And where has the British army killed other people indiscriminately?
British soldiers, like their Nato counterparts are all subject to the Geneva convention, and if anything, have to put up with a whole host of stupid restrictive rules of engagement that often put their lives more at risk to safeguard 'innocent' civilians in the area of a firefight.
As to you resorting to violence against your own country due to your own disposition and morality, there's a very simple name to that, it's called terrorism.
All I was saying is that you can have immigrants apparently integrating in your society, have kids raised and going to local schools, yet deep down, they still see their host country with a hostile view, and not feeling to be citizens of that country.
It's not just my view, it's fact and it's HAPPENED.
Speaking about myself, I'm a 2nd generation Maltese of British descent. I don't feel myself to be British as regards nationality, although I do have a sympathy for England and its history and culture.
I'm sure that an American in my shoes would consider himself a 'maltese-american' or some such however.
If anything, America has really gone to the other extreme end now, where people who cannot speak a word of Italian are 'Italo-Americans', people who have no idea that Africa is a continent are 'Afro-Americans' etc.
I agree with your views regarding learning languages. For example, I learned Italian watching cartoons on television, by the time I was 4 I was really fluent in it, and today can even mimic most of the regional accents. So much so that whenever I go to Italy, people there stare at me when they learn that I'm not an Italian.
I learned English through books, and my English accent is definitely Maltese and will sound strange to anyone living in England.
As regards my French which I started learning at school at 11 years old, well, the less said the better...lol. I can understand most of it when I read it, but forget about holding a conversation.
I wouldn't call it good for that matter. The world is a dark, cruel place after all. We can live comfortable 'safe' lives as we have a thin cover of civilization to give us the illusion of safety.
Once that goes away, all the cards are off as to how most of us would behave.
Thing is that it is not one apple that is bad, but whole branches and most of the tree trunk. I'd say that far outweighs any 'good' such religious groups may be doing.
Look at it like this, modern Maltese is a derivative of a whole hotch potch of words 'stolen' from the languages from past conquerors in our history.
So we start with Punic (back from the days of Carthage), mix in a lot of Arabic, then add in Italian, French and English to the mix and you come up with modern Maltese. Writing grammatically correct Maltese is a challenge even to us natives
This reminds me of what a Dutch friend of mine once told me after his failed attempt to learn Maltese. According to him, you have to have something wrong with your throat to pronounce certain Maltese words
The problem is that you can try to reason with religious people and most (granted, NOT all) will still see you as an 'evil heretic'. There's really no reasoning with such people, they're too fanatical for that.
Having said that, I've met a (VERY) few religious people who are broad minded enough to accept others' views, and I do keep my tongue in check when around those.
I treat others as they treat me. Come in peace, you'll have peace, come with hostile intent, you'll get an equal and opposite reaction (2nd law of physics isn't it? lol)
Yes ok it's difficult to learn a totally new language, but if you go to live in a foreign country where you know they don't speak your native tongue, you should be ready to learn it, else don't bother going there at all.
I don't see why a local should learn a foreign language to accommodate immigrants. Ever heard of the saying, 'When in Rome do as the Romans do?"
Well, here in Malta we get to learn Maltese and English as official languages, most of us get to learn Italian from watching TV, and you have to learn at least one other language at secondary school.
If you apply for a front office job in a hotel, you can rest assured you'll be asked what languages you speak, if apart from English & Maltese, you cannot speak fluently at least 2 from French, German, Italian and Spanish you might as well not bother turn up for the interview.
Then again, with tourism being such a big part of our economy, being good at linguistics is a must
wulfen Forum Posts (810)
RE: Foreigner in my own native country
Ah there you have it, we can't request such things as it goes against the data protection act law.Funny thing laws aren't they?