No Dogs or Jews

I've avoided writing anything political so far, but the current talk about asylum seekers has got me so worked up, I just wanted to make a couple of points which are hopefully blindingly obvious to anyone who reads this. By the way, you've got to admire the irony of newspapers who ran touching stories about the anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz alongside articles saying that asylum seekers are not welcome. God bless 'em.

1) Anyone who manages to escape from terrible conditions and travel halfway across the world is not a lazy dosser who enjoys sponging off the state.

2) Immigration is good for the economy. Mark Steele wrote a great article in The Independent a few years ago pointing out that places with high populations tend to have much greater prosperity than those with low populations. All of my friends contribute to the economy: both of my friends who are doctors are Asian.

3) Immigration is good for the culture of a country. British culture is already a mish-mash of cultures from its many immigrants / invaders. More immigrants can only spark off new and exciting takes on the exisiting culture. It's always helpful to see something through a new person's eyes.

4) Economic migration is fine. People want a better life for their kids - so what?

5) Islam is a compasionate, loving religion. Muslims are normal people. None of my Muslim friends wear a hajab (sp?), are beaten by their evil Muslim fathers or hate the Western world.

6) It's just as important for Britain to learn about new cultures as it is for immigrants to learn about Britishness. Just living in a country means that you've already adapted your life 99%. I lived in China for six months and know what it's like to be the weirdo whitey foreigner. It is really disorientating to live in a totally different culture to your own and the only way I kept myself sane was to listen to music from my country, wear Western clothes and talk in my native language on the bus.

So, this just leaves me with Meg's 'Theory of Bigotry', which is basically that racists, homophobes and sexists are just people who don't have enough friends. All it would take is for these people to make some friends from all walks of life and they'd realise that their views are so obviously wrong. Of course, there are people in the UK who have no black friends but are still normal human beings, but then racists are stupid as well as friendless.