I once read that London was a melting pot of cultures, the multicultural capital of the world. Well, I have a real-estate kind of question. How can cultures melt if they are segregated into city blocks or areas, price differentiated, and closely guarded?
For instance, this quiet area of London is loved by white upper middle class (and higher) representatives who happen to have very liberal and tolerant views on other cultures, but pay about 30 to 50% more for their flats to stay away from the next-door area populated by Muslims. A tiny flat in a townhouse here starts from $1m.
It’s the intolerant lower classes that have to actually melt with the immigrants from Pakistan. It’s the intolerant lower classes that produce BNP stormtroopers that the higher liberal classes do not approve and even are ashamed of.
I find it somewhat hypocritical and an obvious proof that behind those walls racism is in full bloom, regardless of what the media or politicians say. Politicians also happen to favour this area, by the way.
Impoverished people often turn to loathing other impoverished people who differ by their race, culture or religion. Frankly, I blame them less than those empowered snobs who camouflage their hatred by albums of Muslim art they “collect” and monologues about tolerance.
When I say that I don’t like certain art coming from certain cultures, my British upper-class contacts react in an indignant, almost offended way. Come on. If I don’t like something, it doesn’t mean I hate it. I just don’t like it. There’s indifference between love and hate, that famous indifference that is encapsulated in the “Live and let live” principle Britain is so proud of.
If I admit I am indifferent, I am honest about one important thing: I don’t harbor any hatred. If I start lying about loving other cultures, I start hating myself for lying and then I blame this guilt on those other cultures that made me start lying. And then I start hating them.
And, OK, that was a preface. Unlike European co-existence of religions, Mexico offers an interesting example of cultural fusion, and a Sunday market in Mexico is the place I will take you to in my next post. Goths, indians, a pagan take on Christianity, human sacrifice – you’ll see it all, and that’s where I am going to take you next!
PS Human sacrifice is symbolic nowadays.
Standing Ovation, Seated 