OK CarolC let's start with the obvious:

•        The people who currently live in the UK have got absolutely nothing to do with the events of the past that predate their own birth.

•        The people who live in the UK have got every right to expect those coming into "our" country to live in accordance with our laws and accept and abide by our norms of behaviour. They certainly have no right to enter "our" country and demand that we alter our laws and our way of life purely in order to pander to their own beliefs and reinforce their imported intolerance.

•        You obviously need to read and study history, for instance, it will amaze you to find out how few "colonies" per se Britain ever possessed.

•        If you are going to refer to past events in history then put them in context and apply what were the social and political mores of the day when judging them. Stop attributing the morals and practices of today on events of the past.


CarolC you were asked to provide examples where Britain forced its culture down the indigenous peoples' throats (often at the point of a gun). You didn't give us any examples as you were asked to, probably because you are too lazy and decided to let your natural ill-informed bias and misconceptions prevail. What you have given us is a list of regions:

"Parts of North America, Australia, parts of Asia, Africa, Ireland, Newfoundland, numerous smaller islands. The British either subjugated the indigenous people in these places and forced their own culture on those indigenous people, or they just wiped them out."

I will deal with that in a separate post.

You were also asked the following questions with regard to Afghanistan:

In what way is the "government of the UK going into Afghanistan" CarolC?? As far as I am aware NATO forces are present in Afghanistan at the invitiation of the Afghan Government and under the terms of a United Nations Mandate as ISAF. Please feel free to correct me if I am mistaken.

In what way are ISAF forces "preventing people from practicing" their religion, culture or customs in Afghanistan??

To which I got by way of explanation:

"The proposition that the UK went into Afghanistan was proposed by someone else in this thread. It was that person's hypocrisy that I was addressing."

That does not however answer the questions posed by me does it? Here is what you originally wrote:

"What is ironic is that people don't see the hypocrisy about the government of the UK going into Afghanistan, where strict Islam is a part of the local culture, and trying to prevent people from practicing it, while at the same time complaining about people coming into their country and practicing a foreign culture. One gets the impression that some people in the UK think they have a right to impose their culture on people in other countries, while not being willing to tolerate other cultures in their midst." – CarolC

And here CarolC are the points that you have made in your post in which you are in error:

•        The Government of the UK has not "gone into Afghanistan". The UN on the other hand has, at the invitation of the Government of Afghanistan.

•        "Strict Islam" is not universally part of the culture of Afghanistan it was only ever "strictly" adhered to in certain tribal districts of Afghanistan based purely on the whim of the tribal leader which tended to vary greatly. It was the Taleban who sought to impose their beliefs and culture on the whole population of Afghanistan. It was they who tried to ram it down the throats of the general population of Afghanistan, killing thousands in the process. That was why in 2001 they were still engaged in an ongoing civil war against the Northern Alliance. Examples; education of female children; music; dress; the statues of Buddha at Bamyan. They had stood there for 1500 years in this supposedly "Strict Islamic" State of yours – Who was it blew them up CarolC? When? And why? That is ramming your culture down people's throats and it wasn't the "big bad West" in the form of NATO/ISAF/US that did it – TRUE??.

•        The Government of the UK, not being in Afghanistan, is not preventing, or attempting to prevent anybody from practicing their religious beliefs, customs or way of life, neither are any member states involved in NATO/ISAF. It is the Taleban who are attempting to do that, as we have seen demonstrated recently in the Swat Valley in Pakistan.

•        No-one in Britain is being prevented from practicing their religion, following their own native customs or using their own native language.

•        Britain, most certainly does not believe that it is politically acceptable to impose their culture on people in other countries. Your impression that people in the UK think they have right to do so is ill-founded in fact and as such cannot be supported.

•        Tolerance of all shades of religious and political belief has been a cornerstone of British democracy for at least the last 200 years and remains so to this day. I will stack Britain's record up against that of any other country on earth.