Harringay online

Harringay, Haringey - So Good they Spelt it Twice!

I'm still shaking my head at this. The Council has spent so much on something noone wants. I don't know why the English don't stand up to this sort of thing. It would never happen in Turkey or Greece. This guy sums it up perfectly.

Tags for Forum Posts: blackboy lane name change

Views: 6875

Replies are closed for this discussion.

Replies to This Discussion

Just so it doesn't pass without challenge: I would really like to see fewer links to racist youtubers and fewer comments like the following one from 'Cem' on this forum.

"Ahmet, Khan and Ejiofor aren't exactly old English family names. Now I'm not suggesting they should not be able to propose changes or take part in democratic processes but they won't value the heritage of England in the same way as people whose families have lived here for generations and generations."

I personally didn't think the renaming was necessary, but if the people opposed to it are like this, then I am very happy to join the opposite side. I will support the renaming wholeheartedly if it means I avoid rubbing shoulders with people who think like this.

The term 'racist' has become so subjective that it is starting to loose all objective meaning so there is little point in me challenging you on that. Believe what you want.

However, I do find it odd that you don't recognise that people are more likely to understand and value their own culture and heritage than someone else's. English people are conspicuously absent from the groups of people making decisions about renaming roads, schools and parks across Haringey, not to mention the rest of London. As a thought experiment consider the justifiable outcry if a group deciding on the renaming of the Bernie Grant centre, for example, did not include any people of West Indian heritage.

What is conspicuous is that you are making assumptions about what people think based on how 'English' you consider their surname to be.

It's not whether their surnames are English or not. It's the fact that they have no English cultural heritage of their own and thus no first hand understanding of it. 

An understanding of culture and heritage isn’t genetic - someone isn’t born with it.  We learn through experience and exposure.

Exactly. If your parents were born elsewhere then you're very unlikely to have that experience or exposure. They'll have at best peripheral awareness.

As I said in an earlier post my parents were both born in Ireland.  That didn’t prevent me from developing an interest in the history and culture of England, studying for a degree in art history and passing on my knowledge to visitors to buildings managed by English Heritage.

And as I said in my earlier post, well done.

So how does this fit?

I was trying to be conciliatory.

Studying history and taking tourists around old houses is different from being 'of' a culture. What you've described is observing from the outside. You could study Egyptian history and take tourists to the pyramids but that's different from being brought up in the culture and intuitively knowing how it works, what to expect and how to behave in different circumstances. It's not very inclusive I admit but we each have our own.

The histories and cultures of Britain and Ireland have so often been intimately intertwined (often with terrible results). So hardly a great leap. But your point stands, I think.

To expand on your point, James, it is interesting to note that the same forces (colonialism, empire) which 'intertwined' the histories and cultures of Britain and Ireland are at play between Britain and, say, the Indian subcontinent.

RSS

Advertising

© 2024   Created by Hugh.   Powered by

Badges  |  Report an Issue  |  Terms of Service