Renaming Is Shaming

‘MUCH has been made of how one man’s suicide bomber is another man’s martyr. Of how what looks like a terrorist to many, appears as a freedom fighter to some, or a simple “bomber” to the BBC.

A spokesperson for Hazel Blears

And now the Times tells us that the Government is to take a tough line on language and is considering renaming ethnic minorities “in an attempt to highlight and strengthen their British roots”.

Under proposals being considered by the unimpressive Home Office Minister Hazel Blears, “Asians” will be known as “British–Asians”.

This double-barrelled name calling is very much in keeping with the British tradition, even if it is founded in America.

So we can look forward to “Indian-British”, “African British” and perhaps even “Welsh-British”, “Cornish –British” and “Muslim-Fundamentalist-British”.

Blears explains. “If you want a society that is really welded together, there are certain things that unite us because we are British,” says she. “But actually, for example, I’m Northern, and you can be a bit different too.”

Indeed. But why stop there? Why not show respect for one and all by giving each of us an epithet that fully captures all of our integral parts?

So let’s hear it for Blears, a Northern-White-Non-Suicide Bombing-Rubgy-League-Supporting-Tap-Dancing-Cinema-Going-Heterosexual-British.

Or a Blairite for short…’

Posted: 8th, August 2005 | In: Uncategorized Comment | TrackBack | Permalink