None of this should be surprising unless you've been just gobbling up whatever you heard through mainstream media.<p>Britain is at a breaking point. There are existential questions to be asked:<p>Is Britain British without British Bourgeoisie that have lived there for thousands of years with new arrivals that have no commmon culture or connection to the land?<p>Can Japan be called Japan without Japanese that have lived there for thousands of years and their homogeneous identity?<p>Why is it okay for one but not the other? Where does this double standard come from ?<p>The fact is the loudest voice in the room so far has never been representative of the answer to the above questions.
>with new arrivals that have no commmon culture or connection to the land<p>actually Britain still see these arrivals.
Brexit restored immigration from people with more walks of life and with a more worldwide origins. There is no fast track for any nationality, like when EU citizens didn't need a visa, so companies are blind to origin.<p>You only got rid of the maudzits français / stronzo francese who liked the queen way too much and feel at home everywhere. The Québécois, the Swiss, the Dutch and a part of Europe look at Britain as an example for that : it's so funny to see them struggle with the UK ETA app while they no longer have Tyrrells crisps, as they keep complaining about british food anyway.<p>But was this show worth the losses that Britain had ?<p>It's never too late to apply again, Britain hasn't deviated from its course of rule of law and democracy
Great Radiolab on this topic<p><a href="https://radiolab.org/podcast/americanish-2306" rel="nofollow">https://radiolab.org/podcast/americanish-2306</a><p>It's also fun to watch people's heads explode over the hypocracy pointed out by this episode. Short version: If Samoa has to follow non-racial discrimination rules than Samoa as a place of Samoans will cease to exist. Without taking a side, the same is true of Israel.
Japan never colonised India, Japan never colonised an African nation, Japan never colonised a Caribbean nation.<p>Britain overnight cannot have a fresh start from its past, even the royals have ties to other nations. The England that was always English never existed and its history will always be rooted in the British empire (where the sun never set).
Objectively, Japan needs to do something about its culture. It’s literally killing the country.<p>Pretty sure a Japanese person could say the same thing about the U.K.
There would need to be a mental and cultural framework where the old ways are loved, respected and allowed to be mourned.
Japan is doing something. It is decades behind Europe but going down a similar path.
I would hope they have the highest possible bar for immigrants. Deep background checks. No criminals or thugs.<p>Don't repeat the mistakes made by Norway, Sweden, Germany, etc.<p>It should be a HIGH bar to get in and a LOW bar to get yeeted out again.
Are you British or do you live in Britain?
It's not ok in Japan either.<p>And its "homogeneous identity" is mostly a construction, dating back from the Meiji era.<p>And Heian period Japan had a completely different set of values, not less nor more valid than Meiji era Japan, just different.<p>So the identity of a nation is not something eternal nor absolute.<p>Heck, there is even proof Japan has been a mosaic of at least three sets of human populations in prehistoric times, arrived at different times on the land.<p>So here you are: yes Japan was, long time ago, a land of immigration.
Japan is fairly homogenous with the obvious exception of the Ainu and certain castes. Much more so than Persia/Iran, Russia, Mexico or India. When Japan had a large empire, that was not so much the case, because they ruled over very different peoples.
That's not what most recent archaeological discoveries tell.<p>Quite distinct groups of humans mixed in ancient Japan, as different and distant at that time as the groups that are mixed in modern times in Peru or India.<p>Some groups were related to Autronesians, others to Yakuts, yet other groups to Hans, etc.<p>If I remember correctly, at least three distinct groups are proven to have cohabited and arrived at different times.
Having a storied history, culture, and customs go beyond simple birthright citizenship and xenophobic behavior to enforce said culture and sense of identity. The US, for all its faults, exemplifies how unnecessary it is to rely solely on where you were born— anyone can move to the US, get citizenship, and call themselves “American.” I honestly cannot understand what “connection with the land” even means in reality. Most people aren’t farmers, and land has no inherent culture. People do, and culture is acquired by living in it and participating in it. Culture also changes overtime and is, like the earth itself, for the living.<p>This idea that for some reason other human beings cannot embrace, be a part of, and contribute to existing culture simply because they were born in a different country is flagrantly absurd. It’s also how people who are born somewhere, but don’t “look the part” have to fight an uphill battle to prove they are.<p>So yeah, Japan could be called Japan if people who live there are culturally Japanese, participate in shared culture, and contribute to it. I am also absolutely aware that isn’t possible by any reasonable means currently, but it doesn’t change the fact it should be.
The result of the poll in the article seems to be a soft rebuke of the kind of viewpoint you espouse.<p>> Can Japan be called Japan without Japanese that have lived there for thousands of years and their homogeneous identity?<p>> Why is it okay for one but not the other? Where does this double standard come from ?<p>Disingenuous question; even people who like Japan and Japanese culture tend to dislike how xenophobic and racist it is.
I don't understand Japanese culture well enough to comment on it, but if it contained the ugliness of xenophobia and white supremacy as they exist in America I'd surely oppose it.
Xenophobia is bad for humanity.
Easy question with an easy answer that threatens a lot of bad people: immigrants are good.
That’s way too simplistic.<p>Not all immigrants are good. Many cost society more than they contribute. The right kind of immigrants are good.
Pretty much all immigrants are good, or at least good for something. People generally want or need all the same things. Xenophobia by and large is an irrational urge.
Paint me this picture of an immigrant who costs more than they contribute.
<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Melania_Trump" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Melania_Trump</a>
I mean, it's not particularly difficult to imagine(and I'm an immigrant to the UK). You move here, then after a while you bring over your retired parents to care for them in their old age. They are not contributing financially to the system but they are costing British taxpayers a lot of money.<p>The point though - it's irrelevant. Even those cases, and even straight up cases where people come here and just go on the dole, don't change the fact that as a whole immigrants are a net positive to the country(financially), and that's based on the OFR findings not my imagination.
Brexit was about leaving Europe, whose immigrants where overwhelmingly young people or couples which would've been net contributors, spending up to a decade before returning to their home countries. I have literally seen this happen dozen of times in my time there.<p>I don't know about you, but I have spend almost two decades in Britain, paid my taxes (at the highest rate at that), and decided to leave when the immigration talk has ruined the minds and even people like me, from the same continent, were made to feel unwelcome by this rhetoric. For all I care, it's a failed state, yet it has not yet seen the bottom until it progresses to the state of decay it has infected the US and now Britain, you get your Reform government and it'll be Brexit times 10.<p>Only then, maybe, the British people will stop falling for far-right propaganda paid for the Russians.
Yes.<p>Mixing of cultures always lead to adding up their different solutions to all kinds of problems, improving the fitness of the result among other groups of humans.<p>It's gathering all the positive ideas or traditions of several groups, and the less useful or negative aspects tend to just fade naturally.
Immigrants are people. People are not automatically good. Or bad.<p>Migration is not just a choice between an open door and a closed door, but a spectrum. There are a variety of levels between those two extremes.