Making friends with minorities

The UK prime minister is making a subtle shift in his Conservative party’s strategy on immigration by chasing the immigrant vote, albeit indirectly. The Independent, a major newspaper in the UK reports David Cameron recently called for an increase in minority (Asian and Black) parliamentary candidates in his party because of the party’s growing unpopularity among  UK’s minorities, a very reasonable political reaction to recent events considering the direction he was heading not too long ago. Having watched the republican party across the pond (the conservatives in the US) lose a presidential election because of the changing demographics of American voters amongst other reasons, David Cameron will be wise to embrace minorities in the UK before it becomes too late.

A Merry Christmas

During this time of the year, it is common to read posts about Christmas in the blogosphere by skilled migrants all over the world who blog to share what Christmas is like in their adopted cities and countries. The topics are usually varied, giving you a hint of what the area of interest of the blogger is or how the Christmas culture differs from place to place. Popular topics include the weather, Christmas dishes, Christmas markets, Christmas decorations. Here, the mayor of  a neighbouring city was invited to light the Christmas tree while a choir from the same city played live Christmas songs. This took place right in front of my flat, so here’s wishing you a merry Christmas.

How multicultural is your city?

A recent UN report says there are approximately 175 million documented migrants worldwide and large cities in developed economies tend to attract international migrants, giving rise to multiculturalism. Toronto, Dubai, New york, Sydney and London; what do theses cities have in common? They are the largest cities in their respective countries and hence, multicultural cities with people from different parts of the world. With so many cities laying claim to the title of  “most multicultural city”, London has moved a step closer to attaining this title. London is the European city with the largest population of non-whites, and is said to be the most linguistically diverse in the world – a title another city lays claim to.

Migration in a global village

Migration (immigration and emigration) has been an ongoing phenomenon for ages, it’s fair to describe it as a characteristic of animals as opposed to plants. Pull or push factors such as political/religious persecution, education, war, labour shortages, friendly government policies, fine weather, history/culture and economic prosperity/hardship are generally responsible for the trends at any point in time. It can be quite interesting to keep track of the trends and motivation behind this endless movement of people especially skilled workers in our so called “global village” as the barriers to movement become less physical.