Hope this scum is not a Hornets Fan http://www.independent.co.uk/news/u...-train-rant-is-posted-on-youtube-8892595.html
What a prat ! However it does raise the question whether such a case as this would come under the heading 'racist abuse' if the victim had been German ? I have been with my family in England (my wife is German) and experienced scenes verging on this from the other side as it were - with heil hitler salutes and so on, as many German friends of mine have experienced in England. The case of someone obviously bitter about something which happened 70 years ago, and which has nothing to do with the present generations, is not unusual in England. Some English people clearly are caught in a time warp when it comes to the second World War.
The man is a disgrace and hopefully will be charged with an appropriate offence. You are right cologne, there are some deeply held views when it comes to WW2, although it does not excuse that behaviour. I had a dear Uncle who was a held as a POW in Singapore who until his dying day held an intense dislike of the Japanese for the horrors he witnessed and was visited upon him. Every winter in the cold and damp he suffered terribly. But he would never behave like that, he very rarely spoke about what happend there and was too much of a gentlemen to ever speak that way in public.
It is always difficult for our forefathers to accept their treatment by the Japanese, understandably so. That said they have a code of honour and etiquette that, for the most part, puts ours to shame. However part of that is also to blame for their mistreatment of PoW's during WW2. They regarded surrender as shameful and dishonourable and thus treated prisoners as they felt they deserved. Japanese soldiers rarely surrendered, usually fought to the death or committed seppuko to save face. When tens of thousands of British soldiers were ordered to surrender what were they [the Japanese] to think? I am not condoning the actions of the Japanese during WW2 but having visited the country I do understand why they did what they did (I also happen to believe that the bombing of Nagasaki was absolutely imperative in order to save the war dragging on for possibly another 5 years). As for the man on the tube - what a pig.
I suppose that had the victim been German, this may not have happened as there would have been no 'visual indicators' to cause this idiot's reaction. This sort of thing isn't confined to England though - it happens the world over. I've been racially abused in England for being Scottish, racially abused in France, Spain and Italy for being English, racially abused in Australia for being English and also for being white, racially abused in India for being white and racially abused in Korea for being Australian - heck, I've even been racially abused in Scotland for being Scottish (by some less-than-friendly Eastern Europeans). All very confusing really. There was no excuse for this twat's outburst though - drunken ramblings really, embellished with what came across as lies about the suffering of his family at the hands of the Japanese. I had some in-laws (now long dead) who suffered badly at the hands of the Japanese, and one who experienced worse from the North Vietnamese - but none shared his attitude, an attitude which, at best, resulted from second hand experience.
Our geography master at grammar school was cruelly mocked by many of us for having a periodically twitching eye from suffering "water torture" during the war where he had been a POW on the island of Java! He, personally spoke well of his captors for the reasons mentioned above, if he could understand and forgive, after all he went through, who the hell am I to disagree?
A neighbour, when I was a around 10 in 1960, lost her husband, to what I later found out, was due to the terrible suffering from being a POW of the Japanese. I cannot recall his widow ever moaning or making hateful remarks about the Japanese. It was war and terrible things happened, and the British were no angels when it came to area bombing and causing firestorms, especially Hamburg and Dresden. It was war and it had to be won. As Bob Dylan sang in 1965 in 'God on your side' "Though the murdered 6 million, in the ovens they fried, the Germans now have God on their side." A song of forgiveness from a jewish singer
lets hope they release him for the Brighton game, they have a lot of happy fans down there for him to talk to
It's a shame anyone who is given a custodial sentence can't serve it in the home country of the abused person, or if they were born in Britain, the country of their ancestors. It may stop some people if they knew they could end up in jail in Zimbabwe or North Korea. My Grandad served in Burma in WWII so would have fought the Japanese and that is all I know about that period in his life. I do know that, according to my Mum, on returning he was awarded a medal (no idea which one) but turned it down - my guess is that it was probably that he was just glad to survive without being killed or captured and declined it as a mark of respect to those who were. I will never be able to ask him as he died 11 years ago.
Any scandinavian can have the German label pushed at them in London, very strange. I suppose this man was clever enough to say he was from Watford instead if shaming his home town of Luton even more than is normal.
There are fools the world over who use history or cultural differences as an excuse to abuse people. As Bolton rightly says we get it ourselves from various quarters. Living in north London I've been told a couple of times about how my forefathers killed many in Ireland - ironic really as I'm second generation myself The one good thing is that in this age where someone always seems to have a camera you are increasingly less likely to get away with it and the nationals still think it worth reporting
The most appropriate answer to that assertion is that the forefathers (and for that matter foremothers) of many Irish people living today also killed many Irish people in the 2 year Civil War (1922-24) which followed the war of independence from Britain. Irish fought Irish in an even more bloody conflict and it was Catholic v. Catholic. Even one of their great heroes Michael Collins was killed by Irish republicans.
