London, Britain, and democracy
It takes five years to be eligible to become a British citizen - of which over a year (450 days to be precise) can have been spent outside Britain. Even under the best of circumstances, it is not obvious that this makes you British. Living in London, even less so.
As an immigrant, you will likely live among immigrants. The British citizens you have close contact with will often be other immigrants who have acquired British citizenship by "naturalization" living among fellow immigrants.
The logic of naturalization is presumably that you acquire to some extent the culture of those you live among.By this logic, is it more likely in London that a foreigner will be naturalized British, or that an Englishman will be naturalized as a foreigner?
Perhaps the most important behaviour in a democracy is one's attitude to democracy and to the democracy. As far as the democracy is concerned, London's attitude is much the opposite of England's: the London idea is that the more foreign cultures there are, the more fragmented the population between as many cultures and religions as possible, the better England is. In other words, the less English the better. By and large, though not without exceptions, the rest of England quite naturally feels the opposite.
For this reason, I think it logical to describe the London attitude to Britain as anti-English and anti-British. They view cultural (and ancestral) diversity as rich and progressive, and therefore widespread British culture (and ancestry) - which in this country's context must be to say, English Scottish, Welsh, and Irish ancestry - must be, by inescapable contrast, "poor" and backwards.
London uses the word to mean British anything in Britain, particularly if it is multicultural, i.e. not British in origin. I have heard it said there that an immigrant is more British than a person of British origin. Once you are claiming multiculturalism is more British than being of British culture, it is not enough to claim have no commitment to the British. At that point, you are anti-British. (Add to this, if you wish, London's views on British historical guilt.)
To become naturalized into London's ideas is not to become naturalized British (although as I have said, they use the word) but to be naturalized into a distinctly anti-British and anti-English way of thinking. I am not sure there is any place on earth where there is a stronger idea that the English need to be absorbed into an expanding foreign population (in London vocabulary that is an expanding British population, which by the logic of multicultural Britain, remember, is by being multicultural more genuinely British than the original population). As such, it seems to me there is nowhere anywhere more opposed to the concept of British nationhood than London.
So much for the attitude to this democracy. What about London's attitude to democracy itself? After a referendum, a London candidate, in areas of immigrant heritage, will apparently see their votes soar for declaring they do not accept the result of a referendum. So much for democracy.
As an immigrant, you will likely live among immigrants. The British citizens you have close contact with will often be other immigrants who have acquired British citizenship by "naturalization" living among fellow immigrants.
The logic of naturalization is presumably that you acquire to some extent the culture of those you live among.By this logic, is it more likely in London that a foreigner will be naturalized British, or that an Englishman will be naturalized as a foreigner?
Perhaps the most important behaviour in a democracy is one's attitude to democracy and to the democracy. As far as the democracy is concerned, London's attitude is much the opposite of England's: the London idea is that the more foreign cultures there are, the more fragmented the population between as many cultures and religions as possible, the better England is. In other words, the less English the better. By and large, though not without exceptions, the rest of England quite naturally feels the opposite.
For this reason, I think it logical to describe the London attitude to Britain as anti-English and anti-British. They view cultural (and ancestral) diversity as rich and progressive, and therefore widespread British culture (and ancestry) - which in this country's context must be to say, English Scottish, Welsh, and Irish ancestry - must be, by inescapable contrast, "poor" and backwards.
London uses the word to mean British anything in Britain, particularly if it is multicultural, i.e. not British in origin. I have heard it said there that an immigrant is more British than a person of British origin. Once you are claiming multiculturalism is more British than being of British culture, it is not enough to claim have no commitment to the British. At that point, you are anti-British. (Add to this, if you wish, London's views on British historical guilt.)
To become naturalized into London's ideas is not to become naturalized British (although as I have said, they use the word) but to be naturalized into a distinctly anti-British and anti-English way of thinking. I am not sure there is any place on earth where there is a stronger idea that the English need to be absorbed into an expanding foreign population (in London vocabulary that is an expanding British population, which by the logic of multicultural Britain, remember, is by being multicultural more genuinely British than the original population). As such, it seems to me there is nowhere anywhere more opposed to the concept of British nationhood than London.
So much for the attitude to this democracy. What about London's attitude to democracy itself? After a referendum, a London candidate, in areas of immigrant heritage, will apparently see their votes soar for declaring they do not accept the result of a referendum. So much for democracy.
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