I found mine via google image search, can find it now though...
European language?
Benjamin - I'm also British, currently living in Germany. I know what you mean - Germany feels much more 'similar' to me than Spain or Portugal, say, and that's not only because I've been here a while and speak German - my family and friends say the same when they visit. This is also just a 'feeling' - it's not something I could quantify.
It's best to just ignore Adam - he seems to exist only to give the British a bad name!
<<As an over-generalisation, there is rather more racism and xenophobia in Northern England than in Southern England>>
Hmmm, I think that's such a huge over-generalisation as to be meaningless.
It's best to just ignore Adam - he seems to exist only to give the British a bad name!
<<As an over-generalisation, there is rather more racism and xenophobia in Northern England than in Southern England>>
Hmmm, I think that's such a huge over-generalisation as to be meaningless.
>>Hmmm, I think that's such a huge over-generalisation as to be meaningless.<<
I was thinking along the lines of support for the BNP, which is significantly more prevalent in the North. But maybe that doesn't necessarily mean that people are more racist there in general. Sorry if it caused any offence, it's probably just the stereotype.
I was thinking along the lines of support for the BNP, which is significantly more prevalent in the North. But maybe that doesn't necessarily mean that people are more racist there in general. Sorry if it caused any offence, it's probably just the stereotype.
nobody invited the UK in the EU
france rejected the UK's membership. then the UK "beg" them and joined the second time !
france rejected the UK's membership. then the UK "beg" them and joined the second time !
I wasn't aware that countries had to be first 'invited' to apply for membership in the EU. And what was purpose of that rather arbitrary comment in the context of this thread anyway?
<<I was thinking along the lines of support for the BNP, which is significantly more prevalent in the North. But maybe that doesn't necessarily mean that people are more racist there in general. Sorry if it caused any offence, it's probably just the stereotype. >>
You didn't offend me, though I am from oop North :) It is true that most of the support for the BNP is in Lancashire, but the numbers of people who vote for them are tiny. There are some pretty diverse places in the North.
You didn't offend me, though I am from oop North :) It is true that most of the support for the BNP is in Lancashire, but the numbers of people who vote for them are tiny. There are some pretty diverse places in the North.
"nobody invited the UK in the EU
france rejected the UK's membership. then the UK "beg" them and joined the second time ! "
France only allowed the UK in when it suddenly realised it needs us to contribute to CAP, of which France is the main benefactor.
france rejected the UK's membership. then the UK "beg" them and joined the second time ! "
France only allowed the UK in when it suddenly realised it needs us to contribute to CAP, of which France is the main benefactor.
"I was thinking along the lines of support for the BNP, which is significantly more prevalent in the North"
Support for the Far Right is far more prevalent in Continental countries than it is in Britain - there are probably more votes for the Far Right in EVERY European country than there are in Britain. Look at France - they were very close to voting Le Pen as President. So it means the French, the Austrians (Jorge Haider) and other European countries are more racist and xenophobic than the British.
Support for the Far Right is far more prevalent in Continental countries than it is in Britain - there are probably more votes for the Far Right in EVERY European country than there are in Britain. Look at France - they were very close to voting Le Pen as President. So it means the French, the Austrians (Jorge Haider) and other European countries are more racist and xenophobic than the British.
http://www.pww.org/article/view/1591/1/99/
Racism is the most poisonous element in a witches’ brew of reactionary and ruling-class ideas that block a clear-sighted understanding of British political reality. But for the non-white ethnic minorities – who now make up 7.1 percent of the population – racism is an inescapable fact of life.
Black unemployment, at 13 percent, is double the rate for white people. More than one in five people of Pakistani and Bangladeshi origin are out of work.
Race multiplies the effect of class divisions. Forty percent of the population as a whole live in the areas of worst housing but these same working-class areas house seven out of ten of Black people.
Infant mortality is 100 percent higher for the children of African, Caribbean or Pakistani mothers. Diabetes rates for Pakistani and Bangladeshi people are five times greater and coronary heart disease double.
It is in their dealing with the criminal justice system that Black people’s encounter with racism is most pronounced and most sharply experienced.
Racial harassment is widespread and, because Black people have good reason to lack confidence in the police, only one in 20 incidents is reported. Black youth are five or six times more likely to be stopped and searched. Black people are two-and-a-half times more likely to go to jail. They get longer prison sentences and make up 12 percent of the male and 18 percent of the female prison population.
These bare facts show just how deeply rooted racist practices are in British life.
The killing of Stephen Lawrence set in train a series of events that both changed the way racism is seen and dealt with in British politics but also highlighted the remarkable flexibility of the British ruling class in meeting assaults on its entrenched power.
Several factors transformed his murder from a deep tragedy affecting his family, friends and community into a turning point.
Firstly, the remarkable courage, dignity and fortitude of his family. When the Communist Party in its forthcoming congress resolution “salutes the brave actions of the families of victims of racist violence and repression in fighting for justice; the thousands of anti-racist, community and trade union activists fighting against racist immigration and asylum laws and the mass organisations of Black and ethnic minority workers in Britain” it is emphasizing the importance of these forces in changing British society.
Secondly, the role played by the labor movement, in unity with the Black community, in campaigning. It was the individual unions, and remarkably the TUC, which pioneered the campaign and made justice for Stephen Lawrence the pivot for a major shift in consciousness. Official Britain took note only when compelled.
Independently of how working people think of themselves, always a contradictory feature of life in class society, the fact is that class and race are inextricably bound up. The big majority of people in Britain find paid work to live, or must survive on benefits. And the overwhelming majority of Black people are in the same situation. But all of us must deal with the burden that a colonial past and the new imperialism imposes.
We expect the monopoly media to fuel the government’s rush to reactionary immigration and asylum policies. These policies are the flipside of the new imperialism, which projects the U.S. and EU as global cops. Gordon Brown devises and defends global policies which lower producer prices for third world countries, deepen their indebtedness, and ties trade and aid to privatization and the sale of state assets.
New Labour’s enthusiastic leadership in European and U.S. military adventures displaces refugees by the millions and breeds a climate of chauvinism and racist suspicion.
This finds an echo in the disreputable “new Labour” policy speculation around faith schools and citizenship tests which give ground to Tory and ultra-right propaganda. When a Labour Home Secretary talks of “mono-cultural communities” he is blaming the victims of racism for the plight they find themselves in.
The Communist Party argues in its congress resolution that “the specific forms of racism in Britain are the inescapable product of our country’s pioneer role in the development of capitalism and the particular character of Britain’s colonial history. But contemporary racism is shaped by new factors including increasing integration into the coercive and repressive institutions of the EU, the increasing subordination of global markets to transnational monopoly and the institutions of imperialist domination, the World Bank, the IMF and the WTO.”
The labor movement as a whole, particularly the trade unions, is beginning to tackle racism with some seriousness. The Communist Party, at its June Congress, will debate an important resolution which attempts to map out the next stages in the struggle to place the fight against racism at the centre of a working-class agenda. The Communist Party will mark 82 years of anti-imperialist activity with a new resolve to assault the system of exploitation and oppression on which racism feeds and which it serves.
It does this in the understanding that unless the working-class movement makes the fight against racism an integral part of its approach to both daily bargaining within the capitalist system and its strategy to win working-class power, it will never become the ruling class.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/1299713.stm
The Trades Union Congress (TUC) is calling for all employers to be legally required to promote race relations, following signs that racism in the workplace is getting worse.
Its latest report, Black Workers Deserve Better, said that black and Asian people were now twice as likely to be unemployed as their white counterparts.
Black and Asian jobless rates in Britain stand at 12% - one of the highest on record - compared with 5% among white people.
The government is now being urged to extend the Race Relations Act to give private and voluntary sector employers the same legal obligations as those imposed on public authorities.
In some regions the unemployment rate among black and Asian people was even higher, including 15% in Yorkshire and Humberside and the West Midlands.
Discrimination
Even when they found work, black and Asian people faced discrimination when they tried to get a managerial post, said the TUC.
The union organisation said the position was worse than in 1990 when black and Asian unemployment was 11%.
TUC general secretary John Monks said too many employers were ignoring the lessons of the Macpherson inquiry into the murder of London teenager Stephen Lawrence.
He said: "They have to face up to the reality of racism in their organisations and act against it.
"Despite unemployment dropping below one million, our black and Asian workers are still suffering appalling discrimination."
The report is being launched on the opening day of the TUC Black Workers' conference in Perth.
The conference will review the work of the TUC's Stephen Lawrence Task Group Action Plan set up to tackle racism at work.
IMMIGRATION - time to say ENOUGH!
On current demographic trends, we, the native British people, will be an ethnic minority in our own country within sixty years. To ensure that this does not happen, and that the British people retain their homeland and identity, we call for an immediate halt to all further immigration, the immediate deportation of criminal and illegal immigrants, and the introduction of a system of voluntary resettlement whereby those immigrants who are legally here will be afforded the opportunity to return to their lands of ethnic origin assisted by a generous financial incentives both for individuals and for the countries in question. We will abolish the 'positive discrimination' schemes that have made white Britons second-class citizens. We will also clamp down on the flood of 'asylum seekers', all of whom are either bogus or can find refuge much nearer their home countries.
http://www.bnp.org.uk/policies/policies.htm#immigration
PENSIONERS - pensioners before asylum seekers!
The conditions in which many of Britain's old people are forced to live are a national disgrace. We are pledged to ensure that all our old folk are able to live in comfortable homes, and will restore the earnings link with pensions. Elderly people who have paid a lifetime of taxes and reared families should not have to sell their homes to pay for care.
http://www.bnp.org.uk/policies/policies.htm#pensioners
Racism is the most poisonous element in a witches’ brew of reactionary and ruling-class ideas that block a clear-sighted understanding of British political reality. But for the non-white ethnic minorities – who now make up 7.1 percent of the population – racism is an inescapable fact of life.
Black unemployment, at 13 percent, is double the rate for white people. More than one in five people of Pakistani and Bangladeshi origin are out of work.
Race multiplies the effect of class divisions. Forty percent of the population as a whole live in the areas of worst housing but these same working-class areas house seven out of ten of Black people.
Infant mortality is 100 percent higher for the children of African, Caribbean or Pakistani mothers. Diabetes rates for Pakistani and Bangladeshi people are five times greater and coronary heart disease double.
It is in their dealing with the criminal justice system that Black people’s encounter with racism is most pronounced and most sharply experienced.
Racial harassment is widespread and, because Black people have good reason to lack confidence in the police, only one in 20 incidents is reported. Black youth are five or six times more likely to be stopped and searched. Black people are two-and-a-half times more likely to go to jail. They get longer prison sentences and make up 12 percent of the male and 18 percent of the female prison population.
These bare facts show just how deeply rooted racist practices are in British life.
The killing of Stephen Lawrence set in train a series of events that both changed the way racism is seen and dealt with in British politics but also highlighted the remarkable flexibility of the British ruling class in meeting assaults on its entrenched power.
Several factors transformed his murder from a deep tragedy affecting his family, friends and community into a turning point.
Firstly, the remarkable courage, dignity and fortitude of his family. When the Communist Party in its forthcoming congress resolution “salutes the brave actions of the families of victims of racist violence and repression in fighting for justice; the thousands of anti-racist, community and trade union activists fighting against racist immigration and asylum laws and the mass organisations of Black and ethnic minority workers in Britain” it is emphasizing the importance of these forces in changing British society.
Secondly, the role played by the labor movement, in unity with the Black community, in campaigning. It was the individual unions, and remarkably the TUC, which pioneered the campaign and made justice for Stephen Lawrence the pivot for a major shift in consciousness. Official Britain took note only when compelled.
Independently of how working people think of themselves, always a contradictory feature of life in class society, the fact is that class and race are inextricably bound up. The big majority of people in Britain find paid work to live, or must survive on benefits. And the overwhelming majority of Black people are in the same situation. But all of us must deal with the burden that a colonial past and the new imperialism imposes.
We expect the monopoly media to fuel the government’s rush to reactionary immigration and asylum policies. These policies are the flipside of the new imperialism, which projects the U.S. and EU as global cops. Gordon Brown devises and defends global policies which lower producer prices for third world countries, deepen their indebtedness, and ties trade and aid to privatization and the sale of state assets.
New Labour’s enthusiastic leadership in European and U.S. military adventures displaces refugees by the millions and breeds a climate of chauvinism and racist suspicion.
This finds an echo in the disreputable “new Labour” policy speculation around faith schools and citizenship tests which give ground to Tory and ultra-right propaganda. When a Labour Home Secretary talks of “mono-cultural communities” he is blaming the victims of racism for the plight they find themselves in.
The Communist Party argues in its congress resolution that “the specific forms of racism in Britain are the inescapable product of our country’s pioneer role in the development of capitalism and the particular character of Britain’s colonial history. But contemporary racism is shaped by new factors including increasing integration into the coercive and repressive institutions of the EU, the increasing subordination of global markets to transnational monopoly and the institutions of imperialist domination, the World Bank, the IMF and the WTO.”
The labor movement as a whole, particularly the trade unions, is beginning to tackle racism with some seriousness. The Communist Party, at its June Congress, will debate an important resolution which attempts to map out the next stages in the struggle to place the fight against racism at the centre of a working-class agenda. The Communist Party will mark 82 years of anti-imperialist activity with a new resolve to assault the system of exploitation and oppression on which racism feeds and which it serves.
It does this in the understanding that unless the working-class movement makes the fight against racism an integral part of its approach to both daily bargaining within the capitalist system and its strategy to win working-class power, it will never become the ruling class.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/1299713.stm
The Trades Union Congress (TUC) is calling for all employers to be legally required to promote race relations, following signs that racism in the workplace is getting worse.
Its latest report, Black Workers Deserve Better, said that black and Asian people were now twice as likely to be unemployed as their white counterparts.
Black and Asian jobless rates in Britain stand at 12% - one of the highest on record - compared with 5% among white people.
The government is now being urged to extend the Race Relations Act to give private and voluntary sector employers the same legal obligations as those imposed on public authorities.
In some regions the unemployment rate among black and Asian people was even higher, including 15% in Yorkshire and Humberside and the West Midlands.
Discrimination
Even when they found work, black and Asian people faced discrimination when they tried to get a managerial post, said the TUC.
The union organisation said the position was worse than in 1990 when black and Asian unemployment was 11%.
TUC general secretary John Monks said too many employers were ignoring the lessons of the Macpherson inquiry into the murder of London teenager Stephen Lawrence.
He said: "They have to face up to the reality of racism in their organisations and act against it.
"Despite unemployment dropping below one million, our black and Asian workers are still suffering appalling discrimination."
The report is being launched on the opening day of the TUC Black Workers' conference in Perth.
The conference will review the work of the TUC's Stephen Lawrence Task Group Action Plan set up to tackle racism at work.
IMMIGRATION - time to say ENOUGH!
On current demographic trends, we, the native British people, will be an ethnic minority in our own country within sixty years. To ensure that this does not happen, and that the British people retain their homeland and identity, we call for an immediate halt to all further immigration, the immediate deportation of criminal and illegal immigrants, and the introduction of a system of voluntary resettlement whereby those immigrants who are legally here will be afforded the opportunity to return to their lands of ethnic origin assisted by a generous financial incentives both for individuals and for the countries in question. We will abolish the 'positive discrimination' schemes that have made white Britons second-class citizens. We will also clamp down on the flood of 'asylum seekers', all of whom are either bogus or can find refuge much nearer their home countries.
http://www.bnp.org.uk/policies/policies.htm#immigration
PENSIONERS - pensioners before asylum seekers!
The conditions in which many of Britain's old people are forced to live are a national disgrace. We are pledged to ensure that all our old folk are able to live in comfortable homes, and will restore the earnings link with pensions. Elderly people who have paid a lifetime of taxes and reared families should not have to sell their homes to pay for care.
http://www.bnp.org.uk/policies/policies.htm#pensioners
Why exactly did you copy and paste all that? What does it demonstrate?
>>we, the native British people<<
LMAO. Anyone so ignorant as to refer to white British people are 'the native British population' (whatever that means) should be ignored, in my view. The white English especially are technically a 'mix-race' population and are descended primarily from immigrants in the 5th and 6th centuries from what we now call... Germany!!
>>we, the native British people<<
LMAO. Anyone so ignorant as to refer to white British people are 'the native British population' (whatever that means) should be ignored, in my view. The white English especially are technically a 'mix-race' population and are descended primarily from immigrants in the 5th and 6th centuries from what we now call... Germany!!
"A speaker of one of these languages (Portuguese & Spanish) may require some practice to effectively understand a speaker of the other although generally it is easier for a Portuguese native speaker to understand Spanish than the other way around. Compare, for example:
Ela fecha sempre a janela antes de jantar. (Portuguese)
Ella cierra siempre la ventana antes de cenar. (Spanish)
Ella cierra siempre la fenestra antes de yantar. (less common Spanish)
Some less common phrasings and word choices have closer cognates in Spanish because Portuguese has managed to retain a much larger vocabulary, with stronger Latin heritage:
Ela cerra sempre a janela antes de cear. (less common Portuguese)
(Which translates as "She always closes the window before having dinner.")" - in Wikipedia
I think, it is more useful to learn Portuguese than Spanish. Most Portuguese people can understand, at least, the essence of most Latin languages. Besides, it is one of the most spoken languages in the world, being spoken in nearly all continents as a mother toungue, while Spanish is only spoken mostly in South America.
Ela fecha sempre a janela antes de jantar. (Portuguese)
Ella cierra siempre la ventana antes de cenar. (Spanish)
Ella cierra siempre la fenestra antes de yantar. (less common Spanish)
Some less common phrasings and word choices have closer cognates in Spanish because Portuguese has managed to retain a much larger vocabulary, with stronger Latin heritage:
Ela cerra sempre a janela antes de cear. (less common Portuguese)
(Which translates as "She always closes the window before having dinner.")" - in Wikipedia
I think, it is more useful to learn Portuguese than Spanish. Most Portuguese people can understand, at least, the essence of most Latin languages. Besides, it is one of the most spoken languages in the world, being spoken in nearly all continents as a mother toungue, while Spanish is only spoken mostly in South America.
South America
Central America
North America -- Mexico (100 millions), USA (40 millions)
Africa---Ecuatorial Guinea
Europe---Spain
Central America
North America -- Mexico (100 millions), USA (40 millions)
Africa---Ecuatorial Guinea
Europe---Spain
Me on 10 Jan 2006, at 8:16 pm GMT: "I am aware that the culture of the UK is in many ways different from that of Continental Europe."
Benjamin: "I think that it would be very hard to sustain an argument that Britain is in some way unique compared to 'Continental Europe' as a whole. Compare, for example, Denmark and Portugal, or Lithuania and Italy, or Bulgaria and Luxembourg — is it really possible to claim that Britain is distinct from 'the continent', and that 'Continental Europeans' in general share a large amount of culture and values which the British do not have?"
Benjamin,
Let me say I appreciate your comments, and now I feel I could have made a mistake by posting this somewhat generalised statement that can very easily be misunderstood. So let me explain: I made it because as an East Central European (from Hungary, to be more exact) I felt that British society and public thinking has *generally* been less prone to sharp ideological divisions and extreme views often affecting the history of many Continental European countries (with the possible exception of Scandinavia). In other words, I feel a less marked tendency towards authoritarianism to have been present *within* Britain during more recent history, although I am aware that the way Britain acted in Ireland and India was not less authoritarian than some regimes in Europe dealing with their own liberation or indepencence movements (Austria-Hungary, for example, just to mention one). What I wanted to imply is that the public thinking is not so much divided along ideological lines, tending more towards moderation (there always being exceptions here and there, of course). This doesn't make Britain in any way "better" than the rest, however - I just wanted to point out that it seems to be "different" in this particular respect. I just feel that extreme ideological positions have affected the general course of recent British history less than that of most other countries in Europe.
Of course, some countries on the Continent have more in common with Britain in this respect than do others, but as a matter of fact, I feel that authoritarianism or extremism has been pushed to the sideline in most West European countries (meaning any country west of the Polish-German border, roughly), at least officially. Now the dividing line is more between West and East Europe, the latter still struggling with the remnants of its authoritarian past and unresolved internal tensions (inter-ethnic ones, mostly) that did not come out into the open during Communist times. And of course, dealing with the challenge of cultural clashes as a result of immigration from other continents is one common to all of Europe, continental or insular alike.
Benjamin: "I think that it would be very hard to sustain an argument that Britain is in some way unique compared to 'Continental Europe' as a whole. Compare, for example, Denmark and Portugal, or Lithuania and Italy, or Bulgaria and Luxembourg — is it really possible to claim that Britain is distinct from 'the continent', and that 'Continental Europeans' in general share a large amount of culture and values which the British do not have?"
Benjamin,
Let me say I appreciate your comments, and now I feel I could have made a mistake by posting this somewhat generalised statement that can very easily be misunderstood. So let me explain: I made it because as an East Central European (from Hungary, to be more exact) I felt that British society and public thinking has *generally* been less prone to sharp ideological divisions and extreme views often affecting the history of many Continental European countries (with the possible exception of Scandinavia). In other words, I feel a less marked tendency towards authoritarianism to have been present *within* Britain during more recent history, although I am aware that the way Britain acted in Ireland and India was not less authoritarian than some regimes in Europe dealing with their own liberation or indepencence movements (Austria-Hungary, for example, just to mention one). What I wanted to imply is that the public thinking is not so much divided along ideological lines, tending more towards moderation (there always being exceptions here and there, of course). This doesn't make Britain in any way "better" than the rest, however - I just wanted to point out that it seems to be "different" in this particular respect. I just feel that extreme ideological positions have affected the general course of recent British history less than that of most other countries in Europe.
Of course, some countries on the Continent have more in common with Britain in this respect than do others, but as a matter of fact, I feel that authoritarianism or extremism has been pushed to the sideline in most West European countries (meaning any country west of the Polish-German border, roughly), at least officially. Now the dividing line is more between West and East Europe, the latter still struggling with the remnants of its authoritarian past and unresolved internal tensions (inter-ethnic ones, mostly) that did not come out into the open during Communist times. And of course, dealing with the challenge of cultural clashes as a result of immigration from other continents is one common to all of Europe, continental or insular alike.