First things first i must state that my heart goes out to all in Norway. A tragedy perpetrated by one man with loss to the whole nation and now this one man states he has ties with the British right wing. That this lone crusader has ties with others within Europe seems a real worry but what exactly are these defenders of British and indeed European culture defending? Lets focus on Britain as that is what i know best.
I have always thought that in many ways Britain was much like Japan, a strong cultural identity, a sense of self, they have the samurai we have the red coat, they have an emperor, we have a queen. Both are small island state that exist on the edge of a continent but are in many way separate. Unlike the japanese though Britain and the British have lost there sense of self, our singular culture and it is this that the far right wing are trying to protect. Or are they and have we really lost our sense of self or are we just not willing, in all ways, to open our eyes to what British culture really is?
In Germany Merkel once stated that multi-culturalism wasn't working well maybe thats true but how about plain old simple culturalism? And what exactly is this cultural that these naive, thuggish 'protectors of the west' are claiming to protect?We the people of Britain, English, Scot, welsh and Irish we are all the same aren't we? We all where kilts with bowler hats and eat lava bread don't we? No of course we don't so even at the simplest level we are already a multi-cultural society and does anyone pretend that getting to that was simple. Britain was once as diverse in culture and language as the the whole continent. Once. Now we are more or less unified or are we?
Unlike japan Britain has no single unified ethnic group, we have Saxon, Norman, Pict, Scandinavian, Roman and lord knows what else all blended in a big sperm mixer, but what of the new Britain, the one we inherited from the victorians, what kind of sperm in that mixer?
Britain was once the largest muslim empire the world has ever seen, that is the largest number of muslims under one flag and that flag was the union jack. So surely that religion is part of our culture and should be celebrated. We once shared our empire with hindu, buddhist, muslim, taoist, coptic christian, catholic, pagan, black, white, african, indian, chinese and all kinds of race, religion and creed. This is our culture, in this country we should consider ourselves people of the world. All these religions, cultures have influenced our land. Curry is as british as fish and chips and that fish is probably influenced by jewish food stuffs. What could be better than if we just worked a little harder at accepting what Britain is rather than what a few right wing idiots tell us it should be. What they tell us is stupid and what makes these 'lone wolfs' act is even more stupid. A fear of people? A fear of difference?
After all difference is what makes a country whole, working to overcome the differences and celebrating those differences make all of us stronger.
So whatever those lone idiots might claim the are defending the only thing they are really proving is their own stupidity, their own closed mindlessness and this doesn't only go for groups like the BNP and the EDL but also the groups from the other corners of Britain's diverse culture, accept what we are and what we have, sure the world isn't perfect but why don't we attempt to make this glorious Albion as close to perfect as we can.
THAT IS ALL.
The geisha photo is with kind permission of itsumo japan. a great blog about japan and its culture, which i like. find it at itsumojapan.blogspot.com
And now for TODAYS RECIPE.
Slow Cooked Lamb
preheat the oven to about 180ish in a large deep roasting dish place a good sized lamb leg, 3 onions peeled and quarter, 5 carrots roughly chopped, 3 sicks of celery roughly chopped, 5 large potatoes quartered, two lamb stock cubes (or a pint of home made lamb stock if you have it) and two bottles of a nice white wine, dry is best. place in the oven for at least two hours if not two and a half, a nice long cook. serve at the table, the lamb should fall off of the bone and the veg should be soft, provide plenty of fresh bread to dip in the sauce. Enjoy.
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