Immigration in London

The article ”I feel like a stranger where I live”, written by Jane Kelly in January 2013, deals with Jane Kelly’s understanding of the Muslim immigrants, their religion and their culture, and which consequences it has brought a long, since they settled down in the same area in a foreign country. But is the clash of cultures in reality a problem? And will we one day be able to live side by side each other, or are the cultural differences simply too big?
One thing is for sure, and that is, that Jane Kelly certainly expresses her frustrations and irritations towards the immigrants living around her, in the text “I feel like a stranger where I live”. The text takes place in west London, in a city called Acton Vale, where Jane Kelly lives.
On one hand the text can be interpret, as if Jane Kelly is slightly racist, but on the other hand it can be interpret as a cry out for help, because she actually wishes to live among the immigrants, and share a community with them.
Some of the sentences in her text has a racist undertone, for example: “Most of the shops are now owned by Muslims and even the fish and chip shop and
Indian takeaway are Halal. It seems that almost overnight it’s changed from Acton Vale into Acton Veil” (p. 1, l. 6-8). This part particularly seems to indicate, that Jane Kelly has a grudge in general against immigrants, as she attaches importance to the fact, that it is Muslims, who she is talking about. And she’s even joking about, that the city she’s living in, Acton Vale, might as well be renamed as Acton Veil, because of all the Muslim women who covers themselves.
But as you take a closer look at the text, it is obvious that Jane Kelly actually isn’t racist and doesn’t hate immigrants or Muslims, she is simply just feeling lonely and extremely frustrated about the situation that she’s in.
As an example from the text: “I’ve made an effort to communicate by smiling deliberately at the ones I thought I was seeing out and about regularly, but this didn’t lead to conversation because they never look me in the face” (p. 1, l. 12-13). This sentence shows that she don’t have a grudge against Muslims, she is just having a hard time not being able to talk to her neighbors, either because they are covered up, and never looks her in the face, or because of the fact that immigrants usually have a tough time speaking English. It also shows that she’s tried to reach out to the Muslim ladies, but if you reach out to someone several times, and they never seem to consider taking your hand, you eventually have to give up, and that’s what Jane Kelly seems to have done, and this is something that must not happen, because if everyone give up on each other, no one will ever be able to make peace. But even though she doesn’t seem to have a grudge against anyone in particular, she still worries about the city changing too much. “One food store has recently installed a sign banning alcohol on the premises. Fair enough. But it also says: “No alcohol allowed on the streets near this shop.” I am no fan of street drinking, and rowdy behavior and loutish individuals are an aspect of modern British ''culture’’ I hate. But I feel uneasy that this shopkeeper wants to control the streets outside his shop.” (p. 2, l. 28-32).
Even though she claims she doesn’t approve of street drinking, she still seems bothered by the storeowner’s attempt of keeping people who drink alcohol on the street, away from his shop. In other words: her sub consciousness doesn’t approve of immigrants trying to control “her” city, perhaps because she is frightened that the immigrants are on their way to claim too much power, and that they’ll might succeed.
Jane Kelly’s way of arguing for her views and intentions is a bit vague, for example: “Nowadays, though, most of the tills in my local shops are manned by young Muslim men, who mutter into their mobiles as they are serving. They have no interest in talking to me and rarely meet my gaze.” (p. 1-2, l. 23-25).
She uses young Muslim men in particular as an example to explain why she feels like nobody wants to talk to her, even though this example can’t be used as a valid argument, as almost all young men, and women, uses their phone a lot, and are most certainly quite uninterested in talking to random strangers.
Another example from the text is: “The scale of
Immigration over recent years has created communities throughout London that never need to – or want to – interact with outsiders.”. This statement is not a fact, it’s an assumption and therefore it’s invalid as an argument. It’s always easiest to blame “the others”, and make them look as the bad guys, when in reality both parts are contributing to make the hatred between people bigger. English people can be racist, as well as others, and when people keep giving each other bad experiences of one another, it will have an impact on everyone, and will make people hate each other without real reason.
She also uses the medias to back up her arguments, which is a dangerous thing to do, as there will always be a part of the story that is left untold, because medias only show what they want the world to see, even though it’s not the whole truth. Besides that the medias tend to exaggerate, and at the moment it seems as if the medias wishes to create misanthropy between people, and brainwash them into thinking that it’s “them against us”. An example of an exaggeration from the medias, is an article from Denmark, the headline is: “Discos: refugees offends Danish girls in the night life”. This headline is a great example of the medias way to turn something ordinary, that happens to many girls when they go out to party, and it’s not only refugees who offends them, but ethnic Danish boys too. The difference is, that when refugees makes mistakes it’s the headline of the newspaper the next day, but when Danish people makes mistakes, no one notices.
The real problem about the immigrant situation is the medias influence on the people. The medias has slowly created a hatred between immigrants and English people, as well as between immigrants and Danish people, and the consequence of that is, that an increasing number of people, including Jane Kelly, seems to not be able to distinguish between being an immigrant and being a Muslim, and between being a bad person, and being Muslim. But how would immigrants ever ruin London? Immigration isn’t a new thing, it has been happening in ages, and if it weren’t for immigration, the world would never develop, because we learn from each other.
If we’d all just drop the accusations, and discriminations towards one another, and realized that we are all humans, and we are all equal, whether we are black and white, then there would be no doubt that we would be able to live in peace and harmony. In the end it’s all about humanity, and having respect towards one another