Steven Patrick Morrissey Quotes
England is a memory now. The gates are flooded and anybody can have access to England and join in.
Jonze, Tim. "Morrissey: The NME Interview." NME, IPC Media, 1 Dec. 2007.
This is a complaint similar to that made by anti-immigrant Americans. France, like most other countries of the world, has never had the large scale immigration of today, nor have they had such a large proportion of the same ethnicity at once—in this case, Muslim North Africans. There were never, before the last decades, enough immigrants of any ethnicity in France to have a choice of maintaining their traditional languages and culture and not learning French or otherwise assimilating. America, in contrast, had large immigrations of different ethnicities, and despite the erroneous beliefs of immigration opponents, these blocs of immigrants have wherever there was sufficient density—usually cities, they maintained their old language and other customs. However, their children and the next generation in almost all cases have abandoned the language and many of the customs of the old country. This was true of the Germans, the Irish, the Italians, the European Jews, the Russian Jews, the Scandinavians’, and the Hispanics with their different cultures.
She was referring to the Muslim immigrants who were then coming into Europe in large numbers. Europe in general, and Italy in particular, have never had the American experience of assimilation of large numbers of immigrants, and many Muslims came to Europe just for the economic opportunities but did not like or respect the culture or the values. Some even preached hatred of the Christian West and fomented terrorism. This was different from America where Muslim immigrants arrived and despite the difficulties of new immigrants most thrived and were able to assimilate yet maintain their religion and cultural customs. At the same time many American Islamic immigrants represented the more modern Islamic which valued freedom and pluralism and unlike most Muslim nations of today, appreciated the advanced, modernistic, tolerant Islam of 1000 years ago when tolerance and freedom of thought within an Islamic framework made some Muslim countries the most advanced in the world.
He and President George W. Bush appreciated the vakue and importance of immigration, but most other Republicans did not.
This is the origin of the “melting pot” term. Although British, Zangwill wrote this play for America and it was first produced in Washinton DC with Theodore Roosevelt in attendance. The theme was just the concept that most Americans think of relative to the large immigration of so many peoples to America.
Bourne was one of the first writers with a national audience to question the classic but never real “melting pot” theory of immigration and suggest the “salad” model though he never used the term.
Steven Patrick Morrissey, known by his surname, is an English singer, songwriter, and author. He came to prominence as the frontman of rock band the Smiths, who were active from 1982 to 1987. Since then, he has pursued a successful solo career. Morrissey's music is characterised by his baritone voice and distinctive lyrics with recurring themes of emotional isolation, sexual longing, self-deprecating and dark humour, and anti-establishment stances.
