OPINION: From Uganda to Britain, migration has long shaped British society

Some time back, many Indians migrated to Africa, where they established a thriving middle class.

Idi Amin threw them out of Uganda when he became dictator.

Most came to England, where many found jobs in airport freight handling, including Heathrow.

I still recall my very efficient import agent, whom I would tease as to whether he talked to Customs in English or Hindi.

Hospitals already had many black nurses filling their ranks, no doubt part of the Windrush generation.

At the same time, the London Underground was also recruiting staff, or maybe Windrush migrants would work for lower wages at that time.

South Asian families, whether Indian or Pakistani, would run corner shops which kept open much longer hours and became part of our British way of life, alongside cheap Indian restaurants in my student days.

Migration has always been part of our society.

My own family tree goes back to North Devon, where it appears an ancestor washed up from the remains of the Spanish Armada a few centuries back.

Nigel Farage has family roots among the Huguenot French escaping oppression.

Watching the House of Commons confirms we are a very mixed bunch.

In the wider world, there are a million Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh fleeing religious persecution from Myanmar, as are the Muslim Uyghurs in China and many minorities everywhere.

We all need to learn to live in peace with each other.

Islam itself teaches that peace is a core value and a divine attribute.

The internet explains that the word “Islam” shares an Arabic root with salaam, which means peace.

Most religions have peace as a core value, obviously including Jesus’ teaching.

It is people who pick up extreme ideas or use a religious theme to promote prejudice and maybe conflict.

Anti-Semitism is a word or phrase whose meaning has shifted to mean anti-Jewish.

The linguistic origin comes from the Semitic family of languages, including variants of Arabic as well as Hebrew.

Shem was the son of Noah, whose descendant Abraham had two sons.

Isaac is seen as the father of the Jewish people, and Ishmael has Arab descendants forming Islam.

Before we become engrossed with AI, we need to absorb information already available on the internet, in the Bible, the Koran and other spiritual writings.

As the Beatles explained, “love is all you need!”.

Islamophobia, anti-Semitism and belligerence between Catholic and Protestants all need to be reduced to getting along as best we can with our fellow travellers in this troubled world.

In whichever spin any religion puts on it, the Creator God is hoping we can all live in harmony.