Tolerance
Ok so this is slightly off the general theme that seems to be developing on this blog. I don't want to talk about Northern Ireland, though no doubt my experience of it has contributed to what I am now (being forced?) to think about. I want to talk about immigration. This has been triggered particularly by an incident which occured at work today. One of my colleagues (what a horrible word by the way, wouldn't you much rather use the word friend? Sometimes it doesn't apply though) was flying back to South Africa - because of new legislation passed 3 weeks ago. She has had to fly out to South Africa (her home country) in order to apply for a visa, she can't do it from here. She found this out about 10 days ago. To me this just seems an odd situation, and possibly the result of what the media at least seems to be turning into a major issue.
I was reading yesterday inthe Sunday Times magazine about how apparently the Dutch goverment is in a bit of a panic about immigration laws and is going to make cut backs to those allowed asylum by about 75%. Apparently the younger dutch generation is outnumbered by immigrants now.
The concern is that the underlying Western values, which were once Christian but have now turned liberal, ie pro-euthansia, prostitution, casual drug use, abortion, homosexual partnership etc, are under the threat by the influx of Muslim fundamentalism, coming west via loose immigration laws and controls. The Koran, taken at its word, (so the sunday times says) encourages people to see everything in black and white, where Islam is white and the rest black. The culture it promotes is said to be intolerant of Western values, and if people who are entering the country are not integrated into the West, people fear that Islamic sub-cultures will come up against Western Society in a very damaging way. (I'm not exactly sure what that would look like, the impression I get is that it wouldn't be pretty.)
Ok so I feel like at the moment, we are being told to tolerate everything that is thrown at us, (I'm thinking particularly about homosexuality, which it is not pc to even have an open-minded opinion about) but we are not to tolerate fundamentalist Islam, we are tolerant of everything and everyone except those who are intolerant of us. Interesting situation. People say that there is a time coming in the not too distant future when Christians will be persecuted. I think this time has already begun to a minor degree. I can see how this issue of immigration and the the threat of an imposed Islam will contribute to it too. I can see how laws might develop, demanding tolerance of other cultures, I can see how in turn, this will work against any religious group which claims to be 'the way, the truth and the life', for example. Basically, logically, with the way the law seems to work at the moment, it makes sense that a time when anyone who says anything to suggest that there is a right and a wrong, will be oppressed.
Odd because this liberalism is supposedly founded on free speech, but now our free speech is limited to speech praising that which free speech initially discovered.
Fact
Awkward silences in Northern Ireland are longer than in London.
The difference in length will vary, naturally, however there is unquestionable evidence to show that on average the length of an awkward silence is appoximately 50% longer in the love country.
Northern Ireland
I'm in Northern Ireland, its nice. I just need to recommend a book, its called Man and Wife by Tony Parsons. Its good, but a bit sad making, there is a lot of talk about unfaithfulness and divorce. It is very real though, and that is why I like it. That is why I like Northern Ireland too, because there is a lot of time and you can be real and not just smile at everyone, say hi and walk by. Like London. Which is depressing in that way.
