Methinks ..

This post bears repeating.

Pippa von Humbolt-Parker (second from left; 19 'A's) plans to spend her gap year in the Congo, teaching Pygmies to bungee jump.

A government spokesman denied A-levels were getting easier.

Cognitive Dissonance Alert ...

At Shiraz Socialist they're worried about the anti-Muslim lies of the BNP, and their commenters (bar one) are supportive :

I think it correct to expose the obvious lies of the right, by pointing out the population stats etc but that, on its own, plays the BNP game. We should also point out that even if Muslims constituted 50% of the population, so what?

A short click away, at Stroppyblog, the hypocrisy of the Mail never fails to raise the old feminist blood pressure :

Like it or not, women like sex as much as men and if they have lots of it with many people then so what ? Some actually prefer men, or women, that do not judge and are not so insecure in their sexuality to be threatened by women who like sex and know what they want.

I can't help feeling that should "so what ?" A come to pass, then the Stroppers wouldn't like the answer to "so what ?" B.

HAS THE LEFT BLOWN ITS BIG CHANCE ?

Asks Andy Beckett in the Guardian and at Socialist Unity.

in Britain and most comparable countries the left is not thriving. Quite the opposite. The Brown government’s mild tilt to the left has made it no more popular. At the European elections in June, left-leaning parties, whether in office or opposition, cautious or militant, were trounced across the continent. Votes went instead to mainstream conservative parties or far right and anti- immigration groups. Over the summer the broader political debate, particularly in Britain, has shifted in the same direction: “The crisis of the financial markets has become a crisis of public spending – it’s incredible!” says Hilary Wainwright, editor of leftwing magazine Red Pepper. “Public servants are going to be scrutinised down to the last paperclip, while bankers are not going to be scrutinised down to the last million they have received from the government.”

Has the left missed its moment?

Why, yes, says Laban, repeating himself here and here. But it was a comment by 'socialist' StevieB that struck me :

StevieB - “the USSR was better than capitalism because it raised the living standards of the workers and peasants far higher than the previous capitalist regime had. The revolution allowed the USSR to become a substantial economic power.”

These two things were in fact inversely related. The USSR became a substantial power in the 1930s by depressing personal consumption (aka living standards’) to levels which kept the population in poverty and starved several million, but which enabled the government to massively expand education, the military, aviation and heavy industry. Just in time for WW2, as it happened.

Similarly levels of personal consumption are relatively low in China today, though nowhere near Soviet levels and due to a high savings ratio rather than confiscation, which enables the government to expand etc etc.

In the West, by contrast, personal consumption is actually higher then GDP in many countries - the difference being made up by borrowing. Not a sustainable scenario.

This got me thinking about education. When the Soviets expanded education, it was real education, with right and wrong answers. They wanted - and needed - engineers, chemists, agronomists, vets, metallurgists. They weren't targeted on how many peasants' offspring got to college, nor less did they want to dumb down grades to exhibit their glorious sucesses - they needed large numbers of real, competent people to face a real potential challenge.

In the UK now we expand (using borrowed money) psychology, media studies, sociology, while physics departments close. The purpose of education is increasingly to make HMG (and young people) feel good about themselves, rather than to meet perceived national needs (quite apart from education being good in itself).

And if we find we still need 'real' educated people ? Import them.

Two Cultures

As the Sixties and Seventies boomers, the generation when sex, drugs and rock'n'roll went mainstream, get older we see more stories of this nature :

Burnley magistrates were told how Lesley Anne Cassidy, 48, had had 127 tablets of valium which she had bought from a dealer. She had served a jail term for peddling drugs.

Cassidy wept as the court was told how she would take between 10 and 20 valium pills a day and her late husband would take the same. The defendant, of Smith Street, Nelson, admitted possessing a Class C controlled drug ...

The defendant was present and said she and her late husband had taken drugs. She said she had gone to sleep and had awoken to find him lifeless on the settee. Mr Hartley said Cassidy was admitted to intensive care, and after she was released she was arrested.

Police investigated and there was no evidence to show Cassidy supplied her late husband with drugs. There was evidence both had bought drugs. The defendant had 127 valium tablets which she had bought from a dealer. Jasmine Basnyet, for Cassidy, said she had taken valium for a long time and the number of pills she had had would only have lasted the couple for about a week or so.Both would take between 10 and 20 tablets a day.

Aye. 48 was once a respectable age for a man, a matronly one for a woman. As you get older you find that you can't do all the things you did when younger - not without a physical toll.

In the same neck of the woods, a younger woman takes a message on board :

In one of the shops I visited on a regular basis the assistants said he wanted to say something and hoped I would not take offence.

He commented on my attire or should that be the missing item not supported. He said he admired the work I was doing as a disabled person but I really should cover my head.

I instantly jumped to my defence declaring I prayed five times a day as required and even prayed the Quran on a daily basis.

The man praised this but said I would be questioned for not covering my head as it was a compulsory.

I again attempted to justify myself ‘I might not be wearing a head scarf but at least Iam decently covered, I am wearing loose clothing and nothing is showing. What’s better to dressing like this without a head scarf or covering your head whilst wearing jeans that fit like a second skin and a top that leaves nothing to the imagination’?

He replied that she would be questioned about this on the day of judgement but at least she was fulfilling the requirement of the head scarf which meant that it is one less thing to answer for.

Sometimes someone says something and it really affects you, for the first time I saw it differently. I had been asked to cover my head by various people but always said ‘Inshallah when I’m ready’.

Little did he know his good advice had sown the seed.

When I got home I was overtaken by a desperate need, the likes of which I had never experienced, to cover my head. I put on my scarf and called my mum...

It’s been about a month that i have worn it and to be honest i don’t even notice it’s there anymore. I am still the lively, bubbly, chattering Sarvat that is me.

The reaction from fellow Muslims has been a surprise. I have for many years been someone who practises my faith but now thanks to a cloth on my head it works as a visible statement that says I am a Muslim and am practising my faith.

What twisted irony, the head scarf was once used to aid me in my quest to impress, vanity. Now it is worn in the true essence of what it stands for - modesty. Allah Subhanatallah works in mysterious ways.

This little tale could have come straight from a Victorian newspaper. Righteous words, spoken in due humility, are never spoken in vain. Praise be !

Another Told-You-So

To quote :

I was never a fan of the project to democratise Afghanistan. The politics and culture of that fascinating nation are nearer to those of fourteenth-century England than to modern America. Imagine men from the Planet Zog arriving in 1350 to bring democracy to England.

Man from Zog : ‘Here you are, all registered, polling stations set up, we’ll check the count, carry on !’
1st Great Lord – ‘Super. Knights – you’ll all be voting for me‘
Knight – ‘Super. Squires – you’ll all vote for the Great Lord ‘
Squire – ‘Yeomen – put your cross by the Great Lord’s name if you want to keep that farm ’
Yeoman – ‘Serfs – I’ll show you where to put the thumbprint tomorrow’.
Serf – ‘Yes, Master’

From Our Own Correspondent :

Over the last few months, there has been a scramble by candidates to secure the backing of the big beasts of the Afghan political jungle. They are mainly the leaders and major commanders of those jihadi factions who, after years of warfare, ended up on the winning side in 2001 - in other words, with the US-led forces.

Added to their ranks are civilians who have come back from exile and some tribal leaders. All are men who have done well since 2001, establishing themselves as important patrons who look after their networks. Many face continuing allegations of corruption, opium-trafficking and human rights abuses.

They promise to deliver voters - blocks of voters - for their chosen candidate. Then after the election, it will be payback time. The next government, according to one joke I heard, will have 200 ministers to fulfil all the back-room deals made.

I suppose there's one similarity to US politics. The concept of the (halal) pork-barrel seems to have been enthusiastically adopted.

If you wanted to defend this type of politicking, you could say that Afghans tend to act communally - at the clan or village level, as tribes or ethnic groups, or as factional networks. One friend told me, quite matter-of-factly, that 300 people were waiting for him to decide who to vote for (family members and former students who looked to him for guidance).

I wondered if in Britain I could actually contact 300 relatives or colleagues to even discuss an election.

We "acted communally" too, for a very long time - via the web of institutions, clubs, political parties, societies, churches, trades unions and charities which once made up British society. I think there's a qualitative difference between that sort of 'communality' and this sort of 'communalism'. We acted that way in 1400 - but without worrying about a facade of democracy.

No one was paying the great lords to provide such a facade, of course.

One might be tempted to ask why it's so important to sort Afghanistan - or to worry about Pakistan for that matter. Why not just use Western military might to duff up the Taleban from a great height and Al Quaeda with special forces - and let the Afghans do what they will as long as they don't bother us ? What's our dog in the fight ?

After all, Afghanistan and Pakistan are a very long way away. Why should we care about what happens there to the extent of expending blood and treasure ? We don't do that for Sudan or Burma, for example - both ex-British administered territories, which is more than can be said for Afghanistan.

I think we all know the answer. Afghanistan and Pakistan are rather closer to us than their geographical position would indicate. Just as the citizens of Carmarthen preserved their dead tree for many years, so our rulers - perhaps with good reason - are concerned with preventing the fulfilment of an ancient prophecy.

A Small Post ...

At Biased BBC.

"being a Muslim has made her a better Christian"

Even the US Episcopal Church has its limits.

The decision was made by Bishop Geralyn Wolf of the Episcopal diocese of Rhode Island. Redding was ordained as an Episcopal priest in 1984 and lives in Washington State, but had kept her canonical ties in the state of Rhode Island.

Redding has said that being a Muslim has made her a better Christian. "Some people don't need glasses, some people need single lenses. I need bifocals," she told CNN in a television interview.

The statement issued by the Rhode Island diocese said that Bishop Wolf found Redding "to be a woman of utmost integrity and their conversations over the past two years have been open, honest and respectful". "However," the statement concluded, "Bishop Wolf believes that a priest of the Church cannot be both a Christian and a Muslim." As a result, Wolf imposed what is officially called "a sentence of deposition", in accordance with the canonical laws of the Episcopal Church.

Method In His Madness ?

I must try this when the £1800-odd council tax bill drops through the letterbox :

Anthony Bell, 62, told the court he works directly for UN secretary general Ban Ki-moon and though he was unable to pay his £936.96 bill he was expecting $10,000,000 to be wired to his account from Africa in the next few days.

They were among a number of claims he made under cross-examination by solicitor Eleanor Horner, prosecuting for Cotswold District Council.

He's obviously getting some 419s in his email, the poor soul.

Representing himself, Bell said he was a top world advisor on climate change and was due to address the US senate in the next six weeks.

He said that although he only had 7p to his name, the UN was working hard to pay him millions of dollars.

He also told the court he believed his important foreign work, which includes helping to regenerate Africa, meant he was entitled to diplomatic immunity from council tax.

Bell sought to prove his position at the UN by producing a series of ID cards to magistrates, including memberships for the Royal Society of Arts and the University Club in Washington DC.

He said: "I have been running on my own funds and have spent an enormous amount of time in Washington. When you are working 18 hours a day for the UN, you don't have time to pay your council tax."

Prosecuting for Cotswold District Council, Mrs Horner asked Bell: "If you were struggling to pay, why did you not apply for council tax relief?" He replied: "Do you know what it's like to be extremely busy when you are running Africa?"

Mrs Horner answered: "No."

Among other claims given in his evidence, Bell said he had advised Conservative leader David Cameron and Environment Minister Hilary Benn on climate change issues.

He said he had written the framework for the Copenhagen climate change agreement and he was in regular contact with Cotswold MP Geoffrey Clifton-Brown on the issue.

Bell offered magistrates his views on monitoring CCTV cameras in Cirencester and said he had recently been the victim of several attempts on his life.

During a break in court proceedings, Bell said he had been granted US citizenship because "the FBI are very pleased with what I did for them".

A Renaissance sort of a chap, obviously. You can see why 'they' might want him out of the way. But whatever he is, he's not daft.

The court cancelled the debt – totalling £1,153.96 including court fees and costs.

Mr Bell seems to be getting more change out of his local council than the similarly-challenged former MI5 operative David Shayler :

Glancing along a row of empty seats the judge decided to proceed without Mr Shayler and his fellow squatters, remarking: "This particular lot of trespassers usually make themselves fairly well known if they are going to turn up."

Although bailiffs were expected to arrive within the next few days to serve an eviction notice, it is thought likely that the process could take several weeks.

Speaking outside the farmhouse, about five miles from Guildford, Mr Shayler, barefoot but wearing men's clothing, said that his right to stay in the property rested on his belief that he is a reincarnation of Jesus Christ.

"You are looking at the man who has the power to give all authority on the planet and all wealth," he said.

"We are going to stay, I am the lawful user of this place.

"I have publicly claimed under oath that I am the Lord Jesus Christ which means that I am the highest authority under the law and that trumps everything."

I wonder if MI5 are regretting the day when they decided that alcoholic, promiscuous upper class homosexuals no longer represented their ideal recruiting pool ? Still, I suppose it's always possible that Mr Shayler is still in MI5. He's operating under pretty deep cover if he is.

Audacious £40m Heist

A breathless shop assistant, Mr Mandelson, told the Mail how four smartly dressed men walked into the exclusive Westminster office of the Department for Trade and Industry, held a gun to the head of chief salesman Stephen Byers, and ordered him to hand over Longbridge "or your Birmingham support gets it". "What else could he do ?" said Mr Mandelson.

No prosecutions have followed, or are likely to. "Looks like they got clean away", said Mr Mandelson, who has just returned from recuperating in Corfu and is reported to be "intensely relaxed" following the incident.

More on Birmingham ....

I, like the vast majority of people in Birmingham love the fact that our city is so diverse and vibrant. I felt that this was worth defending, especially from a bunch of trouble makers many of whom were from outside the city.

Unfortunately it turned out the UAF were no more interested in our community than the racists many of us turned out to oppose!

The young Muslims who rampaged through the city streets were incited to violence by UAF activists. I was near the front of the rally in Rotunda Square and I saw how they worked and I saw how it got out of hand.

The UAF should have switched rhetoric when they saw that the young Muslims were getting restless and angry. Instead what they did was get increasingly aggressive speakers to talk about ‘smashing the BNP’ (who not directly involved with the protest) whilst sending agitators into the crowd, with megaphones, to whip up anger there.

The writer of this letter to the Birmingham Post is a young Liberal Democrat.

Nevertheless it was clear that despite a majority of peaceful protesters there was a group of trouble makers intent on causing a fight. The UAF completely ignored this state of affairs and led a series of inflammatory chants and speeches calling for blood shed. When the expected march did not materialise the crowd of youths became restless. UAF agitators in the crowd stirred up trouble using megaphones and some bottles and pieces of wood were thrown at the crowd watching the protest. A great way to get people onside. Eventually the dam broke and the protest crowd surged forwards. I followed as they ran down the street, 'looking for the BNP' scattering both the Police and innocent shoppers, throwing glass bottles and damaging street furniture.
As the Police pushed back I returned to the place where the protest had started. The UAF had vanished, their work as agents provocators done, a riot was now in full swing.
The UAF's actions were insensitive and I believe that they have set the cause of race relations and anti-far right extremism in Birmingham back by years. The sight of young Asian men beating people up and running through the streets seemingly proves everything the BNP says. I have come away with the impression that the UAF is a cowardly organisation that seeks only to provoke violence and causes more harm than good.

Now to be fair, if I understand it correctly, the bottles and bits of wood were thrown - initially, anyway - at the four or five 'come on then' youths the other side of the police cordon - which our writer may not have been able to see. But I take the general point. 'Smash the BNP' to an audience like that translates as 'beat them up' - as approved by Billy Bragg.

And if you can't find any 'BNP', try any young white male. Or middle aged one. Or a bunch of girls and boys out for a drink*. At some point on this continuum - and not very far along it - protest turns into robbery with racist violence.

I wonder if the Guardian will print the letter above ? I wouldn't hold your breath.

(*I have received reports that young people arriving in Brum later that evening for a Saturday night out were beaten and robbed of wallets, mobiles etc by a large gang of doubtless sincere anti-fascists).

Hmmm

"Thamesmead was intended to be a vibrant, riverside community in south-east London."

Birmingham - a few afterthoughts

What appears to have happened in Brum on Saturday seems to fit a pattern that's been apparent since the Oldham, Burnley and Bradford riots.

a) "the provocation". This may be real, as in Oldham, where unpleasant Stoke City supporters abused and (probably) assaulted people on their way to Boundary Park, or imaginary, as in the non-existent "BNP rally" which was the ostensible reason for the 'big' Bradford riot (the earlier Bradford riot had a real trigger). In the case of the Brum trouble the provocation seems to have been a bunch of white guys leaping about and giving it the "come on then" from the far side of a pretty large police cordon. Eventually the police chased them off. Why they didn't quickly surround and arrest the two or three chief offenders I don't know - given the circumstances, "conduct likely to cause a breach of the peace" would seem a reasonable charge. But the chasing off only started once missiles were coming over the cordon.

"me and twos move down new street, as some possible skin heads, possibly just drunk guys come up mouthing off, the protesting mob goes crazy and starts throwing missiles so shoppers scatter while the police chase them down the street then turn on the rest of us taking cover in the alley, while one guy is struck on the head with a brick"

b) the response. Mostly if not always disproportionate to the ostensible provocation. Where the police still control the streets, takes the form of random, opportunistic attacks on whites, with at the most a bit of robbery 'on the side'. Where control is compromised, arson and looting are also prominent.

c) the reporting. Without actually stating so, the reporting will give the impression that injured victims were casualties of 'clashes' or 'fighting' - with the implication that it's six of one and half a dozen of the other. In fact, many if not the majority of casualties are victims of racist gang attacks - for what else can you call half a dozen onto one ?

Let's look at the Mail and Telegraph coverage of Brum - not exactly the left-wing press :

35 arrests in Birmingham after rival protesters clash

But apart from one chap with a Union Flag getting attacked, having it torn from him and burned, rival protesters didn't clash - and a good thing too.

Mass brawl between right-wing group and anti-fascists as race riots spill onto streets of Birmingham

Down on his knees as his attackers' feet fly in, this man's face was left a bloodied mess. It was just one of the sickening scenes photographed when a riot erupted in a city centre after Right-wing protesters clashed with anti-fascist demonstrators.

But there wasn't a mass brawl, and the guy in the green shirt just happened to be in the wrong place with the wrong skin colour (and the guy with the Union Flag who was attacked is shown in another photograph, minus flag, speaking to police. Caption : "Trouble brewing: A man appears to argue with police officers").


If this is the narrative the Mail and Telegraph are handing out, don't look for much from the BBC and Guardian. If the green shirt guy had been Asian being attacked by whites, the "English Defence League" would now be proscribed by law and the victim would be on the news 24/7.

Fame At Last ...

I was on holiday when this came out and missed it completely. Thank you, Ed West.

Blogs like Laban’s have changed the political climate in Britain. It’s one of thousands of similar blogs out there, all telling the truth about demographic change, abortion, the underclass, welfare mismanagement and Government debt. They go where newspapers, with our advertisers and middle-class hypocrisy, sometimes fear to tread, and so these blogs are setting the agenda. Together they chip away at the lies put out by our Government and our political class, and continue an English tradition of freedom-loving that stretches from Hereward to Tom Paine.

It's the chipping away that's important. We can't all be Guido or Iain Dale, so let's do what we may. As Marian and Izz Huett wrote to Angel Clare :

"... continual dropping will wear away a Stone - ay, more - a Diamond".

Not that there's much precious about this government, mind. They're stony broke but that's about as close as they get.

"The Real Face of Fascism"

Morning Star :

But it is with the people of Britain that hope lies. It is with those who took to the streets of Birmingham who showed those spreading hate that such poison will provoke an instant reaction.

Well, yes. Absolutely. An instant reaction. And not just to those spreading hate either (possibly distressing video content in the link) :

"as far as i'm aware the story behind this guy is that two people said to each other "lets rob him" and because they started hitting him ..."

Nasty - looks like a jump to the head from the thug in trackies. If hope lies with him and his mates the future looks bleak.

"... the rest of the crowd, already wound up from the drunk guy gobbing off from earlier all pounced on him with at least 10 or 15 people kicking this guy on the ground. don't think he was EDL but can't confirm ..."

And if he had been demonstrating with the English Defence League it would still have been a disgusting attack. From the comments at Harry's, RandomBrummie :

The majority of the people who were attacked were random passers by. The “fash” as you call them had long gone by then. If you were a White male passing by the crowd you were going to get a kicking. There was even a foreign White guy who made the mistake of taking pictures of what was going on and he was attacked in front of his young baby who was left unprotected in its pram. Granted the majority of the attacks were not as brutal as the pictures on the Daily Mail Website but i still don’t think it should have happened. Ironically the UAF scarpered when they saw what was beginning to happen with the ethnic minority youths attacking innocent White passers by (not saying that a few of the people who were set upon weren’t inciting the minorities because they were, but the vast majority just made the mistake of being in the wrong place at the wrong time) so it seems that the UAF only protest against racism when it is White racism directed towards ethnic minorities, not when it is the other way around.
I was in full support of the UAF originally as i agreed that the EDL were not what they seemed but after seeing what ended up happening i have changed my opinion completely.

I just thank god that i am a female so was not in the roaming youths line of fire.

As I wrote back in May :

I do not approve of beating up innocent people, be they respectable fast-food vendors of the wrong ethnicity in Luton or respectable fathers of the wrong religion in Coleraine.

Better add white Brummies to that.

Saturday Night Music ... back to the old school

Play Loud ...




Back to the source ... the bluesman Champion Jack Dupree actually lived in Halifax in the 1970s and would do occasional concerts around the West Riding - I think he worked for the council. As a young fan it always seemed a trifle unreal that a 'real' blues musician could be living in Yorkshire rather than Chicago or the Mississippi Delta.




Play soft ...

Superfluous comment of the decade ...

The Lone Voice (parental advisory) :

"I feel in a rather abusive mood today ..."

I didn't know he had any other moods ...

What a great phrase ...

and it sums up the Labour years so perfectly, when we exported jobs and sold our strategic industries to countries much too sensible to ever reciprocate.

"Globalisation In One Country"

Hat-tip to Martin Kelly and of course to Marshal Stalin for the original concept.

Myth of the Myth of 'Eurabia' ?

One of my favourite writers, Kenan Malik, reviews Christopher Caldwell's Reflections on the Revolution in Europe - yet another 'in a succession of books by authors such as Mark Steyn, Oriana Fallaci, Bruce Bawer and Melanie Phillips warning of how immigration, and in particular Muslim immigration, is threatening the very foundations of European civilization'.

Reflections on the Revolution in Europe is trenchantly written and robustly argued. It is complex and often subtle. It is also fundamentally wrong in both premise and conclusion.

Can't say fairer than that, can you ? Which is presumably why Shiraz Socialist described it as "an excellent point-by-point refutation of the claims made by migration scaremongers", those claims being "the ‘Muslims! Everywhere! EVERYWHERE!’ nonsense" - and on that basis I prepared to take it apart - but, as you might expect from Malik, it turns out to be a bit more complicated than that and there's a lot of detail on which Malik is right and Caldwell wrong. FWIW, I think both Malik and Caldwell (at least as presented by Malik) have got some things wrong or assigned the wrong level of importance to them.

Three basic arguments underlie Caldwell’s thesis. First, postwar immigration to Europe has, he believes, been fundamentally different to previous waves of immigration. Prior to the Second World War, immigrants came almost exclusively from other European nations, and so were easily assimilable. Indeed, ‘using the word immigration to describe intra-European movements makes only slightly more sense than describing a New Yorker as an “immigrant” to California’. The cultural apartness of postwar immigrants, on the other hand, has not just posed problems of assimilation but also undermined the very fabric of European societies. Take away colonial guilt, Caldwell suggests, and ‘the fundamental difference between colonization and labor migration ceases to be obvious’.

Second, Caldwell argues that Muslim migration in particularly has been akin to a form of colonization. ‘Since its arrival half a century ago’, Caldwell observes, ‘Islam has broken – or required adjustments to, or rearguard defences of – a good many of the European customs, received ideas and state structures with which it has come in contact.’ Islam ‘is not enhancing or validating European culture; it is supplanting it.’

And third, Caldwell suggests that Islam’s success has been made easier by a crisis of identity of identity in the West. Europeans, in particular, ‘are coming to despise their own cultures, much as the bigots among their forebears had despised the cultures of other peoples.’ Immigration, Caldwell points out, ‘enhances strong countries and cultures but it can overwhelm weak ones’ – and that is what is happening to Europe.

Let's take Malik's 'point-by-point refutation' one point at a time. While Caldwell and Malik are talking about Europe, I prefer to concentrate on the UK - because that's where my children are growing up. Foreigners begin at Calais.

According to Caldwell, prewar immigration between European nations was different from postwar immigration from outside Europe because ‘immigration from neighboring countries does not provoke the most worrisome immigration questions, such as “How well will they fit in?” “Is assimilation what they want?” and, most of all, “Where are their true loyalties?”.’ In fact, those were the very questions asked of European migrants in the prewar years ... One of the consequences of postwar migration has been to create historical amnesia about prewar attitudes.

Well, I'd say on that last point the 'historical amnesia' is the byproduct of the 'nation of immigrants' liberal myth. After all, we welcomed immigrants in the past, didn't we ?

There's a fine quote in Peter Hitchens' 'Abolition of Britain' showing the attitudes of even an educated, left-wing Brit to 'abroad' - and particularly Europe - in the 1930s. Having made the point that Empire ensured many Brits were widely travelled outside of Europe (admittedly their view was often from the butt-end of a rifle) , he quotes the protagonist, a travelling salesman, of a 1937 novel by the thriller-writer Eric Ambler, at the time an anti-Fascist and Soviet sympathiser :

"People come over here for a fortnight's holiday and see a lot of pretty chalets and chateaux and schloesser and say what a fine place it is to live in. They don't know what they're talking about. They only see the top coat. They don't see the real differences. They don't see behind the scenes... I was in sunny Italy when the fascisti went for the Freemasons in twenty-five. Florence it was. Night after night of it with shooting and beating and screams, until you felt like vomiting. I was in Vienna in thirty-four when they turned the guns on the municipal flats with the women and children inside them... I saw the Paris riots with the garde mobile shooting down the crowd like flies and everyone howling 'mort au vaches' like lunatics. I saw the Nazis in Frankfurt ...

Nice chaps, aren't they ? Picturesque, gay, cleverer, more logical than silly us."

In Hitchens' phrase 'Britain is the only virgin in a continent of rape victims'

You don't have to go back to the Gordon Riots (which to be fair, were as much anti-Catholic English as anti-foreigner) or the St Brice's day massacre to find these attitudes to immigrants. Here's that well-known social historian Thomas Hardy, writing about 1804 :

'He took from his pocket a piece of the single newspaper which circulated
in the county in those days, and she read--

"The magistrates acting under the Alien Act have been requested
to direct a very scrutinizing eye to the Academies in our towns
and other places, in which French tutors are employed, and to all
of that nationality who profess to be teachers in this country.
Many of them are known to be inveterate Enemies and Traitors to
the nation among whose people they have found a livelihood
and a home."

'He continued: "I have observed since the declaration of war a marked difference in the conduct of the rougher class of people here towards me.

Hmm. That public notice wasn't exactly in the spirit of the Government responses to 9/11 and 7/7, was it ? Similarly the Irish influx to the mainland was greeted with hostility - yet they (mostly - a few were still inveterate enemies) integrated - to the point where they themselves were hostile to newcomers. From Robert Roberts' classic A Ragged Schooling, Salford :

Syd's father, in his teens, had been a well-known 'scuttler' - one of the gangs of hooligans who, in the nineties, infested northern slums... for a time, the activities of this gang (Cope Street) gained even national repute. Mr Carey, once a leader there, now looked upon himself as a model citizen. But in his cups at the street corner, drivelling over 'happy days', he would tell of 'how we stopped them bloody ****'. A Jewish dealer, we heard, had opened a second-hand clothes shop in the district, only to see his goods pulled out onto the pavement and burned openly by scuttlers, while a policeman stood by to see fair play. 'That kept 'em out ! We got no more of the buggers ! He felt he had performed a social service.

What of those outside 'the rougher class ?' As I've written before of the early 20th century , "the exotic (but relatively tiny) immigrant quarters of London, with their Jews, Russians, Letts and seafaring communities provided colour for a generation of crime and adventure writers, from Dorothy L Sayers to Dornford Yates" (in America similar immigrants inspired fiction like Lovecraft's The Street). As late as 1962, Paul Gallico is writing (in Scruffy, set in WW2) of upper-class Englishmen who don't want their babies delivered by 'that Jewish fellow' - an eminent gynaecologist.

So I take Malik's point - that suspicion of foreigners, even those as physically close as the French, has a long history in Britain. But I would agree with Caldwell that post-war immigration is fundamentally different, while disagreeing with him on the nature of the difference - on grounds of scale - the numbers - rather than of nature.

However Caldwell's Point 1 also impacts on and is impacted by his Point 3 - the cultural collapse. The more-or-less aggressive, suspicious attitude of pre-60s Brits to foreigners was a reflection of a self-confident culture which has almost vanished among educated natives. What is the character of current immigration, Caldewell and Malik might have inquired, if the demoralised, decultured Brits can be brought to the point where they are still asking the questions their self-confident forebears asked ?

Malik seems to skip straight past Point 2 - that Muslim immigration has been akin to a form of colonisation. Instead he takes a pop at "the claim that Islam poses a fundamental threat to Western values" - an interesting subject, but not the one a point by point refutation would address, so let me just link to the Bradford experience (emboldening is mine) :

The first generation of immigrants from Pakistan and Bangladesh came here as "immigrants". They came expecting and wanting to integrate to some extent into the existing community. The collection of photographs taken of the first generation by the photographic studio in Manningham Lane illustrates this. The first week’s wages went on a Burtons suit and the men proudly displayed watches, pens and radios, mostly supplied by the photographer.

Immigrants come to a country expecting to change their lifestyles. They can and often do maintain key elements of their culture for generations, particularly their religion, but in many ways they adopt the dominant culture in such aspects as work, dress, leisure, housing and family composition... however, this process seems to be thrown into reverse in Bradford. The Pakistani and Bangladeshi communities now expect to recreate the environment of their country of origin. They have settled in village patterns which reflect their origins and they constantly reinforce this by bringing in new members from the country of origin. This, in turn, leads to spatial and social immobility, communities which are internalised on themselves and are relatively self-sufficient in social and cultural terms although reliant in many ways on the economic and government resourced infrastructure.

This of course is also related to Point 3 - the collapse of self-confidence in the host culture. As I pointed out in the linked post, it's no coincidence that the change from immigrants to colonists coincided with the collapse of the host culture's self-confidence.

On Western values, Malik again has a point.

‘What secular Europeans call “Islam”’, he (Caldwell - LT) points out, ‘is a set of values that Dante and Erasmus would recognize as theirs’. On the other hand, the modern, secular rights that now constitute ‘core European values’ would ‘leave Dante and Erasmus bewildered.’ There is, in other words, no single set of 'European values' that transcends history in opposition to Islamic values.

Now I don't pretend to know much about Dante or Erasmus, but I'd agree that our grandparents and great-grandparents would in many areas find their values (examples here) expressed better in the mosque than in the Guardian or on the BBC (I'd also agree that outside the single important exception of Christianity, there's not historically been a huge amount of commonality between the values of Europeans over the last 200 years). "The average middle-class Labour activist and the average Ibrahim in the mosque are 180% apart on social issues." But again, that comes down to the cultural collapse - aka Caldwell's point 3 - which has at its heart the decline of Christianity. The current confusion about values is because - well, because there's confusion about values. The moral putsch of the cultural revolution stands on very shaky foundations.

Point 2 never really got addressed. Point 3 :

"He is right."

Huzzah ! Caldwell, Malik and Laban agree ! But :

But it is an argument that sits uneasily with claims about the inherent cultural apartness of Third World and Muslim immigrants. Many immigrants want to join the club, Caldwell seems to be saying, but they can’t because the club has lost its rulebook.

Yay ! He broke the code ! As Spiked put it :

This explains the immense difficulty the government has with drawing up guidelines for immigrants. The exercise of trying to tell immigrants how to be British is becoming an embarrassing demonstration of the fact that the elite doesn't know itself.

And why don't they know ? Because the cultural revolution destroyed the existing common culture while not replacing it. There's little shared culture any more - just lots and lots of cultures, some co-existing, some competing. There is one overarching national culture - the culture of our liberal elite, of the grown-up suburban revolutionaries - perhaps that of Kenan Malik - but it is extremely fragile, and is aware of the fact. That awareness is why school bus drivers get sacked in Bradford for being BNP members.

Malik throws in this criticism :

Caldwell clearly thinks that Europe cannot be the same with different people in it. But in asking the question Caldwell confuses the diversity of peoples and the diversity of values. People of North African or South Asian parentage, he seems to believe, will inevitably cleave to a different set of values than those of European ancestry. Why? Being born to European parents is no passport to Enlightenment beliefs. So why should we imagine that having Bangladeshi or Moroccan ancestry makes one automatically believe in sharia?

which IMHO is a bit of a straw man. While Islam is a religion not a race, the vast majority of Muslims in the UK are brown-skinned people whose forbears (and often marriage partners) hail from Bangladesh or Pakistan - which is what enables people to shout 'racist' when Islam is criticised. My view is that social cohesion is simply made that much more difficult when culture and ethnicity are so closely aligned. To be fair, plenty of people are similarly 'confused' :

MY MUSLIM PRIDE
I WILL NT HIDE
MY PAKISTANI RACE
I WIL NT DISGRASE

It's Malik's last paragraph that's key to the whole thing :

There are no such things as ‘European values’, of course. What has eroded is faith in the idea that it is possible to win peoples of different backgrounds to a common set of secular, humanist, Enlightened values. And that is the real problem: not immigration, nor Muslim immigration, but the lack of conviction in a progressive, secular, humanist project.

For him, the 'cultural collapse' to be worried about is not the revolution (paralleled to a greater or lesser extent throughout the advanced capitalist nations) in British thought since the 1960s. Dr Malik's formative political years were the years of counterculture triumph - the Thatcher years when the cultural war of the 'left' was won as surely as the economic wars of the left were lost. He's an intelligent, widely read man - surely he can't think it's always been that way here.

And that's where we part on the diagnosis. For left apostate Laban, the years after the cultural revolution are an interregnum (see this post), not the natural order of things . There's not IMHO a cat in hell's chance that 'a progressive, secular, humanist project' can build the sort of society which people are willing to die to defend - unless you think Hitler's Germany or Stalin's Russia were such societies. What we currently have is best described in Caldwell's words - fear masquerading as tolerance. Unless the physical changes - the medical advances, contraception, labour-saving machines of the last sixty-odd years - have triggered a fundamental change in human mentality, the lesson of history is surely that such societies will fall.

Who would have thunk it ?

'Twas more than four years ago that I noticed Cathy Jamieson's campaign against anti-social behaviour didn't seem to be bearing the right sort of fruit.



Now those wee neds are all grown up :

A man who became notorious for making a v-sign behind Scotland's former justice minister during a TV interview has been jailed for assault. Jamie Smith, 20, is the 25th person to be prosecuted for a gang attack on passers-by in Cumnock, Ayrshire. Smith from Auchinleck, was sentenced to six months in prison.

He was 16 when he was filmed making obscene gestures behind Labour's Cathy Jamieson as she launched a crackdown on anti-social behaviour.

Unlike Ms Jamieson's policies, our young "Superned" is bearing fruit :

The Record told in 2006 how Smith and his then girlfriend Lisa Wilson, both 16, were expecting their first child.

And slowly, inexorably, Nature's majestic benefit dependency cycle makes one more turn ...

A Tiny Post

At B-BBC.