As we witness riots in the cities of Britain we need to pause and ponder as to why these events are taking place. And we need to do this by keeping religion out of it. The authorities have not confirmed if the attack is terror related. A few weeks earlier a soldier was attacked with a knife and narrowly escaped death. Ever since the arrest of the culprit there is no further news of him and no one knows what his motivation was.
Over the last 20 years, since the fateful 7/7 attack in 2005 there have been many terrorist outrages in the UK. All the attacks were carried out by immigrants or their children or refugees.
I too came to this country as an immigrant as did tens of thousands of others from Uganda when they were expelled by Idi Amin. Despite initial hesitations, people of this country left no stones unturned in helping us settle down. They took care of our elderly, found jobs and provided the best education to our children. Volunteers came to our homes to teach the elders English and helped us understand the way things worked in this country. By 1980s, the Governments passed laws to stamp out any discrimination against minorities. Millions of pounds were spent in translating important information in foreign languages to help them integrate. Bank managers also lent money easily, so that the immigrants could start businesses.
We were free to practice our faith, our culture, there were no restrictions. The country continues to absorb tens of thousands of newcomers every year. The illegal refugees coming by boats are still accorded a welcome by ordinary Britons. This pattern is repeated in Australia, Sweden, Germany and many other countries!
We have had an Indian-origin and Hindu Prime Minister in Britain and the new generation born in the UK have excelled in every field of life. Britain has given us a lot of things without any preconditions.
The strife we are seeing is because some of the immigrants and refugees are indeed breaking laws by dealing in drugs, exploiting and grooming white British girls etc. Knife crime is the cause of a death almost every week.
Major institutions as well as political leaders dare not speak about things that are going terribly wrong because of the fear of being called racist.
There is an urgent need for a new dialogue in which the ethos and values of the indigenous people (for lack of a better word) are adhered to and respected. Minorities can also be wrong, they can also get unreasonable and unnecessarily confrontational.
And for minorities in the world to prosper anywhere, the goodwill of the majority is crucial!
