Andrew Sullivan: belief

Transcript context

…The Muslim immigration to Britain seems to have gone acceptably well, right? I think that there are parts of England, northern England particularly, which have had some issues with not full integration: really some separatist entities. Bradford, I think, would be one of them. And in which there have been really ugly child-grooming practices and ways in which the Muslim community in those areas — which came from very rural, backward areas of Pakistan — they’re weren’t quite ready for modern liberal democracy. There’s some element in which that works, but in general, when I go to England I do think that it’s pretty successful multiracially. But then I think America is too, because I have a slightly lower expectation, I think, of human nature than most people do — but in general the English and the Americans: pretty easygoing about this. You go to London and it’s pretty easygoing. What they were responding to, I think, is the speed of change in which — one of the saddest things my brother ever said to me when I was over there a few years ago, was talking about London — and he said to me, “Well, it’s not our capital city anymore, is it?” It really struck me that he felt that London was a different country now, that it was an internationalist, global playground as opposed to England’s and Britain’s capital city. When you look at the demographics, you see that 40 percent of Londoners were not born in the United Kingdom. Now in New York, fine, that’s always been the case. It’s a big immigration entrepôt. But that’s never happened to England before. If you go to London, it’s very hard to hear an English accent or an English person in any service industry. It’s quite remarkable. And of course in some ways, that’s a huge advertisement for London. It’s the place where every other European wants to go live; it’s a place where people all over the world want to live. It’s a fantastic city. But from the perspective of the coherence of England, I think it happened a little too fast and it was a little too much, and that’s the adjustment. Why is there so much residual British hatred of Margaret Thatcher — so to call her Maggie the Milk Snatcher? You’ll still hear that. Like, who cares? How long ago was that? The milk, whatever. What is it about her that so set off her enemies?…

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