We started our Italian conversation classes yesterday - or rather, we picked up where we left off in July. Our Italian friend / teacher / group coordinator has spent a good part of July and all of August away - Corfu, various places in the south of Italy, her home town in Sicily. (Her husband must be a bit of a treasure for he organises surprise holidays for her.) She didn’t get to experience the mostly pleasant English summer we have had this year.
On her return to England, driving back from Manchester airport she was surprised to see Union Jacks and St. George’s England flags hanging from every bridge they motored under. As an Italian living in England she told us she felt rather threatened by this display of nationalism, made to feel unwelcome in the country that has been her home probably for longer than she ever lived in her original home town in Sicily.
What was this all about? she wanted to know. So we told her about the explosion of right wing nationalism over the summer months, the aggression against asylum seekers in “luxury hotels”, the public figures acting as agents provocateurs, and the flags which have indeed sprung up like mushrooms after a rainstorm, and the painted roundabouts!
Here’s some stuff I’ve come across today.
In today’s Guardian Hope not Hate’s Nick Lowles was talking to Zoe Williams about growing up in 1970s / 1980s England, with his childhood fear that his mother, originally from Mauritius might be arrested and sent back tone where she came from.
“She was from Mauritius, and now on the telly, the National Front were saying they were going to send people who weren’t born in Britain home in six months. I was petrified that my mum was going to get sent home. I just remember being scared. We used to go on holiday and I tan really easily. I was frightened of coming back to school too brown.”
Quite a formative experience for a child. Here’s a link to his article.
And here’s a link to an article by Diane Abbott in response to Saturday’s huge march in London.
On the Facebook page of Campaign to Rejoin the EU Truth against hate posted this:
“At Tommy Robinson’s so-called Free Speech Festival in London, the mask slipped completely. Brian Tamaki, a controversial preacher from New Zealand, took to the stage and demanded a ban on public expressions of non-Christian religions. He listed halal food, burkas, mosques, temples and shrines as things to be outlawed in what he called a Christian nation. The crowd roared in approval, revealing the true face of Robinson’s movement.
This was not a defence of free speech, it was a rallying cry for ethno-fascism, echoing the exclusionary politics once pushed by Mussolini and Hitler. And Tamaki was not the only voice. Steve Bannon offered his support, while Elon Musk appeared by video to stir the British public with culture-war rhetoric. What took place was not a patriotic gathering but a demonstration of how deeply enmeshed the global far right has become, with Robinson’s supporters serving as their British outpost.”
And then there’s a poem by Michael Rosen:
Here are the people who happen to be there.
They are the people who are there.
They are the people .
They are people.
It has become reasonable for some
to say
that the people should not be there
It has become reasonable for some to say
that the people are in the way
It has become reasonable for some to say
that the people are not people.
It has become sensible
for some to pretend
that no one is saying that
the people should not be there.
It has become sensible
for some to pretend that
no one is saying that
the people are in the way.
It has become sensible
for some to pretend that no one is saying
that the people are not people
It has been necessary
and it’s now more necessary than ever
for us to say that
the people are there
and the people are people.
There we are.
Life goes on. Stay safe and well, everyone!
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