Harringay online

Harringay, Haringey - So Good they Spelt it Twice!

It's very noisy outside my place this evening as something big going on at the Kurdish centre. It seems most Sundays there is something happening with some noise of car horns, squealing and chanting but tonight is much worse. The street is jammed with cars, it's all going on. 

We all have our right to protest or celebrate in public but I feel we also have a right to some peace and quiet at home on a Sunday evening. The car horns is particularly grating. I fear this is going on for some hours longer. It's hard to consider where the balance lies isn't it? 

No doubt some people will simply advise me to move! 

Tags for Forum Posts: kurdish marches

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Glad you're enjoying it Maggie. I'm happy for them too but having had the car horns and the rest (engines being revved etc) right in my face and ears for about 5 hours I'm not feeling so exuberant. If someone there just asked the drivers to hold off on the horns! 

I've said it before Ruth ( and been vilified for it ) - it's all part of the vibrant neighbourhood that we and our estate agents boast about.

Vibrant doesn't just mean restaurants and exotic vegetable shops

I was thinking of this word vibrant last night as I was trying to get to sleep with the horns etc still going on. 

Then it stopped about 11.15. Perhaps they realised that some people and their kids might be trying to sleep and may not have been sharing their enthusiasm. It was a circuit I'm sure going round Haringey and environs. 

It's rolling through Tottenham as well.  We must be part of the circuit.

At least the Tories didn't do this. Or, not through Tottenham they didn't.

There was a big parade of cars with blaring horns and people doing victory signs on Stokey High Street this eve, too. I assumed it was a sporting event, but this sounds like good news by all accounts.

How do you know (some of) the expats didn't?  

Could you define what you mean by 'assimilate'?

To what norms?

Is there some kind of rulebook perhaps you'd recommend for people wanting to do so?

And are you claiming 'British' people, however you're interpreting that, don't engage in noisy celebrations on occasion?

Or just that this is only OK if they are celebrating something that happens in the British isles?

Also, how far would you like the assimilation process to go?

Should local stores perhaps adopt 'English' names instead of Turkish ones?

Maybe stop selling 'foreign' foods and return to traditional 'British' products?

Curious to hear what you're getting at here.

I am genuinely heartbroken that my grandmother came over to the UK at a time where opinions like this were rife, and that as a result none of my family speak a word of her mother tongue. Diversity is fantastic, and respecting other cultures is a two-way street. There is nothing wrong with wanting to retain some of the culture you left behind, and without people doing that places such as London would be whitewashed, dull, and just as prejudiced as places where nobody's neighbourly with a person from a different country or creed.

You seem to be ascribing behaviours and opinions to others. British ex pats didn't drive around hooting their car horns throughout the night did they? What makes you think Guardian readers would be any more appalled than anyone else? Or 'lefties' for that matter? You are inventing an incident that didn't happen and then deciding how people would or wouldn't behave. People are just not happy at being kept awake all night. Nobody likes that. I am happy that the HDP has done well but I wouldn't be happy to lose a night's sleep any more than anyone else.

I also doubt many would return- the original refugees are quite old now. The others probably middle aged.

Judging by the number of types of cars jamming the road the other night, some of the younger ones are doing very well for themselves indeed, they are successful here. I've had plenty of opportunities over the years to observe in a sociological way the protests that originate and end across the road from where I live and it's often the younger ones that are out there, not the older ones. These will be 2nd or 3rd generation who have never know the homeland but are very vociferous in supporting it and celebrating it. 

I'm pointing this out not in any judgemental way but as a fact. It's often easier to support the homeland, that you might not know at all firsthand, when you are living safely in another perhaps? The past is another country, etc. It becomes almost a romantic idealism.

And it does give young people a strong sense of national identity, in this case their Kurdish identity. 

Someone must be writing a Phd on this phenonmenon I'm sure! 

Our neighbours were cheering and hooting, which was more than enough

'Putting up with a bit of noise..'  You were not here where I live Pav which is right in front the Kurdish Centre.. It was over 5 hours of noise with car horns constant building up into crescendos and the shouting etc…  then dieing down then coming all over again, the street outside being rammed with cars, engines revving etc. I'm all for democracy but democracy is all about checks and balances and last night it was all one way traffic (literally). 

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