In Praise of Immigration: Touching Base
Two snapshots from the last 24 hours, whilst the BBC was jetting Huw Edwards and Nick Robinson out to China to ask Gordon £rown about global warming (What was that all about, then, boys?).
Our local globalised dentist
Do a search for my area, and you’ll find that the dentists taking NHS patients have names like Marschner and Andrikonite. The NHS dentist who treated us was Romanian, recently arrived, and very good.
Meanwhile all the local dentists who aren’t taking any more NHS patients have good solid British names like Irvine and Wright.
Who has the time to stop and care?
How many people drove past that Exeter roundabout before Karl-Heinz Korzenietz stopped to look at all the confidential documents blowing around in the wind?
Ok he’s from Dawlish, but I’ll wager his great-grandparents weren’t.
What if … our model citizens turned out to be immigrants?
Forget the economic argument for a moment, what if the people coming into the UK from overseas are actually better citizens than we are?
When a Polish boy has to go back home to get a decent education, after being failed by an English school, maybe it makes us start asking questions.
When we discover that our European neighbours have lower rates of mental illness than we do, perhaps their presence becomes a helpful mirror on the sort of society we may be turning into.
Or if … immigrants all turned out to be like some of us
I’m all in favour of integration, but maybe it’s a two-way street. Consider what would full integration of “foreigners” into UK society might look like:
- The divorce rate among Poles would hit 40%.
- Muslim girls would be binge drinking every weekend.
- Pretty much everyone driving past on the other side, whether it’s a box of papers or a mugging.
Or even if … we tried to be like them
It’s a bit of a caricature, but immigration offers us the chance to learn from the best aspects of other cultures.
Asian politeness, Eastern European hospitality? Anyone?
Wrapping Up
In Extreme Pilgrim, Sussex vicar Peter Owen Jones, 3 weeks into living alone in a cave in the Egyptian desert says:
“When I came here I was numb. I’ve only just realised that, but now I’m coming alive.”
Everyone has blind spots, and there are some things we only discover by immersion in a different place, and a different culture. Every new person who comes to the UK is a chance to listen, look at ourselves, and learn, not to mention an opportunity to show hospitality and care. Who knows, it may be just what a numb society needs?
