ID Cards and Segregation in the Real World

I have not been blogging much recently because I have become addicted to the phenomenon of web 2.0 know as Facebook. If you read blogs, you probably know that this is a social networking site where you can post information about yourself and associate with you friend letting them know you are alive and what you are up to. It got me thinking that if the government wanted to create a bottom-up version of a national identity database, facebook would be a pretty useful model - but let's not overestimate the intelligence of our democratically elected officials.

It was fascinating catching up with people I have not seen for the best part of 10 years. I was surprised to find that many of my asian friends were still unmarried. If you believe the press, at the age of 18 (or sometimes younger), they are shipped to the subcontinent against their will where they are forceably married to someone they have never seen before. Well actually, no. For second and third generation immigrants, the truth is closer to this - caught between two worlds that leave the individual at a loss. I should know - as an asian catholic I too have struggled to find a suitable future spouse.

While we are at dispelling media myths about ethnic-minority communities, particularly in the wake of the Glasgow-London terrorist attacks, you might be interested to know that none of my muslim friends appeared to be involved in terrorism, and many seemed to be more integrated than me! One was actually dating a white girl, while another had actually joined the group opposing the academic boycott of Israel.

But of course, these kinds of stories do not sell newspapers, so it will be up to blogs like this to inform interested British people what really is going on.