| A matter of pride or racist ?
Posted: 3/23/2009 5:38:24 AM | I do understand that mac but she is often seen as being drunk or speaking in another language when she isn't, its just the stroke makes her difficult to understand sometimes.
People still dont often have to time to investigate their customers needs.
I do think in general that foreign speakers that live here ought to make an effort to learn the language and I have said so on this thread. | |
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| A matter of pride or racist ?
Posted: 3/23/2009 7:54:39 AM | i can just imagine it though at pc brigade headquarters:-
pc1:- ALARM! someones refusing to serve our friends the immigrants!
pc2:- bloody hell quick ill inform the racial equality and get cherry blair!! she can make a few quid from this! plus we can put the white british racist on at least 5 pc courses!
pc1:- oh cricky dam and blast! its not a white british racist its ... im gonna cry ... a ex immigrant from asia...
pc2:- oh bloody god, krishna, and allah thats us well and truelly fcked! and hes a liberal!
pc1:- its what ive been dreading you know, we are losing the power, how can we put him on a pc course? what will become of our jobs at the councils and salarys??? crys
pc2:- i will write of to post office and at least get him the sack and say he was an under cover white extremist. my god, krishna and allah there getting crafty now!
pc1:- thats it! ill tell gordon to call an election now before its to late and save the reich of PC! | |
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| A matter of pride or racist ?
Posted: 3/23/2009 11:46:41 AM | What treatment would you expect abroad?
Depends on length of stay. if you are a resident and you dont wish to learn their words, it's slobby. else it's ok. | |
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| A matter of pride or racist ?
Posted: 3/23/2009 12:28:52 PM | Would he refuse to serve a tourist? How would anyone here feel if they go to Russia or Greece and don't get served a stamp because they can't speak the language?
Oh one main question I wish to ask some people here - Who exactly is the "PC Crowd" and the "So-called Poltically Correct Lobby"? It's intellectual lazyness to keep reffering to this common enemy of "common sense" without even knowing who exactly you're reffering to.
Who are they EXACTLY? | |
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| A matter of pride or racist ?
Posted: 3/23/2009 12:53:45 PM | Residing in metro Vancouver, I witness this issue on a daily basis. Since I live in a suburb that is 60% Asian, it is more common for me to hear Cantonese than English when I'm at the post office. Some older immigrants make no effort to learn English, and this engenders problems. Same applies at my work when I deal with truckers who only speak Urdu. Consequently, I'm also of the opinion that if you wish to immigrate to a foreign county, you must learn the language if not for pragmatic considerations. Then again, in Canada we have official polices---bilingualism and multiculturalism---that aren't in concert with each other.
That said, however, I have to mostly concur with Netgeek. Indeed, I'd love to see some posters here move to Montreal and deal with Quebec's sign laws; you would scream bloody murder the loudest; and if you were to move to Amsterdam or Copenhagen, would you seriously learn Dutch or Danish. even given the fact both are particularly easy for an English speaking person to learn? | |
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| A matter of pride or racist ?
Posted: 3/23/2009 12:56:41 PM | | Linguistically the attitude in the UK is very hypocritical and a "one way street" in regards to speaking other languages unfortunately. | |
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| A matter of pride or racist ?
Posted: 3/23/2009 1:53:05 PM |
Linguistically the attitude in the UK is very hypocritical and a "one way street" in regards to speaking other languages unfortunately.
Very true, The holidaying Brit abroad tends to make themselves understood by shouting loudly and waving their arms about. Living abroad, well, you've got to learn the language, otherwise you're going to be completely isolated from your new community.
Deva is perhaps being cruel to be kind, by forcing his customers to make a positive step in their new homes? | |
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| A matter of pride or racist ?
Posted: 3/23/2009 2:11:04 PM | I think the guy just had had enough of serving shady beards and walking tents with an attitude.
My learning and trying Arabic in one month journey is not the same experience as one immigrant's linguistic relationship with his host country.
He has a far more pressing interest to learn if he wants to interact with locals. If he/she doesn't want to learn or choses not to use it, as it happens, then you have the step up from immigration: you have colonisation. And this is what could be happening soon in a cinema near you. | |
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| A matter of pride or racist ?
Posted: 3/23/2009 2:55:14 PM | Odd that, because in an interview he referred to this 6 people, as his friends, yes 6 people, 6 people who caused so many problems for him. Must have been awful, being rushed off your feet with 6 of your pals causing you so much extra work. 6 people?
My god, we are all going to be overrun by hordes of stampeding Muslims/Polish/Kurds all wanting (shock horror) A STAMP. Or their giro cashed. I mean, how much effort does it take to cash a bloody giro. You write your name on the back and someone cashes it for you, do you need to take an A level in English literature before you cash your giro?
The point is, having a command of the English language is going to help the person needing the assistance, of course it is, that much is obvious, but while someone is getting to grips with the language, do you deny them every single service known to man or woman until they speak English to your standard.
This is just inverted racism at it's worst, look at me, I'm from Sri Lanka but I fly a Union Jack out of my window and everyone will speak English OR ELSE. What about a bit of compassion for people's circumstances? I personally don't know a single person over here from Turkey/Darfur/Iran/Palestine who can't speak the English language and who isn't trying to improve their English, yet it's situations like this that grab the headlines. The people who come over her fluent or who learn the language aren't headline worthy, where is the news in, immigrant can speak English. Apart from Dev the post master that is, because the spin is, if I can do it you can do it, but I'm not even tolerant enough to sell you a stamp without banning you from a Post Office someone else owns.
Much better to have tabloid fodder than feeds the people who don't like immigration to have a story shouting, they can't even ask for a stamp in English. Then it turns out he says there are 6 people he's turned away. The ban began a week ago tonight and by Saturday he had moved to another branch. Yes, 6 non English speaking people in Nottingham are plotting to take over the world.
Lets send them on a "learn to speak English the pc way" run by Lambeth council and see how they get on shall we? Easier to call everyone who doesn't agree with what's being said part of some non existent "pc brigade" rather than them having an opinion that doesn't tally with the if they can't speak English lets send them all home. | |
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| A matter of pride or racist ?
Posted: 3/23/2009 5:09:48 PM | Paulinemab, the British---or should I say the English---have a well earned reputation for xenophobia, and this certainly predates the dissolution of the empire. Me thinks this has much to do with an island mentality and the exaltation of splendid isolation. The Irish, too, as observed from their boards, are excessively self-absorbed in my estimation.
Nevertheless, a comparison of the Canadian experience with multiculutralism vs that of the British legacy of post-colonialism is in order. When my father immigrated to Canada from The Netherlands in 1956, he couldn't speak a word of English. Suffice it to say, he endured prejudice from colonials who dismissed him as a f@cking DP. Despite this, he went on to become a successful farmer, entered local politics and was being groomed as a provincial MLA when he died prematurely. Above all else, he deemed himself a Canadian, and not a hyponated Dutch-Canadian. Fifteen years after my father's arrival in Canada, Pierre Trudeau inaugerated the official policy of multiculturalism as a recognition of Canada's true composition. Not only was diversity acknowledged, but exalted; one was to embrace the designation of a hyphonated status.
As it presently stands looking outside my window at the driving rain and wind, I'd hardly say that Richmond, BC---the most multicultural city in Canada---is a entropt shangri-la; quite the contrary, I see the Japanese hating on Koreans and vice-versa; the Japanese hating on the Chinese and vice-versa; the Vietnamese and Phillipinos intensely dislike each other. In addition to this, East Asians despise East Indians, particularly the swarth Tamils. I used to think that opposition toward multiculturalism derived from the fact that it hadn't been tried---until I moved here.
I might add that the greatest proponents of multiculturalism here are white latte sippers who reside in exclusive all white neighborhoods; it is almost if their espousal of said policy is done in an a la carte manner, since they use smugness to conceal their own. As such, this constitutes a counterreaction to the right wing response to immigration in Canada, as expressed through the rise of the Reform party morphing into the Canadian Alliance to the Conservative party which paralleled that of the ascendacy of the BQ. The common demoninator in both in their evolution was Angstpolitik---a fear that the old Anglo-Franco dichotomy that permeated Canadian politics was dissappearing.
The British experience seems somewhat different insofar as it is predicated more on a burden of guilt. Having resided briefly in Holland, I saw it there as well and all the resentment it entwined. Granted, this doesn't explain the plethora of Poles in Britain or Morrocans in Holland, but I think it somewhat explains the differences. Just thought I would add my 2 cents, and thank you if you actually read this all.
Nach diesem, hast du mich verstanden? The last sentence was governed by sarcasm. | |
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| A matter of pride or racist ?
Posted: 3/23/2009 6:38:15 PM | Fifty dollars, the last sentence in my previous post was a reference to Nietzsche and is in German. I chose to end it with him because it underscored irony, and while Nietzsche exemplified the best and worst of German culture, his philosophy was predicated upon social criticism, and he did a wonderful job exposing our myriad hypocrisies did he not?
Yes, we are indeed cut of the same cloth for better or worse. In regard to South Africa, I have distant relatives who are Afrikaaners, and onze broederbond concerning this implies the latter in my opinion. There is something profoundly exclusive to the Protestant ideal in my estimation; after all, didn't Luther extoll his followers to think for themselves? Did not Calvinism endorse the notion of predestination, which can be used to justify Apartheid? Granted, the English Reformation had more to do with politics and economics than religion, yet what explains Puritanism which was most in consonance with Calvinism?; doesn't the Dutch Reformed Church endorse the same? While I can appreciate all people for their virtues, I shy not away from examining their faults in addition. If this means acknowledging a troubled heritage, so be it. | |
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| A matter of pride or racist ?
Posted: 3/24/2009 1:32:13 AM | "some people are so preoccupied with hating i wonder how they get time to breath."
The same way than the ones burying their heads under the sand hoping this will all go away.
It hasn't. It wont. It's here to stay, grow, bend and transform the values of this country. | |
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| A matter of pride or racist ?
Posted: 3/24/2009 3:33:36 AM | It hasn't. It wont. It's here to stay, grow, bend and transform the values of this country.
Which are exactly? | |
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| A matter of pride or racist ?
Posted: 3/24/2009 4:51:26 AM | he seems like the kind of person w should allow in
one who wants to be a part & a positive part to OUR Country   | |
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| A matter of pride or racist ?
Posted: 3/24/2009 5:09:02 AM | "Or their giro cashed. I mean, how much effort does it take to cash a bloody giro. You write your name on the back and someone cashes it for you, do you need to take an A level in English literature before you cash your giro?"
Giros and stamps aside, have you ever had to wait behind someone wanting a tax disc? Or one of the miriad of forms the post office use for various services - SORN for example? Or passport phots forms? Can you imagine trying to communicate with someone who doesn't speak English who wants one of these forms? Now imagine it with a que of other, posssibly irate customers who do just want a stamp (which I would have thought, would be the easiest thing to ask for when you don't speak the language and or which I doubt he would be turning people away).
"but while someone is getting to grips with the language, do you deny them every single service known to man or woman until they speak English to your standard."
The simple answer to this is yes, if they didn't bother to learn the language before they arrived here, especially if their inability to communicate means service to other customers is compromised. As they chose to live in a country where the first language is English, the onus is on them to make arrangements for translation if neccessary.
"yet it's situations like this that grab the headlines. The people who come over her fluent or who learn the language aren't headline worthy, where is the news in, immigrant can speak English."
Newspapers and the media in general, unfortunately, only like to report the negative. However I don't think the issue here is about reverse racism or xenophobia, although the media would obviously slant it that way. It could be argued that this guy was trying to improve service for the majority. | |
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| A matter of pride or racist ?
Posted: 3/24/2009 7:41:26 AM | Fifty dollars, interesting that you brought up peoples of the anabaptist tradition of The Reformation. There were many Mennonites and Hutterites---German speaking co-religonists of Russian speaking Dukhobors---were I grew up in Alberta. Suffice it to say, they integrated quite well. Regarding the latter, they immigrated to Canada during the First World War from the United States to escape imprisonment there for their pacifism. As for Dukhobors, many reside in the interior of British Columbia.
PS: If you want to see bigoted white folk in North America, visit rural Quebec and deal with Pure Laine Quebecois. This would seriously open your eyes my friend. | |
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| A matter of pride or racist ?
Posted: 3/24/2009 8:12:44 AM | | When I was living in Lyon I met a lot of French-speaking students from Canada, the ones from Montreal were easiest and used a lot of standard French when they spoke. But I was watching one film from Quebec and it even had subtitles in standard French, that film was set in some rural region of the province. | |
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| A matter of pride or racist ?
Posted: 3/24/2009 10:12:41 AM | | Fair play to the guy, the foriegners come here should intergrate with us, embrace our history,herritage, our customs, an speak the queens english, | |
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| A matter of pride or racist ?
Posted: 3/24/2009 10:54:42 AM | ^^^^ Oh! Has "Healing with the angels" returned???
OT, not sure if his stance is racist, but it doesn't seem like good business sence in the current financial climate.
VVV Unfortunately, there seems to be an uncanny resemblance! Where did I say that you, or anyone else, were not entitled to express their own opinion???? | |
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| A matter of pride or racist ?
Posted: 3/24/2009 11:05:42 AM | " Oh! Has "Healing with the angels" returned???"
Ive just joined sorry! dont know who your on about, so i dont know his stance,
but i thought this was a place for debate of ALL opinions an not just some, | |
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| A matter of pride or racist ?
Posted: 3/24/2009 12:55:11 PM | | The guy sounds like a horrible jobsworth to me... and me no likey jobsworths. His job is facilitate his customers not pass judgement on them. | |
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| A matter of pride or racist ?
Posted: 3/24/2009 1:13:39 PM |
Fair play to the guy, the foriegners (foreigners ?) (who ?) come here should intergrate (integrate ?) with us, embrace our history,herritage (heritage ?) , our customs, an (and ?)speak the queens (Queens ?) english (English ?)
Maybe the natives should try it first  | |
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| A matter of pride or racist ?
Posted: 3/24/2009 2:27:24 PM | "Which are exactly?"
Tolerance, equality, freedom, rule of law.
Values, I am sure, very similar to the ones transpiring from your posts. However, what is missing is the defence mechanism to protect these values. They are not granted.
Within freedom, we have to find a security balance, there are many approaches and routes to try to convince immigrants to actually fulfill their dream: integrate (find a job) and prosper (start a secure family) but to pander to an endemic minority bent on self-self is a wrong approach. In a shared community, nobody can call itself off.
Inevitably, a stronger measure than another need to be considered when there is no response stemming from other approaches. What is that stronger measure is debatable and proportionate to the offence.
Failing to adddress non-integration is not an option if we aim to self-preserve,
Otherwise we could be passive to an actual colonisation of the territory. A Balkanisation of the UK. This may be far fetched now but it might not be in 10 to 20 years if the latest numbers are accuate.
If there needs to be a shift in populations as it seems to be happening, then the merging cultures will need to open to each other. For me, "each-other" is the key missing here.
Sorry...I seem to have gone verbal, look at the lines. I didn't mean a broth this long!
To close it, values, some of which are the ones mentioned above and that binds us together. | |
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| A matter of pride or racist ?
Posted: 3/24/2009 2:54:35 PM | an speak the queens english,
And speak the queens english. I find that a tad ridiculous as I speak English but obviously with a Scottish dialect. Life would be very dull if we were all white anglo saxon and protestant, something that the sub postmaster isn't also.
I didn't need a pc course run by Lambeth council to tell me that either. Whatever we think about immigrants, the people I know are decent human beings and some of the torture they have suffered in their lives, I won't suffer in my lifetime. Someone not knowing how to ask for a stamp in the Queens English really is the least of my worries. | |
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| A matter of pride or racist ?
Posted: 3/28/2009 1:09:40 PM | Paulinemab wrote:
He hasn't lost his job, he's been moved to another branch. Perhaps he shouldn't have done what he did without the permission of the people who actually owned that sub post office franchise. He didn't.
Let me re-iterate. The pc brigade ensured he lost his job.
Listen again, most carefully.... (Fascism abounds).
HE LOST HIS FRANCHISE AS POSTMASTER.
Jeez! Just because the media lies doesn't mean we have to believe them
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