The natives are getting restless

In Aldershot.

I hear that there is a protest being arranged as ‘The Ghurkhas are ruining the town’ … having lived here for some 13 years I can assure you Aldershot is being ruined but more by the right wing, poorly educated ignorant bigots who also reside.

Apparently there is a social networking page up on arse book which is gaining attention. Great.

Yesterday a local mum who I thought was at the very least intelligent enough not to propagate the fallacy of what ‘them’ get up to informed me that ‘they’ are shitting and pissing in our streets. All of them and it’s really not on [meanwhile the under 30 generation neck 12 pints of wife beater and regurgitate their stomach contents on the pavements of Aldershot – this is ok though]. Oh deary dear. Have we not learnt by now how very damaging sweeping racist generalizations can be. Have we not already been down this route of victimization and segregation and figured out that only bad things can come of it.

I live in a relatively quiet part of town and I would say out of my immediate neighbours the Nepalese form roughly 30% of the population. In 5 years I have never seen one Nepalese family behaving in a disrespectful way. My immediate neighbours – shaved headed and pit-bull owning regularly delight me with parties lasting well into the early hours, throwing rubbish over the fence, taking drugs openly and peppering their outside daily conversation with certificate 18 expletives. But then again I’m one of ‘them’ by marriage. I have an Asian husband and a mixed race son .. We’re always crapping in the street – you know us we just can’t help it. Must go as I’ve got an appointment with the council … they’re offering me a huge mansion 50k worth of benefits and they’re bringing my husband’s family over all for free. 

Actually the only point I think I’d like to make as a generalization is that life is too easy here regardless of colour.  I’m surrounded by local people who don’t work full time as “there’s no point”. One generation after the other chooses a life of hand-outs rather than stopping the cycle, encouraging kids to do well at school and telling them that failure isn’t an option … this is the only opportunity you get.  I know what I’m talking about I really do. I lived in a council estate. I didn’t come from the gutter as my mother [an intelligent British feminist] always spoke to us about the future and what our opportunities were – she worked full time and set an example. If we chose to give up at school then we were choosing a life with fewer opportunities and that to an extent we had to fight for what we wanted. Not by pointing out how dreadfully unfair life is but by getting on with it and making the most of what we had. I just see lazy winey people who have given up. It’s like disciplining a toddler really, if they don’t get what they want, they have a tantrum.