"Anyone but Little England"

[Richard]

TOP POST man..I think every Indian on this forum can vouch for that.

Such things are interesting, indeed.
But they don't change the fact that Britain still has more multiculturalism, and an infinately more tolerant approach to it, than either most other Western countries or 20 years and more ago.

 

[Richard]

It is also the most obvious factor in Eastern European civilisations and in places like Turkey or Lebanon- where you find as many 'white folks' as you do in Britain.

The fact that he singled out England while pitching in with Australia, which is a 'white nation' for all intents and purposes clearly undermines your claim that it was racist. For inorder to be racist, one has to speak for/against a whole race .
His commentary is no more racist than a Frenchman criciticising English 'culture' or a an Italian criticising the German 'culture'.

OK - racist is inaccurate.
Xenophobic is infinately a better term.

 

[Richard]

If you have no wish to live in different nations for any period of time, you will always see the shadow instead of the person (metaphorically speaking). For i have lived in many countries for long periods of time and been to several more for months and living there is incomparably far more insightful than relying on the media.

So I will.
But that doesn't mean I'm utterly clueless about the places. I'm perfectly willing to accept that you know far, far more about Indian culture than I will almost certainly ever do. But you can learn a hell of a lot through media, if you are careful enough to vary your sources.

 

[C_C]

OK - racist is inaccurate.
Xenophobic is infinately a better term.

Nope, still pretty inaccurate. Xenophobia is skepticism of that which is foreign. From where Dileep stands, OZ is pretty foreign.

 

[C_C]

So I will.
But that doesn't mean I'm utterly clueless about the places. I'm perfectly willing to accept that you know far, far more about Indian culture than I will almost certainly ever do. But you can learn a hell of a lot through media, if you are careful enough to vary your sources.

WHen it comes to culture and lifestyle, what you learn through the media is akin to kindergarten mathematics. Nothing more.

 

[C_C]

Such things are interesting, indeed.
But they don't change the fact that Britain still has more multiculturalism, and an infinately more tolerant approach to it, than either most other Western countries or 20 years and more ago.

Perhaps. Though i thikn you are overstating the case for Britain ( i lived in Britain for over two years until 1996).
Of the western nations i've visited or lived in Canada, US, Italy, Britain, France, Switzerland and Spain.... i would rate the cultural diversity of Canada, US and Spain higher than that of Britain.
But fact is, when it comes to cultural diversity, the west has merely began the journey that is less than a century old while there are places in this world which started the journey a few millienia ago and as a result are far more diverse culturally.

 

[Richard]

Nope, still pretty inaccurate. Xenophobia is skepticism of that which is foreign. From where Dileep stands, OZ is pretty foreign.

I'm not aware of the precise meaning - I was under the impression that xenophobic simply means dislike of something because it is foreign - not dislike of anything foreign.
If so, indeed it's not correct, and another term is required.

 

[Richard]

WHen it comes to culture and lifestyle, what you learn through the media is akin to kindergarten mathematics. Nothing more.

Rubbish, it's much more akin to A-level science.

 

[C_C]

Rubbish, it's much more akin to A-level science.

And you know this and you can state this because you've lived in various different nations, right ?
Everything is relative.
Relative to what you experience living in those lands, what you learn through the media is nothing more than kindergarten math.
Fell free to take a trip to a few dozen nations encompassing more than half your lifespan and substantiate why it isnt like that.But until you do, you have absolutely no relativity to guage how much you are learning through the media compared to how much you learn living and experiencing the different cultures.

 

[Richard]

You've undertaken extensive media-studies using case-study material from 200 different sources, have you?
Until you have, you can't say so either.
If media was so largely useless it wouldn't be used so widely.

 

[C_C]

I'm not aware of the precise meaning - I was under the impression that xenophobic simply means dislike of something because it is foreign - not dislike of anything foreign.
If so, indeed it's not correct, and another term is required.

Xenophobic is what the Victorian era was- where ANYTHING foreign was seen suspiciously and with disdain.
Or what Japan was before WWII. Xenophobic,to my knowledge, is dislike of anything foreign.

 

[C_C]

You've undertaken extensive media-studies using case-study material from 200 different sources, have you?
Until you have, you can't say so either.
If media was so largely useless it wouldn't be used so widely.

Actually, yes i have read substantially through the media and off the mainstream media using Freedom of Information Act.
Understanding culture through media is simply a very very bad knockoff of the original and people do it because they either dont want to or cannot go out there and adjust to different cultures and nationalities or be flexible enough in their thinking to realise that there is no standard baseline in human behaviour save for hunger, hornyness and desire to put a roof over yer head. Media can be informative about what goes on where. But to understand why some people on this planet will laugh at ya at the notion of monogamy or consider polyandry to be the most natural thing in the world, you have to experience it, not read a report about it.

 

[Richard]

There's a difference between "reading a report" about such things and reading 20 reports, written by people on different sides of the argument, watching footage of interviews, etc. etc.

 

[C_C]

There's a difference between "reading a report" about such things and reading 20 reports, written by people on different sides of the argument, watching footage of interviews, etc. etc.

Like i said ....a very very poor imitation to LIVING in a cultural sphere.
I've lived in the middle east for example and there are many middle eastern immigrants in Vancouver - and some of my friends, despite having childhood friends who are Iranian/Syrian/Turkish immigrants and despite being students of journalism(where they research media and read a bucketload more reports than you or i do) dont know even a 10th of the culture prevalent in the middle east.
Nomatter how many sources you read from, you dont get nearly a complete picture as LIVING there. And i suspect, many people who've been in the same boat as me would confirm that. There are millions of things that are too insignificant to be mentioned in the media but they add up to make the most of the picture.

Nomatter how much you've read, you'd not know or understand the concept of ' shawarma nights near the ocean dressed in traditional costume' or 'bhel puri in Juhu beach sitting on a rock and whistling to chicks' stuff...or why someone blows a conch shell at sunrise or sunset.....zillions of little things like that which slip throgh the net of the media and you dont realise until you live there.

 

[silentstriker]

It is?
White skin is one of the most obvious factors of Western civilisation.

Yes, but that still doesn't mean anything. If there was a white team from Sri Lanka, and he still hated them, then you'd have a point.

And what about Japan? For all practical purposes, that's also part of the 'west'. If its anti-westernism, then he must hate the Japanese too.

There's a difference between "reading a report" about such things and reading 20 reports, written by people on different sides of the argument, watching footage of interviews, etc. etc.

Unlike others, I am perfectly willing to accept that you know a lot about multiculturalism and different cultures in various parts of the world. I do think you can learn a lot from books and other media sources.

I am a huge fan of Roman history & culture, and I'd like to think I have a good idea on how they lived and the problems they faced. No, its not the same as living there but you certainly can appreciate the problems and issues they are facing.

Although, I do disagree with you that Britain somehow represents the multicultural mecca of the west.

 

[Langeveldt]

Good point by C_C, I don't think a multicultural mecca of the west exists actually.. Maybe New York is the closest you can get..

 

[Dasa]

You've undertaken extensive media-studies using case-study material from 200 different sources, have you?
Until you have, you can't say so either.
If media was so largely useless it wouldn't be used so widely.

The media is largely useless because, like it or not, the majority of people are either ignorant and stupid, and have no desire to learn anything new. Thus, the media just reinforces old stereotypes and panders to the lowest common denominator.

Richard, yet again you seem to be assuming that your own personal view is the only correct view to have, even though in this instance you're very far of the mark. For instance:

Little of the stuff about anti-white racism, anit-male ***ism or heterophobia is the product of media stories, that's more personal experience.
Yes, I'm perfectly well aware that what you've outlined is still far, far too prominent for anyone's liking, but I assure you - not in the circles I move in.

It's only YOUR personal experience, yet in your original post you didn't make that distinction and claimed that "Anti-white racism is perfectly acceptible, as is anti-male ***ism, heterophobia" in society as a whole.

 

[luckyeddie]

Eyup, C_C, yowth. Tha nose bogger all baht what folks is like ower ere, what meks em tick, ow the fact that way've 'ad Romans, a bunch o Scandinavians an' a bucket-load o' Frogs carvin t'country up now an' agin, leavin' tha stamp on all on us - but nor everyone t'same. Tek the missus. Oh's a Bosworth - ad summat ter do wi Bozzuth Fields an sum battle where this bloke called Richard gorra claat, and oh's folks's dotty rich. As fer may, ah talks different ter oh, cos ahm from near Ilson, so ah avner gorra plum in me gob. Way were born in't same shire in't same wik, thray mile apart, burritsa diffrent world. So shurrup tha prairtle, tha nose sodall.

Seen one city in England, you've seen them all? Try going to Sunderland and calling the local inhabitants Geordies - they'll tear you a new bottom before you can sing "Blaydon Races".

 

[C_C]

Seen one city in England, you've seen them all? Try going to Sunderland and calling the local inhabitants Geordies - they'll tear you a new bottom before you can sing "Blaydon Races".

Umm... inter city rivalry or anything of that sort doesnt make it a 'diverse culture'.....
Whatever mixing happened, that is genetic...its irrelevant. The point is, britain has a pretty homogenised culture... I've been to britain before and i'll say that the difference between Scottish culture and English culture isnt very much compared to the difference between Bengali culture and Tamil for example. There is slight variations in speech and minor cultural differences.... but thanks to the amalgamation of celtic-anglo-saxon cultures, not to mention various other ones who showed up, British culture is pretty much the same. Scottish and English ( or welsh for eg.) culture isnt much different compared to the difference between Swiss and Qatari culture. But similar difference exists in India.
My entire point was that the west is nowhere as diverse as some of the places on this planet, despite how many people think otherwise. Maybe in a few hundred years it will achieve that diversity seen in some places today or in the past. But its not there yet at all.
When you have several different languages, literary styles, artistic styles, architecture, cuisine, folklore, dances, etc. under one national banner in highly developed form you might get an idea of the diversity in places like India.

 

[luckyeddie]

Umm... inter city rivalry or anything of that sort doesnt make it a 'diverse culture'.....

That's not the point I was trying to make.

In the same way as the Walloons are different culturally to the Flems, there are cultural dividing-lines all over the British Isles because of circumstances of history (the south and west of England was still speaking a mixture of Latin and French until the 14th century, whereas the north and east was still heavily under the influence of the old "Danelaw"). Same thing in the west - Offa's Dyke was a barrier built to keep the bogging Welsh out, and if people in the 900's could have blocked the Tamar with a huge pasty they would have. The Scots have a massive Scandinavian influence (but going back hundreds or even thousands of years before the invasion of eastern England) - and then there's Merseyside. When the Romans tried it on, they were slit up a treat and the chariots were up on bricks before you could say "Caaalm daaahn".