Intolerant of Intolerance.
So today I was sat in the break room while one of my colleagues was reading some tabloid rag. There were a few of us, and one of them noticed the headline of an article on a page that was referring to this story (pretty sure the newspaper wasn't the Daily Fail but that's not the point here). She asked why a pig is being banned (the headline was short and didn't mention offending muslims) from a toyset, another one cut in with "oh, it's probably because of some bloody foreigners!" What followed was a rather flippant but, I can't help feeling, kind of venemous rant about "bloody foreigners". It moved quickly on to the thing about some extremists burning poppies and generally being overtly disrespectful of Remembrance Day, and here is where I mentally facepalmed in despair. I get that people are probably very offended by all that, it is a pretty shitty thing to do. It just... well, I guess I just rather hate this kind of intolerance and xenophobia so I found it hard not to be irritated, but mostly saddened, by what my colleagues were displaying.
"We should just deport them all"
"Why do they come and live here anyway, if they hate us so much?"
"Didn't that American guy threaten to burn the Qur'an?"
"[he didn't but] he should have"
However, I don't blame them entirely. It is kind of the trash media's fault as they appear to have latched on to vilifying "bloody foreigners" (or, mostly, muslims). I see it as a smear campaign against an entire race of people, it's disgusting and it's rather unfortunate/maddening that people like my colleagues are being swept up by it. The phrase "Nazi Britain" did flash across my mind for a moment as I was listening to them rant.
Of course, I'm sure the rant was more in jest and generally flippant, without any real venom towards "bloody foreigners". Though, call me paranoid or hypersensitive to the issue, that's exactly the kind of thing that fosters an actual hostile xenophobic culture. It's an insidious thing, I think, and people don't realise that actually it is probably just as bad as the poppy-burners if we're to go down the route of lumping all muslims under the banner of "bloody foreigners".
"We should just deport them all"
"Why do they come and live here anyway, if they hate us so much?"
"Didn't that American guy threaten to burn the Qur'an?"
"[he didn't but] he should have"
However, I don't blame them entirely. It is kind of the trash media's fault as they appear to have latched on to vilifying "bloody foreigners" (or, mostly, muslims). I see it as a smear campaign against an entire race of people, it's disgusting and it's rather unfortunate/maddening that people like my colleagues are being swept up by it. The phrase "Nazi Britain" did flash across my mind for a moment as I was listening to them rant.
Of course, I'm sure the rant was more in jest and generally flippant, without any real venom towards "bloody foreigners". Though, call me paranoid or hypersensitive to the issue, that's exactly the kind of thing that fosters an actual hostile xenophobic culture. It's an insidious thing, I think, and people don't realise that actually it is probably just as bad as the poppy-burners if we're to go down the route of lumping all muslims under the banner of "bloody foreigners".