Sadly no posts in March but I have just found something that gives me an intellectual buzz, I have finally copped to Will Self. I'm not sure how long this 'affair' will last, I will probably take offence at something he writes or says or some kind of attitude I don't like, however, given his acerbic, witty, sardonic performance on 'Any Questions' last week and the obvious distates some of the panel had for him, which I relished as those people don't usually let anything touch them, I find myself rushing up to Archway Library and reserving several of his books. I didn't realize he was so prolific, so well read, so involved in Contemporary Thought and lo and behold he has suddenly become a Professor of Contemporary Thought at Brunel University. I am almost starting to think of Philip Roth in the setting of a University which he used in his novels. I am almost scared for the 'youngsters' he will be teaching there and also for him when he mesmerizes his students and they all want to have affairs with him so that he will write a novel or short story about them. I can understand the delight of being 'in touch' with new thought aka young people, new ideas, new energy and so on but I truly hope he doesn't get mired in accusations and broken hearts and scorned students. But then, of course, will come his novel/s on the subject which will no doubt be very readable with probably a mix of high cultural thought. satirical remarks on 'modern' life, observations of people in their early twenties, a lovely shambolic mixture of ribaldry, we hope, intellectual teasers, well grounded comments that can cut through bullshit like a razor blade and so on. Well done Will! I am so glad I have found a new and intellectually stimulating author. And he is very funny to watch on TV too and very good value in interviews. What a guy!
Meanwhile the state of my intellect otherwise is kind of jaded, sad and I am sure I am becoming more and more of a racist. I go down my local road in Archway and am pushed, jostled, intruded upon constantly by people from 'other places,' as it were. I am in the Library and a young African girl, very pretty and well dressed virtually pushes me and everyone else in the queue out of the way like she's is something special and has no need to queue, she is more important than everyone else. She stands so close to me I can hear her breathing down my neck, I am talking privately to a librarian she just continues to stand there and I can't help thinking of the word insolent. There are no pleases, thank you's or excuse me's. I talk to the harried Librarian who gets so stressed and wound up dealing with and trying to be sensitive to the needs of about fifteen different cultural groups. He tells me hardly anyone says please or thank you. His blood pressure is high, if he puts a foot wrong he will be accused of racism and yet he is treated badly himself, almost aggressively by people, he tells me. He is terrified and intimidated by many of the groups of people he serves and tries to help with hardly a thank you. I have a short chat with him. I try to sympathize. He is a middle aged white man probably with a bad heart and he is paying some kind of price and no one seems to have any gracious behaviour but him. What an incarnation he has chosen! But we commiserate briefly and when
the pretty African woman tries it on again he manages to make a boundary, 'join the queue' he says, 'there are other people who are waiting as well as you.' She leans on the counter with disdain all over her face. I wonder what her parents would think. The Library sails grimly on through its never ending process of trying to elucidate education, enlightenment and entertainment to the masses. Most of the youngsters just want to go on the free computers and say things like :) or (; or >;< or ... and so on, a whole world of language that is purely punctuation marks but when it comes to writing sentences, of course the punctuation marks are left out, of course they are. We're the younger generation, we do things differntly, you old people you fxxxxx up the world so fxxx off.
My world has changed from quaint incidents on public paths in Cornwall to the frontline melting pot of certain areas of London with high 'new incomer' populations. I go from the South West of England which is so white you are almost blinded to a metropolitan situation that is so broad, colourful and mixed that I feel I'm in the wrong country. Hundreds and hundreds of people constantly flocking in and competing and surviving and watching out for any way they can of making money, saving money, finding money, getting money. places to live, schools, hospitals, doctors, dentists and all the rest. It feels like we are Noah's arc and we are about to either sink or tip over. Where does everyone live? Why is it so hard for working white people to find homes, why is it so expensive? How do all these other people manage? Where do they get all their money from? Do they really get Housing first, am I a total racist, are we just too scared of confrontation that we let these situations develop? An Asian man I know in Birmingham said that England wasn't England anymore and that there were too many Asians in this country. There, I've said it, he said it rather. I know its all great for culture and food and so on but how do the teachers cope with all the foreign languages, customs and so on, all the insistence on carrying out different religious practices, the banning of Christmas, the way anything of England in the past is being overruled. But again, am I being racist? I hear people talk of their work situations where they cannot complain about someone because of their race, colour or religion for fear of losing their job. I read of an Asian couple who murder their daughter and try to accuse the Police of racism, If we don't try to tell the truth what have we got left? If we avoid any kind of confrontation don't our standards of behaviour, lack of respect, lack of undertanding and everything else fall down.
I know England, Britain is a nation that has endured wave upon wave of invaders. But there is such thing as an indigenous culture, a native Britain, whether black or white who has lived here, who respects the place, who have some kind of manners instead of the gruff, harsh, taking the piss attitude that many recent arrivals have for white British people. People on the street don't seem to have either self respect or respect for others. You get people just cutting you off walking infront, pushing you out of the way as they say 'sorry, sorry,' when we know the word is 'excuse me.' Why does everyone say sorry before they've actually done anything anyway? On the radio the other day I heard an American woman call what we speak in the UK British English? I mean where the hell does English come from anyway? Then I hear a French woman on Hampstead Heath say that England is going to the dogs. How everyone seems to be feasting before the inevitable. Of course it won't go to the dogs. It might go further down, but it will survive. But I can't help thinking that we are losing something very valuable because people don't interract, parents don't bother talking to children and public servants, like teachers, librarians and so on are not allowed to make comments about certain behaviour because of being accused of possible racism or anti religion. Well I for one like the nice old fashioned way that people used to behave and yes we were a mainly Christian country only a few years ago. I am not a practising Christian but I appreciate many of the progressive ideas of that religion. You helped poor people, you treated neighbours as you wish to be treated. You were not suffering and left on the street because of karma, you were taken care of because of values instilled into the culture that people fought for hundreds of years for in order to make life more bearable. Hospitals, Schools, Libraries, Social Services, Human Rights, Unions, Co-operative Societies all producing a Social System that was fairer and kinder but produced from a lot of sacrifice and bloodshed. Isn't this all being taken advantage of? The wars my ancestors fought in and suffered in to create a beneficient social system, the protests, the strikes, the demonstrations to produce what we have now, that is just used and abused by people who don't have the faintest idea where it all came from, like it fell out of the sky fully formed? Like all white people are the enemy, that they are well off, spoiled. I get the feeling that it is regarded with jealousy, that we do have something to be proud of here and that we could easily lose it, the way things are going. I do not feel particularly grateful to the wave upon wave of economic refugees who don't appreciate how hard it was to create this society. It all seems too much, too overwhelming, too many different languages, too many customs, too many things for public servants to have to be aware of, too many imported problems, too many
problems laid at the door of this country as if we are responsible for the welfare of half the world's population. Some people say sorry because of the British Empire, other people say they had the best time under the British. Where would you like to live, here or Pakistan, Afghanistan, Russia, Poland, Iraq, Iran, Somalia, Nigeria?? Will everyone eventually develop some kind of manners and gentle behaviour instead of what I see on Junction Road, Archway. Can the UK carry such a load? Can we all get on, knowing that there are many people here brought up on the welfare state and all the benefits of the education system and so on who hate this country, who go to learn bomb making, and who when captured the first thing they say is that they are British and doesn't that mean something, that they will be treated fairly? I mean it works both ways doesn't it?
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