This may be a little rambling as I don't seem to be able to get the ideas about this in a coherent form at the moment, needs more thinking about.
Anyway, I was listening to radio 4 this morning and a few things caught my attention, one was the criticism of an idea by the Lib Dems (I think) to have asylum seekers doing work, presumably while they wait for a decision on their case. The interviewee was against this but it made sense to me; why have people hanging around doing nothing when, for their sake and ours, they could be doing something useful with their time.
The other thing I heard was some rambling from UKIP about wanting to take us out of the EU and to limit immigration and concentrate resources on the "British People". So I started to wonder what "British People" meant? Who is "British"? Given our cultural, social, racial, and genetic mix, the only real common thing is geography, though the likes of the BNP would have you believe otherwise.
Which got me thinking some more; there are many people in this country who would vehemently claim to be "British" and yet live off the state, probably don't have much claim to any (spurious) genetic ancestry, and bemoan the fact that we're being 'flooded' with illegal immigrants and asylum seekers. On the flipside there are people that want to come to this country and work hard, not live off the state, and generally contribute society in this country.
So I wonder whether we should stop thinking about nationality strictly in terms of location, surely that means you can adopt a quite lazy attitude to being British; "I'm British therefore I deserve ...". If instead being British, or any nationality, it about contributing to the society as a whole then that mind-set leads to a much more positive and inclusive definition of what it means to be and to belong.
That probably didn't make sense at all!
Showing posts with label democracy. Show all posts
Showing posts with label democracy. Show all posts
Wednesday, 5 May 2010
Wednesday, 10 June 2009
Can no-one see the irony here?
There has been a large amount of news coverage of the recent elections (local and European). One angle is the mess the current government is in but they may have been relieved that the other story seems to have diverted some attention away from them; the election of two BNP Euro MPs.
Things took a decidedly more violent turn when Nick Griffin tried to make a speech outside parliament and got pelted with eggs. I don't know what it is with eggs as the assault weapon of choice but analysis of that will have to wait for another post.
What I found interesting is that I guess most people saw this as a justified attack and felt that he deserved it. Other suggestions about the election of the BNP being undemocratic and that they got through on a fluke (because the voter turn-out was so low) have also been discussed at length.
The truth is though that, to the best of my knowledge he, and his party, did nothing illegal or underhand to get elected. They presented their policies and opinions and this was sufficient to get them, according to the BBC article linked above, 943,598 voters. You could argue that they may have lied, misled, or hidden facts about their party and what they really stood for from these people, but frankly all the parties do that so it's hardly a charge you could level at them with impunity!
So the response for someone who was fairly elected but who clearly has views that the vast majority finds offensive, is to assault him? How is that just? Should we treat anyone with equally unsavoury views in the same way? Who gets to decide what views are right and wrong? Mob rule?
This is meant to be a democracy and we should have the freedom to hold whatever views and opinions we like. Even if these are not what the majority would agree with. Everyone should have the right to present those views, and equally everyone else can respond or ignore them. That is the price of a free and open society, you really have to support everyone's rights, not just the people to agree with.
If you are going to start assaulting people because of their views or trying to censor them then who says that same won't be done to you when your opinion is in the minority?
Things took a decidedly more violent turn when Nick Griffin tried to make a speech outside parliament and got pelted with eggs. I don't know what it is with eggs as the assault weapon of choice but analysis of that will have to wait for another post.
What I found interesting is that I guess most people saw this as a justified attack and felt that he deserved it. Other suggestions about the election of the BNP being undemocratic and that they got through on a fluke (because the voter turn-out was so low) have also been discussed at length.
The truth is though that, to the best of my knowledge he, and his party, did nothing illegal or underhand to get elected. They presented their policies and opinions and this was sufficient to get them, according to the BBC article linked above, 943,598 voters. You could argue that they may have lied, misled, or hidden facts about their party and what they really stood for from these people, but frankly all the parties do that so it's hardly a charge you could level at them with impunity!
So the response for someone who was fairly elected but who clearly has views that the vast majority finds offensive, is to assault him? How is that just? Should we treat anyone with equally unsavoury views in the same way? Who gets to decide what views are right and wrong? Mob rule?
This is meant to be a democracy and we should have the freedom to hold whatever views and opinions we like. Even if these are not what the majority would agree with. Everyone should have the right to present those views, and equally everyone else can respond or ignore them. That is the price of a free and open society, you really have to support everyone's rights, not just the people to agree with.
If you are going to start assaulting people because of their views or trying to censor them then who says that same won't be done to you when your opinion is in the minority?
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