Integration? Assimilation? Take your pick...

Due to immigration the question of ethnicity rears up. That is not surprising as it is a difficult subject. For myself, having been born in the Netherlands people have asked in the past ‘How do you identify?’ I live in Wales and acquired British nationality some number of years ago. So, what does that make me? Welsh, English, British or Dutch? Well, I can answer that – ‘Cymro dw i’.

No, if’s or but’, I am Welsh. And as a plus I can speak the language although due to few people around me who speak Welsh, I am not fluent. It is galling to learn that there are people who live in Wales blatantly only identify as ‘English only’. My gut reaction to that is – go back to England. Obviously it is not as simple as that but it is the overriding thought process of the English to think they are the masters. People, friends, let me tell you, those days are long gone! Forget about the Empire, in any case it was not all that brilliant either. Same as the Dutch, they keep on remembering Indonesia and there too, it was not all hunky-dory. It was in the past and as I have said before, you cannot alter the past! There is the conundrum, you can learn from the past, but do we? Humanity has a short memory and so remake the same errors continually. You see this well portrayed today.

Going back to ethnicity, why immigrants find it difficult to assimilate. I would say it’s not strange. One must learn a new language, learn to express yourselves in that language inclusive of all it’s idioms and things like sayings, proverbs. As an example in English you can hear this proverb – Lock the stable door after the horse has bolted. The question follows, why bother, but it signifies you should lock it because it will stop further occurrences. Safeguarding! Taking precautions after the damage has been done. In the Dutch language an equivalent proverb exists - To fill the well after the calf has already drowned (Na de kalf is verdronken dempen ze de put). Meaning to take action only after a disaster. When I said that about the calf everyone looked puzzled or laughed. The rationale here is you have to learn the idioms as well to better ‘feel at home’. If you relocate to another country you will leave your old life behind. You do not bring it with you. As you will note, it is what we see all the time, they mostly, no, not all, bring their lives with them and expects everyone else to follow. I do believe it is a failure of government to make this completely clear. Also to govern numbers in such a manner that it will benefit the country as a whole. Economically and demographically. But as a lot of other things in the UK, things are let go ‘naturally’. In other words, nothing is done, except loads of verbiage as to how it should be and what should be done. To me that smells of two things, One: someone high up decided it would be good to get some very cheap labour, or Two: there is no money to do anything. If you remember it was the Labour government of Sir Blair (bless his little heart), I think the first option was the one. You might have thought a bit strange for a Labour government but yes, they opened the borders. One of the results was years of wage stagnation as cheap labour flooded the market. There you go Sir Blair and consorts, but as usual they all got peerages, medals and sugar plum jobs afterwards. Where did I go wrong, I want to know?