Does she have a point?

[vetran]

ah yes, the good old days.
I remember Roy Hatterley being asked "is it right to openly refer to race and racism?"

he replied 'i believe in calling a spade a spade'

or a basin a basin?

To call a spade a spade - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[Mich the Tester]

I knew it! Many poles in the UK are not Poles at all! 70 years later and her we are ... quite a few of my English 'friends' give me friendly advise to fake my identity and pretend that I am Russian or German. They see it as the only way in which to avert pummelling by vicious mobs.

When people migrate in politically sensitive circumstances it's not uncommon for them to alter details of their past to protect themselves; one excellent thing about Britain is that every British citizen has a right to change his own name with a deed poll whereas in many parts of Europe that's very difficult and involves permission from governments. This is a freedom that many British people perhaps don't know is unusual, but that I hope they protect.

[mos]

When people migrate in politically sensitive circumstances it's not uncommon for them to alter details of their past to protect themselves; one excellent thing about Britain is that every British citizen has a right to change his own name with a deed poll whereas in many parts of Europe that's very difficult and involves permission from governments. This is a freedom that many British people perhaps don't know is unusual, but that I hope they protect.

Thanks for your lecture, British Man!

[Mich the Tester]

Thanks for your lecture, British Man!

Thanks for your listening, Eastern European man!

[mos]

Thanks for your listening, Eastern European man!

Thats what I was going for, thanks for noticing my humble efforts .

I believe nowadays the consensus is to say 'eastern Europe' hence decapitate cold war connotations linked to arbitrary demarcation forged in Jalta. However I spotted quite a few old guard folks who are still calling this region 'Eastern Block' and such blunders occur even in main stream news channels ().

I consider myself central-northern European (woman), by the way.

[Mich the Tester]

Thats what I was going for, thanks for noticing my humble efforts .

I believe nowadays the consensus is to say 'eastern Europe' hence decapitate cold war connotations linked to arbitrary demarcation forged in Jalta. However I spotted quite a few old guard folks who are still calling this region 'Eastern Block' and such blunders occur even in main stream news channels ().

I consider myself central-northern European (woman), by the way.

Fair enough. The old cold war distinctions seem to have left a wall in people's minds and somehow many people in what was on the western side of the Iron Curtain somehow don't see those from the eastern side as 'equal', while also having dubious knowledge of what actually happened. There's no complaining here in NL about thousands of Italians, Spaniards, British and Irish who work and live here (thankfully for me) but there's lots of whining about Poles, as if they are somehow not equal. It will take some time before this is solved, but eventually I think it'll sort itself out.

[mos]

Fair enough. The old cold war distinctions seem to have left a wall in people's minds and somehow many people in what was on the western side of the Iron Curtain somehow don't see those from the eastern side as 'equal', while also having dubious knowledge of what actually happened. There's no complaining here in NL about thousands of Italians, Spaniards, British and Irish who work and live here (thankfully for me) but there's lots of whining about Poles, as if they are somehow not equal. It will take some time before this is solved, but eventually I think it'll sort itself out.

Unfortunately Farage does not help. I do not mind the EU bit, because sometimes I am able to find some grain of populist truth in what he is saying. But his speeches are anchoring Poland in very, very negative place and are resulting in our social and economic degradation.
I myself found life in UK 'bearable' up until last Summer when I was suddenly assigned to work under 21 years old 'consultant' - second generation Indian.

I really do not understand why the press hates us so and I fear that it will only get worse over time because of school teaching. For instance they run 'immigration' projects at grade 9. The task is to explain why English people don't like Polish minority. So the children write: "English People do not like Poles because they emit green house gases" - suitable illustration included, of course. Then the children make essays into mini movies and post it on the internet with artificially high search priority. Someone must be sponsoring this production and I think It comes from Hong Kong.

It is so surreal ... we can only rise our eyebrows in disbelief. Any rational defence would be pointless and it would probably sound just like 02:17

A Witness is Called - The Blackadder - BBC - YouTube

[doodab]

Fair enough. The old cold war distinctions seem to have left a wall in people's minds and somehow many people in what was on the western side of the Iron Curtain somehow don't see those from the eastern side as 'equal', while also having dubious knowledge of what actually happened. There's no complaining here in NL about thousands of Italians, Spaniards, British and Irish who work and live here (thankfully for me) but there's lots of whining about Poles, as if they are somehow not equal. It will take some time before this is solved, but eventually I think it'll sort itself out.

I think a lot of westerners who grew up during the cold war era don't think of eastern European countries as part of Europe, they have a strange otherness about them.

I think they also fail to appreciate how large and diverse an area was involved when they lump them altogether into one.

[doodab]

I really do not understand why the press hates us so and I fear that it will only get worse over time because of school teaching. For instance they run 'immigration' projects at grade 9. The task is to explain why English people don't like Polish minority. So the children write: "English People do not like Poles because they emit green house gases" - suitable illustration included, of course. Then the children make essays into mini movies and post it on the internet with artificially high search priority. Someone must sponsor this production and I think It comes from Hong Kong.

It is bizarre, especially given the contribution of Poles to the defence of the UK during the second world war and the way they were treated afterwards. The small minded little Englanders have a very selective grasp of history.

[Mich the Tester]

Unfortunately Farage does not help. I do not mind the EU bit, because sometimes I am able to find some grain of populist truth in what he is saying. But his speeches are anchoring Poland in very, very negative manner and are resulting in our social and economic degradation.

I think Farage will become an irrelevance before long, but I'm sure to be accused of being an EU sponsored troll for saying it. I don't think young people are as anti-EU as older people and I think what you're seeing in Britain and other 'western European' countries has a lot to do with demographics; we have a large older population of grouchy old grumps who see anything or anyone they don't know or understand as a threat to their way of life. Give it 10 years and I reckon everyone will have forgotten Nigel Farage. I also don't think Britain will leave the EU; it will stay in a seriously reformed EU which might by then be called something different. As for schoolkids writing this cack about Poles emitting greenhouse gases; I don't expect that kids with that level of intelligence will ever have much influence on anything anyway. Plus; Poland will catch up with western Europe before long. It has a GDP per capita around 20,000 dollars and it's been growing faster than the rest of the EU while most of western Europe's economies have shrunk. Before long (20 years or less), Poland's going to be an economic equal of Germany, Britain and NL.

I can see why you're concerned though; at times I have found the anti-foreigner rhetoric that's been prevalent in Holland since 2001 rather worrying, but ultimately the complainers don't get what they want because the economics are against them. Put simply, if Dutch businesses can't hire people from all over the world in specialist positions or from other European countries in low level jobs that locals won't do, then those companies will leave, and that's exactly what they keep telling the government. So what happens here is the government brings out symbolic legislation with no effect other than to make the angry old gits think they're doing something, when actually they do what the businesses want them to do, as they have done since the country was formed; NL is a rich country because it's basically been run for business. Just a shame it has to fund the huge subsidized jobs project that the government has become, but then the government employs a lot of people who'd never stand a chance in business.