Let Harmony Prevail

There's a night club in the basement of the building adjoining the one I live in. (Actually, I'm ambivalent about calling it a "night club" since, although it certainly functions only during the night, it has no criteria for membership - unless you count the policy of selective admission defined by the appearance of the hopeful patrons and administered at the door by blokes you would have to be crazy to argue with. But times move on and my quibble over terminology is most likely explained by a lingering nostalgia for the passing of the term "discotheque" and a smidgeon of resentment in knowing that I would certainly not get past these doormen). I have no first-hand experience of what goes on in that subterranean haunt, but I imagine it is the same kind of thing that went on in discotheques - dancing and pulling - different only in scale, being fuelled by cheaper, more available drink and drugs, and driven by bigger, louder sound-systems.

These past couple of weeks I've attended several late night meetings held in my neighbour's apartment with the operators of the night club - polite, well-intentioned chaps who have a bit of a problem - now that we have brought it to their attention. Their licence to operate depends - among other things - on their not creating a noise nuisance for the people upstairs who prefer to sleep at night. Unfortunately, recent alterations to the interior of their building have breached the acoustic insulation with the result that we have been able to hear the records being played down below. (“Hi Ho Silver Lining” is not one of them).

I am inclined to sympathise with the night club operators, obliged as they are to spend a deal of time and money fixing the acoustic leak. It’s not really their fault: shit happens. Besides, I find it rewarding to be in dialogue with a segment of society which is culturally distant from me despite its physical proximity. I say ‘distant’ as opposed to ‘distinct’ because there is a connection via the discotheque lineage. One advantage of being older is that you have the benefit of having been young and, with a bit of luck, you don’t forget the ages you’ve been: which facilitates the natural process of inter-generational tolerance and understanding.

A more difficult challenge in respect of tolerance and understanding arises when there is perceived to be little or no common ground, as occurs when inter-societal connections are non-existent or fractured. Here, in multi-cultural Britain, we have daily opportunities to experience this challenge. We have cities where people of different races, faiths and cultures live in close proximity but in separate enclaves, their lives coinciding often only when commercial transactions take place.

There is the possibility that this will change over time and that mingling and mixing will erode the extremes of cultural difference which alienate one group from another. Already there are inner-city schools where more than 50 native languages are spoken, and places such as these are at the forefront of the battle to foster mutual understanding. They are doing a great job but we can't leave them to do all the heavy lifting: we should all do our bit to speed up the process. One simple way to achieve this would be to distribute educational T shirts with simple messages that divert attention away from our differences, and emphasise instead those things that we do have in common. I like the way this one summarises the various ways in which humans choose to react to a universal human experience.