A wee hiatus

It’s been a while since I last wrote, almost two months,
however, much has happened since then.

Most notably, Mrs B and I disappeared to New Zealand for a
break and the opportunity to catch up with friends and family in what proved to
be an indulgent month. A visit to my homeland isn’t entirely a holiday,
although other than maintaining a journal of our trip, I confess to writing
little.

It’s always great to go home (the notion of home being
interchangeable depending on which country I’m in), if somewhat exhausting. In
our final ten days, we stayed in eight different beds and drove many miles in
between those resting spots. That, however, was a small price to pay for
fabulous stays with friends from my youth.

We top-and-tailed the excursion to NZ with visits to Dubai
and Singapore, the former affording us a long overdue reunion, the latter
giving us the opportunity to explore somewhere new (although I did visit
Singapore as a ten-year-old, but back then, I viewed the place with a somewhat
different, Scalextric obsessed, perspective).

It is on this last destination that I wish to dwell.
Singapore is a melting-pot of different ethnicities and cultures, seemingly
living alongside one another in harmony. In a few square kilometres one can
find great temples and monuments to Christianity, Islam, Hinduism and Buddhism,
each faith prominently represented.

We had the opportunity to visit mosques and temples and
experience ceremonies with which we were unfamiliar. We never felt unwelcome
and when we sought to understand more of what we were witnessing, we readily
found someone willing to share their knowledge and faith.

At the Sri Mariamman Temple, Singapore’s oldest Hindu
temple, we had the great fortune to arrive during a ceremony that celebrated a
couple’s marriage on the occasion of the husband’s 60th birthday. Fabulously
adorned in traditional dress, the guests paid homage to the couple as the
Pujari led the service, while musicians played the shehnai (similar to an oboe)
and dholak drums, lending vibrancy to the event.

Our experience led me to wonder what it is that nationalists
find so frightening or offensive about other cultures. What we witnessed was a
joyous celebration of a couple’s love for one another. Neither the ceremony nor
their faith was imposed upon us, we were the interlopers, willingly accepted
into their place of worship. For us, it was a fabulous experience and one that
we felt privileged to witness. When we left, we took with us our memory of the
event and a feeling of general wellbeing. No one made us feel uncomfortable,
nor did we gain a sense that the Hindu faith posed any threat to ours.

I suspect that if we visited a similar place of worship in
the UK we’d be made to feel equally welcome and equally free to leave with the
choice to continue exercising our existing way of life. Alternatively, if we
wished, I’m sure we could embrace their culture – I even suspect that adopting
a bit of both might not be mutually exclusive.

What our visit to Singapore has taught me is that different
ethnicities, cultures and faiths can happily co-exist. The presence of a mosque
or a Buddhist temple on our city’s streets does not imply an attempt to subvert
existing Christian or Jewish faiths. Experiencing a festival such as Diwali
should be viewed as an opportunity to experience other people’s culture,
hopefully to be enriched and certainly not contaminated. One can walk away safe
in the knowledge that one’s culture is preserved – Christmas won’t be
cancelled.

The risk that nationalists express, that immigrant arrivals
from other countries will undermine our culture, is nonsense. The failure to
celebrate our own, and invite others to enjoy it, is more damaging to the
fabric of whatever it is that makes for Britishness. Inviting a visitor to
England to dance around a maypole, or have a slice of victoria sponge at a
street party celebrating a royal wedding, will do far more to preserve UK
culture and encourage newcomers to assimilate. But equally, it doesn’t matter
if they don’t – I’ve Morris danced once, that was enough. Extraordinarily,
despite my unwillingness to participate again, the practice continues.

Somewhere within my experience is a story waiting to be
told. Perhaps it’s of a curmudgeonly old man who despises foreigners but learns
not to fear and loathe them after receiving acts of kindness from the people he
detests. Maybe there’s a tale of a terrified refugee who discovers that she is
welcome in the place where she has arrived, or even the story of a man whose
experiences make him feel comfortable to call two countries home. It’s
something to ponder.

PS – In the Morris dancing clip, I’m the ridiculously smiley
bloke who starts the dance second from the left.