Re: Census of Bethlehem

> From: Edward Hawkins <Edward.Hawkins@xxxxxxxxx>

> You show by this post what sort of a person you are. There are millions
> of people in this country who were either born overseas or are the
> decendants of such people. They have greatly enriched our society. We
> live in a multi-racial, multi-cultural society whether you like it or
> not.>

Actually, that is an interesting point. I noticed only last week some
official government figures derived, as far as I recall, from the
2001 census. These reveal that the number of people who put
themselves down as non-white is just over 7 per cent of the
population, 7.2 per cent I believe it was. Now, this means that more
than 90 per cent of the UK population is white - in simplistic terms,
NINE out of every TEN people in Britain today are white! Does this
qualify us to be called a multi-racial, multi-cultural society? I
wonder, since the official figures clearly reveal that Britain is
still overwhelmingly a white society.

Of course, in many places, like the larger inner cities, the ethnic
proportion is much higher, whilst there are vast tracts of the rural
countryside and towns where a black or brown face is an extreme
rarity, so what we are seeing is a totally disproportionate picture.

However, what I honestly feel that some of us who are struggling to
come to terms with the "new" Britain - and I readily confess to being
one of them - get so frustrated about is the constant barrage of
propaganda being shoved down our throats day after day by the
government, civil servants, the activists of political correctness
and certain sections of the media which implies that anyone who even
dares to question the multi-racial, multi-cultural ideal is a bigot
and a racist and whose views, therefore, must be suppressed. This is
totally wrong. We should have the debate and our traditional freedom
of speech entitles it to be held There are those who also feel the
amount of resources and apparent favouritism - they call it positive
discrimination, I believe - being applied to the ethnic community is
quite out of proportion to their actual numbers and is, actually,
damaging race relations in this country because it simply alienates
large sections of the white population and drives them into the arms
of the fascist parties like the BNP.

It's interesting, isn't it, how the atmosphere seems suddenly to have
changed in recent months, with leading black figures like Trevor
Phillips and the new Archbishop of York questioning the
multi-cultural ethos and saying that Britain should revert to being
proud of much of its history and new immigrants should be taught
about it? Perhaps the tide is turning, who knows?

No-one questions the contribution to British culture made over the
years and centuries by successive waves of immigrants, least of all
me. However, surely there is one vital difference between those
immigrants of the past and the more recent ones? In the past,
admittedly after generations of struggle and gradual acceptance,
people like the Jews, Huguenots, Irish etc were assimilated and
absorbed successfully into our society, just as the Caribbean and
African immigrants who came here after WW2 were. However, we are now
seeing a new type of immigrant - and I do not have to be specific but
I am sure everyone knows what I mean - who seem determined not to
integrate but to establish their own ghettoes with their own religion
and to impose their cultural values and, yes, their religion too,
upon us, the indigenous population, even to the extent of a small
minority committing appalling acts of vilence. THAT, I believe is
what Charani was saying, and whether you like it or not, it is a
concern that worries millions of people.

We should have the debate - and, yes, it does have something to do
with genealogy because, at the end of the day, everything to do with
human beings and society impinges on genealogy in some way or other!

Roy Stockdill
Web page of the Guild of One-Name Studies:- www.one-name.org
Newbies' Guide to Genealogy & Family History:- www.genuki.org.uk/gs/Newbie.html

"There is only one thing in the world worse than being talked about,
and that is not being talked about."

Oscar Wilde

.

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