Who am I? I was born in Essex, but have no affection for the country or any of the other counties I have lived in. Essex is in England so I must be English and British. What does this mean? I have no allegence to the flag or the rooyal family. I am grateful for having been born in the UK though. I am not patriotic or nationalistic. basically I am me – and I accept that I will have been, to some extent moulded by the society I grew up in; however it iis the same society that others – bigots and racists grew up in. I hope no one would label me as either of those. So being me is also being English and British and European, and proud of it without bragging. I do not need to wave a flag, sing an anthem, join a group to be content. I guess that the bigots and racists are just people who are unhappy with themselves? And although this sounds very zen I have never done yoga.
So people in Crowborough are demonstarting against housing asylum seekers near them. One of their mantra’s is ironically “Save our children”. Irony is not their strong point so I would point out that a good percentage of the protestors have been referred to the Police for domestic violence. This is a fact and the percentage is often as high as 50%. There is no evidence of asylum seekers targeting children apart from a minor assault, probably traumatic for the victim, in Epping a while back. Demonstrations should be at the slow bureaucracy of dealing with these people and the lack of measures to integrate them into our wonderful multi-cultural society.
Minnesota seperate post to follow!