Why I like identity politics
People always claim they hate identity politics. Most of the time what they actually mean is they hate people talking about race or religion because these seen as absurd associations.
That’s a fair claim except that to view ‘identity politics’ merely as race or religion is short-sighted. The history of Great Britain and most of our politics has been dominated by identity politics of various kinds over centuries. When Conservatives talk of patriotism, defending the realm, the monarchy or preserving our way of life – they’re indulging in identity politics. When UKIP apparatchiks say they want hate Europe they’re playing it too. The class-warfare that has defined British society since feudal times is classic identity politics.
In many ways British Asians instinctively get all this. We’re brought up in tightly-knit families steeped in symbolism, rituals and a sense of community. We are constantly asked to (though we don’t always) pay attention to a range of identities including religion, family status, caste etc. Asian women quickly become gender aware once they realise how deeply sexist the culture is and so on.
So much as we all profess to hate it – identity politics defines our actions. This is why I find it interesting. And it’s also the reason we need to talk more about it.
The problem we have is that public debate have become less about accepting people’s multiple identities and more about demands for their own tribe. Minorities – black or Asian, Muslim or Sikh, too have fallen into this trap. Rather than linking their concerns and struggles with that of others in British society, they have become too obsessed to only standing up for their own. That might have been relevant in the 70-90s but times have changed.
Similarly, many right-wingers have taken to blaming lefties and multi-culturalism for racism and identity politics without remembering their own complicity. The BNP have made electoral gains but they were much stronger in the 70s and 80s before multiculturalism really took off. The Conservative party had been steeped in racism for decades and no one batted an eyelid over ‘If you want a nigger for a neighbour vote Labour’, or Enoch Powell. More here.
The point is – people like to belong and they like a sense of community and shared values. Identity politics offers a better way to understand people’s behaviour and fears than most other measures. It is where emotion meets politics – it is central to any society. There’s no point being dismissive – we have always been knee deep in it.
| Post to del.icio.us |
Filed in: British Identity, Culture, Race politics
In an era before mass Third World immigration, back when there were fewer than ten thousand ‘persons of colour’ in the U.K., the Labour Party was happily playing Identity Politics with the Irish vote, most obviously on Merseyside and Clydeside.
The first Asian MPs, all of Parsee origin, represented ALL the electors in their constituencies, and it is an interesting historical footnote that Lord Liverpool, a now-forgotten Prime Minister, was of part-Indian descent on his mother’s side, according to William Dalrymple and other writers.
Personally, I always thought Enoch Powell certifiably bonkers in his manic appearance but it is instructive to go through the ‘Rivers of Blood’ speech line by line and see where he was 100% right.
No British voters were consulted as to whether they wanted a Britain of 60 or 70 million which resembles Southall Market or an international airport transit lounge rather than a real country.
Incidentally, the BNP keeps hinting that they have Sikh [and probably Hindu] supporters; when will they step forward and run as BNP candidates against the likes of Shaheed Malik the Martyr King or the grotesque Vaz?
Unfortunately, immigrants have also brought “tribal feuding” with them to the UK. We now have white, asians and african gangs acting like complete savages.
Thanks!
Jennifer – A looong rim ago, when I was a girl, we had various white gangs acting like complete savages.
Identity – the feeling of belonging – is definitely important. Which is why any form of social exclusion is abhorrent.
Politics is a dirty game. And people who engage in “identity politics” are no different. They exploit those differences, the feelings of victimhood, and so on for their own political gain, which only serves to alienate communities from the larger community. MCB, Keith Vaz, etc. are examples. Obama got much further ahead than Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson because he did not play the identity politics game, and instead focused on what binds American communities together.
In my view, a multicultural society does not need identity politics, but social cohesive politics. That’s a much difficult game to play – the one that works in building bridges between communities – specially religious in a secular setting – as opposed to reinforcing those differences.
People do take strength from having common ground with others. Where it goes wrong is when a person’s identity or identities are used to show that said person will have ‘x’ views or behave in ‘x’ way, and that said person must be treated in a certain way.
As certain groups become established in an area they feel more able to assert themselves. There is a lot less of the ‘keep you head down’ mentality among minority groups, which is good because they shouldn’t have to, but bad in that it has spawned professional race politicians like Lee Jasper, whose aim is to give their groups special treatment.
Surely it depends on what the politics are.
Shiv Sena are deeply reactionary, and would a Hispanic political party be a welcome development in US politics? (It would depend on what their politics were I guess).
Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton? Cornel West and Henry Louis Gates? Some of their identity politics leave me unconvinced. (But I do like Gates).
Here is Stokley Carmichael making an impassioned speech in the 1960’s. Powerful stuff and unlike what Riz MC says about today, those really were sour times.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NLLsn1f7Tdc
But was the message from Carmichael ”We Need a Black United Front” the right one?
I tend to think it was the wrong message.
Edna Welthrope,
In – what I take it you see as those prelapsarian days – we also had Oswald Mosley and his brown shirts, and razor gangs and other fairly crazy people. And it was easier back then, everyone was supposed to hate Jews. My best chum in Primary School was a Jew. He was my friend.
So, I’d like to ask Sunny two questions. What does he see my identity as, and what’s his?
I don’t think either of us thinks skin colour is an issue. Indeed, I don’t even get religion as being an issue much either. Though there are some heroes with laptops that would really like to make it so.
So, I like to think, really, I do like to think, that there is an identity to be had right here, where pretty well every commentator is fair minded or, at the very least, honest.
I like a huge number of people who write here, who certainly don’t share my background. If I was to meet them in ‘real life’, I’d expect to like them all the more.
Perhaps that affection is because the general reading public on here can spot a charlatan a mile away. Or perhaps it is because good, decent people, tend to stick together.
I’d rather focus on our commonalities, so agree with Ravi’s social cohesive identity comment..I think sometimes our protectionist behaviour is the problem, where we fail to see the bigger picture and can’t see past our own needs.
Well said Douglas.
Nicely put. However there is another way of looking at this. If a certain group feels excluded, marginalised or discriminated against, it is hardly surprising when they use symbols that resonate with their group or mobilise their own networks initially. This is in fact how much “politics from below” gets going, and its not strictly speaking a BME phenomenon as you say. The point is how these particular claims get translated into mainstream politics.
5 @ Rumbold
The argument about “special treatment” verses “equitable treatment” is precisely the point that is the subject of contestation, and for that reasons it’s not too easy to decide. An amended multiculturalism may now be putting more stress on commonalities but in a liberal secular society we never great rid of the idea that people are still allowed the personal agency to pursue their own visions of the good life and even to express those publicly. However the health of these multiple visions is how successfully they can be translated into common goals and a common langauge. Democracy is always suspended between being an ideal and being a messy and convoluted process in search of an ideal. In that sense it is always failing and always succeeding.
One of the teachings of Islam that I’m particularly fond of I think addresses the problem of excessive identity politics, namely that it is not having loyalty and fellow feeling for one’s group that is excessive, but it is particular form of that sense of group loyalty that is dangerous, i.e., that one thinks the faults of one’s own group are better than the virtues of any one else. Identity politics goes wrong when it forgets to be self-critical and right its internal wrongs and forgets to listen to critical friends and fellow citizens. But it cuts all ways of course. The most difficult kind of injustice to face is your own!
Identity politics goes wrong when it forgets to be self-critical and right its internal wrongs and forgets to listen to critical friends and fellow citizens- exactly!
Yayha:
I agree that people should be able to act however they want, providing that they do not harm others. However, as an individualist, I do not believe that people are best served by different groups competing for attention and resources. Partly because you then get a more unfair society in which some groups are favoured, but also because it gives too much power to members of those successful groups, because they are the ones who deliver. Most of history is the story of different groups competing for power, and the results are not wonderful.
I have identities, but I do not let any of them define me, or control me. I do not think the same as others simply because we might share common characteristics.
Good post, Sunny. Thank you for pointing out how EVERYONE in this country is steeped in some form of ‘identity politics’ (especially the class thing), because it is so true.
Many then go and start saying we should adopt the French model (‘no multi-culti!’), but I don’t think that works particularly wonderfully either.
Yahya, Douglas and Ravi – hear hear!
“Identity politics goes wrong when it forgets to be self-critical and right its internal wrongs and forgets to listen to critical friends and fellow citizens- exactly!”
I’d say this is true of any politics.
Also, I think politics can play a dirty game with most issues, identity ones or green issues.
The purpose of a healthy and democratic system is to counter this – and the more we build effective checks and balances into our sysem, the better our chances of holding a meaningful discussion on identity politics.
For me, the point of identity politics is to help us get closer to a shared civic identity where we can confidently be British and enjoy our differences.
It boils down to being British actually. I’ve never seen it as a threat to our civility. In fact – the moment you try and close down the possibilities to imagine difference – you create conditions for uncivility.
Rumbold,
Thanks.
And you are a very good example – puts Rumbold on a projection screen and asks the assembled gang to look and stare and stuff.
Rumbold and I will never, ever agree about Politics, with a capital ‘p’. But frankly the guys’ humanity, standards and just genuine niceness, transcends any silly political debate I might have with him. And, just as the wee Jewish guy was my chum, I read what Rumbold says, most of the time, and nod along, agreeing mostly. And, honestly, there isn’t a lot to disagree with.
Of course I think his politics are crap, but he thinks mine are too, and it’s okay. I still like Rumbold and I think he still likes me…
The point being that you can actually like someone that does not agree with everything you say, or everything you think.
Rumbold,
Care to expand on that? I think it might be a defining moment, or something. As it applies to all of us, not just your good self.
LMAO @ Douglas putting Rumbold on a projection screen. *is happy to look and stare and stuff*
As a feminist Rumbold, I must warn you that that comment of yours is a little clumsy, and comes across quite privileged-sounding.
I know what you meant, but you will need to elaborate!
I agree with you that people are not necessarily best served by groups, but – biological tendencies aside – many people believe they are. This is the thornier thing to counter.
That is why I think all MSM should be forced to print/show disclaimers when they report the news, saying either ‘This report may involve inflammatory rhetoric’ or ‘This piece is 85% opinion. There are X/X% certifiable facts in it.’ EDUCATION is the only thing that reminds people that they are within a grander narrative of humanity and not simply playing for their own team – but you can’t educate everyone all the time. DISCLAIMERS, dammit!
I think we need more honest teaching of Darwin as well, because people have boiled down his theories of evolution and ’survival of the fittest’ in a very simplistic fashion for centuries now. This is what leads people to instinctively prefer group identity – they feel that the individual can achieve little alone, because it is a ‘dog-eat-dog’ world and ‘it’s just me, myself and I’.
The problem we have is that public debate have become less about accepting people’s multiple identities and more about demands for their own tribe. Minorities – black or Asian, Muslim or Sikh, too have fallen into this trap. Rather than linking their concerns and struggles with that of others in British society, they have become too obsessed to only standing up for their own. That might have been relevant in the 70-90s but times have changed.
Very well put.
Without wholly subscribing to the race relations “industry” idea, it is certainly the case that there are people who are incentivised or at least eager to find and emphasise difference/division, as Rumbold has said @5.
Multiple identities is a very useful concept I think.
Amrit @ 17,
Rumbold is an old school feminist. I think I’d be right in saying that we are both members of Joanne Paytons Iraq and Kurdish Womens Rights supporters? Which is the point, really. I may disagree with Rumbold on some stuff, but on the main thread of comment here, there is not a Rizla Paper to be stuck between us. We, him and I, find all that sort of stuff, fgm, etc, completely beyond the pale.
Amrit, I assume you do too?
Obviously people are going to differ in how they balance the individual and collective aspects of their identity, and that gets expressed in politics too. A liberal politics encourages a thousand ways to flourish, and even how people makes those accommodations. So that’s one thing — we can’t all relate our individualism to the political claims or causes we want to make in precisely the same way.
On your second point, I don’t see how civil society can do without associations, groups or communities of various kinds, that can decide to mobilise at some point on any particular issue. So perhaps it is not groupness as such — for what would happen to trade unionism for instance. Collective mobilisation is often essential to securing justice. It is not even that these groups might be partial (as all segments of society are by definition partial as such). The problem is where we have a politics that overall is becoming too fragmented. This is what I would understand to be the problem for instance for BME groups that were dealt with in a neocolonial fashion by forms of “representational politics”, a modern democratic iteration of the “take me to the village headman” schtick. Umbrella or representational groups will continue to exist, and rightly so, as they have a democratic right to make claims and to lobby. The problem, rather, and this is particularly acute for BME communities, is that the claims/interests of any one group are not totally stitched up by these (often self-appointed or government-backed) representatives and most importantly that certain people don’t only get listened to unless they are called in to “manage” the problems of the community to which they have ascribed membership of politically or culturally. They are first and foremost citizens who can have any range of legitimate concerns, and not just as “tribal” persons.
Douglas:
Thank you. That is lovely. I think that it is great that we have this mutual respect for one another, and long may it continue. Ultimately, we are both on the same side, and we need to keep reminding ourselves of that.
What I meant by that was that I have various identities, but I am not defined by what is seen as the stereotype for said identities. For example, I am a male. I enjoy playing and watching football, but have no interest in motor cars. Has my enjoyment of football been shaped by my gender? I don’t know- it is impossible to tell. But I don’t do things just because I am a male. Same with my ethnicity. Yes, my life has been different then if I had been born a different colour, but I don’t let it define me. I am an individual, with my own views, likes and dislikes, and I will do what I think is best and right, and not what is expected of me. I recognise that I have been lucky in my life, which is why I am always calling for others to be treated that way too.
Amrit:
For example, you define yourself as a feminist. Does that define you? Maybe you think it does, but it doesn’t mean that you will always behave in a certain way, since we have no concrete behavioural guide for feminists. Some feminists for instance oppose mixed-sex refuges. Others support them. Who is the real feminist in that debate?
You choose to hold certain views on certain matters and group that under the heading of ‘feminism’. So it is your views which are really important, not the label you assign to them.
I feel that one of the most important aspects of feminism is the emphasis on women not behaving as ‘they are supposed to’. Which means behaving like individuals, and not letting a stereotype define them.
Amrit:
I agree with you that people feel best served by groups, but most aren’t, so we need to challenge this mentality. I respect your views a lot, and would never seek to box you in.
Rumbold,
But the point, my friend, is that you and I are different.
Which is what Sunnys challenge is all about. I actually like you. I think that despite our differences, we are friends. I also happen to think Sunny is my chum too. How does that fit into his new philosophy?
It is not real to say that identity, whatever that is, defines.
Each individual is different and they are alike in many ways and this is often defined by experiences – incidentally, until recently – those experiences have been often determined by skin colour and backgrounds (such as Asian/Black).
And at least in this decade there has been way too much generalisation about Muslims in particular. Certainly, at least to some on either spectrum of the debate the issue of being Muslim trumps all other identities?
But are all Muslim experiences homogeneous – or are all British Asian experiences homogeneous? We all know they differ on many levels.
Ravi’s concept of socially cohesive identity resonates with me and so the concept of Britishness (which Sunny has actively promotes) appeals to me very much. May be that is one thing we need to learn from the Americans — of having an American identity which in most cases trumps all others.
Maybe our identity politics efforts should focus upon identifying and building on those common values and ethos which must at least to me should incorporate love for Britain. This is not being jingoistic but an attempt to inculcate into children the pride of being British.
Unfortunately, in Asian families, the British identity was frowned upon and while I was growing up it was not very uncommon to hear from the Auntie Raj “how we would never be really British” etc etc.
Somehow it was viewed as an either/or situation which clearly it isn’t. Things have changed a lot in the past couple of decades.
We need to actually get out of this identity politics approach of community elders, or targeting certain parts of the population with particular messages which resonate with their identities (for example the lib dem leaflet campaign targeting people with Muslim surnames only during the Gaza mayhem earlier this year).
We do need to debate and explore identity politics but the focus should be on promoting the British identity.
You guys are making the classic mistake (as our first two posters did) of seeing identity politics through race and religion.
Yo, we’ve had class warfare in this country for generations. What is that, if it isn’t identity politics? What have I said about the Tories above? Their attachment to the institutions of this country is classic identity politics.
And yet – as soon as I get to the comments section, most people are still talking about skin colour and religion. Grrr…
Jennifer Smith, with whom I greatly sympathize, may be interested to note that Canada has the U.K. beaten many times over when it comes to ethnic gangs.
There are Aboriginal Gangs, then Chinese – of course – and Tamils and East Indians and Somalis and Black Africans and Filipinos and Jamaicans blazing away with firearms in Toronto and – in chilly Nova Scotia – modest-sized gangs of those troubled youth descended from those African-Americans who fled with the British at the time of the loss of the American colonies.
Pop over to the ‘American Renaissance’ website for discussion of ethnic gang culture in North America and much more of interest
It’s been bugging me for ages but I now think edna is evil edna from willo the wisp…
sunny – maybe we define ourselves based on what others see apparent in us?
Edna Welthorpe was a creation of the playwright Joe Orton. See http://www.joeorton.org/Pages/Joe_Orton_Life9.html for details.
For the benefit of those of you who aren’t aware of this, “American Renaissance” (along with the associated website), which “Edna Welthorpe” has now ‘recommended’ several times on PP, is a well-known US-based white supremacist and racist magazine produced by the “New Century Foundation”. Contribuing authors can be described as ‘intellectual racists’ and the organisation has also held biannual conferences.
And, surprise surprise, contributers to the magazine and the conferences include a certain Nick Griffin.
I’m not going to link directly to the website but Wikipedia has a summary of both the magazine and the foundation (including a link to the website for those of you who wish to access it), along with further details on the type of people who contribute to the magazine and attend the affiliated conferences.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Renaissance_(magazine)
Why am I not surprised?
They still believe the superior race theory
Yes, there are. There are also Italian, Eastern Europeans and neo-nazi gangs. And there are also highly accomplished minorities in North America. I guess American Renaissance just forgot to mention that.
Well, edna started off by saying that all these lovely white people had not been consulted when these dirty pakis were moving into their neighbourhoods – so that hardly surprises me.
But can we stay on topic. Random BNP trolls should be ignored.
Sunny wants us to open up the conversation beyond identity politics, multiculturalism and religious and racial identities. So I’ll give it a go. Here’s five challenges off the top of my head.
It’s easier to name the challenges to reimagine an inclusive Britishness, but in naming them, it might give us clearer vision:
1. Possibilty of Scottish devolution. Some say it won’t happen, but no-one really knows. If it happens, it will reframe the debate.
2. Neoliberalism since the 70s. Free trade, (relatively) open borders. More mobility means less attachment to place. Global elites less tied to nationalism as most of them champion cosmopolitanism, not nationalism.
3. Diaspora politics. Diasporas now connect in real time, an historic first. What does that do to national belonging (to a place)? Many nations are responding by now allowing dual citizenship.
4. Cultural globalisation and mass media. We multi-consume culture from all over the globe. And nations rely on a strong powerful national culture (not just language). As media fragments, so do identities somewhat. If the BBC didn’t exist (for instance) how much distinctive British-produced media would we consume?
5. The British tradition of ironic light-touch nationalism, which I think we need to protect. Britishness is a civic (political) nationalism, separated in some respects from one’s ethnic or other identity (Scots, Northern Irish, Welsh, Asian, black, Sikh, Muslim, Jewish etc.). It is not hyphenated like American identity but “British” is commonly used as an adjective. Englishness has naturally dominated Britishness as well: you don’t really hear of “British English” except in the context of language. Britishness is not a total identity but deals with those parts of ourselves when we come together as nation culturally, in civic spaces and in politics. That partiality and hence inclusivity and tolerance, and a suspicion of jingoistic and overwheening nationalism is rather a strength than a weakness (in my book at least).
But we are in one of those periods when we have to spell it out a bit more rather than take it for granted.
The left likes lists of values and talk of Britishness as citizenship, but we shouldn’t forget narrative, story (i.e. histories of Britain) as well which the right is correct to remind us of.
Wa s-salam, Yahya
I’ve made the following basic point a couple of times previously, but to re-iterate: Since there’s very little basic difference between Nick Griffin and, for example, Abu Hamza, Omar Bakri, and Anjem Choudary, their respective followers and admirers should also be treated the same.
Because they all really are the same — and that includes supporters of the BNP and its associated ideology who comment here on PP. Other than the fact that one group uses race as a justification (perhaps “excuse” might be a better description) and the other uses religion, they’re all cut from the same cloth.
On a lighter note — Sunny, I love the picture you’ve chosen for your article. It’s a blast from the past that’s guaranteed to trigger laughter and smiles of recognition amongst fans of a certain much-missed 90s show.
“You guys are making the classic mistake … of seeing identity politics through race and religion.”
“Yo, we’ve had class warfare in this country for generations. What is that, if it isn’t identity politics?”
Those were the same thoughts running through my mind. People find it hard to talk about identities that are race/religion linked. Why is that?
Class is the one identity marker which i find most troubling. It’s the one least discussed, yet it’s the most absorbing and it affects all of us. Those of us who are working class or from a low-income background might find some expression for it if we are non-white etc, but for most white working class people, there is little expression, or recognition for this identity.
I think I have to disagree with Jai a bit on his comparisson with the BNP and Abu Hamza, Omar Bakri, and Anjem Choudary etc.
My point being, that since the Daily Mail and Migration Watch and the Daily Express often say things that are not so different to the BNP, then anything they might ever say can be but in the tin can where we like to keep the BNP holed up.
So any Migration Watch statement …. about perhaps something we have heard from reliable sources on PP today about 40% of British guys of Pakistani and Bangladeshi origin selecting brides from South Asia…
..well anything they might say gets no credit (whatever they might have said), because they have been deemed the enemy (because the BNP quote them).
I understand it might be a perfectly good ‘anti-fascist’ tactic. To act like whips (as it were) for the ever growing multi-culturalism that is inevitable.
I have often felt though that it can be dishonest too.
A bit undemocratic.
Yaha @ 34,
Err. The possibility of Scottish devolution is already a fact. Do you mean independence? For, frankly that is my current politics. Scots do not, in general, in the main, seem to ‘get’ the BNP’s philosophy. And, in general, in the main, reject it utterly. They struggle to get 2.5% of the vote North of the Border. Our general attitude seems to be, you are Scottish if you say you are. Which is not to say we don’t have racist idiots, it is to say they couldn’t constitute a politics with the slightest likelyhood of success.
Douglas @ 30
Whoops, sorry quick typing. Yes, I definitely meant independence, and if that happens (although some people think some kind of fudge of greater autonomy and a looser union might still do the trick) I wonder what impact it will have on the debate about Britishness.
I forgot to mention:
6. The Monty Python Factor. We kill off discussion of the issue because we prefer to send up even patriotism (as opposed to jingoism, which in our better moments we deplore), even if we get less than half a chance. While good for a laugh, it does tend to disable a more serious conversation.
7. Getting the English interested in this Britishness debate, as only the minorities tend to take it more seriously, Gordon Brown being a case in point.
Yaha,
Cheers.
It is interesting that:
Who are these people and where are they making their ideas plain? For I see it as a straightforward fight between a Unionist Labour Party and an independence led SNP. If you take the blinkers off, Alec Salmond is actually a superbly good politician. A bit to the left of the Labour Party right enough. Well, at least, I think so. And, despite being a member, they are completely wrong on nuclear power generation.
Yaha,
Which has always been the problem with majority populations. They can’t see the wood for the trees. Same as it ever was…
Hmm…
Yaha, leaving all of the cheap points aside, what do you think that an independent Scotland might mean for race relations in England? I do not think it would make an iota of difference. You’d still be arguing against or pro purity or summat. For that is what the English do.
Perhaps that is a cheap point too. But it is how I see this debate going.
Damon,
On at least one previous occasion, I have listed — in detail — the specific reasons for the very strong similarities between the BNP & its members/sympathisers and certain regressive Islamist groups & their members/sympathisers.
I am referring specifically to these organisations, their affiliates, and their supporters — what media outlets such as the Daily Mail, Daily Express, MigrationWatch say is neither here nor there in this instance, as far as I’m concerned. Otherwise your logic could also be applied in the corresponding situation, ie. that any Muslim-focused media source which says X, Y or Z which actually/potentially comments negatively about non-Muslims and/or the West should “get no credit” because Al-Muhajiroun and other similar groups may quote the information concerned.
My original point still stands. The BNP and its members/sympathisers are far, far closer to effectively being the “white British Al-Muhajiroun” than the individuals concerned may either realise or admit.
This is a statement of fact, not a “dishonest anti-fascist tactic”, and an accurate identification of the extremely strong parallels between the two organisations and their respective supporters in terms of mindset, worldview, behaviour, modus operandi and agenda is certainly not “undemocratic” by any stretch of the imagination.
They are what they are — essentially mirror images of each other. I suspect it may be a tough pill for some people to swallow, but the reality of the situation is that there is barely a hair’s-breadth of difference between the aforementioned groups & their members/supporters.
Jai is my hero.
No joke.
I would follow that idea into the jaws of Hell itself, if that is what it took. I suspect the mincey little religious nutters around here would ask for a pass.
re: #45
Thank you for your kind words, Douglas, very nice of you.
douglas @ 19 – I will reply to this on Facebook, if that’s OK!
Rumbold – thanks for the explanation.
BEWARE THE B.N.P. TROLL AND SHUN
THE FRUMIOUS BANDERSNATCH
The assumption that anyone attempting to encourage others to try adopting a certain breadth of thinking must be – and I quote – “a BNP troll” is idiotic but since the present writer, Edna Welthorpe, has been denounced on the ‘Socialist Unity’ site as both a ‘zionist’ and a ‘nazi’ on the same day, such vile calumnies are to be expected*.
You need to visit ‘American Renaissance’ and check it out for yourselves. Rational exchanges of views are welcomed and tolerated.
There was, for example, a discussion on whether a City Ordinace in Buffalo permitting householders to keep 5 laying hens was, in fact, merely a cover for Hispanics, and possibly Southeast Asians like Vietnamese and Cambodians, to rear fighting cocks. This led on to the sort of organic egg and poultry-meat discussion beloved by the likes of Prince Charles and Jamie Oliver: “Sure you can buy 5 frozen chickens in a discount supermarket for $20 but you might as well eat dog poop in comparison to eating the flesh of well-fed strawyard chicken.”
As for neo-nazi gangs in Canada, one would immediately suspect a covert police operation. Check out Ezra Levant’s site and – if you care to – Mark Steyn’s site for a discussion of the way in which Canadian government servants on good salaries, and with generous pension expectations, pose on Rightist websites as neo-nazis.
There was a splendid news item on Russia Today TV an hour ago, echoing an earlier tale set in Egypt and reported by MEMRI. It seems that alert Hamas operatives have intercepted consignments of chewing gum being smuggled into Gaza and it also seems that this is the very same chewing gum that Israeli agents distributed in Egypt in the conviction that the gum possesses the power to make young Egyptiennes uncontrollably horny and thus undermine Egypt’s fine morals.
* Curious hybrid creatures, these Zionazis. There is a claim that Evrahim [Ibrahim] Stern, founder of the Stern gang, toyed with a Stern Gang allliance with the Nazis in exchange for a German guarantee that mass Jewish immigration to Palestine would be permitted as soon as the military situation allowed, but this sounds like the sort of story journalists and historians invent over a few drinks and which then finds its way into print sooner or later.
In any case, Hitler was pals with the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem by this time and the Mufti had firm views on the subject of Jewish immigration into Palestine.
Well Jai, sometimes you have got to tell the truth around here. There isn’t a world of difference between what you have said that I disagreed with, which perhaps marks you and I out as equal idiots. Which, given what this thread is supposed to be about, difference and such, suggests that a certain Mr Hundal doesn’t understand why I like you, and Rumbold, and a hell of a lot of other people.
Jai, I wish we could leave the BNP out of it sometimes.
We’ve both read the thread started by Lucy James today called ”What Muslim women want”.
In that thread there was much of interest. I made a couple of comments myself.
In it it said that 40% of British guys of a Pakistani and Bangladeshi origin were marrying brides from South Asia
Is to react about that in a Daily Mail or Migration Watch fashion to be equated with Anjem Choudary?
Of course I think the Daily Mail sucks. But it speaks for a wide segment of this society (and I hate to admit, to some of my family members too).
I have spent the afternoon in West Wickham, which is in London (Bromley) but is outside the real inner London (or even Croydon) mix of multi culturalism.
It is hugely different to Whitechapel in East London.
I would imagine that West Wickham people and Whitechapel people have almost nothing to do with each other. But I can see where some BNP (or Jeniffer Smith type) comments on this might come from, because of the demographic thing which the likes of Migration Watch raise, but then on Pickled Politics, Andrew Green just gets caricatured as ”rent-a-gob”.
I want to see Andrew Green’s arguments demolished. But it seems that the fascist BNP makes it so much easier to just glide past anything the reactionary right might say.
My point being: I don’t think we should totally ignore the reactionary right.
Jon Gaunt is horrible, but he’s miles away from Anjem Choudary.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jon_Gaunt
So there is Damon squealing FASCIST again without having recently checked out the BNP website for himself.
Bet he ain’t been to KAVKAZ CENTER lately either to see what is being said about the Shakespearian villain Kadyrov’s latest crime.
Edna Welthorpe – The trolling, chips on the shoulder and charmlessness I can put up with.
But watching Russia Today puts you beyond the pail.
Doulgas:
You, Amrit and I are all members of the Joanne Payton fan club. Fact.
O CANADA
http://www.amren.com/ar/2007/02/index.html
ought to give an outline picture
O CANADA
O INDO-CANADIAN DRUG GANGS — go to #55 above and click on the link
Who even knew such gangs even existed?
I salute you, O Sunny, for your indefatigability and your willingness to tolerate a number of contrarian points of views on this site
AN ANECDOTE:
A few years ago I contributed a few times to a Korean-American site called GOLDSEA and all was well until I gently pointed out that the Japanese had built the railroads in Korea and started such places as the institution now called Yosu National University [it was started by the Japanese as a fisheries school in 1917] and THAT – plus the disclosure of my e-mail address – brought a torrent of abuse on my head, flung bu Korean-Americans and Korean-Canadians
mere
‘Contradictions among the People’ as Chairman Mao teaches us
Go to TouTube and see/hear Koyanagi Yuki sing KIMIGAYO and THE STAR SPANGLED BANNER and then read the comments some – some – Americans wrote about the vile spectacle of a gook woman singing OUR anthem and – worse of all – doing it so well
Douglas @ 41
Well I heard this from a Westminster village insider, but that might just be overconfidence. Salmond has been very agile as First Minister, no doubt.
But a major spanner in the works? The buyout of RBS and so on by the British taxpayer? That soon put a stop to Salmond’s Celtic Tiger messaging. I just wonder if mutual self-interest on sorts might not keep the Union staggering on for a few decades more? Who knows?
Does devolution make the logic of independence inexorable or ameliorate it?
For argument’s sake if Scotland left the union tomorrow what kind of entity would persist afterwards? And secondly, the big point is that the English would have to rethink their identity perhaps. For 300 years, Englishness has been cultural and ethnic and Britishness has carried politics and civic life (although being dominated by the English and London). If Scotland leaves, then wouldn’t the English have to think again about Englishness as an inclusive and political identity as well as a cultural and ethnic identity. Wouldn’t Englishness have to become post-ethnic and inclusive politically to work in the way that Britishness works at its best now?
Wa s-salam, Yahya
Yahya:
I am not anti-group per se, I just have a problem with those groups becoming the sole focus of a person.
Edna Welthorpe @ 52, I’ve seen the BNP website plenty of times and think they’re really really poor.
The other two websites you’ve mentioned I’d never heard of before, and are quite interesting.
Is the Russian/Chechen one pro Moscow or supportive of what happened in Beslan?
And does it make any difference?
Rumbold @ 58
Agreed, which was what I was saying too in a convoluted way. Sometimes an argument against overheated identity politics can sound like an argument that the liberal state only deals politically with individuals when obviously it doesn’t only do just that, nor should it seek to.
Rumbold @ 54,
Yes we are! Which makes you, me and Amrit really sensible.
I have respected everything Galloise Blonde has said here. Though it seems to me, it hasn’t had an inch of religious subjectivity to it’s name.
Yaha,
The RBS fiasco, which I’d agree is a disgrace, would be sorted out in the future, by the EU, which we have no intention of leaving.
I found this part of your arguement, well, quite annoying:
I am specifically asking you to name names. I’d expect that the likes of Gordon Brown would say that. It doesn’t mean that it is right. And, as you probably know, if you’ve ever read anything I have written, I totally detest Westminster insiders.
Have you checked your Facebook for clarification yet, Douglas?
Come on Douglas, I’m not going to name names as it was a private conversation. It wasn’t anyone terribly senior anyway — I don’t normally move in those circles, living, as I do, in the provinces. But whatever one makes of Westminster, the village is very good at making fudge. Not a grand point, but one that has so often come true in the past.
Amrit,
I thought you and I were chums on Facebook now. Is there something I’m missing?
Yahya, well if it is private, keep it that way. Don’t drag half a conversation into a public space and pretend it has meaning. You said it mate. Not me.
Which is why I detest Westminster politics, the half truths, the fudge, as you say…
douglas – yes, and I responded to your comment at 19 on Facebook!
I was wondering if you had looked at your messages yet.
damon
“Is the Russian/Chechen one pro Moscow or supportive of what happened in Beslan?
And does it make any difference?”
what a retarded media sheep – if one opposes Russia atrocities in killing 52000 Chechen children (did you even know about that Damon ?) then one must support the atrocities in Beslan- there is no other option
People like you Damon uncritical sheep who believe what the media tells them are frighetining – they are the fodder for facism and genocide
Edna Welthorpe
“Shaheed Malik the Martyr King”
Yes the BNP make a big deal of his first name meaning “martyr” – on problem is that is Shaheed and his name is Shahid -which means witness
Should we make a big deal about the anti-white named Colin “Brown” or the German named Andrew Brons?
Amrit,
Figured it out eventually. I think there is reply there for you.
munir,
Am I too? I don’t think I am, and neither do I think damon is either, but you seem to think you are the judge and the fucking jury….
Jai
“I’ve made the following basic point a couple of times previously, but to re-iterate: Since there’s very little basic difference between Nick Griffin and, for example, Abu Hamza, Omar Bakri, and Anjem Choudary, their respective followers and admirers should also be treated the same.
Because they all really are the same — and that includes supporters of the BNP and its associated ideology who comment here on PP. Other than the fact that one group uses race as a justification (perhaps “excuse” might be a better description) and the other uses religion, they’re all cut from the same cloth.”
You forgot to mention Islamophobes , some linked with neo-facist extreme Sikh and Hindu groups who hide behind “religion” as a justification- that is attacking Muslims and saying its OK because they are a religion.
We have people on here of this ilk- no one ever challenges them.
douglas clark
“Am I too? I don’t think I am, and neither do I think damon is either, but you seem to think you are the judge and the fucking jury….”
Says the man who wants to teach Muslims Islam – while eing unaware of the central tenet of Islam, the most important criterion that decide if a person is a Muslim – that there is one God.
Other than an excellent post about his families attitude to Britishness Damon is incapable of producing his own reasoned arguments -he just links to newspapers and repeats THEIR arguments
Och,
Says the idiot that thinks he is the exemplar of Muslim thought, who couldn’t actually argue his way out of a paper bag, as has been been shown on the ’slavery’ thread and elsewhere. This is the idiot that you are supposed to follow, this is the Fat Controller that you are supposed to see as an exemplary Muslim?
Well, fuck me.
KAVKAZ CENTER is a jihadist site primarily concerned with events in the Caucasus and supposedly hosted in Sweden.
It is, of course, 100% pro-terrorist but its stance is invariably “Now see what you made me do!”
Check out KAVKAZ CENTER on Wikipedia.
It look like it’s run by a tiny handful of people who are trying to run a very complex show shorthanded.
The English is patchy in quality, but KAVKAZ CENTER is trying to offer slanted news in several non-cognate languages, which is a tremendous undertaking [a clever Gap Year kid might consider a year working with Kavkaz Center.]
What’s surprising is that Russian FSB agents in Sweden haven’t silenced the operation, just like they wiped out Litvinenko in London.
One might add that it’s surprising that the Saudi state, which could call on a host of loyal servants, have’t rubbed out the Saudi dissidents in London.
Munir @ 67 I wasn’t being entirely serious in that post when I was replying to Edna Welthorpe (who seems to be sympathetic to the BNP). I have read their website and think it sucks. I hadn’t looked in any detail at the other two, but saw enough to gather that they were nut-job sites too.
(The photos of the Mujahideen shaheeds along the top of the Chechin site gave me that idea anyway).
I’m quite aware of Russia’s savage and disgusting wars in Chechana Munir, though I didn’t know of that figure you quoted. So I get a lot of my information from the media. So what? I’m reading yesterday’s Independent this morning which has the front page headline: ”From beyond the grave: a searing indictment of Putin’s protege and his rain of terror.”
It seems to suggest that Ramzan Kadyrov the Moscow appointed Chechin leader was behind the murder of an investigative journalist a couple of years ago.
And that’s probably all I’ll read about that issue this month. So if that makes me a media sheep, then I guess I am.
And Munir, where you got this idea from, I have no idea. But nothing could be further from what I think.
”…if one opposes Russia atrocities in killing 52000 Chechen children (did you even know about that Damon ?) then one must support the atrocities in Beslan- there is no other option”
Actually, I think I’m going to read some more of that ‘Kavkaz Center’ website. They have the story of the murdered journalist in that too.
I found Sunny’s origional post a bit confusing. (Meaning that it’s probably my fault, but I didn’t really get it).
It was the words ”identity politics” that confused me. I have always taken that to mean the horse trading and pork barrel kind of competitiveness centered on people’s racial or cultural identities. An example being La Raza in the USA.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Council_of_La_Raza
But Sunny seems to have been making a more subtle point than that, and I’m affraid I couldn’t really pick up on it. It was the word ‘politics’ which I think might have confused me.
POR LA RAZA TODO
FUERA DE LA RAZA NADA
Damon really needs to read more and more widely; while the AMERICAN RENAISSANCE site certainly has a ‘point of view,’ as they say, it has identified La Raza as a shakedown operation which has successfully squeezed vast sums out of big corporations by hinting gently that a Hispanic boycott of their business – complete with pickets and TV coverage – would be most disagreeable.
It is probable that Jesse Jackson pioneered this tactic as a fund-raising mechanism at around the same time that the Jewish-run SPLC was squeezing money out of Jewish retirees by telling them that only the SPLC stood between them and the resurgent Klan or bands of homicidal neo-nazis.
MUNIR -
Please spend an hour or two looking at KAVKAZ CENTER.
What can be said about the current ruler in Grozny that makes any kind of sense? Putin carefully picked the vilest and meanest Chechen stooge he could find and gave him full permission to run a hidden-hand dictatorship or remorseless cruelty, complete with glossy new department stores and secret interrogation cells.
It is interesting that the Left in Britain and their allies-of-a-kind, the Islamists, have nothing at all to say about the Grozny regime. Nothing. Absolutely nothing at all.
Any comment?
I think that identity politics is a product of vulnerability and alienation – so in that respect it is a good indicator that societal equality has not been met. But it is possible that that identity signifier will remain even after the shackles of alienation have been shaken off – and to want to protect an identity that has been created out of harsher times will only crown those who encouraged the vulnerability of that group to begin with.
There is also a difference between how an identity might be borne of community inequality (for a crude example two families who are terrorised by other families in their street may well find commonalities to cushion their anguish) and inequality that is state sanctioned (simply how South Africa was).
But one thing we surely can all agree with is that when the BNP feel the need to appeal to identity politics out of the alienation they suggest they feel in Britain, the reason we can mock this is because we know its daft for them to suggest whites are given a hard time in this country (sure, a few individuals may well discriminate against whites, but again this I’d suggest is an attempt to find the Achilles heel in a disagreement, like racism can so often be) – even more difficult for the far-right is to suggest that they are discriminated on an official level (i.e. state).
So to say id politics is to be liked, I find rather odd since its foundations are in vulnerability. For me, id politics weren’t supposed to be here forever, they were supposed to define an era, and when that era had passed (or when it does pass) then it should be put to sleep (see an article I had written a while back on the subject in the US on the advent of Obama). And I’m worried that some on the left want to preserve it, for the same reason that the philosopher Descartes had been wrong to suggest that we should “conquer [ourselves] rather than the world”
Julian the Apostate
I could be wrong about this, but five minutes research on the internet tells me you are applying that slogan at the top of your post to the wrong organisation. Even the wikipedia link I did says that La Raza deny that it is theirs.
And this website (whoever they are) seems to cofirm that.
http://studentactivism.net/2009/05/29/sotomayor-tancredo/
Good post from Carl there, and the other one he linked to.
Carl, this line stood out for me: ”And I’m worried that some on the left want to preserve it”.
That has been the accusation against Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton for a long time. Cornel West too to a lesser extent.
One of the people I find most interesting who writes about this subject is John McWhorter, who although many call him a conservative, is a registered Democrat and was a big supporter of Obama.
This is him last month talking about African American studies programmes at American universities.
http://www.manhattan-institute.org/html/miarticle.htm?id=4804
I have liked McWhorter for several years now, and on another solidly left and anti-racist website I used to read, I posted links to his articles and talked about his views quite a few times.
Apart from with one or two exceptions, this went down very badly. In fact it became impossible. He was a persona non grata for those people it seemed.
And I was told I would be too if I continued.
I thought they were very narrow minded, and couldn’t get out of their mainstream leftist mindset.
As you spoke about Cornel West in that other piece Carl, here was John McWhorter back in 2002 talking about West in an article titled ”The Mau-Mauing at Harvard”
http://www.city-journal.org/html/12_2_the_mau_mauing.html
He talks of: ”how today’s black academic experience—for students and teachers alike—remains faithful to two destructive orthodoxies: that for blacks, victimhood is a moral duty; and that, because of their history of oppression, blacks should get an exemption from the standards that apply to others.”
No wonder those people on that other website didn’t like it.
Damon is 100% right in exculpating La Raza.
Even an hour’s unhurried background reading on the ‘net confirms that the very slick slogan
is or was associated with some of the dafter elements within MEChA and not within La Raza, which is determined to play at being as responsible as possible in front of guilt-ridden Gringos with access to public money.
NOSOTROS LOS GRINGOS UNIDOS
JAMAS SERAMOS VENCIDOS !
John McWhorter is obviously a deeply important commentator who I admire a lot. And his work has sat uncomfortably for a lot leftists – as you damon have found out yourself – and I can still see why this it is so. As you pointed out, in his quote “for blacks, victimhood is a moral duty” and with my charge that id politics – inasmuch as it has been a necessity – should be epochal and subject to objective reality rather than subjective appearances, the standards by which we judge a society to be racist are rather hazy. Its funny that today in the Guardian James Purnell spoke about having a debate on immigration because Labour appear to mix their words on the issue, and seem simply oppositional towards the Tories. I think a debate could iron out some of these problems on how to standardise what makes a racist society.
For me British society isn’t racist – which is not to say that I don’t think street-level racism exists, because it does, and it is expressed in suits-not-boots within the ranks of the BNP – and so some of the evils that broadened the appeal of id politics have been overthrown. It put identity in a peculiar position in that since id politics was a symptom of racism, and racism had been defeated, it meant that id was the cure and the cured. But this couldn’t sit well with some.
My position is not to offend, but precisely the opposite, to vindicate those brave people who did their best to overcome racism. You won the battle. And I should like to qualify this rather odd turn of phrase – lets move politics on!
Is politics based on identity, or is identity based on politics?”
“we can spend the rest of our lives trying to define and answer the question, Who are we? and go nowhere.”
http://liberalarts.udmercy.edu/pi/PI1.1/PI11_Libretti.pdf
This was an interesting post, and a topic I think about often. You really have to include “generation” in with race, religion, nationality, gender, etc ….
What about people like me who have no idea what tribe they belong to? It just seems to me that instead of finding more ways to come together, people just keep breaking things apart more. I have used the analogy of a dissection… I can just envision life the universe and everything pinned spread eagle on the table, being cut piece by piece into particles viewed under a microscope. That frog is dead, it can never be put back together and made alive again.
I do understand the need to talk about things.. but I already know the conclusion. We are all one tribe already …. I don’t know how it gets any better until we all realize and accept that.
But I am reminded of a while back, the girl in school who won the right to wear her bracelet … I never could figure out why it was not a special privilege granted just to her? why was that not used to make reforms for everyone? As an outsider looking in it seems British history evolved to try and erase the class system and somehow make everyone equal.
I can kind of understand how there are people feeling threatened my all this “multiculturalism” … even somehow feeling themselves being slowly erased.
Agree with Sunny on this. I think the main problems in identity politics come from:
1. Anxieties about whether others want to erase or manipulate your identity which can get paranoid.
2. Identities which express themselves as superior to other identities and create anxieties for other groups.
3. When people’s views are interpreted as making an argument based purely on an identity (special pleading) rather than arguing from principle.
4. When there is an expectation that people sharing a particular identity will be homogeneous.
5. When there is a values based disagreement between social groups (as with individuals) and where one has more social power they may decide to stigmatise the other rather than find a way to coexist.
All of these dynamics work when more specific complex identities are asserted within broad identities (eg when liberal feminists meet revolutionary feminists or meet liberal capitalists.. the differences cannot be solved by people becoming liberal revolutionary capitalists, but people will develop their identities through discussions they see and may ally with each other on particular issues – and I think the more variations there are in alliances over time, the more trust is be built.
But it takes a bit of humility.
Things go backward when fears are raised, and the blame game begins – but I don’t think that is because of identity politics, it is because of our emotional anxieties which would come out in different ways if our lists of identities were different – it happens in every community.
Julian – I think I can reassure you that Muslims, particularly the more politicised ones, are very exercised about Chechnya.
The problem from my perspective is that those who are very conservative and sound aggressive, are more outspoken about Chechnya and bring it up more regularly to try to get other Muslims more politicised to their views as it lends itself well to their wider narratives (generalised persecution of Muslims, the need to fight imperialism, that “democracy” is meaningless in protecting the human rights of Muslims, that humanitarian intervention by the west is selective in a sinister way…)
Human rights organisations and some opponents of Putin can fit the issue of Chechnya into their narratives, but unless the main political parties or newspaper proprietors made a big issue of it here, sadly most other people here will ignore it as it isn’t part of their political world.
I assume these mechanisms apply to most others (Muslims and non-Muslims) – that issues of which they know little and do not feel threatened by fall down their agenda. There are cognitive limits for all of us – and I can’t expect everyone to share my preoccupations, just as I do not share theirs. But because we have different identities connected to different worldviews, at least there are some people raising issues like Chechnya, just as others are campaigning on Tibet, reducing City bonuses or sending helicopters to Afghanistan.
In the examples I gave on top – I’ve pointed out that identity isn’t just related to alienation.
An upper class aristocrat – by virtue of choosing certain friends is also playing identity politics. His or her identity is royalty and his friends will come from that set.
Rumbold: I am not anti-group per se, I just have a problem with those groups becoming the sole focus of a person.
See, as I keep saying this is very simplistic. Take the example of a working class factory worker. By virtue of how much money he earns and the area he lives in – he will have an identity and the means to live within. His identity is different to the aristocrat mentioned above and he will vote accordingly for a party that caters for his circumstances.
You can’t tell him that should not be the sole focus of his life because those are the circumstances he lives in.
What do you think differentiates the Tories and Labour? Identity politics.
Sunny is well aware that even the by-now-deeply-corrupt Labour Party is still adept at shamelessly playing identity politics – when La Blears was in the soup over her expense claims she laid on her provincial accent with a trowel and as for the various ‘effnick’ MPs, they know just which notes to strike – please research Vaz’s behaviour about Rushdie’s ‘Satanic Verses.’
Arif refers to Chechnya. Can anyone on the Left or the allied to the Islamists make any sense out of what is happening there?
The vilest Kremlin-picked scoundrels are in power and the reality is a Chechen-on-Chechen secret war in aplace where the primary allegiance is and always really was to the extended clan and not to the Komsomol or the CPSU.
Arif – you are hereby sentenced to at least three hours of reading KAVKAZ CENTER. Come back and tell us what you have to say.
Edna – what do you think the BNP – your political heroes – play? It’s white identity politics. They’re the same as the people who condemn.
Why just pick at Hazel Blears? Why not Margaret Hodge, who sent a racist dog-whistle when she said that asylum seekers were taking housing? (which of course wasn’t borne out by the stats).
Margaret Hodge was making a clear distinction between what she called ”economic migrants” and ”refugees”.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/6673911.stm
She’s the MP for Barking, which stats have shown has the higest rate of demographic change in its primary schools in London.
Whether that is worthy of comment I don’t know.
All of this horrible bad crap and bad feeling would have been avoided with a sane immigration policy from the fifties onwards.
But there was the nonsensical bloody Commonwealth.
Then there were the employers yelling for cheap labour.
Then the whole racialism and anti-racialism stuff and somehow our country slid down the toilet and it is now a multiculti bankrupt slum
Yet JAPAN is fine although over the years there were incessant howls from the employing class for cheap labour
DAI NIPPON !
Damon,
Unlikely, given the current climate, and also considering that open supporters of the BNP and their ideology keep turning up here on PP.
Depends on the specific person and their motivations for “reacting” about that.
My own point is that you need to understand that identical arguments can be made about Al-Muhajiroun and similar groups. Not that I personally believe any credence should be given to anything Al-Muhajiroun, HuT, Bakri, Hamza etc say, but something for you to consider is that a white person who is supposedly opposed to the BNP but repeatedly states “they do have a point in some matters” along with stating “I can see where some BNP (or Jennifer Smith type) comments on this might come from” is identical to a Muslim person claiming to be opposed to Al-Muhajiroun but repeatedly stating “they do have a point in some matters” and “I can see where some Al-Muhajiroun (or Anjem Choudary type) comments on this might come from”, finishing off with “I don’t think we should totally ignore the reactionary Islamist extremists”.
This doesn’t mean that the issues involved shouldn’t be discussed — whether they’re the more negative aspects of immigration or, for example, torture & illegal foreign wars — but one should always consider whether it’s an appropriate time & place to raise such matters. Speaking objectively, from the semi-detached point of view of someone who is neither white nor Muslim, it would be as unwise for a white person to say “the BNP do have a point about x & y” on a comments thread which is being monitored and participated on by the BNP and its supporters and at a time when the BNP is supposedly making some headway in their agenda as it would be for a Muslim person to say “Al-Muhajiroun, HuT and Al-Qaeda do have a point about x & y” on a comments thread which is being monitored and participated on by Al-Muhajiroun and its supporters at a (hypothetical) time when the organisation is increasing its support base, even if in both cases the white and Muslim individuals concerned claim they do not actually support either of those organisations.
A person should always think about timing, context, whether it is appropriate and constructive for them to say something (especially if it’s something negative about another group), and the wider impact of doing so.
One more thing. I’ve noticed that you’ve repeatedly made references to this being a “leftist website” along with remarks about “the left” in relation to this blog’s authors and commenters and their attitudes/reactions to the BNP and other racist affiliates. With all due respect, your comments are inaccurate, because although this website’s general ethos can indeed be classified as “left” (or “centre-left”, as Sunny himself has said), a lot of regular commenters — particularly amongst the non-white and Jewish participants — cannot necessarily be classified as being “left-wing” in the traditional sense, either in terms of their political views as a whole or in terms of the fact that their overall stance on matters is combination of different areas of the political spectrum, depending on the specific scenario.
In the cases of the non-white and Jewish commenters in particular, their stance and attitudes towards the BNP and other white racists has nothing to do with “the left” and everything to do with being amongst the targets of the racists’ agenda. I think it’s extremely important to make this matter clear, so please take this on-board.
Nick Griffin, however, is not. As I said earlier, the BNP, its supporters, its various international “allies”, and its various ideological and “intellectual” proponents should be treated in exactly the same way as Al-Muhajiroun, HuT, their supporters, their more openly violent co-ideologues such as Al-Qaeda, and their various ideological and “intellectual” proponents, “scholars” etc. Including the fact that the rantings of Syyed Qutb, similar extremist Islamist “thinkers”, and the more extreme Wahhabis have their counterparts in pseudo-intellectual advocates of white supremacy and “white nationalism” (case in point is American Renaissance, the New Century Foundation, and their various contributers, allies & supporters).
BUT Jai -
Some would simply say
Buy good suitcases
Put your cash into 24 carat gold
read the papers
and
remember that JAPAN resisted all the boss-classes’ desperate and endless entreaties to import cheap labour from the Philippines and Indonesia and – retch – Pakistan and so has NONE at all of this shite to endure
and
Benazir in Opposition whimphred over the fate of the Muslim-Biharis in Bangladesh and how they ought to be allowed into Pakistan and then IN OFFICE she heard what people in Karach said and she said “NOTHING DOING”
be prepared to run when things get REAl bad
Edna: are you not Bill Corr / Scots Tiger (I loved the plug for your book) ? Is your college lecturing “cheap labour” in KSA ?
If you’re not you seem to be incredibly similar (bringing up links to the Al- Haiti case), Theodore Dallyrimple, and the switching to capitalised sub-headings to emphasise certain points. In fact, mention of the KSA lecturing job is the only thing you haven’t done as Edna.
Ya Adnan but not Adnan Khashoggi of that Ilk -
If Edna had a teaching job at KFMMC in Dhahran then the androgenous s/he would keep quiet about it
O Adnan
one might assume that one poster suffers from multiple personal disorders without necessarly taking meds but …
One of the joys that the anonymity and semi-anonymity of the ‘net confers …
The deranged posters on SOCIALIST UNITY called [me] a zionist and a nazi on the same day
We ZIONAZI watchers of PressTV and Russia Today and CCTV have a hard life on the ‘net – even being called libs and commies on some sites
[As I write PressTV says people in Byzantium are marching against the possibly-imagined threat of a military coup -- the marchers are both Islamists and Rightists]
TO SERIOUS MATTERS
Watch Koyanagi Yuki singing KIMIGAYO and then THE STAR-SPANGLED BANNER on YouTube
Report
Check out jihadist-friendly KAVKAZ CENTER and consider what they have to say
Report
This minute on PressTV there is a demo by Shias in London about Taliban oppression / extortion* in Waziristan
* like Ulster and the Tamil zones of Sri Lanka
Sunny:
I accept that people feel part of groups. Fair enough. What I want to avoid is where people become defined by one group. Your factory worker will in part be moulded by his work environment, but it doesn’t mean he will have the smae views as everyone else in his workplace. He may be a hardline Christian and vote on abortion and marriage. He may have a grudge against his union and so vote Tory. He may vote communist because he considers Labour too business friendly.
Rumbold, I think I agree with your sentiment, I think there is a subtle, yet important difference between id politics and identifying with a certain categorisation of whatever stem.
Though I like to read your work Sunny very much, there seems to be something unexplainable towards your liking of id politics, and nobody should want to take that away from you, but is this not some kind of nostalgia? We don’t like aristocrats or BNP supporters appealing to id politics, so who should? And don’t ask Joe Orton’s alter ego #89, 92, 94, 96, 97!!
Jai, I hear what you say, but wonder if we should bother that much about what the BNP think and watch our words so much because there are some of their supporters on here reading this and making comments.
For example, I replied to something Sunny said about Margaret Hodge … and was followed by this ‘Edna Elthorpe’ making a point about immigration policy.
So would it have been better to say nothing? Just because of that? I know why you say what you did, I just feel that ‘we’ shouldn’t be dictated to by fear about what ‘they’ might take from it.
Though, point taken about saying this is a leftist website. For me, leftist is a term I equate with open and positive things (like Lucy James’ excelent opening post for the ‘What Muslim Women Want’ thread). Maybe I shouldn’t call that leftist, but call it progressive or something along those lines.
As to you mentioning ”the current climate” I think I disagree. I’ve already said that I think that Riz MC overdoes it in that song ‘Sour Times’. In my opinion these are good times … even taking into consideration the BNP getting two Euro MPs elected. I just have to look at my school going niece and her friends to see that. They are from every background and for them this multi-cultural society is just everyday normality.
When I said that I don’t think we should ignore the reactionary right (the likes of Migration Watch and Jon Gaunt and the Daily Mail) I say that because I think their arguments should be tackled head on in the same way that those questions to the BNP took them head on. I think it’s easier with the BNP because they are so extreme, but the Daily Mail is far more entrenched in our society, and the views of Jon Gaunt are the ones that I am mostly likely to hear echoed in the canteen at work.
I’m off to Dublin next week, and I will definitely be going out to this part of West Dublin to see how things are there.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uUUD7MqxmxE
There are all kinds of racist, anti-immigration points that could be made about this situation, and not all of them are easy to counter.
(And this Irish news report was made before the Irish economy went into major recession).
That’s why I said that the right ”can have a point” (from their point of view).
I’m sure a large segment of Irish society might say that they should be careful of opening up the country to immigration too much.
And that (maybe even) that things went to fast in that area already. I’m sure I’ll hear some comments like that, (as I’m sure to be asking) but I won’t want to be thinking that anyone who says something less than ‘PC’ is automatically a facist or something.
It is quite a difficult situation.
damon
“I’m sure a large segment of Irish society might say that they should be careful of opening up the country to immigration too much.”
yes because the Irish never emigrated anywhere did they?
What I want to avoid is where people become defined by one group. Your factory worker will in part be moulded by his work environment, but it doesn’t mean he will have the smae views as everyone else in his workplace. He may be a hardline Christian and vote on abortion and marriage.
Oh completely! I’ve never actually said that people should be defined by one solitary identity. My whole point in talking about identity politics is to open up people to the idea that everyone has multiple identities.
But they still have those identities – whether you’re a working class Tory or a born-again Christian or just a middle of the road atheist from Islington. Your world-view is your identity and that still defines you.
I think we are more in agreement than we realise. I all want is for people to stop treating others in certain way, and expecting them to behave in a certain way, because of one of their identities (the obvious example being Muslims apologising for terrorism).
Is that it Munir? It’s not of much worth as a comment in my opinion. Of course the Irish have emegrated all over the world. What’s that got to do with anything?
And can I just make clear that I find the new multi-culturalism an interesting and exciting thing to be happening in Ireland. Because it’s happening from scratch as it were. It’s a bit concerning that the European Council for Fatwa and Research have their headquaters there, but hopefully they won’t have that much impact locally.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Council_for_Fatwa_and_Research
Like Sunny says about not being defined by just one identity, I hope that the new Ireland can mix and match with multiple identities.
In the small town of Gort in the west of Ireland, up to 40% of the popilation are overseas born, (with a majority being Brazilian), and so far I have heard only good things about that situation as far as integration goes. The recession is another matter and some of the Brazilians are finding work hard to get and are going home.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/shared/spl/hi/picture_gallery/08/europe_brazilians_in_ireland/html/1.stm
Whether Ireland will face some of the difficult issues that we face in the UK remains to be seen (like forced marriages and youth alienation for example). Will the Irish police be quicly be charged with being institutionaly racist?
(If I’m boring anyone, you could let me know).
One last thing on identity and people mixing (or not) socially across race or cultural lines. If you never saw this conversation between John McWhorter and Glenn Loury in may last year talking about the coming US election, it’s well worth giving it a look.
http://bloggingheads.tv/diavlogs/11372
The best bits were the sub-sections titled;
”Will racism matter in November?” and
”Is it OK for white people to embrace whiteness?”
If you click on them, the thing jumps foreward to them.
Very interesting I thought. Especially ”Is it OK for white people to embrace whiteness?” – but remember in the setting he’s talking about. He’s talking about blue collar communities in Appalachia.
Damon seems to think that MIGRATIONWATCH is a Reactionary Right body and I can tell you all that MIGRATIONWATCH exists to tell the truth and the whole truth and nothing but the truth.
If twenty Polish-speaking children suddenly show up in the village school at Little Fartbury, who suffers and who pays?
Love and admire and respect the Poles as we all do, the influx of so many in so short a time has simply overwhelmed existing services.
There’s a silver lining, of course.
On a local BBC radio programme, a spokesman of local employers – in Portsmouth – stated flatly that the influx of East Europeans had had “… the beneficial effect of stopping wage inflation…”
We need not mention the Somalis, of whom even benign official figures claim that well over half live in social housing and that well over half live on the dole in one form or another.
They can’t even be deported, either.
O Happy Land!
THE ISLAND OF SAINTS AND SCHOLARS AND MULLAHS
Munir – 102 assumes that the Irish emigrated as penniless wretches rather than as heroic pioneers.
Some were the dregs of Irish society and immediately formed the criminal class in American cities and others were true builders and achievers.
He ought to visit Ireland and see for himself what a suicidal come-all-ye immigration policy has inflicted on a tolerable and tolerant and decent place in a mere two decades, a span of time less than a single generation.
On the other hand, I shall spare him the trouble and the bother of travelling to Ireland and merely sentence him to going to the entry on Kevin Myers on Wikipedia and then clicking on the link which will bring him to what Kevin Myers has had to say about the appalling mess Irish politicians and entire Irish media-and-political class have inflicted on their own supposedly beloved country.
THE IRISH ARE NOT ALONE IN THEIR INSANITY
The Australian political class has ensured that – probably – their children and – certainly – their grandchildren – will be replaced as a ruling class by people of Chinese origins. Right now, low-skill Lebanese gangs are robbing and stabbing Indians and – incomprehensibly – Sudanese and Somalis are welcomed to swell the ranks of the criminal underclass in Australian cities.
Discuss
Irish insanity ?
They went from a 3rd world nation to one of the highest standards of living anywhere within 125 years.
A trip to AMERICAN RENAISSANCE tipped me off to a movie Hollywood has produced about refugees from an alien world
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WZnpzfcMheA
and I hope it works for you
IRISH REALITIES:
Right, a bloke with a modest income obtains a wad of credit cards and maxes them all out. He spends money like a sailor on a spree.
Then what happens?
Inders has switched off his-her brain: we need to understand
1 – debt
2 – bubble economy
3 – mass immigration
4 – a political-media class capable of ignoring what is in front of their noses every day
Inders is hereby sentenced to read ALL of Kevin Myers on both mass immigration AND indebtedness – go NOW to Kevin Myers on Wikipedia and start there …
QUESTION
How many millions of Euros of borrowed money a day or a week or a month does it take to merely hold the present level of equilibrium ?
A million Euros a day or twice that or more? How much?
Inders – read enough about Ireland to answer THAT simple question before you see fit to say ANYTHING about the reality of Ireland in July 2009.
Edna Welthorpe, I’d like to see the opinions of Migration Watch and Kevin Myers taken apart in a calm and reasonable manner. But I’m not sure how possible that is. I spent too long this morning reading through the comments of this thread over on ‘Liberal Conspiracy’.
http://www.liberalconspiracy.org/2009/07/16/political-incorrectness-gone-mad/
It was hard going and too negative a discussion for me.
I don’t agree with your view of things Edna. I think you show callousness.
I can read Myers and those kinds of people. They may have some valid points, but they loose my support because of their shrill populism and always looking at the worst possible outcomes of what might happen.
When I look at what is hapening in some parts of Dublin (and I’ll be there next week), I hope for the best. See these school children in this youtube? That’s the future and it’s no use bitching about it and promoting division.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kRKbiD5O3Tw&feature=related
Ireland is not a heavily populated country (and it once had a far higher population than it does today), so I’d say it has some room for expansion.
It doesn’t really matter what a developed country’s population is, they have various populations from a couple of million to over 300 million in the USA – the larger the population, the larger the economy to support it.
But as I saw in the rest of that youtube, there are some really difficult issues there too.
(There’s several other similar clips that link off that one btw)