Yesterday evening, I collected over £50 for refugees from people attending a public meeting in Lancaster Town Hall, then joined members of a teaching union for a drink after their AGM in the Borough, also on Dalton Square.
An sf fan sees such activities in parallel with corresponding fictional events, e.g.:
in Poul Anderson's History of Technic Civilization, immigrants to the Solar System colonize Mars, becoming citizens first of the Solar Commonwealth, then of the Terran Empire;
Nicholas van Rijn is unhappy when trade unions gain control of the pension funds of employees who are also Commonwealth citizens;
multicultural Britain, e.g., Lancaster and Birmingham, recalls SM Stirling's multi-ethnic Angrezi Raj and Anderson's multi-species Terran Empire.
Kaor, Paul!
ReplyDeleteAlas, both the US and UK also suffer from some of the stresses, strains, and dangers resulting from trying to assimilate people from very different ethnicities or religions. I don't necessarily oppose such things, only trying to point it comes with "difficulties."
Sean