unequally though those were normally "extroverted" Somalis who were always a pain in class.

Reply 68

The_Internet

Original post by felamaslen

Oh you mean the many authoritarian regimes, like the ones WE'VE propped up? Yeah sure, we might have freedom here,but we sure as hell don't always give it to people living under our puppet regimes

Reply 69

The_Internet

Original post by felamaslen

I think we owe that to the Iranians, centuries ago:
http://www.iranchamber.com/history/cyrus/cyrus_charter.php

Reply 70

felamaslen

Original post by de_monies

Oh you mean the many authoritarian regimes, like the ones WE'VE propped up? Yeah sure, we might have freedom here,but we sure as hell don't always give it to people living under our puppet regimes

Why concentrate on the authoritarian regimes which the West has propped up? Can you not see that there are many, many evil regimes in the past and present that do just fine with no West propping them up? And that the only hope for these people is to emigrate to the West, which is why they do it in droves?

Reply 71

felamaslen

Original post by de_monies

I think we owe that to the Iranians, centuries ago:
http://www.iranchamber.com/history/cyrus/cyrus_charter.php

That's commendable, but the Iran of today is not the Persian empire, and the Iran of today is a disgrace to humanity.

Reply 72

The_Internet

Original post by felamaslen

That's commendable, but the Iran of today is not the Persian empire, and the Iran of today is a disgrace to humanity.

What has that got to do with any thing? My point is that basic human rights were certainly not something that we came up with in the west just over a century ago. That "award" goes to Iran

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Reply 73

felamaslen

Original post by de_monies

I didn't wish to imply that. What I was meaning to say is that the West invented the "free world" as a concept. Free countries only exist today because of the West. The entire world would almost certainly be less free today if it were not for the USA, Britain and their allies.

(edited 10 years ago)

Reply 74

Ggmu!

I hate being called an ethnic minority, i'm British through and through. My allegiance lies with Britain above any nation. I dont need any reassurance that i'm British, i know it and feel it. That's all that matters.

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Reply 75

darius12345

Original post by Al-Mudaari

Yes, 500-700 years isn't long is it, not longer than 200 years or so of the "age of enlightenment" in the Europe.

What? The Abbasid Golden Age did not last 500 - 700 years whatsoever, the Caliphate began disintegrating in the 1000s. When do you consider this Golden Age to start and finish? If you consider it starting in the Marwanid Umayyad Caliphate till say 1000 that is only like 250 years. Do you consider the Fatimids as part of the Golden Age say? The Golden Age surely finished for sure at the Mongol sacking of Baghdad in 1258. Which if we are timing from 750 - 1258 makes it 500 years, but I personally would say that is a bit of a stretch of the term golden age.

You should check out the history of what the "golden age" was and how it started and why it existed - it wasn't like Muslims just sprung out of nowhere and created all this stuff out of thin air - the Golden Age only existed due to it being built upon the societies of the Persians and Byzantines (although the Egyptian Copts and Aramaic speakers of the Levant were not fully Hellenised by any stretch and were quite anti-Rome at the time of the conquests) and because of the influence of the translation culture that was established and carried out by Zoroastrian Persians and the affect that these Greek translations into Persian and then into Arabic had. So the Islamic Golden Age was a result of centuries of knowledge from Greece, Rome and Persia, as well as India, China and all the ancient civilisations of the Fertile Crescent - and this accumulation of knowledge, plus the influence of societies on top of which the Caliphate was established led to this Golden Age - it didn't happen in a vacuum, nor did the European enlightenment - which was a consequence of a result of this knowledge flowing across cultures (large parts flowing from the Middle East) - much in the same way that the Arab golden age was formed.

(edited 10 years ago)

Reply 76

darius12345

Original post by felamaslen

That's commendable, but the Iran of today is not the Persian empire, and the Iran of today is a disgrace to humanity.

Well no, the Iranian people are very much the conscious descendants of this tradition and culture actually. The regime is not representative, but it's creation lies as much with Western involvement in Iran as with mistakes the Iranian people have made in the last few decades. I don't agree with your views that the US/UK have aided human freedom. Post 1945 tha argument really does not hold much water and they have really been the anti-thesis to self determination in large swathes of the world.

Reply 77

Currymuncher3

I'm proud to be Scottish nobody needs to assure me the **** does that even mean.

Reply 78

darius12345

Original post by Zürich

Honesty is a virtue that's often preferable to manners.

The so called Islamic Golden age didn't last very long did it? More books are published in Spain every year than in the entire Arabic speaking world combined.

Islamic societies would never rape, murder or conquer would they? The Ottoman empire did not systematically kidnap and enslave Christian women for its harems and the Moors were invited into Spain right? Naturally, the Western world has done terrible things too but on balance its been a force for progress like no other.

The Moors and Ottomans were relatively tolerant to be honest. The Umayyad Emirate in Spain was one of the most tolerant cultures in the world at it's zenith and the Ottomans were okay really (at least compared to the stuff that European colonists did) - stuff only got really bad when Turkish nationalism replaced the Ottoman caliphate. The Ottoman system of law was based on multiculturalism with every religious group working within their own legal framework, Turkish nationalism (although good in many aspects) turned into an ethno-nationalist movement hence all the things like the Armenian & Greek genocides - but Turkish nationalism was based on the European concept of nationalism, Ataturk basically wanted to make Turkey a European country.

(edited 10 years ago)

Reply 79

Al-Mudaari

Original post by darius12345

First you say "did not last 500 - 700 years" and then end up concluding "makes it 500 years"

Also, I wouldn't say it's a stretch, and even though there was a decline after the Mongol invasion (though it wasn't only because of this, there's so many factors that played a part, including the Crusader invasion), science continued to thrive as there were still tens of scientists within every discipline. Astronomy in particular continued to do well.

Original post by darius12345

You should check out the history of what the "golden age" was and how it started and why it existed - it wasn't like Muslims just sprung out of nowhere and created all this stuff out of thin air - the Golden Age only existed due to it being built upon the societies of the Persians and Byzantines (although the Egyptian Copts and Aramaic speakers of the Levant were not fully Hellenised by any stretch and were quite anti-Rome at the time of the conquests) and because of the influence of the translation culture that was established and carried out by Zoroastrian Persians and the affect that these Greek translations into Persian and then into Arabic had. So the Islamic Golden Age was a result of centuries of knowledge from Greece, Rome and Persia, as well as India, China and all the ancient civilisations of the Fertile Crescent - and this accumulation of knowledge, plus the influence of societies on top of which the Caliphate was established led to this Golden Age - it didn't happen in a vacuum, nor did the European enlightenment - which was a consequence of a result of this knowledge flowing across cultures (large parts flowing from the Middle East) - much in the same way that the Arab golden age was formed.

That's not really a good argument, which civilization "sprung out of thin air and created all this stuff"? Which cultures was not built upon advancing the works of other cultures?

The Muslims had extra incentives to preserve knowledge instead of destroying it (like other cultures would, such as the Mongols), that's why they would have a translation culture, because they wanted to take knowledge from wherever they could find it. Translating itself was a very well paid job (read somewhere that it's equivalent to what professional Athletes get paid today).