“There were problems in the sixth form when I was there,” she says. She has not long left and is training to be a primary school teacher, giving swimming lessons part-time. “The place self-segregated into different factions. It sometimes got unpleasant.”Seems pretty clear to me. So, how are these problems to be addressed?
It is when other communities are seen as favoured that the resentment begins. “I taught in an all-boys school,” says the oldest of the group. “ By the time I left there were only four white pupils. It was a state school but the timetable had been altered to accommodate Ramadan – which I didn’t object to – but the council told us we couldn’t have a Christmas tree – which I did find offensive. What you do for one you should do for everyone. That’s a real issue.”
Well, errrr, ummm....
It’s the issue that Paul Anderson, whose ethnicity is Western African and Estonian, sees his Winter Wonderland parade as addressing. “Christmas is a really important part of the year but we don’t stress Christmas because that goes against what we are trying to do,” he says. “Luton is a community of communities – we need to break that up and create an opportunity for them to share”.Ah. Right. This is the new definition of addressing a problem - ignoring it in the hopes it'll go away.
So, just who is Paul Anderson, anyway?
By ‘we’ he means the UK Centre for Carnival Arts. The organisation now works nationally and internationally, to promote the carnival as an art form...Artists! Is there nothing they can't do?
Well, it seems they can't 'do' addressing the problem.
Because here's the solution.
Are you ready for this?
I'm not even religious (far from it) but that kind of muddled thinking is enough to make me weep for the future we'll have if the likes of Paul Anderson ever gain power....
Paul Anderson stands in front of a range of extravagant costumes from the parade – a Chinese dragon, Ghanaian drums, a giant flower from the local Samaritans and an image of Shiva from the Gujarati community which is fighting to preserve the Bengali tongue. “If we went for the usual connotations of Christmas, Santa and elves and all the rest, many people would say: ‘That’s not for me but for some other group’. We’d relegate the centre in the minds of the many. We wanted something that connects more,” he says.
“When you get the different Muslim groups wanting floats, it all ends up with people shouting and waving rival national flags and sometimes with violence. We want to avoid religion and getting into fights with mullahs and priests about how we have represented Jesus and all that. We look for ideas that can bring people together. Anyone can see the importance of the Robin.”
15 comments:
Jesus wept. How do arseholes like this manage to eek out an existence. I bet the tosspot voted Limp Dumb.
All power to him, he's one of the main contributors to the rise of the EDL :-D That and the fighting nationalistic Muslim groups, natch.
Addressing the problem through abject surrender, coming to a town near you soon (if it's not there already).
The vicar said “ (Luton is) a northern town in the south”. Spot on, it is far similar structurally and socially to Bury or Oldham than nearby St. Albans or Hatfield which is exactly why the Moslems chose to settle there in large numbers.
De facto segregation has been in place for decades with 'Moslem' Bury Park being a no-go area for whites (except drug dealers) for twenty years while the white working class estates of Farley Hill and Tin-Town are dangerous places for Asians but not, interestingly, blacks who have no ghetto of their own.
As I have mentioned before, in the late 80's Luton town council forced the Mecca Bingo hall to change its' name for fear of upsetting Moslem sensitivities but such appeasement did not work; it simply encouraged militant Moslems to press for more.
Paul Anderson, the prick, opines “When you get the different Muslim groups wanting floats, it all ends up with people shouting and waving rival national flags " which points to the root of why Religion "should be removed" from Christmas.
It is rivalries between one sect of Islam and another that is the problem but if white, liberal, apologist guilt-monging wankers like Paul had not tried to make Christmas "inclusive" in the first place this situation would not have occured (and the CofE is equally guilty in this).
"Luton has a University". Don't make me laugh, a few years ago it was Luton Tech. Imagine the disappointment of its' Alumni when prospective employers pay little heed to their 2/1 in Media studies University Of Luton (or Bedfordshire as it no calls itself in the hope of some confusing it with Bedford).
"if the likes of Paul Anderson ever gain power.... "
Er . . remind me again then, who is in power?
I have the strangest feelings that the Eid celebrations will not involve any giant flowers or dragons.
"“People think there’s exclusivity in the idea of Christmas and we want our winter festival to be more than that,” says Paul Anderson. “We host people coming together, rooting models of engagement to attract new generations,” he adds with deft ear for jargon which befits a man used to making applications for funds from the Arts Council, European social fund, and soon-to-be-abolished regional development associations"
IMO that sounds like reason enough to abolish the Arts Council as well as the European tax n' redistribution bodies...
Well if the incomers don't like the traditions of this country they can go back to Bongo Bongo Land.
It's high time that tax payers stopped subsidising this nonsense.
'...the Gujarati community which is fighting to preserve the Bengali tongue.'
This makes no sense: Gujarat is in western India and borders Pakistan; Bengali is spoken several hundred miles to the east, in West Bengal and Bangladesh.
These multiculturalist morons have no business exhorting us to 'celebrate' cultures of which they are so ignorant. I'd sooner Stevie Wonder give me flying lessons.
I have the strangest feelings that the Eid celebrations will not involve any giant flowers or dragons.
You and me both. The EDL might have less to shout about if that was the case.
Somewhere, perhaps in Europe this resentment will boil over...
I know Luton well, and "banned" is quite right in his analysis (not least about its laughable 'university').
Meanwhile, wasn't some numbskull journalist trying to rubbish 'myths about Christmas' just the other day? And wasn't Luton one of the subjects, in his attempt to paint the Right wrong?
I even have a tingling braincell that suggests it may have appeared in the Telegraph. Though that wouldn't be surprising, now that it's being edited by Tinky Winky from the Teletubbies.
"Jesus wept. How do arseholes like this manage to eek out an existence."
On our taxes, naturally!
"...but such appeasement did not work; it simply encouraged militant Moslems to press for more."
Appeasement NEVER works - when are we going to learn that lesson?
"Er . . remind me again then, who is in power?"
*sigh* Good - albeit thoroughly depressing - point...
"Meanwhile, wasn't some numbskull journalist trying to rubbish 'myths about Christmas' just the other day?"
Yup, they ALWAYS pop up at Christmas. You know the old saying 'Tell a lie often enough...'
I'm not even religious (far from it) but that kind of muddled thinking is enough to make me weep for the future ...
Amen to that and that sort of thinking, not just in the area of Christmas, is what is crippling us because these are the sorts of people being appointed.
This what happens when you play Lennon's "Imagine" to a generation of school assemblies and imply it's the apogee of spiritual understanding.
or Bedfordshire as it now calls itself in the hope of some confusing it with Bedford,
Banned owes me a keyboard.
Admittedly, you have to know the places to know how funny this is, but it's a humdinger if you do.
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