An Englishman Is Vexed By A Global Clash Of Cultures

by Neil Bamforth

There has been a spot of bother in Tijuana in Mexico regarding migrants traveling towards the USA. The Mexicans are not happy that these migrants have stopped off in Tijuana en route. They are worried about crime and drugs and so forth. Not unlike those Americans who are worried about Mexican migrants and crime and drugs and so forth when you think about it. It seems, when it comes to migrants from elsewhere, Mexico has more in common with America than many may have realized.

To be honest, it probably comes down to culture more than anything. Culture can be extraordinarily divisive if it isn’t your own.

It doesn’t have to be from country to country either. Even ‘indigenous’ people from the same country can have difficulties with cultures that are just as indigenous as they are.

Take the UK for example. Scotland and the north of England are both unimpressed with anything south of Manchester. Some Scots are less than impressed with anything south of Scotland come to that.

Where Scotland, Wales, the north of England and, indeed, the Midlands of England are in full agreement though, is London.

Whilst ‘southerners’ believe anything north of Watford, or, in the case of the late film director Michael Winner anything north of Oxford Street, is ‘just silly’ and full of barbarians wearing rags, pretty much anyone born in the north believes London – and when I say London, to the northerners that means anywhere south of them – is full of idle rich chinless wonders.

Mancunians hate Liverpudlians with a vengeance and vice versa and that’s two areas both in the north. Cornwall tends to think of itself as a separate country and we tend to agree with them.

Even counties have indigenous cultural differences within them. People from my hometown of Oldham do not like Manchester dwellers – not 5 miles away. We hate Mancs tha knows. In the county of Norfolk, people from Ipswich laugh at those from Norwich. Ipswich Football Club fans chant of Norwich City fans (to the tune of The Addams Family) “Your sister is your mother, your father is your brother, you all shag one another, the Norwich family”.

So, if we Brits have problems with different cultures that, in fact, are our own or, for want of a better description, are ‘homegrown’, then how the hell can we ever get used to real alien cultures wandering into the UK?

It’s no wonder there is trouble and strife with immigration. Not just here in Blighty but everywhere really.

Take Germany. Chancellor Merkel invited migrants into Germany and loads of them said “Ta very much” in whatever language they spoke and duly arrived. It was a jolly decent thing for her to do, truth to tell. She was quite rightly horrified at so many migrants drowning in the Mediterranean Sea fleeing Iraq and other places.

The problem is, a lot of Germans – who quite conceivably had their own homegrown German cultural differences in different parts of Germany – were not at all happy to see an influx of cultures far more alien than those silly northern Germans were.

How about the USA? I’ve read all kinds of things regarding the cultural differences between the northern states and the southern states. Lots of talk about ‘rednecks’ and, I suppose, the ‘rednecks’ often say quite insulting things about Americans born in the north or the west.

Wouldn’t it be nice if humanity just had one culture? The culture of being a decent human being?

Sadly it will never happen. To begin with, that would mean me accepting talking with a London accent sounds nice. It would also mean Londoners accepting my accent is sensible. No. Won’t happen.

Multicultural? Impossible. We can’t even accept our own culture. Well, not the bits that are not from our region of our country. Same everywhere really. I can’t think of a country that doesn’t have cultural problems within its own boundaries so what chance have any alien cultures got? None.

In my first week in London back in ’76 – or my first week ‘darn sarf’ as Londoners would say – I went into a fish and chip shop and asked for “Pudding and chips with gravy”.

Now a meat pudding is a staple cultural dietary requirement ‘oop north’. The meat inside a soft suet outside. In some northern places, it’s known as a ‘baby’s ‘ed’ due to its similarity to, well, a newborn babies head.

The London chip shop owner looked at me like I’d just landed from Mars and said incredulously “A padding? A padding? What? A facking Christmas padding?”

See? Londoners can’t even pronounce ‘pudding’ properly! – not to mention ‘fucking’.

Do you want to talk about a clash of cultures? Drive down the M62 from Manchester to Liverpool. It’s akin to moving from New York to Islamabad and expecting everyone to be the same.

A multicultural world? Don’t make me laugh. We haven’t even got a multicultural country anywhere on the planet!

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