My Britain

It’s difficult to try and put into words how I feel about society in Britain in 2013 after the events of the past couple of days.

I love my country. I feel genuinely privileged to have been born in Britain, a nation with some vibrant cities, some breathtaking countryside and above all some incredible people.

One of the things that I genuinely love about Britain is that there are people here from absolutely every walk of life, every country and every religion.

I have some been lucky enough to have met some brilliant people in the past who are either migrants from various countries, or are descended from migrants, and, in my experience, I have enjoyed meeting and knowing them.

And yet reading social media this last 36 hours or so, you’d think that Britain should only be full of white christians, who all observe the same beliefs and principles.

It’s how I imagine Twitter or Facebook might have looked 90 years ago in Germany.

Life isn’t like that. If every single person I knew was identical to me then I would be one incredibly boring person.

I have friends who are Muslim, and of Bangladeshi descent; friends who are Hindi of Indian descent; and friends who are Bulgarian and aren’t religious, and I love that I can talk to them about their own beliefs and upbringings, and broaden my horizons and my knowledge and understanding to other people’s lives.

That’s not to say they try and force their beliefs on me, nor me them. I’m an atheist for starters, so to try and ‘turn’ me would be quite a challenge, but I believe part of being a human being is to show understanding and allowance to other people and above all respect their right to believe what they want to believe.

If someone believes that after you leave this world then you will be rewarded for following a certain way of life then who am I to tell them otherwise? In a way I wish I was religious; I see the genuine strength and happiness that people get from their faith and I wonder if it would make me a stronger person to know that I have that to fall back on?

To a degree I follow a similar way of life to people who have religion, but because I try to be a decent person, not for rewards in an afterlife.

Sure, there are people who are religious, or aren’t British who I don’t get on with. In the same way that there are people who are also atheists and who come from the same town, street even, as me who I don’t particularly like. It’s called life.

To suggest that Britain should ‘shut its borders’ to anyone not from these shores is a little short sighted. In my experience many jobs which ‘our’ people won’t do, thinking sometimes that they are better than that; are done by people not from here. There are bad apples of course; but the NHS for example is built on a foundation of foreign staff who are remarkable people. There are also vast numbers of non-British soldiers who make up our armed forces.

It’s no coincidence that both our army and our health services are amongst the very best in the world, is it?

If you read the Daily Mail, or listen to the BNP you’ll be told that this country is crumbling due to lorry loads of Somalians who come here, claim thousands in benefits and are a burden on the state.

Is that any worse than the generations of British families who play the system and milk exorbitant amounts of money from the welfare system to support their growing families which they actually are unable to support without benefits?

When I hear of stories like the tragic and horrific event in Woolwich on Wednesday I start to think for a second that maybe I would actually like to move to a different country, where you wouldn’t hear things like this.

And then I read yesterday of the remarkable women at that scene. The lady who tried to reason with two absolute lunatics until the police arrived, and the two women who sat beside the fallen soldier so that his last moments weren’t alone.

It restores some faith in humanity. It reminds you that, fundamentally we are decent people who look out for others.

Throughout history there have been incidents caused by people who are simply plain evil. To have the desire to inflict pain on other people you’ve never met is just bizarre.

But blaming it on one religion, or one nationality is equally bizarre. Speak to any normal Muslim, Christian or Hindu and they will tell you that their religion doesn’t mean butchering innocent people.

I do still believe we live in a remarkable country. And that we are mostly remarkable people.

But I do worry that might change. And it’s not a worry about other religions, races or creeds. It’s a worry that the utter bigots who make up the membership of the BNP or EDL will become the majority rather than the minority.

I believe Britain is still Great, I just hope it stays that way.