"The whole world is full of refugees - just like you and just like me."
This is a line from the The Everlasting, a great song that I heard performed live by the Manic Street Preachers. The line has haunted me for several weeks as refugees, mainly from Syria, began arriving in Europe. Many people watched the news and wondered what they could do to help. People immediately organised marches and began collecting items to donate to those in need. The mayor of Liverpool, Joe Anderson, organised the benefit concert With Love From Liverpool on 19 September to raise money. The band Crowded House will also release their song Help Is Coming to raise funds for the cause. I've pre-ordered a vinyl limited-edition copy and bought two tickets for the Liverpool gig. A few clicks online to buy a couple of things is the least I could do. Some people have even offered refugees accommodation in their own homes. Germans, in particular, have shown humbling humanitarianism.
Many other people, however, are engaged in cynical semantic antics online to muddle the narrative by differentiating - unhelpfully - between the terms 'migrant' and 'refugee', presumably as a justification for their own inaction. Nigerian-American writer Teju Cole wrote a very helpful piece, Migrants are welcome, the second section of which explains just how irrelevant these labels are in this case. Yet the shoulder-shruggers in the Great British Shake-Off believe that we should put our own homeless citizens first.
Irrespective of any criticism of the UK government's response to this or any other crisis, its pledge to home 20,000 Syrian refugees over the next five years will reportedly be funded from the foreign aid budget; so will not affect any support for the UK's homeless at all. The response of private individuals to the plight of the refugees is a matter for them. As a result, the "we" in the pleas for us to first look after our own suddenly becomes a "you".
What have YOU done personally to help the UK's homeless this week? If you've constructed this UK vs Syria either-or scenario and are unsure of how to proceed, allow me to make a couple of suggestions. These are in addition to calling on your politicians to do more for the homeless - which you're obviously already doing:
1. Empty your spare room/home of all the items you no longer use, sell them and give the money to a UK homeless person to help them find temporary accommodation and help. In the interests of fairness to the Syrians; this person should have lost all their possessions and ID, and should have no access to sustenance, sanitation or state or charitable assistance of any kind. They should also have been forced to flee from a war zone here in the UK. They will have watched loved ones die, either at the hands of others, or else on a perilous journey across the whole country, lasting weeks or months before reaching a place of safety.
2. Having now created more space in your home, offer to house a Syrian refugee temporarily. Alternatively, you can buy the charity single, go to the gig or support the refugees in some other small way.
Is this what you mean by putting the UK first? If it is, then by your own rationale, you should put Syrian refugees second, surely? Or is the plight of thousands of displaced refugees even further down your list of urgent causes to support? Of course, many charities need our help. But if you firmly believe in supporting people in the UK at the expense of, not in addition to, others in desperate need elsewhere; may I respectfully suggest that while the rest of us do what we can to help, you find some other, anti-social media on which to air your unhelpful opinions.
Friday 11 September 2015
Tuesday 2 June 2015
Island of lost souls
Today, I'm returning to a topic I've written about many times before — the decline of foreign language learning in the UK. So I also apologise for repeating myself. But the situation is even worse than I thought. Take the case of export sales manager Sarah Grain, for example. The company she works for in South Wales does 70% of its trade exporting to European countries. However, she was unable to fill her most recent export sales position with anyone from the UK; describing the lack of development of foreign language skills as "soul-destroying".
This is surely the consequence of a sustained decline in modern foreign language learning for at least the last decade. The statistics make for depressing reading. According to responses received from 136 secondary schools as part of a recent study by the CfBT Education Trust, the number of students in Wales taking French and German at GCSE has halved between 2002 and 2014. The decline is blamed on numerous causes, including the perceived difficulty of languages compared to other subjects, the limited choice of subjects, and timetabling or inspection pressures. To my mind, these are all excuses made by those seeking to blame the seemingly fixed education system itself. This stance conveniently absolves them of any moral responsibility to stem the decline or put pressure on others in a position to take decisive action.
But perhaps more worrying than the educational or economic aspects are the social ones. In the conclusion to the study of language trends in Wales, the outlook is bleak:
"Teachers' responses suggest that the majority of young people in Wales are neither aware nor appreciative of the benefits which skills in foreign languages and intercultural understanding can bring in terms of advantages for study, personal development and employment. [...] To stem the dramatic decline of Modern Foreign Languages in schools across Wales and to address the widely held perception that languages are unimportant and of little use will require concerted action at the highest level, in order both to address the systemic/structural challenges being faced by schools and to begin to tackle entrenched and unhelpful social attitudes."
England has fared slightly better than Wales in the take-up of languages at GCSE in recent years, with entries rising in 2012-2013 by 19% and 10% for French and German respectively. Though this cannot even begin to address employment needs, which require higher-level language skills. The situation is likely to only get worse in the near future, given the referendum on the UK's membership of the EU that has been promised by 2017. The political narrative on EU membership has been largely negative for decades, skewed by scaremongering over a perceived erosion of UK sovereignty and an overly simplistic, unhelpful portrayal of the movement of people between EU Member States.
Anyone in the UK currently under 58 years of age has never had a say on UK membership of the EU. That may be so, however, unless steps are taken over the coming months to highlight the economic and social benefits of EU membership — which can and should be driven by a redoubling of efforts to positively promote foreign language learning in the UK and freedom of movement to Europe, especially for younger voters — the country's future position in or out of the EU, though determined democratically, will arguably not be based on a balanced assessment of pros and cons.
Wednesday 4 March 2015
Resistance is futile
After relocating to the UK from Switzerland, I now hope to start blogging more regularly again. I enjoyed reading of newscaster Alistair Stewart becoming exasperated at the use of the following English words and phrases:
"Actually" - Here, predictably, the writer assumes the term's meaning as a truth marker. But the less literal interpretation, that of merely foregrounding one proposition against others, is not explored.
"It seems to me ..." — as opposed to "I think" or "I believe" shows a much clearer difference. "It seems to me ..." introduces your own perspective while almost inviting other people to offer a contradictory viewpoint with other evidence. The alternatives are stronger, governed by the first-person subject "I", rather than the weaker, non-referential subject "it".
Alistair Stewart also rails against "almost unique". Rightly, he notes that the adjective 'unique' cannot be graded. Something is either unique or it isn't. But something that is "almost unique" accepts this. If two things are essentially identical apart from one aspect that one of them is lacking; then surely the deficient item would be 'almost unique'. The one-off status of 'unique' as a term remains ungraded and absolute. An instance of "very unique" would indeed constitute grading, though this is not the phrase being considered.
The writer dislikes the term "real people" and the overuse of the modifying adverb "incredibly". Again, these are examples of language users looking for ways to emphasise certain ideas in relation to others. Stewart may dismiss the phrases "real people" if he has never met people who act in a 'fake' manner, governed by self-interest. The implication is that "real people" are more like us: genuine and down-to-earth.
'King for a day' Stewart is not amused by the verb neologisms "helicoptered" or "motorcaded". Coining a new verb from a noun is done often for effect or as a result of a perceived increase in a certain practice. Do we see more helicopters trips or motorcades to the extent that new verbs are required? Working within the 24-hour news environment, where every journey — and every breath — the politicians, dignitaries and celebrities take is broadcast; Alistair Stewart should know.
His final bugbear is the recent tendency for people to begin utterances with "So ..." with no causal reference to a preceding idea. I don't yet know where this phenomenon originated. Though perhaps by starting an utterance with "So ...", users documenting every detail of their lives in numerous posts on social media are continuing their ongoing personal narratives for the rest of us to follow.
New forms of language, especially these spoken examples, will be rooted in an emerging social practice or function not adequately served by current language use. Some new forms pollute the language; most enrich it. Individuals or news organisations seeking to stand out will use many linguistic devices to make an impact. As competition for our attention increases, this linguistic creativity will only accelerate. Resistance of it is a futile denial of the world as it now exists.
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