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Anonymous
Guest
Because it's about national identity. Perhaps the English cultural identity will evolve as time goes on (and many people certainly do mourn those changes), but it'll still be the English cultural identity. There's a difference between the evolution of a culture and the disappearance of a culture. People are concerned that the English cultural identity will be replaced by another country's imported culture. That's the difference. It's the difference between an old painting slowly changing colour over time and a bunch of people coming with paintbrushes and painting over it.That's funny, because almost everything about my formative years HAS disappeared, and nobody did anything to prevent it. Chopper bikes, space hoppers, flared trousers, Ford Cortinas, big sideburns, British Rail etc... Where were you when these things were disappearing and why didn't you stop it? And why did you not protest the introduction of modern things like flatscreen TVs, the internet, and smartphones? Why is it that the ONLY cultural or social change which you ACTUALLY protest with any vigour is foreign accents/languages/customs? Absolutely everything else has changed and there wasn't a peep out of you about preserving it, but when it comes to the composition of the population, suddenly you're all "Oh we've got to preserve our way of life!"... Kind of strange!
This is not my personal concern. I don't care about the changing way of life. I'm a minority child of immigrants myself. Plus, I'm still quite young and have no great connection to it. I simply want to understand what people are saying and why they're saying it. My only interest is diplomacy and seeing if there's a way in which everyone can be placated. I understand your point and theirs, but I empathise more with theirs because, at heart, it seems like a hopeless cause. It seems like an inevitable change and, unless you're in favor of stopping immigration completely and deporting loads of people who've done nothing wrong, nothing can stop this change.
Let me ask you this: Do you think the Native Americans were racist or unjustified in wanting to preserve their culture when the European colonists came to America? Were they unjustified for fighting for the sacrament of their holy mountains?
I'm not comparing mass immigration to colonisation, I'm comparing the desire for cultural preservation. It's present in nearly every culture. It seems that when we talk about minority cultures, we sympathise a lot more with that feeling than when we talk about white cultures. I understand why. I know there's a lot of guilt in the white communities for their treatment of minorities in the past. I know there's an unspoken policy of retribution. I just don't really think it's fair.