Conspiracy invasions and conquests
“I get that we are not necessarily managing our borders in a manner you think is secure. That makes sense. [But] are we scapegoating a people by ascribing to them the idea that somehow there is a plan for them to come in, not assimilate, but in fact homestead [stake a claim] until they get strong enough to take it back…”
This is the question that Daily Show presenter Jon Stewart asks of his guest Pat Buchanan in an interview last week. But he isn’t talking about Muslims, rather Mexicans.
Buchanan, who has published the optimistically titled book ‘State of Emergency: The Third World Invasion and Conquest of America’, believes that Mexicans are crossing the border into America, deliberately not integrating, and waiting for the day when Mexico reclaims Texas and other southern American states.
You can watch the interview here or click play.
Whatever one may think of immigration in America, it is a bit worrying that such broad generalisations have become so mainstream.
Of course you don’t need a conspiracy theory to demonise who you hate but it helps. And don’t forget to say that crime rates are increasing as a result.
Britain has a long history here. Catholics were apparently under the control of the Pope and liable to take over the country; Jews supposedly controlled the world, its money and now the media (and some still believe that).
The latest addition to this ongoing conspiracy mania is quite clearly the supposed Islamisation of Britain. Even through British Muslim constitute around 2% of the population, they are slowly but surely taking over! Or says Rod Liddle with screams of Eurabia. So says Melanie Phillips, to whom any protest against John Reid is another example of “the ongoing attempt to Islamise Britain both by stealth and by force”.
The worry is that such conspiracy theory language has gained so much traction that to laugh it off apparently makes you a middle-class pansy who does not understand The Full Extent Of The Threat We FaceTM. Sigh.
The classic response to this is that well, Jews and Catholics weren’t blowing people up. Well, some were.
And in any case, holding an entire people to account for the actions of some extremists (who do pose a big problem) is not only likely to backfire, but is rather like holding all white people responsible for the racism of a few. And we know how defensive people get over that.
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Conspiracy theory…? What conspiracy theory? There’s no conspiracy theory.
(I) ‘Even through British Muslim constitute around 2% of the population, they are slowly but surely taking over!’
Well, erm, yes, they are according to most demographic estimates. In the next 50 years the Third World will grow by the equivalent of 30 to 40 New Mexicos, whereas the white and European population is projected to fall by around 7.5 million over the next 45 years. This is what Pat Buchannan sees as the death of the West. Nations die when their native populations die. And Europe is dying. It is under attack in our own countries, from our own people. Islam, on the other hand, is growing; and it is growing fast. Fact. As Muslims become an increasingly larger percentage of Britain’s population (vis-à -vis higher birth rates, overseas marriage and mass immigration), their self-confidence, their political power, and consequently their expectations and demands will grow accordingly. Clearly, there is no question that our continent is experiencing fundamental demographic and cultural changes whose long-term consequences no one can foresee.
(II) ‘Or says Rod Liddle with screams of Eurabia. So says Melanie Phillips, to whom any protest against John Reid is another example.’
Melanie Philips? Rod Liddle? John Reid? Easy targets.
But what about Timothy Garton Ash? Yes, you heard me: Timothy Garton Ash. One of the most cerebral intellectuals and esteemed journalists in the United Kingdom – regular columnist for the New York Times and Guardian newspaper. Mr Ash – Oxford don.
Read his interview with Dominic Hilton. From it, you’ll get a clear sense that Garton Ash is making similar predictions to those of Rod Liddle and Melanie Philips and Dr. John Reid. But since the Hilton link is not working at the moment (try it again later), let me quote you an excerpt from one of his other columns:
Look at the demographic map of the world, and you will see one continent above all that needs either a massive baby boom or large-scale immigration to sustain its ageing population. That continent is Europe. Much of our immigration is likely to come from the Muslim world. In theory, it should be easier for Turks, Moroccans, Algerians and Pakistanis to feel at home in Europe than in America, because Europe is just a loose, diverse continent rather than a single nation. In practice, it’s the other way round.
Conspiracy theory my arse.
Amir
I think perhaps you mean “Jews and Catholics weren’t blowing people up”, as opposed to “Jews and Catholics weren’t blowing people” – although that is probably true too.
LOL @ Katy!
If the growth rate of muslim families is 3 kids for 2 parents, we have a 50% growth rate. Now the ‘white’ Uk population growth rate is approximately 0, i.e. 2 kids for 2 parents (or 2 adults). So for Muslims to become 100% of the population, we will need to calculate:
100 = 2(1.5)^X if we solve for X which is the no. of year Muslims will consitute 100% of the UK population, it’ll be: 123 years!!!!
Now this is obviously a rough calculation, but not the horror story that you usually get from the Tabloids. Did you guys hear about the study which showed that the last blonde person would be found in Finland. How on earth did they work that one out.
White South Africans were able to rule their society, be the only ones who voted, despite being about 10% of the population.
Some HuT types are as supremacist, as contemptuous of the morally degenerate alcohol-swigging natives, as any Boer.
It won’t happen, obviously, but its only moderately deranged, not utterly raving, to think it could.
Interesting post.
And really it does point to some amusing ironies. why are some people paranoid that others will ‘take over’? Perhaps because that’s what their ancestors ( or people they believe to be their ancestors) did? History is full of such ‘take-overs’ or whatever we want to call them. You know Saxon kingdoms rising to promince and a waning of the Britons/Celtic kingdoms etc. Then along come the Normans. etc. etc.
Maybe that’s why. in the US context: Oh my ancestors killed all the Indians and now i’m worried the Mexicans will do the same to me.
So there you go Amir – a couple of centuries down the line your descendants will be Muslims and will be demanding no doubt in some successor of the internet forums ‘why are the Martians trying to take over! we’ve been Muslim for so long how dare anyone try and challenge our ancestry!’
Heh heh Chortle Chortle – *stoking the fires some more*
There are always going to be scaremongerers and paranoid BNP types. The issue here is not the grip of their words (which can be discounted fairly easily) but how do we discuss topics when those who claim examining issues of extremism are motivated by racial paranoia — which are bog standard defensive moves by whenever certain issues are raised, by people who are either in denial, mendacious, scared, depressed, or just stupid.
These are important issues of how to create a space and forum without the idiocy of either side inhibiting debate.
soru, the politics of Hizb ut Tahrir and their associated morons are bogus, and will never be enacted, but their negative capability lies not in their achieving their aims, but in the faecal stains they leave wherever they travel preaching their message – the NF will never achieve their aims, but the side effects of their sloganeering and ideological skid marks cause fissures in society, and it is the same with the Hizb ut Tahrir blockheads. And the reactions to them in terms of wider society are the things that corrode further. So, articulate doctors and students who speak from their anus on issues relating to the ummah, numbering a few thousands, and preaching at university campuses and other places fomenting hatred, unceasingly preaching a message of hate, is where the danger lies, not in the idea that Islam can ever ‘dominate’ or organise society – which is a joke, even if some elements seek to bully or harangue, as yet it is not illegal for mad dogs to bark and howl (only to bite) and that includes Pat Buchanan sorts.
Jag: As long as it’s you and me against the NF and Hut, things will be ok.
The nasty thing about South-Africa type situations is the way the nice liberal white guy and the nice liberal black guy could end up on opposite sides, clinging to their own bigots for protection from the violent bigots on the other side.
Mandela rightly gets called a political genius because he was able to move away from that dynamic in South Africa. As the situation here is comparitively so much better, all we need to do is avoid being complete political retards.
Doh! Ahem, thanks for pointing that out Katy I’ve amended it.
Soru – you have nothing to worry about, HuT cannot take part in the political process here. It’s their central agreement. Heh.
Heh, Sonia stop trying to raise Amir’s blood pressure even more. At this rate I’ll be responsible for a man having a stroke over this blog!
But to take his rantings a bit seriously, Amir cites various people claiming that the demographic map of the world is changing fast. So what? The demographic world has been changing from day one. That is nothing new.
People like yourself cite demographic changes as if they are a problem in themselves.
Firstly, Europe takes in about 2% of the world’s immigrants so this idea that all these hordes are just waiting outside to rush in is laughable.
And so what if Muslim families are larger than non-Muslim ones? The Japanese too have a demographic problem then, don’t they. That is their own fault.
But this is rather like the conspiracy theory that Jews are taking over the world simply because many of them were and are rich and part of banking families. So what if they’re rich? Does it automatically mean they are conspiring to take over the world?
Do more Muslim families in the UK automatically mean they are like sleeper cells – waiting for the day when some big Hizb ut Tahrir commander will flick the switch and ask them to rise up against their infidel neighbours? Heh, if yo believe that you need your head checked.
Changing demographics, or changing economics does not automatically mean anything unless you believe there is an ulterior motive. An over-arching plan. The same way Pat Buchanan believes Mexicans aren’t just a problem because they’re there, but because they want Texas back.
You’re part of the same old conspiracy theory machine that Melanie Phillips has been pushing and many others did before her. The rhetoric is all the same.
Heh Sunny alright – i’ll desist baiting Amir, but it was such fun.
Perhaps i should have disguised it as therapy – facing one’s fears and all that..
right ill keep quiet now.
good points sunny re: changing demographics.
From what I can tell mixed race people (who generally take religion less seriously than all other ethnic groups) are the fastest growing ethnic group. Don’t worry folks we’ll match or even beat the Muslim numbers and rule all by the end of the century.;)
Look forward to it Leon
No – an over arching plan is not the sole condition for changing demographics ‘meaning something’.
Values matter – otherwise we wouldn’t have all these comparisons to apartheid era South Africa.
Throughout history, rich people, because they’re lazy, bring in poor people from other parts of the world to work at a rate poor people in their own country wouldn’t accept. Over time, those foreign poor people work hard at what little they have and, after a while, either don’t need to work for the rich people anymore or become rich people themselves. Then they too become lazy and do exactly what rich people used to do before them and bring in more foreign poor people.
It’s like ten thousand spoons when all you need is a knife
Interesting Abdal Hakim Murad (not my fave Musi pundit, it has to be said) cited some bloke I can’t be bothered to look up when writing in Q-News, to suggest a future Europe where urban areas are predominantly Muslim and suburban/rural Christian. But so what? So what if the UK in 2050 is, say, 25% Muslim? The only difference might be a more socially conservative Britain, which is bad news for swingers, obviously. It certainly wouldn’t be any more illiberal than Tony ‘ID card et al’ Blair’s regime. I say, Fareena Alam for prime minister!
Wasalaam
TMA
you’re right Leon – about the mixed group growing the fastest.
perhaps Amir doesn’t need to worry in that case..
White man + Black woman = Black baby
White woman + Black man = Black baby
White man + White woman = White baby
Black man + Black woman = Black baby
Mix it all up and bring on the black planet
ha if there are more muslims then most likely they’ll stop seeing themselves as a ‘minority’ then they might not feel duty bound to hang on to ‘tradition’ but just go with the flow. or there will be the usual pretending we don’t have any ‘sinners’ amongst us on the top and business as usual underneath. it’s hardly as if in countries which are predominantly muslim you don[‘t have the same ole things going on -they simply seem to feel as if they must ‘pretend’ they’re not up to x y z. so add lying to the list.
i was gonna say..unless the ‘one drop’ rule starts to be applied..
Yakoub –
I hadn’t realise that Blair’s ID card was particularly aimed at targetting swingers. Perhaps I missed a claus in the National Identity Register Bill where swingers were to be identified via their cards – and presumably then painted with a big scarlet ‘S’.
Still – this thread shows that there is a overlap between the sets of people who are remain sanguine at the prospect you describe, and those that gnash their teeth over the – far less pronounced socially conservative cast of large parts of the US.
So what if the UK in 2050 is, say, 25% Muslim? The only difference might be a more socially conservative Britain, which is bad news for swingers, obviously.
I doubt that would be the only difference we’d see in that situation! And I wouldnt want to see a society or areas stratified into ghettoes like that – simply another form of monoculturalism. That to me is an abject and grim version of the future and I wouldnt want to see it at all!
Leon why do you think mixed race people don’t organise to give their perspective on things more?
Especially because they are well positioned to give much needed tongue lashings to both sides of their heritage when they are out of order? I’d rather have Zadie Smith and Nikki Bedi lookalikes threatening us with a future takeover than social conservatives and other religionist clowns screaming for attention all the time on the six o’clock news.
Jagdeep, good question and one I intend to answer in the coming years.
Why the coming years? Why not write an article about it!
Why the coming years? Why not write an article about it!
Some things are bigger than an article.;)
What I don’t understand is people who seem to think that if a certain percentage of the British population is ‘Muslim’ this means they are all going to be socially conservative and ‘religious’. Even a cursory glance at the current (very small) Muslim community in the UK shows a huge diversity in values and lifestyles. If, hypothetically, the UK was 25% ‘Muslim’ (which is never going to happen anyway), a large proportion of them would not be strongly religous anyway.
yeah that’s for sure Raz!
Guido had ambition but it was thwarted.
Hilarious typo. Made my day.
Why is everyone on this thread looking into a crystal ball and predicting the future ethnic and religious make up of the UK in 2050?
The thread is about the harm that conspiracy theories can do. Protocols of the Elders of Zion for example became a warrant for genocide (apologies to Norman Cohn) in the main they are diversion from real problems 11/9 conspiracy theories and they ultimately dissuade you from democratic participation (secret government and the whole alien thing).
In relation to Judaism in the UK. The Jewish population is dwindling due to marriage outside the faith and decreased observance. They’ve contributed significantly to British society at large and it’s a bit sad to think that they may no longer be as prominent.
Sunny,
(I) ‘So what? The demographic world has been changing from day one. That is nothing new.’
‘So what’? What do you mean ‘so what’? I care. Lots of people care. I feel at home in my country partly because I can see that my surroundings bear the imprint of past generations whose values were recognisably my own. I could not live in the social world did it not contain a considerable amount of order, a great number of regularities to which I can adjust myself. I love my country, my language, my culture, my history and the familiar sights and sounds that tingle my senses. It makes me feel happy. For it to change so quickly, on the other hand, angers me greatly.
Only the most craven apologist for political correctness would argue that culture, religion, race, ethnicity – those basic ingredients of human history – do not matter. Well, let me tell you, they do matter. They matter quite a lot. Just look at what’s happening right now in the Philippines or Thailand or Malaysia. Identity matters. It will always do so.
Ask yourselves this: Why do so many Indian Sikhs yearn for an independent Khalistan?; or Palestinians a Palestinian state, or Jews a Jewish state, or Kurds a Kurdish state, or Armenians an Armenian state, or Welsh-speakers a bilingual Wales, or Protestants a disunited Ireland, and so on and so forth? Simple: stability and security in their own cultural and physical and linguistic territory. Why, for instance, do so many immigrant multiculturalists yearn for the fruits of multiculturalism, and why do the white working-classes vote for the BNP when their communities are under siege from mass immigration? Simple: stability and security in their own cultural and physical and linguistic territory. So Sunny: stop being such a hypocritical bastard. It’s the ethics of authenticity. Get used to it.
(II) ‘People like yourself cite demographic changes as if they are a problem in themselves.’
This, my comrades, is the phoney utopia of multiculturalism: all people are to be seen as the same, wanting material things, sharing warm feelings toward one another, united by class consciousness far more than they could ever be divided by religion, culture, language, race or ethnicity. ‘Diversity’ is going to unite the best from all cultures, while the worst would magically disappear.
Right? Wrong. Ted Cantle’s report into the 2001 race riots in northern England shows us clearly that there is a special problem of social distance and ‘parallel lives’ between the white working class and the Asian, mainly Muslim, minority in parts of northern England. Too rapid a shift in the racial, ethnic, linguistic, and religious composition of our communities will inevitably loosen the human bonds or connections that permit individuals to work organically and in harmony with each other. It’s human nature. You can’t change it. Positive immigration can only occur very, very slowly – and with a respect for existing ways and values.
(III) ‘Heh, Sonia stop trying to raise Amir’s blood pressure even more. At this rate I’ll be responsible for a man having a stroke over this blog!’
LOL. You wish.
Amir
I think we are in danger of confusing ‘conspiracy theory’ with ‘wrong theory’ or just ‘theory’.
Something is a conspiracy theory only if it involves a hypothetical group actively hiding the evidence that would reveal it’s own actions or existence. For example, sinister Mexicans all falsely answering surveys by saying they are not Mexicans, so proving their sinister intent, the Elders of Zion owning the newspapers that say the Protocols are a forgery, and so on.
It makes me feel happy. For it to change so quickly, on the other hand, angers me greatly.
Oh no, Amir is angry because ‘the Muzzies’ are coming. Stop the brown horde!
Does it look like I have a t-shirt that says I care? Your paranoid rhetoric is old and tired.
Ask yourselves this: Why do so many Indian Sikhs yearn for an independent Khalistan?….
Sometimes because of persecution from other governments, sometimes it is their self-appointed leaders who want it to accumulate power. This does not imply I support that. I am firmly against Khalistan or any state built solely on religious or racial grounds.
Simple: stability and security in their own cultural and physical and linguistic territory.
Why not just say you want Britain to remain white instead of this long-winded mock angry rhetoric?
So Sunny: stop being such a hypocritical bastard.
Typical ad hominem attacks. I haven’t been hypocritical in my stance. But keep screaming, it’s quite amusing.
shows us clearly that there is a special problem of social distance and ‘parallel lives’ between the white working class and the Asian, mainly Muslim, minority in parts of northern England.
And there are other reports showing that segregation is decreasing and that brown kids are less racist than white kids. Whoop whoop!
Too rapid a shift in the racial, ethnic, linguistic, and religious composition of our communities will inevitably loosen the human bonds or connections that permit individuals to work organically and in harmony with each other. It’s human nature. You can’t change it.
I have to agree with Amir here. It is human nature. One reason i’ll never give up my Indian passport. I might speak Enlgish with a strong East Midlands accent, heck even i think like an Englishman, but i’m not sure whether i’ll be accepted as one. I dont want to reduced to a hyphenated identity Indian-Briton. British citizenship to most immigrants is just a parchment of maroon paper which grants them a speedway thru immigration queues.
Why, for instance, do so many immigrant multiculturalists yearn for the fruits of multiculturalism, and why do the white working-classes vote for the BNP when their communities are under siege from mass immigration? Simple: stability and security in their own cultural and physical and linguistic territory.
Its not just true for England but umpteen places in the world. I’ve been always asked why do Marathis in Mumbai vote Shiv Sena despite their organismic Nazi-supporting rants… Simple… Indian Union has cynically destroyed cultural integrity and ethno-liguistic continuity of vast urban tracts of my homestate. I’m sure it must irrate a native Briton to see Gurumukhi signboards in Southall or Tamil in East Ham just as i am when i have to grapple with Urdu signs back in my hometown.
Sunny,
(I) ‘Oh no, Amir is angry because ‘the Muzzies’ are coming. Stop the brown horde’
Get a life you patronising piece of shit. I’m not a racist; never in my life have I used a racial slur – not even in jest (well, on occasion, I have used the pejorative ‘hankey’). I live in Moss Side with my Sikh and Rastafarian homeboys. I’m a Caucasian – yes. But I’m not a racist. I’m a devout Christian and a British patriot. Why the frig should I respect your ‘desi’ culture when you yourself are so contemptuous towards mine? You anti-white, anti-English piece of turd.
(II) ‘Why not just say you want Britain to remain white instead of this long-winded mock angry rhetoric?’
I am a vehement supporter of ‘black immigration’ from Christian countries like Nigeria (ask Arif). It’s cultural. Not racial. For a vast majority of people however, like your dear self, race is everything and everyone: it trumps democracy and social stability.
(III) ‘Typical ad hominem attacks’
POT CALLING KETTLE BLACK!!! POT CALLING KETTLE BLACK!!!.
Amir
Raz wrote: “What I don’t understand is people who seem to think that if a certain percentage of the British population is ‘Muslim’ this means they are all going to be socially conservative and ‘religious’. Even a cursory glance at the current (very small) Muslim community in the UK shows a huge diversity in values and lifestyles. If, hypothetically, the UK was 25% ‘Muslim’ (which is never going to happen anyway), a large proportion of them would not be strongly religous anyway”
Because muslims in the UK are still far, far more religious than the natives. And they mix it with politics. And most of all, when the extremists march around London spouting their vitriol there are no muslim counter demostrators.
Why is 25% muslim never going to happen? We’re at 3%, and muslim birthrates double those of the non muslims. The muslim population is also much younger, so this will have an exponential effect. Then you have immigration of muslims and emigration of natives. Throw in the odd bit of polygamy and whatnot, and by 2050 muslims may well hold the key to every election.
May i throw a spanner in the works by pointing out that Male sperm counts are falling.
“May i throw a spanner in the works by pointing out that Male sperm counts are falling.”
Damn right. I’m trying to drink and smoke enough that I completely eradicate the little buggers.
“Because muslims in the UK are still far, far more religious than the natives”
Nonsense. Even amongst the very small Muslim population in the UK, there are already massive differences in religious observance, particularly amongst the younger generation. The idea that Muslims in the UK are uniformly religious is bogus.
So, 97% of the UK is non-Muslim and people are worried. LOL. Hilarious and Hysterical in equal amounts.
Raz – You miss the point. There is difference in religious observance and ignoring religion altogether. The figures would seem to back me up.
People are worried because we’ve been bombed. Are you going to tell me that muslims find being bombed “Hilarious and Hysterical in equal amounts”?
The question that should be asked is why are nice middle class boys drawn to Islamic fundamentalism and in some cases terrorism?
The 7/7 bombers seemed well integrated and hutr members are mostly middle class undergraduates.
Vikrant,
(I) ‘I might speak Enlgish with a strong East Midlands accent, heck even i think like an Englishman, but i’m not sure whether i’ll be accepted as one.’
If you speak English in an English accent; if you respect our history and our aesthetic qualities (well, erm, excluding a few); if your heart and mind is in the soil of Birmingham; if you enjoy our cultural events and spend some quality time with people of all races; if you’d fight for your co-nationalists and help in times of emergency;… then you’re as English as a scotch egg!
Never forget that. I hope that some day you will come back to our shores to be with the people you left behind. Amey: I have a lot of respect for your patriotism (ditto with Raz and Jagdeeep). It’s refreshing to see. But it doesn’t surprise me either: there’s a new generation of middle-class, upper-crust Asians (educated in pish-posh schools) who are coming out into society to help defend our country, our ways, and values. George Alagiah is the face of a better Britain
(II) ‘I’m sure it must irrate a native Briton to see Gurumukhi signboards in Southall or Tamil in East Ham just as i am when i have to grapple with Urdu signs back in my hometown.’
Too frigging right!!
Amir
Clearly, tongue in cheek comments are open to a broad spectrum of misintepretations round here!! So I’ll make the single point I intended to make, simply. If the numbers of Muslims living in the UK were to increase as a relative percentage of the population, I would say Allahu Akbar! Especially if there was a proportionate decrease in the percentage of suburban white middle class crypto-fascists. Sorry, that tongue just seem to jab outwards of its own accord.
Wasalaam
TMA
Why the frig should I respect your ‘desi’ culture when you yourself are so contemptuous towards mine? You anti-white, anti-English piece of turd.
Poor Amir, that brown bogeyman man must be getting really frightening. When exactly have I expressed any contempt towards “your culture”, whatever that is. In fact you should reserve your ill-thought out invective towards Melanie Phillips who seems to spend more time railing against contemporary British culture than me. But I don’t think that will sit quite right with your hypocritical stance.
Anyway, I’m tired of baiting you like a frothing rottweiler. It’s too easy.
As I said in my initial post, the bone of contention here isn’t whether immigration is right or wrong (because to you having a rational debate on the matter involves accusing others of being English-hating turds). The point is whether you believe these new arrivals are part of some grand conspiracy to “Islamicise Britain”. Phillips isn’t talking about new immigrants in this case (though she does generally anyway) but about British born Muslims.
Bert – before you start looking underneath your bed and worrying about the Muslim growth rate, whatever that maybe, I suggest speaking to a demographer on what the population change might be. I think it may surprise you. And by that I don’t speak to MigrationWatch.
You don’t need a conspiracy theory when expansionist religions like christianity and islam are conspiracies. They both announce that they look forward to the day that their glorious religions will be spread worldwide.
Not many believers think of themselves and their beliefs in that way, of course, but the core aim of the belief-systems is to achieve that end. People don’t have to be conscious of what they’re doing to do it.
An instructive quote from Yakoub/Julaybib,
‘If the numbers of Muslims living in the UK were to increase as a relative percentage of the population, I would say Allahu Akbar! Especially if there was a proportionate decrease in the percentage of suburban white middle class crypto-fascists.’
Raz, here’s the answer to your question: Yakoub’s cultural ambitions are the reason why Christians like me are worried about sudden demographic shifts. And no, these predictions are not based on ‘white paranoia’ or half-baked conspiracy theories. They are provided by experts and professionals: the work of Yogi Berra and Rhett Butler, for example, or population statistics provided by the United Nations.
Sunny (quite predictably) is unable to make any substantive case against the validity of their work or the work of others. D’ya know why? Because he can’t. Because he’s trying to prop up his decaying multicultural corpse against the constant onslaught of racial and religious violence on our streets and a possible BNP-backlash from the indigenous white working-classes. Instead of engaging in a proper political debate, he wastes his energy accusing others (i.e. me) of ‘racism’ and of ‘hating brown people’, while shouting down the many civilised and responsible people with fallacious accusations of conspiracy-mongering. I’m sorry: it doesn’t work. He’s a one-trick pony. ‘Racist racist racist!’ blah, blah, blah,
In response to a question posed by Sonia on a previous thread: I typically base my opinions on three things: (a) emotions (i.e. identity, ethics, aesthetics); (b) life experience; and (c) empirical evidence (statistics). Sunny’s a kung-fu master on A; not so sure about B; fails miserably on C.
What ‘forms my agenda’ is the experience of my life, the study of the history of my country, often at first hand, and of others too, a number of brushes with violence, a great deal of reading, plus the privilege of having lived in one of the roughest areas of Manchester. I would hope that if I had been paying attention I would have got nearer to the truth after all this than I was before.
Re-read my contribution #33 Make up your own minds.
Amir
Living in Moss Side is a privilege?!!!!!!!!!!
Amir — Sunny isnt anti white or anti British. Bite your tongue before you type that kind of thing because it’s beneath you, you are intelligent enough to make your points temperately.
Jagdeep,
I like you. But with all respect, Sunny is the one accusing me of anti-Asian bigotry or, at least, a general antagonism to people of colour. I responded with the suggestion that it is he, not me, who harbours this ugly prejudice. When he refers to Gary’s Younge’s rancid article on the previous thread as ‘brilliant’, it does raise a few obvious questions about his racial schemas. Let me re-quote a few of accusations:
Number 1: ‘Poor Amir, that brown bogeyman man must be getting really frightening.’
Number 2: ‘Oh no, Amir is angry because ‘the Muzzies’ are coming. Stop the brown horde’
Number 3: ‘Why not just say you want Britain to remain white instead of this long-winded mock angry rhetoric?’
This, I hope you agree, is revolting and uncalled for. Which begs the question: Are you reading the same thread as I?
Amir
Sunny,
‘Poor Amir, that brown bogeyman man must be getting really frightening.’
Oh. My. God. I live in a predominantly black area of Manchester. I live with a Rastafarian and a Sikh. I socialize with all colours and all creeds. I’ve been in an intimate relationship with a Hindu and a beautiful Iranian girl. If I’m a racist, then I’m a friggin selfish racist.
Amir.
“I’ve been in an intimate relationship with a Hindu and a beautiful Iranian girl”
NO PAKISTANIS AMIR?
Raz,
Dude, I have so, so, so, so tried it on with Pakistani girls in Rusholme. And I’ve failed miserably – every single flipping time.
Listen, I’m not a bad-looking guy.
But Pakistani girls are too tough to crack. Their families control them. Dating a Pakistani (for a non-Muslim) is like being invited to an exclusive club: enjoy it while it lasts.
D’ya git me? Any advice is welcome – heh heh.
You know Amir, I went to university in Manchester. If I’d known you then I could have hooked you up with limitless hot Pakistani girls. What might have been….
Listen guys – can I be honest with you?
I’m an ordinary white working joe from London and I’ll confess that I find the changes to my life and that of my family unnerving and uncomfortable.
As a young man the demographics of London (and by extension England and the UK) meant little to me. Now, as a father I feel differently. My upbringing was traditional and by and large happy. My parents applied cultural values taken from their parents and the community around them.
Whom were the community around them? Brothers and sisters, people they had gone to school with, worked with, neighbours they could relate to and whom had similar backgrounds and beliefs to themselves.
In a similar way the friends I chose were bound to me by the same process.
In the most simplistic sense I do want the UK to remain predominately ‘white’ and British. Not because of any illusion of superiority, but because I see clearly that people are tribal in nature. I’m not sure that cultures, until recently separated by continents, can flourish together.
I fear for my children that the future holds division and dischord for them. I don’t want that. I want people in the UK to rediscover the sense of community only recently taken away. I don’t see this happening when there is little to draw a multicultural society together.
These are not the rantings of a bigotted hermit. Honestly. I speak from life experience – I grew up in West London and indeed went to the same school as the very same Nirpal Dhaliwal.
I’m sure most of you will disagree but well you would do wouldn’t you? Those newer arrivals to the UK would prefer the reverse of the above in order to feel less different or isolated in a multicultural society. I can see that.
There endeth the lesson.
“Bert – before you start looking underneath your bed and worrying about the Muslim growth rate, whatever that maybe, I suggest speaking to a demographer on what the population change might be. I think it may surprise you. And by that I don’t speak to MigrationWatch.”
Figures via the Brookings Institution:
http://www.brookings.edu/views/op-ed/fellows/taspinar20030301.htm
I don’t actually agree with migrationwatch. For one, an aging society with a falling birthrate needs immigration, but that doesn’t follow that it needs a change of culture. Secondly, I’m a migrant myself so I try to keep a lid on the hipocrisy.
And I can’t see under my bed anyway – there’s a damn great rifle in the way.
> And really it does point to some amusing ironies.
> why are some people paranoid that others will ‘take
> over’?
They arent. Every new generation invents, learns, advances civilization. That is how it should be. Next enter a generation whose favourite passtime is slitting throats, throwing stones and burning cars. Its the destruction of what all previous generations worked for. Now that is worrysome.
Population growth is contingent upon the number of lumps in your custard. Its going down and thank god for that i hate Kids.
Bert ignore the rifle get your porn and knock one out.
Amir and The Informer – Have you read my posts here:
http://www.pickledpolitics.com/archives/800
If you are also around the white working class, would you agree there is something ugly building?
ZinZin – My rifle IS porn.
Amir, I am shocked at your reaction to what have been reasonable responses from Sunny.
Cut it out!
I’ve always been entertained by your contributions even though agreed with none of the substantive issues you’ve tried to address.
Your arguments are generally weak – but that should not stop you. The blogs, Pickled Politics is no exception, are littered with specious arguments. Yours are unique in that you provide links for every thought you have ever had. This of course has the capacity to fray most nerves.
Your territory is obscure and in a modern world, irrelevant. To the extent that I think up until recently you’d been taking the mickey.
But now its getting personal.
I believe it is you who is being hypocritical – I recall Sunny’s indignation when you accused him of (unfairly in my view) anti-semitism; and now you respond in the way you do simply because you choose to take umbrage at Sunny’s evaluation of what you are saying.
As for the article itself, if its up to Gary Younge’s normal standard I expect it to be pretty good.
Bert, all the article says is: “If current trends continue, the Muslim population of Europe will nearly double by 2015, while the non-Muslim population will shrink by 3.5 percent.”
That’s not exactly detailed demographics. The article just seems to be scaremongering.
The Informer – what changes do you mean exactly? Over the last 30-40 years the ethnic minority population has inched up from about 3% to 8%. That is hardly an earth shattering threat to the British way of life. It’s time people stopped reading the Daily Mail, for their own health.
I don’t get the exact problem here. Are people worried about second / third gen British Asians who are, by and large, anxious to fit in, earn a living an get on with their lives, or white Eastern European immigrants?
There seems to be a conflating of issues with constant talk of “preserving our culture” with no reference to exactly who is trying to destroy it.
Just tell me this. Who is trying to destroy your way of life. How? How popular are they? What chances do they have? I’d love to know the answers.
They are provided by experts and professionals: the work of Yogi Berra and Rhett Butler, for example, or population statistics provided by the United Nations.
Right, a dead baseball player and Mr. Scarlett O’Hara are expert demographers and statisticians.:) Admit it Amir, you took this verbatim from the amazon.com blurb for Pat Buchanan’s latest screed, didn’t you?
I am sorely tempted to start a midweek open thread, you know. Some of us desperately need somewhere to hide…
Sunny – I took issue with someone saying “the UK will never be 25% muslim”. How’s that scaremongering? How would you put it without scaremongering? Or do you agree that it’s an impossibility?
An example of really bizarre scare-mongering is this para from Amir’s first response.
In the next 50 years the Third World will grow by the equivalent of 30 to 40 New Mexicos, whereas the white and European population is projected to fall by around 7.5 million over the next 45 years. This is what Pat Buchannan sees as the death of the West.
Yeah, we know the Indians and Bangladeshis have a birth control problem. You don’t have to remind them. But those New Mexicos will be in Mumbai, Mexico, Dhaka and Delhi – not bloody London.
The west, over the next 50 years, will see its influence decline anyway as more Asian nations become developed, become industrialised and start investing in weapons technology. India, China, Brazil, Indonesia etc. They will also become big industrial powers because they have huge populations that will one day become conumers and fuel a massive industrial drive, as China is doing now.
It’s really got nothing to do with the Muslim bogeyman. The Middle East is crap, economically, other than Dubai (which has been rapidly industrialising and diversifying). The rest of the Middle East neither have the populations nor the size to be giant industrial powers. Population growth and economic development will come from India and China, and will fuel further development in South Korea, Thailand, Singapore, Japan, Taiwan, Vietnam etc.
This is just economics. It has nothing to do with some grand conspiracy theory. Instead I’m being fed scare-mongering statements that are passed off as analysis.
Katy – heh… sorry!
Bert – Assuming (and this is a big assumption not backed up by historical analysis) that British Muslims continue to have larger families than non-Muslim Britons for ever and ever, how long do you think it will take for that 2% to grow to 25%?
Sunny it’s the rhetoric and violence and hatred pumped out by Muslim extremists that causes this reaction. Deal with them and things will be better. People are scared of Muslims because of what has happened since the Satanic Verses affair and everything else since. They see large parts of their cities changing in ways that they dont recognise them anymore, and they feel that Muslims are not integrating. Maybe they are integrating but at their own slow pace, but the whole thing becomes more sinister when there are Muslim extremists killing and preaching hatred, protesting against free speech, and they also have prominence in the media, and further to that, every few months there is another gang of Muslims busted for blowing people up. People arent that bothered by Hindus or Africans or Sikhs or Chinese or Polish people because they’re not plotting to kill nor do they have as many loud mouthed extremists. But Muslims do. Castigating white people for feeling that way will not solve the problem, because the problem is real, and it is not a figment of the imagination.
Katy, no need to hide. This could prove to be quite entertaining.
Amir is a master of sorts – and it would be good to watch this played out.
“Bert – Assuming (and this is a big assumption not backed up by historical analysis) that British Muslims continue to have larger families than non-Muslim Britons for ever and ever, how long do you think it will take for that 2% to grow to 25%?”
I honestly have no idea. I sort of drive a white van about. Compound interest never my style to be frank.
Does how long matter though? That’s like those saying fuck the environment and the grandchildren, I want a petrol-sucking monster and I can’t be arsed to recycle. Short sightedness is the curse of democracy.
SuzyQ:
“every few months there is another gang of Muslims busted for blowing people up.”
This would be funny were it not for intelligent people buying into it.
BertP:
“Does how long matter though? That’s like those saying fuck the environment and the grandchildren, I want a petrol-sucking monster and I can’t be arsed to recycle.”
Unwitting though this statement is – the underlying sentiment is deeply offensive. Reminds me of the psychology behind the Nazi propaganda film comparing jews to rats. Are you sure you are saying what you mean?
Amir,
‘They are provided by experts and professionals: the work of Yogi Berra and Rhett Butler’
What?
That’s so surreal I’m almost convinced.
Don,
I was building up to my Yogi Bear line, but Amba pretty much beat me to it.
Refresh, you strike me as an example of the kind of person who has contempt for ordinary people and is in denial about basic facts, that there are a hard core of Muslims in this country who are determined to kill and slaughter through acts of terrorist violence in the name of their religion, and that there are major issues of intolerance and hatred and bigotry within some sections of the Muslim community that leads to people being scared of them. In fact your rather patrician snootiness and contempt towards those who are concerned with these very real issues marks you out as someone either very insincere or very stupid.
Sunny –
No. The point is whether one believes migration and insufficient integration will “Islamicise Britain”.
Painting everything with the colours of conspiracy neatly avoids dealing with any real issues.
Castigating white people for feeling that way will not solve the problem, because the problem is real, and it is not a figment of the imagination.
SuzyQ I am absolutely not doing that. I do however castigate people when they conflate unrelated issues just because they happen to have Muslims involved.
Like for example immigration with second generation Britons. Or concocting bizarre conspiracies of a Muslim takeover.
I am absolutely aware of religious extremists and have no sympathy for them. But I believe central to dealing with the problem is actually having a better understanding of the problem.
Just because people are scared is no excuse for them to go mental and start blaming everyone. That just makes things worse. Agreed?
Thus all I ask for is a more nuanced understanding here so the right people can be identified and dealt with.
SuzyQ, perhaps stupid but not insincere.
I understood perfectly the point of your comment. Its the fear. And my point was that every few months we will get a scare, we have had only one (one too many) bombing here in the UK – Your comment states that there have been regular arrests for bombings. Not true!
In fact there have hardly been any actual convictions, plenty of arrests and releases.
It will be like this for a generation. How do I know this? Well, Bush and co. as well as Blair tell us that this ‘conflict’ will last a generation. And if the blueprint is the same as the Cold War – then expect to be invaded, converted, or out-birthed.
Maybe I am in a snooty mood.
Chris: No. The point is whether one believes migration and insufficient integration will “Islamicise Britainâ€.
Well this is what I want to get to the bottom of too!
1) How exactly will this Islamicisation happen? As Raz points out, and I know perfectly well from personal experience, neither are most Muslims particularly religious and neither are they controlled by external Saudi Arabian authorities. Believing that is a conspiracy theory.
2) How much of immigration is of Muslim origin? And what are the predicted demographic impacts? I’d like to see stats, not rhetoric.
Bert Prest says: That’s like those saying fuck the environment and the grandchildren, I want a petrol-sucking monster and I can’t be arsed to recycle. Short sightedness is the curse of democracy.
But this is exactly my point. Your answer could be 25% in 2200 and by that time we could all be dead or significantly impacted by global warming. In fact I see that as a much bigger killer than any wannabe Osama Bin Laden.
This is why I see such scare-mongering no different to previous attitudes to Catholics and Jews. The parallels are all there of a take-over by an external column.
Another example of conflating issues is when riots break out by vandals or criminal youths who happen to be Muslim. Suddenly there is talk of a Muslim takeover again. The Spectators declared ‘Eurabia’ during the Paris riots last year when those kids were among the most likely in Europe to identity themselves with the host country and were the least religious group.
It is this stupid analysis that annoys me, not the invective against the real culprits like Al-Ghuaraaba, Hizb ut Tahrir or the Muslim Brotherhood.
Refresh it will be this way for a generation because of the Muslims who want to kill people by terrorism in the name of their religion. And this fear has been there since religious extremists rioted on the streets of Britain trying to kill a writer. These are not figments of the imagination concocted in a labratory by politicians, these are spontaneous eruptions from within the Muslim community. These are real issues.
Sunny, the largest immigrants at the moment, and for the forseeable future, will be eastern europeans.
SuzyQ – can’t agree. Not wishing to be snooty but I guess I no longer have the energy to go round this one again.
The point is whether one believes migration and insufficient integration will “Islamicise Britainâ€.
Well, sufficient migration and insufficient integration did manage to ‘Israelify’ Palestine, so it is not intrinsically impossible, on a 100-year timescale.
http://www.mideastweb.org/palpop.htm
suggests current Israel went from 3% Jewish in 1880 to 12%, and the first serious riots and revolts, in the 1920s, and an open war in 1947 at 33%.
Of course, palestine was not a democracy, so didn’t get to set its immigration rate to what was acceptable to those already living there, the migrants were mostly comitted zionists (not a conspiracy, just a political movement), often wealthy, and made relatively little attempt to integrate to arab culture, and so on.
Still, that level of direct immigration is very different from demographic growth, people being brought up in a country to foreign-born parents.
So I think that nightmare scenario is something that won’t happen, rather than can’t happen, or wouldn’t matter at all if it did happen. Civil wars, it is generally agreed, suck.
One thing: Islamic immigration rates have dropped like a stone since the Afghan and Iraq wars, and non-Islamic ones have soared since the decision to automatically admit Poles on EU accession. I’m not convinced those two things are purely unintentional…
Amba (and Don)
(I) ‘Right, a dead baseball player and Mr. Scarlett O’Hara’
Witty. You sexy intellectual! But no, seriously, Yogi Berra was a futurist and an unorthodox demographer. And everything he said has come true. Buchannan also cites Bill Brass, Stewart Brand, and Thomas Homer Dixon (the latter is not a demographer, however).
(II) ‘Admit it Amir, you took this verbatim from the amazon.com blurb for Pat Buchanan’s latest screed, didn’t you?’
I own most of Pat Buchannan’s books, and one of those books is his magnum opus Death of the West. So yes: I am going to cite the very same sources that sourced his controversial statements about the death of Europe. Everything he predicted (pre-9/11) has come true: interracial rioting, nasty protests over free speech and expression and white working-class alienation. But no: I have not repeated his blurb on PP by verbatim. Read my contributions. Compare it to the blurb. You will find no verbatim. Sunny often cites the opinions of Professor Amartya Sen. There’s no harm in that. Is there?
Amir
Urggh, shit: that should read post-9/11
Katy,
‘I am sorely tempted to start a midweek open thread, you know. Some of us desperately need somewhere to hide…’
I vehemently apologise for causing you distress. It is not nice, for anyone, to witness two grown men having a go at each other like Punch and Judy. So I apologise. It’s not nice. I’m sorry Katy. I’ve let myself down. No more fighting words.
If only I was more like Jai!!! D’oh.
If anyone wants a rebuttal to this ‘conspiracy theory’ crap, then let me direct you to the following essay:
Eurabia? – Niall Ferguson.
Amba (Don),
Sorry. In retrospect, I agree with you. I’ve cited two of the most obscure and amusing sources in the hope that people would recognise ‘em from a google (hence the tongue-in-cheek reference on the blurb). Honestly, I’ve read the book (though it’s been a few years). I own it. Give me some time. And I’ll provide you with some hyperlinks to the official UN statistics. It shouldn’t take me long. Unless someone else can get there before me?
Here one already.
And another.
Errr….sorry. Amba. Do you fancy going out on a date with me?
xxxx [heh heh heh]
Sunny
In response to #64.
The Dail Mail eh? I’ll cancel my subscription. What would you recommend instead? The Independant, or how about the Guardian?
Sure the population of Cornwall or Norfolk hasn’t changed too much, but in my neck of the woods it did. My earliest years were spent in Wembley (this was the early 70′s – the 1970′s and not 1870′s before you ask)and things certainly changed around there.
Surely you can understand that the arrival of people with different customs, cultures, languages, that you share very little with, will change a community.
Maybe you can’t understand. You (or your parents/grandparents) chose to leave their environment and step into a new world. I guess for you that the expectation is that your way of life must change substantially.
But what if you kind of liked the ways things were going on before hand? But then the shops close down and are replaced by those to cater for others, the cinema now shows different films, no-one joins the local cricket club (people set up a new one instead), your local pub closes, your neighbours can’t (or won’t) talk to you – what have you got in common anyway – what would you talk about?
Second or third generation Asians, in my experience, are not “anxious to fit in.” Well certainly not “fit in” with my values and traditions. Sure we tick the same boxes in terms of the most basic needs, but when it comes to more complex jigsaw of culture then no. Yes they are anxious to lead their own lives – seperately from mine. As much as I understand why – I don’t want that. I want the future to be better, I wantlocal communities to be closer as they used to be.
I’ll be honest – I do struggle (generalising as I must)to see most recent arrivals to the UK as having, for want of a better description – the same culture as me. We lead rather seperate lives, have different interests, experiences, traditions and values.
The same is not true for immigration from Eastern Europe. The average Polish fellow I’m sure I’ll have more in common with. I can see him fitting in – as happened after the Second World War, marrying an British girl and adopting the culture.
That’s the way it is.
Refresh,
‘But now its getting personal.’
Let me take you out for an expensive meal sometime?
I’m a big, big, big softy really. Deep down, I’ve got a heart of gold. Nothing turns me on more than having to convert a British Pakistani left-winger to the ‘dark side’, errm, shit, I mean, … the right-wing side. It’ll be a challenge. Very few Moslem girls can resist the sweet, sensitive charms of the Amir.
Ask your parents for permission.
Just don’t tell em’ who I am [my reputation is devastating in its devastatingness].
xxxx
Amir – once again you’re not reading what I write.
Niall Ferguson’s essay is no different to the rubbish that has been cited above. The only demographic stats I could glean were these:
A hundred years ago—when Europe’s surplus population was still crossing the oceans to populate America and Australasia—the countries that make up today’s European Union accounted for around 14 percent of the world’s population. Today that figure is down to around 6 percent, and by 2050, according to a United Nations forecast, it will be just over 4 percent.
Right… so? Blame the Indians and the Chinese. Europe’s shrinking percentage of the world population is a natural result of rising incomes and industrialisation. The same has happened in Japan.
The decline is absolute as well as relative. Even allowing for immigration, the United Nations projects that the population of the current European Union members will fall by around 7.5 million over the next 45 years.
Umm… and? This is typical of these so-called rebuttal essays: some stats about how Europe’s population is declining and some vague stats that the Muslim population is expanding fast. I still want to know when they’ll hit 25% in the UK.
Can I just point out the obvious – any family regardless of religion in a low income country will have lots of kids. I met Hindu villagers in my recent India trip with eight kids! 8 kids! Crazy people. But you go to the urban areas and Hindus/Muslims are content with 2 kids.
Is all this too difficult for you folks to understand? Would you like some illustrations with pretty pictures? Sheesh.
The Informer – See, Wembley is a bad example. I blame the Gujaratis. Ok, I kid, but only slightly. I do believe there are issues with second gen Asians but I think they are superficial. People seem to stay in their groups on minor cultural differences. Over time this will change as history has shown. I believe that.
Though you may be right on expecting continuous change. But I think that’s part of being a liberal libertarian. Conservatives generally, including Asians, also hate seeing change.
RAZ!!
‘If I’d known you then I could have hooked you up with limitless hot Pakistani girls. What might have been’
Dude, don’t do this to me!!! What degree did you do?
Raz,
Yeah, but come on, Pakistani girls are totally under the thumb of their parents. Except for those proper posh Pakistanis who go to private school and have this lar-de-dar public school accent: the ones that wear Dolce & Gabbana and Louis Vuitton. You know the type.
Where did you live in Manchester anyways? Fallowfield? Didsbury? Withington? Salford? Or the Islamic Republic of Rusholme? Heh heh.
Amir,
Are you in Moss side? Well I will be in the area this week. You can buy me a meal – but no silly stuff. Find a restaurant near Picadilly as I have a train to catch.
Early Thursday evening would be good.
I don’t think I’ll have problems with getting permission from my parents, and I am sure my wife wouldn’t mind. Although she has expressed concern about meeting blog people.
Refresh,
Hahahahahahahahahahah!!
You’re not a ‘he’. You’re a ‘she!!
You’re a bloke? For. Fucks. Sakes. This has happened too many times.
As Graham Norton put it: ‘What’s the difference between a heterosexual and a bisexual?’
Answer: ‘About 4 pints in my experience’.
Amir, does that mean the meal is off?
“A hundred years ago—when Europe’s surplus population was still crossing the oceans to populate America and Australasia—the countries that make up today’s European Union accounted for around 14 percent of the world’s population. Today that figure is down to around 6 percent, and by 2050, according to a United Nations forecast, it will be just over 4 percent. ”
And what were the proportions in 1500 or 1000AD, say? From about 1500 to 1950 the number and proportion of the world’s population of European-descended people in the world expanded at an extraordinary rate, becaause of particular circumstances [the discovery of the americas and the industrial revolution and its consequences]. Then it stopped. The one thing we can be pretty sure of in predicting the future is that going by “current trends” just doesn’t work.
Sunny wrote: “But this is exactly my point. Your answer could be 25% in 2200 and by that time we could all be dead or significantly impacted by global warming. In fact I see that as a much bigger killer than any wannabe Osama Bin Laden”
So do I. The huge difference being we get nice comfy lives in exchange for global warming. What does OBL bring to the table? Is he easier to eradicate than climate change?
Roger I agree this is what i said much earlier but were all playing mystic meg here.
Refresh, do not compromise your marriage for Amir, no matter how smooth he might seem…
I fear for my children that the future holds division and dischord for them. I don’t want that. I want people in the UK to rediscover the sense of community only recently taken away. I don’t see this happening when there is little to draw a multicultural society together.
Like I said don’t worry; mixed race people will be the biggest ethnic group within our lifetime. We are a natural bridge between cultures and wont let that dischord happen (also keep in mind that the huge majority of mixed race peeps are British born and bred).;)
I’ve been reading this thread with interest, because I love to see apocalytic predictions about the end of civilisation as we know it. There’s a famous economist called Barro, him and his wife are in Harvard, and they recently wrote a paper called Religion and Economic Growth. It’s pretty much state-of-the-art in terms of looking at demographic forecasts, and looks at cross-sectional analysis, so check it out:
http://www.economics.harvard.edu/faculty/barro/papers/Religion_and_Economic_Growth.pdf
For those interest just in the summary, I’ll just put in the conclusion:
“Our empirical work used a cross-country panel that includes country levelinformation on church attendance and religious beliefs. These data derive from
individual information collected in six international surveys between 1981 and 1999.
Although religiosity tends to decline overall with economic development, the partial relations depend on the specific dimensions of development. For example, the measures of religiosity are positively related to education, negatively related to urbanization, and positively related to the presence of children. Increased life expectancy tends to be negatively related with church attendance but positively related to religious beliefs.
The presence of a state religion is positively related to the religiosity measures, probably because of the subsidies that typically flow to the established religions.
However, religiosity is negatively associated with government regulation of the religion market and with the religious oppression that accompanied the presence of a Communist government. The elimination of Communist regimes led to a recovery of religiosity in most of these countries during the 1990s. In subsequent work, we plan to clarify these linkages by using Fox and Sandler’s (2003) Religion and State data set to get direct measures of government subsidy and suppression of religion.
Greater religious pluralism, measured by the diversity of adherence among major religions, is associated with higher church attendance and beliefs. Across the religions, attendance at religious services is higher for Catholic than for the other religions, except for Muslim. The beliefs in heaven and hell tend to be highest for Muslim, then Catholic,
then the other faiths.
The analysis of the determinants of religiosity allows us to construct a set of instrumental variables to use to estimate the effects of religion on economic growth. The results show that, for given religious beliefs, increases in church attendance tend to reduce economic growth. In contrast, for given church attendance, increases in some religious beliefs—notably in hell, heaven, and an after-life—tend to increase economic
growth. There is also some indication that the stick represented by the fear of hell is more potent for growth than the carrot from the prospect of heaven.
We should stress that these patterns of growth effects apply when we control for reverse causation by using the instrumental variables suggested by our analysis of the determinants of religiosity. The instruments are the existence of a state religion, the presence of government regulation of religion, the extent of religious pluralism, and the composition of adherence among the main religions. The results remain intact when we enter the composition of religions directly into the growth equations. Based on the arguable exogeneity of the instrumental variables, we think that our estimates reflect causal influences from religion to economic growth, rather than the reverse.
Our conjecture is that higher religious beliefs stimulate growth because they help to sustain aspects of individual behavior that enhance productivity. In subsequent research, we plan to make these channels explicit by studying the linkages between religious beliefs and specific individual characteristics, such as thrift, work ethic, honesty, and openness to strangers. We will measure these characteristics by using survey responses from the World Values Survey.
We think that higher church attendance depresses growth because it signifies a larger use of resources by the religion sector, and the main output of this sector (the religious beliefs) has already been held constant. The results do not mean that greater church attendance has a net negative influence on growth—this net effect depends on the extent to which a rise in attendance leads to greater beliefs, which encourage growth.
Thus, another interesting extension would be to attempt to estimate the influence of church attendance on religious beliefs.
We mentioned that church attendance might also measure the social capital built up through organized religion. We also noted that church attendance could proxy for the influence of organized religion on laws and regulations that affect economic behavior.
Our results indicate that, for given religious beliefs, the overall effect from greater church attendance is to reduce economic growth. This overall effect combines the resources used up by the religion sector, the social-capital aspect of this sector, and the influence of organized religion on laws and regulations. In subsequent research, we plan to use Fox
and Sandler’s (2003) measures of religious based laws and regulations to sort out these effects from organized religion.
Our future research plans include an assessment of the effects of religiosity on political and social variables, including democracy, the rule of law, fertility, and health. We will also extend our analysis of religiosity at a country-wide level to the behavior of individuals.”
BTW I also have an interview with Niall Ferguson where he compares Jihadis to Marxists i.e. Jihadis are “Lenin plus the Koran”. I do love how historians just see what they want:
http://www.boston.com/news/globe/ideas/articles/2006/09/24/qa_with_niall_ferguson/
The thing about conspiracy theories, they have a ring of truth because they latch on to genuine fears and scapegoat a group which they don’t understand enough.
Once the conspiracy is believed, anything the scapegoated group does can be dismissed as part of the conspiracy.
What can I say or do to persuade anyone here scared of a what Muslims intend, that I don’t intend any harm? Or is my intention irrelevant, because my existence is the threat? In which case, it isn’t a conspiracy theory – it is a political stance denying my right to exist.
The sense I get from the people here concerned about my existence and potential for breeding, is that they will be willing to accept me if I become a very particular kind of British person – not the kind who joins with Quakers in campaigns for peace, justice and multicultural harmony, but one who is willing to join with right-wing evangelicals in campaigns against outsiders. Please put me right on this if I misunderstand my alloted role Amir, Bert, Bijna, Roger, Informer, etc.
Another observation I want to throw out is that identity anxieties are common to Muslims and non-Muslims, to Britain and elsewhere. I think community values are seen as part of a disappearing Eden almost everywhere save Hutterite, Amish, Bhutanese and such communities which consciously avoid modern influences. Technological and economic changes disrupt societies and we make accomodations for them willingly or unwillingly and later notice that they have not simply added to an existing way of life but changed our way of life completely.
One of the consequences may be increasing population flows in different directions, and perhaps we sometimes blame the people we see for disrupting our lives when it is psychologically and politically more satisfying than blaming wider forces in which we ourselves are implicated.
I think there are some extra factors which are complicating the ability (and/or willingness) of many — not all — 2nd-Generation Asian Muslims to integrate/assimilate/whatever sufficiently into British society, and Western society as a whole. The higher rate of marriage with partners from the subcontinent, along with the greater influence of conservative religious leaders (compared to their Sikh and Hindu counterparts) are amongst such factors.
However, with regards to the Asian community as a whole, originally the reluctance to “fit in” was a combination of racism/prejudice from many of the white population and self-segregation by large numbers of the parents’ generation (due to moral disapproval of certain aspects of Western culture along with the concept of “safety in numbers” etc).
The first part is significantly less relevant these days, particularly in places like London. However, the second part is still frequently a major issue; many of the older generation are both unwilling and unable to “fit in” with the rest of British society (beyond a certain point) — usually on alleged moral grounds — and they often do not want their (adult) children to do so either. They will therefore apply pressure on their adult sons and daughters to prevent them from supposedly becoming “too Westernised” and “going too far into Western society”. There are plenty of exceptions, but generally this kind of attitude is prevalent across the board and is not confined to Muslims. It’s also not necessarily exclusive to less affluent members of the Asian population.
So there may not be as much integration & assimilation amongst the 2nd-Generation as there should be until most of the older foreign-born generation is no longer around.
Katy, do not fear – I am much more manly than my writing apparently seems to portray.
Refresh
OI!
That’s my wife-to-be you’re making hanky panky talk with
(runs off to buy jilbab lingerie for honeymoon)
Good points Jai but unfortunately this idea of the ‘older generation not being around’ idea – well sure it might make some difference. But there are people now in their 30′s and 40′s who’ve absorbed ideas from their parents and are bringing up their children with similar pressures. of course things change all the time for each generation but i’ve heard from 35 year olds that they have the same concerns their parents did. in any case i remember being at university and and some people saying things like ‘oh my god how can you even think about going out with a ‘gora’? !! Very strange behaviour but where did they get their ideas from? I’m sure there are other people out there have had the same experience/reaction as well. And there’s a lot of this ‘oh well why aren’t asian men/women good enough for you’ kind of rhetoric that comes out quite a lot in peer groups – which does affect some people who don’t want to be viewed negatively by their mates. I’m sure everyone’s familiar with situations of people who may want to go out with x or y and do at uni and then later end up breaking up because of too much pressure from family andfriends ( not just family) making life difficult. So it’s not all that easy and straightforward.
{Remember the black men dating asian women thread over at Sepia Mutiny? That was QUITE revealing of people’s attitudes ( and they’re not that old are they?)} I have to say i was pretty shocked at some of the stuff that was coming out as a result.
Arif,
“What can I say or do to persuade anyone here scared of a what Muslims intend, that I don’t intend any harm? Or is my intention irrelevant, because my existence is the threat? In which case, it isn’t a conspiracy theory – it is a political stance denying my right to exist.”
That is precisely my reading of the comments.
kismet – jilbab lingerie!! ha ha Katy are you ready for this¬!
And the truth is the changes in British society have accelerated. Whilst perhaps the older generation may only just be coming to terms with what it was like in the 70′s.
Kismet, you have no worries on that count. None whatsoever. Just see me as the matchmaker.
Matchmaker? Never. I won her all by myself. I have reciepts for two camels and one marlboro to prove it. You may, however, videotape the honeymoon shenanigans. Be at the Forest Gate 1star B&B thursday night at 8.15 prompt. We can go to the pub after at 8.20ish
Raz – 41. Spot on.
Amir – 37 – you are one funny little man. you know you come here for playground style fights don’t you!
sahil’s got a good point about the ‘apocalyptic end of civilization’ thing.
oh boy would Samuel Huntington love this thread. Hey Amir maybe you should invite him over LOL
Sonia,
You’re right about people inheriting negative attitudes from their parents; I guess it’s a combination of parental pressure and conditioning/brainwashing.
The younger crowd concerned are frequently unable to “think outside the box” (and gain a more objective understanding of how negative their behaviour really is) if their own social/peer circles consist almost entirely of Asians from the same kind of background and with the same kind of ideas themselves. I do understand your college anecdotes too — I went to colleges in London with huge Asian populations as well, so I know that sometimes people can’t really think clearly and objectively about such things until they remove themselves from such environments.
****************************
Regarding some of the issues over on SM, yes I’ve noticed it too, although I’ve been told offline by some of the long-term commenters that the negative views frequently espoused there aren’t necessarily an accurate reflection of what huge numbers of 2nd-Generation American Asians are really like (it’s just a factor of the kind of person who actually has the free time to post extensively there, which many professional Asians in the US are far too busy to do). Also, it’s worth bearing in mind that the FOB population in the US is considerably larger than its counterpart in the UK, so I think that plays a huge part in influencing some of the more stereotypically conservative/narrow-minded attitudes which are often prevalent.
Most of the commenters on SM are indeed relatively young (ie. under 40), but a disproportionate number of them are also relatively recent arrivals from the subcontinent. I didn’t realise this until much later during the course of my participation on that blog, but it explains a lot.
hey Jai yep! you’re definitely right if you hang out in one sort of environment that can play a big part in one’s mindset.
Ah interesting what you’ve explained about SM – i was thinking a lot of the ideas floated were fishy and sounded much more ‘traditionalist’! cheers for pointing that out.
A number of my extended family have in recent years married outside the Muslim Asian community, I’ve now got a German sister in-law, this follows in the heeds of having an English Auntie (who’s been married to my uncle for the last 35 years – they have no children), an Irish, Japanese and Austrian sisters in-law (married to my cousins) and a Canadian brother in-law (also married to one of my close cousins). I was wondering how I’m going to deal with the little ones that come along in terms of their identity? Another interesting issue, a majority (not all) have converted and have now become religious zealots!
so did everyone here study at manchester? i did and so did my wife. and i wasn’t all that religious then (like everyone else) and wasted a lot of time trying to get cute asian girls (hindu, sikh, muslim, i wasn’t fussy) into the sack with absolutely 0% success. where were you when i needed you, raz?
next time i’m in manchester, amir, definitely up for a rusholme special and perhaps a guinness in the clarendon afterwards if it’s still safe to go in there.
b’shalom
bananabrain
Sonia,
There are some other factors involved too. The Asian composition in the US is different to the UK; Gujaratis and Punjabis are still the majority (although Gujjus are the largest group there — the reverse of the UK), but there are apparently also very large populations of South Indians and Bengalis, much more than in the UK. Because the latter groups in particular are generally considerably more “non-white” than the northies I’ve mentioned in terms of their physical appearance, to some extent this also affects the ongoing racism towards white people (and sometimes towards northwestern Indians who are perceived to look more “white”, very loosely-speaking).
The fact that so many of the ‘recent arrivals’ are from Southie backgrounds too exacerbates this.
I think that some of the attitudes are certainly a result of “actual” racism — and there appears to be considerably less progress made in the majority culture by Asians there compared to the UK, in the media etc — but in my view some of it may also be a self-fulfilling prophecy, ie. they are often already prejudiced towards white people and the supposed racism in the US gives them justification to perpetuate their own animosity towards the majority population.
Just to mention something you stated in another post here on PP recently, yes I’ve also noticed that they seem to be far more preoccupied with matters of “race” than we are, although I’ve been told offline that this is due to the greater emphasis on issues concerning ethnicity, “self-identity” etc in the American educational system. Blaming white people for everything seems to be in vogue in some quarters, but again this isn’t necessarily an accurate reflection of what many professional Asians there are really like — it’s just a cross-section of the type of people who tend to visit that blog these days, a disproportionate number of whom have an extreme left-wing bias.
Sonia,
[Serious mode]
Amir – 37 – you are one funny little man. you know you come here for playground style fights don’t you!
Sunny accused me of racism:
Number 1: ‘Poor Amir, that brown bogeyman man must be getting really frightening.’
Number 2: ‘Oh no, Amir is angry because ‘the Muzzies’ are coming. Stop the brown horde’
Number 3: ‘Why not just say you want Britain to remain white instead of this long-winded mock angry rhetoric?’
If you think that that kind of talk is acceptable, then I think the ‘little’ is more appropriate for your own sense of balance. How did you expect me to react? And no – to forestall the inevitable comeback – I have never accused Sunny of anti-Semitism. I intimated that he was an apologist for the President of Iran – which is not true anymore (far from it), but it was at the time.
Amir
Sonia #110 – Your all so Jewish!
Chairwoman –
my husband’s dad’s side of the family are Jewish by the way..so if we have kids they’ll be 1/4 Jewish.
120 – B’brain
I went to Sheffield for my glorious undergrad days. when were you at manchester?
Jai – 121- interesting points again. i know there’s a big divide between the folks who are referred to generally as FOB’s and – well i guess the term really gives it away doesn’t it. I first heard the term from my brother-in-law’s ( who’s American born and his family are from Jaipur) sister in conjunction to quite amusing sociological info. there’s a whole range of views obviously and SP seems to not reflect that generally – IMHo.
your point about the self-fulfilling prophecy is something to chew over.
amir – ah well old boy – you think what you like – as a matter of point i didn’t say anything about Sunny’s comments but you did call him ‘a turd’ – seems somewhat childish at best.
Sahil – thanks for the Summary – my head hurts now – where do I send the bill? It seems a belief in Hell drives up economic progress – Is this a plan that the Devil is implementing. Surely he would not want us not to believe in Hell – or is that not very cunning – perhaps he makes us not believe in Hell and then plans to grab us when we die? So does it follow that economic progress is the work of the Devil or is it God making us believe in Hell so that we also have to believe in Heaven and our reward is economic progress. At school I was taught God was an Englishman – is that not so any more? Seems the ecomony is doing well so perhaps he still is. He did send us Maggie in our time of need. Aargh – my head hurts. Give me a sign. I need a sign. Any sign will do.
Instead of giving a ‘conspiracy theories’ any credance can we look ahead, perhaps 20 – 30 years and use our own minds to make up our own conspiracy theory. Why use someone elses when you can make your own? The Thatcher revolution has played out in about 20 years, so if there are any -isms around now then is it safe to assume 20years a resonable timeframe to look at. I Have to start somewhere so lets start at 20years.
Throw in a bit of oil – its always there in conspiracy theories so might as well start with some oil. I don’t want to step to far ahead. Who will have the oil in 20years? Will oil be of any value? I remember seeing an interview with Sheik Yamani ( ex Saudi Oil minister) who said that in the future the price of oil will not just keep rising. There will be a point when people invest in other forms of energy or discover other technologies, then suddenly oil will have no long term future. The price will collapse. Oil producing countries will then pump as much oil as possible to out pump others to get as much money in for their fast depreciating assets. There will be a fire sale and the price of oil will plummet. Energy users will be tempted to steer back to using oil to exploit the falling price. Now we have seen the environmental damage that ‘oil’ energy causes , will we allow ourselves to switch back to oil. Who knows, but in 20 -30years time the economics of oil will be radically different. Perhaps without oil the Middle East can just get back to repairing itself without outside pressures and meddling. Who knows. Perhaps we should use more oil now to hasten the end of the oil economy and so speed up the ME liberation from outside interferance. Enough of oil, except to say it has been the driver behind the requirement for the West to be involved and attempt to define the politics of the Middle east. Without it , the region would just be able to be itself and no-one would care and the oxygen of publicity would be removed. Then we can go back to not having to have an opinion on the Middle East. We can start having an opinion on the guano stocks in the South Pacific instead.
In the past we have discussed how the immigrant communities in the UK and elsewhere feel they have to defend their ‘homeland’ customs and can end up being more conservative than the societies that they left behind. I think that is true, and in time the cultures here will be like Ox Bow lakes, isolated from the river that formed them. It must be a real laugh for Indians, Bangladeshis , Pakistanis etc to read this site and see our comments. They probably chuckle. We are a side show and we are now British , English, Welsh, Scots. To think otherwise is probably a delusion. To think that British Muslims or Hindus or Sikhs or Jains or Buddhists or Christians etc have any influence on the direction these religions will go in the future is just a fantasy. They can only influence themselves in this country. The links with the homelands will break. The drivers for these religions are elsewhere – its just a question of looking at the numbers. 5m Muslims here. There are probably 5m muslims in Hyderabad and that is a sleepy backwater. Who will define the Islam in the future? Not British Muslims I don’t think, but the 1.2billion elswhere. 2m Hindus here, 1000m in India going on a different track. Who will define where Hinduism goes? Can it be steered at all? 2m Sikhs here, how many in India – 50m? 100m? – who will define Sikhism in the future? There may even be more Sikhs in Canada than Britain. You get the picture I am trying to piant. Its a Jackson Pollock. There is no sense in it and there is no conspiracy , but the use of time in the way he paints has created the final work. The world progresses in chaotic fashion and is beyond the control of any one conspiracy. We have to locate the Alliance of Conspirators. When do they meet for their committee meetings?
My headache has gone.
Justforfun
Sonia – sorry – Jewishness passes down the maternal line. It’s probably why it has survived the millenia of the diaspora, as it tends to be mothers who pass on cultural aspects to their children, the food, the dancing, the story telling , the homelife etc. Take Parsis as another example of a similar people, millenia in exile but their culture goes down the paternal line. It has never spread ( perhaps because it was never really forced to once in India) and is in terminal decline as the daughters are cast out after inter marriage. Perhaps maternal societies tend to keep going in adversity while paternal societies tend to die out. Thats my hunch but have nothing to back it up – no research – nothing, just my observation and lookinbg at the discovery channel
Justforfun
Justforfun – Absolutely with you on the Middle East.
Your point about the opinions of people on the sub-continent on PP: A friend of mine, a black woman from Washington DC, parents both government officials, brothers in the military, decided she wanted to connect with her roots, and go to Africa. For some reason, she chose Uganda. She came back to London a lot sooner than she had anticipated. Now she is a BLACK woman,not brown, not coffee colour, but as dark as you can get. But that didn’t fool the Ugandans. According to her, they didn’t treat her like a returning sister, they treated her like an American tourist. Not only that, the shopping was rubbish, the food inedible, and the plumbing appalling. Yes, they were foreigners, and she was American.
Sonia and Jff – Yes Judaism does pass down the maternal line, but your children, though not Jewish by birth themselves, would, as you say, still be a quarter Jewish.
“Sahil – thanks for the Summary – my head hurts now – where do I send the bill? It seems a belief in Hell drives up economic progress – Is this a plan that the Devil is implementing. Surely he would not want us not to believe in Hell – or is that not very cunning – perhaps he makes us not believe in Hell and then plans to grab us when we die? So does it follow that economic progress is the work of the Devil or is it God making us believe in Hell so that we also have to believe in Heaven and our reward is economic progress. At school I was taught God was an Englishman – is that not so any more? Seems the ecomony is doing well so perhaps he still is. He did send us Maggie in our time of need. Aargh – my head hurts. Give me a sign. I need a sign. Any sign will do.”
Hah, this is always the problem in trying to understand most econometric results. Everything result needs to be looked in isolation, and the cross-variable effects have to be treated in isolation again. All a bit pointless sometimes, unless you have some unified theory to work with. As per the hell result, well if you believe that the rest of eternity will be crap, you might as well make a lot of cash on Earth and live it up
Couple of thoughts:
1. Reference to the Muslim population shouldn’t be seen on a national level. As someone rightfully said, the % of the population is small and can appear insignificant. However, if you take a look at specific areas in the UK, it’s clearer to see where friction lies. For example, in Tower Hamlets the Muslim population is the fastest-growing. They make up 47% of the population under 25 years, but only 13% of the population over 60. The white population, by contrast, is decreasing, top-heavy with the elderly.
These hubs are having quite a significant impact on the make up of London and consequently on the country and are to a certain degree breeding the stance that people will never be able to integrate fully. It’s like small worlds are created driven by a particular faith or culture. I think this is helping to breed a growing fear of Muslims in particular.
For example, see this from a right wing Christian Group http://www.christianvoice.org.uk/islam8.html
It has a lot detail on the political make-up Tower Hamlets but also makes it very clear that Islam is a threat to the church.
“the creeping Islamicisation of Tower Hamlets should still ring alarms bells in Christian churches up and down the land. The way in which the Christian faith and its symbols in our land have been progressively eradicated will have been given a significant boost by the Tower Hamlets events. Edmund Burke famously said that ‘All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men should do nothing.’ Will anything shock the Christian church out of its do-nothing slumber before it is too late?”
True, it will be quite some time before muslim population does hit major national figures but still, the possibility does exist.
Chairwoman – I stand corrected – I always thought that Jewishness was regarded by Jews as bipolar – you are either jewish or you are not, and that a primary criteria was to have a mother who was Jewish.
Justforfun
nothing, just my observation and lookinbg at the discovery channel
Justforfun – that still sounds more informed than the people who are quoting immigration or birthrate statistics on here. All they’ve got is Niall Ferguson’s crybaby editorials.
Sunny – But he is also on the discovery channel!
He makes one look at things in another angle and that is a good thing. Looking through his telescope does not mean drawing the same conclusions.
I found this interesting link on your site
http://www.opendemocracy.net/conflict-india_pakistan/musharraf_rule_3935.jsp
Naughtyboy – spreading such things. I got me all excited and now I am back on medication.
Justforfun
jff – i know…!
we’re not really talking about pracitising Judaism in any case but rather the ‘culture’ which seems to have an impact on people regardless of whether they practise religion or not or are considered by the Orthodoxy to be a part of the religion. technically my husband’s grandfather though he referred to himself Jewish his mother was German and non-jewish so strictly he wouldn’t have been Jewish. but he married a Jewish woman so technically his kids were Jewish. though again, that doesn’t seem to make a difference to them. they’d have felt Jewish enough in Britain with a Jewish father – in a ‘cultural’ way if you see what i mean. my husband’s mother isn’t Jewish -if people ask he says he’s part Jewish.
in any case i think it’s similar to patriarchal society where one is meant to ‘follow’ one’s father in nationality belonging etc. Still nowadays a lot pf people would say i’m half this and half that. Though the paternal side may consider the person ‘totally theirs’ etc. It’s a bit funny i think this business of ‘ownership’ anyway or being ‘one thing’ instead of obvoiusly an amalgamation.
ah well.
on a related note – justforfun i thought i’d mention – with the whole patriarchal thing – any child i may have will be considered by my friendly country to not be able to inherit my nationality being a woman but will have to inherit its father’s nationality. So they won’t consider any child of mine Bangladeshi and I would have to apply for a bloody visa to take the child over to my own country. how’s that for some fun equality.
http://sonia.pickledpolitics.com/2006/08/06/bangladesh-and-citizenship-discrimination-against-women/
same goes for women in quite a few other countries..
Sonia – yes – I had read your blog and travails. Iran is the same I believe. Aryan blood line and all that! I think there policy is to breed quality donkeys! The Heavenly Horse died out 1600 years ago.
Justforfun
Have you guys seen this, same old stuff over and over again:
http://education.guardian.co.uk/schoolsworldwide/story/0,,1887193,00.html
the thing that amuses me is all these unpleasant people who looking for an excuse for their unpleasantness or a cover ascribe them to some historical figure and then get upset when someone else takes them at their word and believe what they say and react to it and insult the said historical figure whoever it turns out to be. Who’s actually casting aspersions on a Prophet in the first place if they say ah well the Prophet said to do this or that and the this or that aren’t particularly nice things?
anyway im probably going off thread..
True, but it’s also amusing that if someone wants to be a defender of freedom of speech all they need to do is make fun of Prophet Mohammed. It’s a cheap way to get famous, reality TV style.
“Yeah, but come on, Pakistani girls are totally under the thumb of their parents. Except for those proper posh Pakistanis who go to private school and have this lar-de-dar public school accent: the ones that wear Dolce & Gabbana and Louis Vuitton. You know the type”
Actually Amir, you would be suprised to know what the ‘good Pakistani girls’ are getting up to behind their parents back. I know I was
BTW if you like the posh types, I know plenty of them too
I lived in Fallowfield in my first year and on Moss Lane East for the rest of the time. Moss Side is overhyped if you ask me. Try living in Karachi if you want to see a REAL rough place!
Where did you live in Manchester anyways? Fallowfield? Didsbury? Withington? Salford? Or the Islamic Republic of Rusholme? Heh heh
i was in manchester 1989-93 (sigh) fallowfield in my first year (oak house for my sins), second year in whalley range (living with music students, the only ones who would put up with my electric guitar practice), third year abroad in st etienne and rio and fourth year in whitty park which if geographically in moss side probably can’t be considered moss side proper. hey ho. but my grandfather was born in karachi, which caused my mum no end of problems when she wanted to get an indian visa last year (“your father was being pakistani” – “not when he was born he wasn’t, it was before partition” – “we have rules about this you know, isn’t it” – “i’m going to kick your arse and talk to your supervisor now” – sorry bananabrain auntie, your visa will be right out”).
and now: jewish or not?
the religious rule is that it goes through the mother, which means that the mother has to be jewish or a convert. who is allowed to do the converting depends on how strict you are. a non-practicing, bacon-eating, uncircumcised, atheist with a jewish mother is nonetheless jewish according to jewish law, with all that that implies. if your mother ain’t jewish, you aren’t jewish either unless you convert, no matter how jewish your father may be. however, if your father is not jewish, there should be no demerit that attaches to you, at least religiously. practically, of course, it can be another matter – but it needn’t be if you know your onions.
now, “cultural” or “ethnic” definitions of jewish are certainly good enough for, say, the “jewish chronicle”, who once got a bit of a thick ear from jeremy paxman for assuming that someone argumentative with a slightly big nose and “man” in their name had to be jewish – apparently paxman is an old english name dating back to 1066 or something. thus you get definitions such as “media jewish” (like madonna, for example, or jemima khan) and “culturally jewish” like nigella lawson. whether they are religiously jewish or not is an entirely different thing.
as for whether people are 1/2, 1/4 or 1/8 “ethnically” jewish, it was certainly a popular definition in the 30s, where one jewish grandparent would get you sent to the gas chambers. for some reason, which i don’t know if it is related or not, one jewish grandparent also qualifies you for israeli citizenship, which has had the curious recent effect of creating a russian subculture in israel which is pretty much not jewish for the most part.
b’shalom
bananabrain
hey ho. but my grandfather was born in karachi, which caused my mum no end of problems when she wanted to get an indian visa last year
So was your grandmother an Indian Jew, bananabrain? Explain your Asian heritage immediately sir!
Correction, ‘grandfather’ not ‘grandmother’!
“The sense I get from the people here concerned about my existence and potential for breeding, is that they will be willing to accept me if I become a very particular kind of British person – not the kind who joins with Quakers in campaigns for peace, justice and multicultural harmony, but one who is willing to join with right-wing evangelicals in campaigns against outsiders. Please put me right on this if I misunderstand my alloted role Amir, Bert, Bijna, Roger, Informer, etc.”
You don’t have an allotted role, Arif, except that if you behave as- in Weberian terms- a paradigmatic muslim then your role is to behave in ways that help islam to exert greater influence and greater intolerance on society. Having had enormous damage done to Europe through the suppression and distortion of the best aspects of European cultures by one dictatorial and intolerant belief-system in christianity I am not at all enthusiastic about welcoming another, which- apart from its own flaws- may encourage the revival of christianity in its most repellent forms. However, I think that policies to suppress belief or define people as outsiders are much more dangerous to toleration than the beliefs themselves, so- if it cheers you up- you’re safe from people like me.
I don’t think multicultural harmony is achievable or desirable either. Cultures clash with one another. They value different qualities differently. I’d much rather see clashes of cultures with a synthesis emerging. Most people, I think, think that an ideal society is achievable. I think that there are different goods that clash with one another and that we must accept that we must do without one good, to some degree, to have another. An obvious example is the clash between freedom and equality. Both are desirable qualities, but both need to restrict the extent of the other for and between individuals. If everyone has absolute equality, then everyone must have absolute equality of income- which destroys the freedom to earn as much as you can or want. On the other hand, if you can earn as much as you want some people will be much poorer than others. The whole tax system of the UK for many years has been affected by this insoluble dilemma.
Bananabrain – According to Halacha, of course her children wouldn’t be Jewish, but that doesn’t mean that they don’t have a partially ethnically Jewish background. I’m always heartened by how proud most people are who have a Jewish ancestor. David Beckham and his Jewish grandfather for one. A notable exception is Ben Elton, who’s too right-on to be Jewish.
“And the truth is the changes in British society have accelerated. ”
Changes in society and the world are happening ever-faster- they may even be exponential. The thing is that there are changes people welcome- that they can go on holiday in Thailand, say; at the same time changes that they don’t want- the ability of an unemployed african to get into Britain as an illegal immigrant, say- and these two sets of changes are intimately connected in the same process of globalisation and the creation of a smaller and more distorted world psychologically and practically- it’s cheaper and easier to go from London to North africa than from London to the Lake district for example. One response is to deny that this is happening- there are many muslims in Britain who still live psychologically in a small village in Pakistan or Bengal- muslims more than hindus or sikhs show this psychological tendency, I’d say- just as there are Britons in France or Spain even who reject the existence of every aspect of the country they live in except for the weather.
Sahil, sonia does he have the right to say it?
Redeker has made some serious money out of rubbishing Islam has he not. He got a luxury flat and all the bodyguards he needs.
Arif,
You raise a fair question. And I shall answer it:
‘Please put me right on this if I misunderstand my alloted role Amir, Bert, Bijna, Roger, Informer, etc’
If I were to denounce Moslems en masse, without distinction, I would be guilty of many things. Obviously I’d be guilty of injustice and incivility to Moslems as human beings. I would also be guilty of malicious hatred. More personally, I’d be guilty of ingratitude to my closest friends and allies since many of my comrades, in large ways and small, are Moslem. Moreover, I would be becoming exactly the man my left-wing enemies (i.e. Sunny) would like me to be; a man like them, in whom racial hostilities take priority over all other values and considerations.
My “beef†toward Islam is a desire not for conflict, but for respect – respect for my own cultural and linguistic and physical territory. Most alleged ‘Islamophobes’ would wince if Moslems anywhere were treated as Arabs treat their Christian subjects (or Shia minorities). These are obvious moral facts. Yet it’s not only politicians who are afraid to point them out; so are most journalists – the people who are supposed to be independent enough to say the things politicians can’t afford to say. Ever since that fateful day on September 11, 2001, nothing has amazed me more than the prevalent fear in the Christian community of offending Moslems, even when it is their theological duty to do so.
It was once considered “Islamophobic†to impute dual loyalty – that is, to assert that most British-born Moslems divide their loyalty between the Ummah and the United Kingdom. This, however, is now taken for granted. Today most politicians assume, as a matter of course, that Islam commands the primary loyalty of Moslem voters. Are they accused of “Islamophobia†for doing so? Does this assumption cost them Moslem votes? Not at all! The electoral successes of George Galloway and Ken Livingstone are a case to the contrary.
I’ve noticed how eager and desperate mainstream media outlets are to avoid the Ummah’s fire – I’m sure you remember the mass orgy of violence that proceeded the publication of Muhammad cartoons in Jyllands Posten, and the way it was pixelated on BBC News? Again, the MSM don’t just speak favourably of Islam; they refuse to acknowledge any cost to our traditional ways and liberties. They treat the interests of Moslems and Christians (or atheists) as identical; and when they scold one another, it’s always – always – the fault of British foreign policy for ‘alienating’ its religious minorities. Islam can’t be judged by normal standards (or lampooned by bog-standard idiocy), at least until George W. Bush and the Neocons are kicked out of office – if even then. Their circumstances are forever abnormal. Forever exceptional.
In every controversy, most people care much less for what the truth is than for which side it’s safer and more politically-correct to take. They shy away from taking a position that is likely to open a can of worms. So if you want to avoid being called ‘Islamophobic’ or ‘racist’, the safest course (as far as I’m concerned) is to renounce Christianity and convert to the cult of Grauniad apologetics. And guess what? I’m sick and tired. I’m sick and tired of feeble Leftist establishments cow-towing to the aggressive Islamist lobby and handling their beliefs with kids’ gloves. I’m sick and tired of being accused of ‘racism’ by PC demagogues like Sunny Hundal and Gary Younge. And yes – before you ask – I’m sick and tired too of Bush Jnr. and his wasteful War on Terror. I hate it all.
Many Moslems and non-Moslems – yourself included – insist that their “multicultural rights†are nothing more than the right of every people on earth to be left to their own devices. This right is allegedly threatened by fanatical right-wingers who want to round em’ up and plonk em’ on the next plane to Pakistan, as witnessed by the banal hate-mongering of Nick Griffin. But in truth, their claim to “multicultural rights†is much more than it seems at first sight. It means a right to rule as Moslems, to speak and teach and learn in a foreign language, to live a life in a ghetto or a Bantustan, to demolish Britain’s familiar landmarks and replace them with newer ones (read this). There’s a word for this. Ah, yes, I remember: cultural imperialism.
Boy, I needed to get that off my chest. Is Chris Styles the only bloke around here who ‘gets it’? I hope not. Or things are gonna get a lot, lot worse.
Amir
Sonia, Sahil.
RE: Redker
In an interview with i-TV he said that he had received several e-mail threats targeting himself and his wife and three children and that his photograph and address were available on several Islamist internet sites.
“There is a very clear map of how to get to my home, with the words: ’This pig must have his head cut off’,” he said.
Another e-mail says: “You will never again be safe on this earth. One billion, 300 million Muslims are ready to kill you.”
Puts your facetious remarks into context. Man in fear for his life gets mocked those threatening his life not a peep out of either of you.
Huh? When am I condoning any of these death threats???? I’m saying that these things are a weekly news item, and frankly I’m fucking bored of the morons on both sides. Muppet 1: OHHHHHH, I’m going to make fun of Islam and I wonder what will happen? Muppet 2: Ohhh some dick has given me the ammo that I need to create an even bigger climate of confrontation, Wopppeeeee!!!!!
I never said you were condoning them.
I do think its strange that you criticise Redeker for criticising Islam in a similar way that christianity is criticised.
Redeker started nothing it is those Islamist thugs who have caused this escalation of a local affair. If they just ignored those comments then the whole thing would go away.
“I do think its strange that you criticise Redeker for criticising Islam in a similar way that christianity is criticised.
Redeker started nothing it is those Islamist thugs who have caused this escalation of a local affair. If they just ignored those comments then the whole thing would go away. ”
Why should I not critisise Redeker. His remarks are completely ignorant, and currently he knows that he’s just pandering to the likes of le Pen. If you think one redneck insulting another religion is fine, that’s cool. But this has implications for others who don;t want to be involved and just want to get on with their lives and not be caught in some artifical clash of civilisations. Thats why I find it amusing when people defend idiots like Redeker on the grounds that he’s a champion of freedom of speech. Not that I condone this either but go to anywhere in EU and deny the holocaust. You’ll be arrested. Do i think that denying the holocaust has any value, except to insult, no! That’s why I find all this confrontational journalism moronic!
Sahil
I would defend holocaust deniers for the record. However if Redeker called for pogroms against Muslims i would not defend him. Freedom of speech is one thing inciting violence is another.
The value of Redekers remarks are not the issue. Islamist thugs threatening his life is an issue.
Apparently there is a clash of ideologies as Islamists in Europe and the ME are through threats and violence attempting to undermine freedom of speech in Europe. Redeker case is the latest in a long line of many attempts.
I don’t subscribe to a clash of civilisations as there is no Islamic civilisation that rivals the West. The communist East is (and was a) much bigger rival to the dominance of the west. The whole Eurabia thing is bollocks but incidents such as these back up such paranoia. Sahil take on the Islamists they are in the wrong or is expressing the wrong opinion a greater crime than threatening someones life?
“But this has implications for others”
A man is fearing for his life and your thinking of yourself you are taking the piss?
“The whole Eurabia thing is bollocks but incidents such as these back up such paranoia. Sahil take on the Islamists they are in the wrong or is expressing the wrong opinion a greater crime than threatening someones life?
“But this has implications for othersâ€
A man is fearing for his life and your thinking of yourself you are taking the piss? ”
ARe you blind? When did I say that expressing a opinion is more wrong than distributing death threats. I don’t want to derail this thread, so he’s my last take to explain this to you. People like Redeker strive for attention, not intellectual criticism. Another example is Hirsi Ali, NEVER did she actually try and provide some concrete help to women who are brutal martial relationships, especially Islamic ones, rather she polarised the debate, when one is badly needed. She ranted, and that appeals to the populist mentality. Great she got votes!
BTW I’m not a muslim, if you’re making assumptions. But i can see a large group of people being systematically dehumanised, and this appeals to extremists on both sides, the BNP, and the Bin Laden types. It creates a artifical clash of civilisations, that doesn’t need to exist.
As per your comments on Islamic civilisation, well it’s clear you are a bigot or just really ignorant! I say this as an agnostic and strong supporter of Hume, Smith and Locke! If all you think the Islamic world is just a bunch of Jihadi types then travel and get some perspective.
I will ignore the cheap jibes of racist and bigot.
Sahil you started this with a cheap jibe about Redeker.
I did not assume that you are muslim.
Large groups of people being dehumanized?
He criticised a religion for fucks sake. He did not issue a clarion call against Muslims.
If all you think the Islamic world is just a bunch of Jihadi types then travel and get some perspective.
Fair point there is always Dubai.
I will ignore the Hirsi-Ali issue as such comments are contemptible.
To suggest that they court death threats from Jihadists as a means to boost their careers is an appalling suggestion. How about treating their views no matter how abhorrent you consider them as sincere. Redeker for the record can not earn a living and has been hung out to dry by the french govt what benefits has he accrued?
How about supporting the bullied?
Yes his target was all religions, phaw:
“In a comment piece in Le Figaro on September 19, he said Muhammad was “a merciless warlord, a looter, a mass-murderer of Jews and a polygamist”. He called the Qur’an “a book of incredible violence” and contrasted what he said were Christianity’s peaceful roots and Islam’s violent ones, adding: “Jesus is a master of love, Muhammad a master of hate.”"
Yeah real critical analysis of Islam.
“In a comment piece in Le Figaro on September 19, he said Muhammad was “a merciless warlord, a looter, a mass-murderer of Jews and a polygamistâ€. He called the Qur’an “a book of incredible violence†and contrasted what he said were Christianity’s peaceful roots and Islam’s violent ones, adding: “Jesus is a master of love, Muhammad a master of hate.—
Which parts do you disagree with?
Or is criticism of Islam off limits lest we incur the wrath of Fundis.
I did not use the plural. Twisting my words.
Sahil you continue to dodge the issue and that is quite sad you spend more time attacking Islams critics instead of murderous Islamists.
Amir, your last post #149 is a piece of pure self-indulgence, although implicit within it is your politics. The major inconvenience you face is that the outsiders are not quite outsiders anymore. The rest is you looking to find a place for yourself in a rapidly changing world. All very understandable.
But face it, the world could not have stayed as we presume it must have been up to the 50′s.
In any case lets discuss this over that promised meal – I’m around tomorrow with couple of hours to kill.
Sahil,
Does the contempt for the threats vary with the quality of the scholarship? Rather like the mo-toons issue; many otherwise critically-minded people just had to point out that they were ill-drawn, unfunny and sometimes boorish. As though that made a difference when the issue was that no irreverent portrayal of mo was permitted, on pain of a shit-storm of tantrums.
Same with this case. He seems to be a right-ish christian – a type I try to avoid except when feeling argumentative. That doesn’t matter, he attacked a belief system and the right to do that has to be defended.
He said mohammed was, “a merciless warlord, a looter, a mass-murderer of Jews and a polygamistâ€as you say, not exactly a serious critical analysis (although on how many points was he wrong?) but it is an argument that can be made, criticised and defended. If his argument is crap, debate will show it to be so.
Death threats are the issue. Redeker doesn’t have to be the champion of free speech to be entitled to it; he can be a redneck insulting another religion. People do actually die horribly because they have said words or created images that these people don’t like, so don’t shrug that off with an, ‘Oh well, he should have known better, and he’s a bit of a twat anyway’.
Thank you Don
I will let the matter rest.
Refresh,
(I) ‘Amir, your last post #149 is a piece of pure self-indulgence.’
The truth is a bitter pill to swallow. The more my views are dismissed as ‘self-indulgent’ or ‘reactionary’ (etc. etc.) the more hardened and uncompromising I become (and others like me). I don’t apologise for being a Christian. I don’t apologise for loving this island and its unique character and constitution and wanting to preserve those virtues for my children and my children’s children. To repeat what I said on post 33 – I feel at home in my country partly because I can see that my surroundings bear the imprint of past generations whose values were recognisably my own.
(II) ‘although implicit within it is your politics’
Of course. Implicit within your criticisms of me is a left-wing political agenda. The grass is green. The sky is blue.
(III) ‘The rest is you looking to find a place for yourself in a rapidly changing world. All very understandable.’
I have a place in the world – thank you. I just don’t like cultural imperialism. To quote one of my all-time heroes: “Culture is simultaneously the fruit of a people’s history and a determinant of history, by the positive or negative influence which it exerts on the evolution of relationships between man and his environment, among men or groups of men within a society, as well as among different societies.â€
(IV) ‘In any case lets discuss this over that promised meal – I’m around tomorrow with couple of hours to kill.’
I’ll keep my promise!
But I’m not actually in Manchester for a while. Got job interviews in London – and then I’m visiting some friends and family in North Wales. Where do you live in Mancland? What’s your profession. 
Amir
Hello Jai:
1. “the negative views frequently espoused there aren’t necessarily an accurate reflection of what huge numbers of 2nd-Generation American Asians are really like (it’s just a factor of the kind of person who actually has the free time to post extensively there, which many professional Asians in the US are far too busy to do).”
Huge numbers of the 2-ger population aren’t spending most of their time online
If you look at the site meter, you’ll see lots of IP’s connected to what seem to me software engineering companies (I think– I’m not an expert of IP’s and such, so I could be wrong).
2. “Also, it’s worth bearing in mind that the FOB population in the US is considerably larger than its counterpart in the UK, so I think that plays a huge part in influencing some of the more stereotypically conservative/narrow-minded attitudes which are often prevalent. ”
The “FOB” population as you call it (DI flinches a bit at this designation seeing that large numbers of her family are “Fresh of the Boat”)is the majority of the Indian American population.
But that doesn’t mean that just because you are 1-ger,you’re conservative and if you’re a 2-ger, you are less conservative. Having spent an inordinate time with both demographics, I can say that 2-gers can be suprisingly “conservative” and inversey, I know some 1-gers who are equally suprisingly not conservative. I don’t think you can make a clean cut generational distinction. 2-gers are often more conservative than their minority counterparts, largely due to model minority myth which tells them that they are a model, with others, by logic, are not.
3. “The Asian composition in the US is different to the UK; Gujaratis and Punjabis are still the majority (although Gujjus are the largest group there — the reverse of the UK), but there are apparently also very large populations of South Indians and Bengalis, much more than in the UK. Because the latter groups in particular are generally considerably more “non-white†than the northies I’ve mentioned in terms of their physical appearance, to some extent this also affects the ongoing racism towards white people (and sometimes towards northwestern Indians who are perceived to look more “whiteâ€, very loosely-speaking).”
Gujaratis and Punjabis still compose the majority of the Indian American population with some Bengalis and South Indians, as you point out. BUT, I completely disagree with your analysis here (you’re not making these assumptions based on online conversations, are you?
)
Racism in the US is directed at those who simply don’t look white, and I’d venture to say that most Punjabis and Gujaratis are not percieved as “white”, and thus, they too encounter racism. My point is that most Indian Americans– regardless of the region from which they hail– can potentially encounter racism. Punjabis and Gujaratis don’t look “less white” than Bengalis and South Indians. We within our community might make those distinctions, but to white Americans, we’re basically all the same.
As a side note, you say that Bengalis don’t exist in large numbers in the UK. Aren’t Bangladeshis Bengali? I mean, nationality wise there is a distinction, but ethnically, are they seen as different from Indian Bengalis?
4. “I’ve also noticed that they seem to be far more preoccupied with matters of “race†than we are, although I’ve been told offline that this is due to the greater emphasis on issues concerning ethnicity, “self-identity†etc in the American educational system.”
In the US, skin color plays a HUGE role in US society; having spent time abroad, I’ve noticed that in the US, we are one of the most color based societies.
But what I’d like to point out here is that while in the US the emphasis is on race and ethnicity, in other places the “othering” involves an emphasis on religion and “culture”, which in my mind, is in a way, a sort of creating a race. For example, “Muslims are like this” and whatnot. What I am trying to say is that racism and constructing the internal and external plays out in different ways. In some cases, the distinction is based on race, in other cases, the distinction is based on culture; both are ways to create and designate the “other.”
Don,
‘He seems to be a right-ish christian – a type I try to avoid’
Bloody charming!
Bannabrain,
Just read your post!
It would be a pleasure to have a curry with you in Manchester sometime in the future!
Apologies in advance if some of my thoughts have already been voiced; I was able to skim through only some of them!
I went to high school with the majority being Hispanic, and now I am back home (Southern California) where I am once again living in a predominantly Hispanic area. So the opinions of immigration concerning Hispanics specifically is something that hits home (both literally and figuratively).
Some of the comments here are similar to the ones we hear in the US. Two themes seem to be running here.
1. “We have our way of life, culture, and values.”
I always hear this. I’m really curious:
What is “your” “way of life, culture, and values?”
I ask because I hear this opinion bandied about all the time, but it rarely gets defined and unpacked (in the case of the US, it drives me insane to hear about “our way of life, culture and values”– ie “ours” is unique and different from others– when the majority of Americans have never been outside of the US [the majority don't even have passports])
2. “Multicultural….blah blah blah”
“Multiculturalism” is something else that figures into US mainstream thought, and I know that it does in the UK as well. But what’s interesting is that most of the criticisms of multiculturalism are directed against miniorities and the blame for all the negative aspects of multiculturalism are laid at the doorstep of minorities. Minorities push for multiculturalism; ie they want to go on with their language, customs, etc and they don’t want to integrate into larger society.
If I can give my thought on this:
Present day multiculturalism in mainstream public culture, at least in the US, is the construction of academia, mainstream media, and the corporate world. Academia, mainstream media, and the corporate world are not in the hands of minorities; they are in the hands of whites. And this multiculturalism which is constructed by them is a SELECTIVE multiculturalism whereby cultural ARTEFACTS are defined as “multiculturalism.” Here I mean, food, music, goods and consumption (such as mehendi, bindi, yoga) For example, Bible thumpers in Texas LOVE “Tex-Mex” food, but they sure don’t love their Mexican neighbors. Whites in Southern California love Mexican food, but they don’t like hearing two Mexicans speak in Spanish. And my mother who wears a bindi might be picked on for wearing one and get dogged by others, but if Gwen Stefani does it, you’ll see white girls wearing bindis (but still dog you out if they see you wearing one). People in Britain might not like seeing large numbers of Indians all over the place, with their “habits” and “way of life” that is different from “yours”, but you sure like eating curry– it’s YUMMY!
3. “Muslims are different from us, and they are growing in large numbers= very scary”
Too much to go into here. I see that some comments have attempted to address this, so I will leave this alone and simply say: Samuel Huntington would be really proud and vigorously nod his head in agreement with some of the sentiments voiced here. His conclusions are composed of hysterical, paranoid opinions clothed by a calm language and statistics.
Amir,
‘…except when feeling argumentative’
“I can say that 2-gers can be suprisingly “conservative†and inversey, I know some 1-gers who are equally suprisingly not conservative.”
And I forgot to add, that it also depends on WHEN they immigrated. There are some 1-gers that immigrated 30 years ago (like my parents) and there are some that came here 5 years ago, 2 years ago, etc. And present day Indian society (like every other country) differs from what it was 30 years ago.
Amir
I salute you for your energy.
My feeling is better described as “Stop the world – I want to get off.”
I believe that Refresh is incorrect when he says that the major inconvenience you (and I) face is that the outsiders are not quite outsiders anymore.
The ‘inconvenience’ is that he is that he is STILL an outsider to me (and sure I’m a stranger to him too). To me it’s more than an ‘inconvenience’ as in fact we seem to be moving further and further away.
I’m sure you and I would agree that the UK is far from perfect. But, I do feel a sense of belonging and attachment to our customs and traditions. I don’t want them swept away. They help me make sense of life and provide answers to crucial questions such as what will the future hold for my children and even theirs?
Many, many people do feel the same way as you – this I fear will be a particular badge of dishonour.
Its a bit bingo night at the Whalley Range Social Club in here.
The Informer:
“But, I do feel a sense of belonging and attachment to our customs and traditions. ”
Forgive me if you have already addressed this, but what are your “customs and traditions”? I’m sincerely curious.
There are about fifteen different conversations going on here but anyway.
Yes, The Informer, I’m also interested in what these customs are, why brown people cannot partake in them, and who is making a determined attempt to sweep them away.
Here I go guys – some you might share – others not.
Values – democracy, rule of law, trade unions, public libraries, free health care, innovation in science and business, admirable armed services and corruption free public services.
Church – weddings and funerals only. Maybe at Christmas.
Schools – do your homework and stay out of travel – OR ELSE. When your kids go – somehow getting roped in to selling raffle tickets.
Knowing your neighbours (and looking out for the older neighbours). When you’re young playing with the other kids in the neighbourhood. When you’re a bit older walking to school with each other.
Self respect and pride, restraint (the famous ‘stiff upper lip’), hard work and ambition (being self reliant), dignity, sacrafice. Buying your own house and car.
Striking out on your own and being independent from your parents (before slowing but surely getting closer again).
Celebration of Birthdays, Christams, New Year and Easter by family and friends getting together. The traditional foods that must be partaken of at this time only – turkey, ginger wine, christmas pudding. The joy of buying your children presents they’ve been on their best behaviour for. Painting Easter eggs (and eating the chocolate ones). Pancake day – lemon and sugar only.
Hallowe’en – ducking for apples. Guy Fawkes night – bonfires and fireworks.
Visiting relatives on Bank Holidays. Singing in the car on the way.
Sunday lunch – roast beef, roast potatoes, yorkshire pudding, gravy – followed by Apple crumble.
Friday night – family ‘take away’ night.
Obsession with all sports – especially to be played as a hobby and taken far too seriously. Football, Cricket, Tennis, Golf.
Dad taking son (and sometimes daughter)to football – either to watch or down the park for a kick about and stories of how you nearly had a trial for QPR.
The torture of watching the Ashes and nearly winning the World Cup and European Championships every time.
Family trips to the sea side or the countryside and the obligatory stop at the chippie. Swimming in the freezing cold sea.
Good Popular music with a partcularly British flavour -from the Beatles, Kinks – all the way to the Arctic Monkeys.
Good Popular entertainment with a particular Britsh flavour – Dad’s Army, Fawlty Towers, Morecombe & Wise.
When you’re young being a bit of a rebel. Learn the guitar and promise you’ll never be like your parents, until realising many years later they might have been right after all.
When you’re young – the pub culture – not getting plastered but taking in part in the strange ritual of the dating game. Falling in love and getting married. Staying married and growing old together.
Further to the above and being a little more honest -getting plastered a few times and then realising the hangovers and bruises aren’t worth it.
Valentine’s Day and Anniversaries – is that restaurant we used to go to still there? Maybe even a trip to the cinema for old times sake.
When you’re older – meeting old friends in quieter pubs and putting the world to rights. Pub Quiz anyone?
Due to lack of space I’ve left out all the intellectual stuff.
Sunny – I’m sure you could enjoy these, but when I was doing them – you weren’t there. You were doing your own thing.
Sunny,
‘I’m also interested in what these customs are, why brown people cannot partake in them, and who is making a determined attempt to sweep them away.’
British culture is not a synonym for ‘white people’. Anyone who thinks so is a racialist. (Regrettably, some people use the word ‘racist’ so flippantly that it loses its sting.) I admit: a large indigenous population is essential if a nation is to promote and cultivate its own ways and values. But they’re also transferable to peoples of very different ethnic backgrounds. Just look around you – on this forum. We have millions and millions of blacks, browns, yellows, oranges, you name it, with a special attachment to the land of my forefathers.
By ‘culture’, I am not referring to high-brow indulgences – great operas, fine paintings, meticulous sculpture, ballet, etc. What I’m referring to, in actual fact, are the underlying assumptions and metaphors through which a group of people understand and describe the world and their place in it. These unconsciously-adopted myths, binary dualisms, mega-narratives, tropes, symbols, artefacts, music and meta-narratives are responsible for marriage, discipline, private schools, institutions, consensual policing, patriotism and God. In some ways, it is obvious it is like this, otherwise all our relationships would be the same and we would all have the same amount of power.
However: An important point to note is that the correlation between the death of religious faith and the death of peoples and civilisation is absolute. I believe that the death of Christianity in the soul of Western man, and its replacement by a more materialistic, hedonistic, atomistic, post-modern ethic, and the embrace of abortion combined, mean that Western man has consumed a poison that is killing him. Peoples that no longer believe in the faith out of which their culture and civilisation came will not sustain that civilisation. It’s very simple.
Take, for instance, the death of our traditional families. Global capitalism and Marxism share a belief that it is far better to have women in the marketplace than at home. The old Marxists – Marx, Engels and Lenin – wanted to bring down the two-parent, hunter-gatherer family, and move women out of the home and into the marketplace, to make them independent of the family. The global capitalists want the same thing. Married couples are not having enough unprotected sex – or, for that matter, sex per se. A healthy marriage, in my opinion, is one with lots and lots and lots of sex. Don’t laugh. I’m deadly serious.
According to Pat Buchannan’s research, there is not a single Western nation that has a birthrate today that will enable it to stay alive in its present form after the middle of this century. Between now and 2050, Europe (in its entirety) will lose about 130 million people. In 2050, the median age of Europeans will be about 50, and 60 million Europeans – a tenth of the population – will be over 80. As Europeans begin to die out – losing the equivalent of the entire populations of Norway, Finland, Denmark, Belgium, Holland and Germany – the Third World will explode, increasing by three or four billion people – the equivalent of 30-40 new Mexicos. Great migrations to fill the West’s empty spaces have already begun. Even now the Chinese are moving into Russia, which is dying faster than almost any other country. The Islamic peoples of Africa and Arabia and South East Asia are moving in the hundreds of thousands into Europe every year. One-fifth of Mexico’s population is now within America’s borders.
Western civilisation is going to die if the people who carry it in their hearts, minds and souls are dying too. As Peter Hitchens put it: “A nation is the sum of its memories, and when those memories are allowed to die, it is less of a nation.â€
Amir
The Informer:
Thanks for the list. But to be honest, I don’t see how these items are intrinsically “British.” I mean, you might think so, but I don’t really see how “non” British aren’t/can’t be a part of this.
Also, I’m wondering how you are categorizing “British.” Does that include people who were born and raised there? Or only those who are of British “blood”, ethnicity, whatever?
“Sunny – I’m sure you could enjoy these, but when I was doing them – you weren’t there. You were doing your own thing. ”
Wow, what a bit of hubris. How do you know what he was doing and what he wasn’t?
To be honest, this comment comes off as racist. You’re assuming that someone who doesn’t share your ethnic background hasn’t done any of these things.
Do you know what the problem places like Britain and the US face?
Mentalities like yours.
“There are about fifteen different conversations going on here but anyway.”
Yeah, I admit, I kind of went off onto a tangent with that multiculturalism spiel, etc.
Oh well, I was just addressing some of Jai’s comments and adding my own thoughts.
The Informer:
“To be honest, this comment comes off as racist. You’re assuming that someone who doesn’t share your ethnic background hasn’t done any of these things.
Do you know what the problem places like Britain and the US face?
Mentalities like yours. ”
Upon reflection, what I’ve said above is a BIT too harsh.
Apologies in advance.
Don
I have no issues with what you’re saying, if anyone comes up with some crap argument let debate handle it. My issue is not the content or what Redeker said, rather it’s his timing. If I was a muslim *not a bloody jihadi type* everyday I hear someone attacking (sic) my belief system, and then some Facist nutter, supposedly representing my view proves the other nutters point. WHilst the two are busy fighting over my head, I’m supposed to pick up the pieces and defend my religion, and show *I don’t quite know how* that I’m a moderate, and that I like ‘western culture’. As one of the other treads Sunny has put up, it seems these stories sell, and then everyday week some new incidence of FREEDOM OF SPEECH vs RIGHT TO PRACTICE MY RELIGION WITHOUT INTIMIDATION. I’m fed up with this paradigm, it’s lazy and just stupid playground nonsense. If two groups of idiots want to slug it out, let them, don’t get the rest of us (Atheist, Agnostic, Abrahamic, Buddist etc) get involved. AND HERE’S MY BITE: If I was French I would refuse to pay tax to protect or monitor this idiot Redeker. Let him say what he wants, and let people do what they want. If a crime is committed, the justice will be doled out later on.
Desi I – I don’t actually think The Informer made the point I think he was trying to make. I agree with you, there is nothing on the list that couldn’t be done, and probably is done by you and Sunny, though I assume you eat your Turkey on Thanksgiving. What I think he/she means is that ‘British’ people do these things with ‘British’ people, and ‘Indian’ people with ‘Indian’ people.
I feel that the host nations were at fault initially by not making immigrants welcome (and by making immigrant a dirty word), and that now the newcomers are at fault for ghetto-ising themselves.
No matter what the thread is, it always ends in inter-racial finger pointing.
“What I think he/she means is that ‘British’ people do these things with ‘British’ people, and ‘Indian’ people with ‘Indian’ people.”
Could be….it’s entirely plausible I misinterpreted The Informer’s comment, but I came to that conclusion because he/she said:
“I’m sure you could enjoy these, but when I was doing them – you weren’t there. You were doing your own thing.”
” though I assume you eat your Turkey on Thanksgiving”
Because I’m Hindu, I skip the turkey but splurge on the cranberry sauce.
Oh crap, I just realized I set myself up for The Informer to accusingly point at this example and say, “See?! You immigrants ARE doing your OWN thing!! You are NOT doing things that we are doing in our OWN nation!”
“I feel that the host nations were at fault initially by not making immigrants welcome (and by making immigrant a dirty word), and that now the newcomers are at fault for ghetto-ising themselves.”
I am not sure if I am making a long winded observation, meaning that it might not be applicable here, but I wonder if the fact that large scale immigration in some countries (like the UK) occured because of the UK had colonial possessions (South Asians from formerly British India, etc.) has played a role in “making immigrants a dirty word.”
Informer: Admirable though “democracy, rule of law, trade unions, public libraries, free health care, innovation in science and business, admirable armed services and corruption free public services” may be they are- insofar as the are “British values” at all- very recent innovations. All of them have existed for less than two hundred years in Britain. Many are aspirations still, rather than reality. The later ones are so specific as to be personal tastes- you’re saying that living the way you did as achild with a few handy innovations is the ideal way of life. One aspect of British life is that it has traditional customs dating back to time immemorial that were invented within living memory. The same applies to the “indigenous” people, who are descended from generations of immigrants, all of which became convinced they’d been there for ever and the next lot of immigrants were filthy foregners with disgusting unBritish habits like putting hops in beer or cooking curries who were going to ruin the gaff.
Sahil, how is describing Mohammed as ” “a merciless warlord, a looter, a mass-murderer of Jews and a polygamistâ€. ” intimidating someone into not practising their religion? The greater the truth, the greater the libel, perhaps? You only need look at Mohammed’s own opin ion of other religions to realise that he wasn’t averse to vulgar abuse himself.
” If I was French I would refuse to pay tax to protect or monitor this idiot Redeker. Let him say what he wants, and let people do what they want. If a crime is committed, the justice will be doled out later on.
”
Would this also apply to people who disapprove of muslims being in France or even existing at all? If not, why not?
‘You only need look at Mohammed’s own opin ion of other religions to realise that he wasn’t averse to vulgar abuse himself.’
Roger, quoting the prophet Mohammed is ridiculous. He was an illiterate and did not allow a single word he uttered (whether it was him talking or angel gabriel speaking to him) to be commited onto papyrus. Everything he or his boss is meant to have said comes from those who claimed to know him best and memorised his words down to a T.
The phrase ‘a close pal said…’ springs to mind
Desi Italia
A BIT too harsh were you?
Don’t worry about it – I couldn’t care less.
Sunny and you asked me to identify the customs and traditions that I think to be British. I’ve given you some but I could go on (and on and on). These, although in isolation are small, cumulatively they carry some weight.
I assume nothing. My family and circle of friends is in large white and born in the UK, with the odd ‘westernised’ asian thrown in. That’s just the way it is – people seem to lead increasingly seperate lives. I don’t want this. To me common values and traditions define and hold together communities.
I exclude no-one – but other people have their own traditions and customs. It’s not that Sunny wasn’t invited to the party – simply that he was hosting his own event.
The opinion of an earlier great Briton is here. http://rpo.library.utoronto.ca/poem/627.html Characteristically, he pretended to be French.
Chairwoman
Thank you for translating my ramblings.
Chairwoman
Thank you for translating my ramblings.
Roger:
“Would this also apply to people who disapprove of muslims being in France or even existing at all? If not, why not?”
I don’t understand your point? Le Pen et al having been saying these things for years. It’s becoming dinner table conversation in many parts of the EU. Like I said, Le Pen et al types can say what they want, but why should I (assuming I’m a French taxpayer) have to increase my tax receipts to protect his sorry ass. A simple case in point also is the no. of death threats muslims have receieved after 9/11, 7/7, madrid, but I don’t hear the police increasing their expenditure to protect them from attacks. I guess they don’t get enough press time! The only case which holds is that the state has a duty to protect EVERY citizen, and maintain its monopoly on violence. Like i said, if someone physically attacks Le Pen, then they should be caught and put in jail according to the law of the land. Until then, why should I finance 10 cops to be his personal bodyguards? Let him pay for them himself if he’s paranoid. Or is he some sort of national champion of free speech that needs to be kept in the Versailles?
Another compliment to Chairwoman:
“No matter what the thread is, it always ends in inter-racial finger pointing.†Quite true and pointless to some extent but at least interesting nonetheless, it’s like reading the Sun newspaper!
There is a difference between “dinner party conversdation” and an ideology with a long record of murdering people who disagree with it or are rude about its inventor. You said “If I was French I would refuse to pay tax to protect or monitor this idiot Redeker”. By the same token why should French people pay tax to protect muslims- or, indeed, support unemployed muslims- if they don’t want to?
— without having to line Murdoch’s pockets. Or is Sunny giving him a cut of his advertiising revenue. I think we should be told.
Justforfun
Roger
Jesus Roger it doesn’t sound too much fun in your house.
My list simply encompasses things that make me feel British. I was asked to define my customs and traditions. This is what I did as a child and what I do now. How I and those close to me live and make sense of the world.
I quite enjoyed life growing up – and I want the same for my children.
These quirks and preferences bound my familiy and friends together.
Without such common ground do we relate and understand each other? It would appear not.
PS. Apologies for ~187 – that’s some stutter I’ve got.
The Informer
All those things you listed me and my family and friends do and did. It is not our fault that you can’t conceive of us as the same as you, on the basis of your experience of a minority. But that is YOUR fault, not ours, in the same way that an Indian whose sole experience of white people is the racist who spat on his mother and called him a Paki and beat him up would look at all white people as snarling beasts. But in this personal situation, the failure is YOURS, certainly not Sunny’s or anyone elses.
By the way Informer, I doubt Sunny wasnt at your party because he’s an incorrigible Asian who specifically wants to spite you by not, ummmm, like, hanging out with you, I would say it’s because you sound so joyless and crybabyish. I certainly wouldnt want to hang out with you, and I hang out with millions of my white buddies.
Roger:
“There is a difference between “dinner party conversdation†and an ideology with a long record of murdering people who disagree with it or are rude about its inventor. You said “If I was French I would refuse to pay tax to protect or monitor this idiot Redekerâ€. By the same token why should French people pay tax to protect muslims- or, indeed, support unemployed muslims- if they don’t want to?”
One last post from me, I think this topic has derailed this thread too much already.
1.) Le Pen and his views are in Parliment:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/1139031.stm
The Dinner party conversations is a reference to the average conversation (I have no link to provide, it’s just an assertion).
2.) Redeker, purposefully mixes Islamic thought with Jihai ideology. Islamic thought has as much track record of murder as any other religion or Humanist e.g. communist, school of thought. Jihadi, clearly is an extremely violent school of thought, much in line with nihilism.
3. As for tax payers paying for Muslims, don’t worry they’re not, that’s the point. A simple case in point was the two riots last (?) year. One was involving mostly immigrants angry at not having access to the labour market. They were portayed as “scum” and religious radicals. The Anti-CPE rioters (essentially due to the French govt reaction to the riots, to free up the labour market, hence lower the barriers to entry for non-BBR citizens) were shown as proudly French. One group are scum, the other the cream of France. The French public (as in parliment) have made their views of taxation policy, plus red tape clear. I just wonder whether this is a wise course for France on a pragmatic level.
Chairwoman
Yeah — but I guess it would be easy to say he doesnt do any of that stuff with too many Jews either – what have YOU done to integrate recently?? etc etc etc
Bijna makes me laugh. uNfortunately for us most civilizations have engaged in extremely brutal warfare.
where does that leave us?
“My list simply encompasses things that make me feel British.”
Yes, Informer, but people just as proudly British would never have come up with that list.
Sahil: “As for tax payers paying for Muslims, don’t worry they’re not, that’s the point”
They are. The banlieus were built out of taxes and the people who live there are supported by the French stste. Reluctantly, perhaps, but still supported. I don’t think islam is an irrelevance here, precisely because islam is- in rhetoric at least- an ideology of conquest. I’d say that the jihadi ideology is at the core of islam and that the other more peaceable adaptations came about later in attempts to manage to get islam to survive in contact with reality.
is always quite amusing to read these threads – gosh people are so scared of each other. what insular folk.
This is an island, Sonia. What do you expect?
Sorry, to expand, Informer, something went wrong last time I posted: “My list simply encompasses things that make me feel British.â€
Yes, Informer, but people just as proudly British would never have come up with that list and for most of British history they could not have come up with that list. What makes you or I or anyone else feel British at this moment in time are entirely subjective traits that have nothing to do with actual Britishness, whatever- and if ever- that is.
Jagdeep
#193
I’m crushed mate. Here was me thinking you and I could be friends.
My list is the things I do – what it means to me to British. If it means the same to you good luck to you – if it doesn’t then it doesn’t.
As to the rest – just saying as I see it. People of different ‘cultures’ don’t seem to mix together and have the common ground to care about it. No blame attached to anyone that’s just the way it is.
Now how about winding your neck back in.
The Informer
I liked your list. I think most would, unfortunately you have not had the good fortune to meet those who share the same list but are just a little browner. In these times, the forces at work are trying to polarise people for their own agendas. Personnally I would ban the Daily Mail and the Guardian except as cat litter. Both papers are for people who want others to do the thinking for them.
There is a silent majority out there whose views unfortunately don’t sell newspapers. They can only be engaged person by person, contact by contact.
Justforfun
Roger
You’re right – it’s my list. Ask my other half, brother, mother in law – their list would be a little different. Someone asks me what ‘I’ think – I tell them. What can I say mate? I thought that this might be a little more interesting than engaging in a debate about post modernism.
The best thing about britain is the british women and the british jobs
Roger wrote: “I’d say- just as there are Britons in France or Spain even who reject the existence of every aspect of the country they live in except for the weather”
Well I’ve never met one. Though I can’t speak for those in France.
Kismet wrote: “The best thing about britain is the british women”
At first I thought you depraved, now I see you must be deprived.
Informer with your list and long lazy lamentings it’s your neck that’s been stuck out for a long time. The blame is implicit in your depression that Sunny ‘never came to my party’ and the Asians dont want to play with you. If you read this blog long enough, and read Sunny’s post enough, you’d know that there is a great deal of cultural mixing going on, and lots of people who believe more should happen. But because it’s off your radar it doesnt exist. But that’s just solipsism, not an account of how things happen slowly in the world.
I was lied to. When i came here a thuggish chap with a suedehead and jackboots told me off for coming over here and taking his job and his women
I got neither
Frankly, I can’t say I wanted his job much. His job was leafletting for the BNP
As we’re play Super Trumps here is my list.
1 – British – irreverance and suspicion of any intellectual idea, especially political ideas. I am sure Amir is not English. He reads too much
.
2 – Hypocrisy is seen as a fact of life and not a moral failure. Is hypocrisy a moral failure – if so why? Call someone, who is not English or British, a hypocrite and they get all upset and defensive. The English just shrug it off. I like that quality and have it myself.
3 – Tolerance of the Eccentric – “there for the grace of God go I”.
4 – A love of puddings. Now this is where the British and Indians share a common sweet tooth. But why is there no internet site for ordering Mithai. Type it into Google and I can send Mithai to every relative I care to think of in India but why would I, but can I get some sent to me – no!!. Why? why is there this discrimination? Do I have to get in my car and actually have to drive to Leicester? If any one starts this and makes a fortune out of it, give Sunny a donation.
5- Complacancy at sport. This is very British. Every one else wants to win, but the British have already won so what do we care if we lose at sport. No great fuss. This desire to win the ashes at all costs is not very British. Nor this desire to question the honesty of … well you know who, but you know who I am talking about – the one who stole all the pies.
6 – Same thing really – love of an underdog. People only cheer on winners because they want to ingratiate themselves with the winner afterwards. Not so the British. We ingratiate ourselves with the loser, because the winner will be taking sport far to seriously and hence point #5 – they cannot be British. Anyway why not cheer on the loser, there is nothing to lose and its polite.
7 – Love of Committees and Procrastination – this is also very British and is our gift to the world. Dictators beware. The Sub-committee will eventiually stop you. It has saved and will continue to save Britain from dictatorship for centuries.
Justforfun
Kismet it was only the blacks and Indians who came to England like bloodsucking parasites for the jobs and money and girls. You Sylethis only came to feed them curry. You were the most selfless and un-selfish immigrants in history, with nothing more than a concern for English hunger, and an inventive use of masala sauce and tomato ketchup and linguistic prowess to invent such things as chicken dopiaza, chicken jalfrezi, and chicken tikka masala to deliver the stomachs of the natives from bland starch and gravy. For this selfless missionary work and concern for the hunger of the British, they are truly thankful. It was pure philanthropy. Pictures of starving white men, at a loss as to what to do after the pubs had closed, with bloated bellies and fear in their eyes, were seen across Bangladesh, and it was the selfless Sylethis who answered the call of charity.
Yes – Jagdeep – I second that.
Spare a thought for the Chinese who were sent over as a communist conspiracy. They are still in the cellars waiting the call.
Am I the only one to fear this conspiracy above all others?
Justforfun
Fear the Chinese Communists! Red Peril Red Peril!
Jagdeep wrote: “linguistic prowess to invent such things as chicken dopiaza, chicken jalfrezi, and chicken tikka masala”
So it’s true they were all invented for the UK market? I always took it as something of an urban myth. Um, as they all appeared at the same time right across the UK and are now spreading over Europe under those same names we seem to be staring a genuine global conspiracy in the face. Wow.
My first thought was of falling sperm counts but as they’re the dishes most popular with the ladies that can’t be the conspiracy. Is it trying to chub up our women? What’s the rub? Come on, out with it.
‘Shutki’, dried fish paste with chillis and rice, is a East Bangladeshi/Burmese dish that’ll make you frisky and put lead in your pencil Bert. Its bit of an aquired taste though.
Sounds good. The only fishpaste I dislike is the bland English version. Not overly sure the wife will allow me to breathe anywhere near her after, mind.
Thinking about it, English pies and good Indian food are the two things I miss most in Spain. Plenty of curry houses here, but as the Spanish view a gingernut as overly spicy you can imagine what the curries are like.
=>”it was the selfless Sylethis who answered the call of charity.”
They were like the Gurkhas of Gastronomy.
Talking of Gurkhas – where are they posted now? They were in Hong Kong and there was (is?) a battalion in Brunei defending the Sultan from his people, but where are they deployed now? Are they in Afghanistan?
Justforfun
“Gurkhas of Gastronomy”
Taking over Britain with small but fearsome portions. All the conspiracies are coming out of the woodwork now.
Halt !! – no conspiracy here – just a sequence of events that make up a pattern that looks like a plot – the curry was English all along.
http://www.menumagazine.co.uk/book/curryhistory.html
Justforfun
Desi Italiana,
re: post #163
Thank you for your message. My apologies for the delay in replying (transatlantic time difference etc) — and also for using the term “FOB”. I am aware that many ‘recent arrivals’ amongst the desi community in the US do not like that term. Someone on SM recently suggested “JoJ” or “Just off the Jet” as a snappier alternative
=>”I completely disagree with your analysis here (you’re not making these assumptions based on online conversations, are you?”
Partially — a lot of it is based on quietly observing people’s behaviour and noticing who objects to certain things much more than others. But I’ve had offline conversations with South Asians of various backgrounds based in the US about all this too, and generally they agree with many of my thoughts. In any case, it’s just a subjective opinion on my part and I don’t claim it’s the definitive explanation of people’s attitudes.
=>”I’d venture to say that most Punjabis and Gujaratis are not percieved as “whiteâ€, and thus, they too encounter racism.”
Yes, I know that. My point was regarding the attitudes/reactions of a disproportionate number of people in the other desi groups I mentioned — from observation (which, again, I don’t claim to be exhaustive), it’s people amongst those desi groups that look less white (in terms of facial features and skin colour) who seem to be the most prejudiced towards white people. I was just suggesting that, in part, it may be because, on a superficial physical level, they identify with/relate to white people less than the stereotypical lighter-skinned/sharper-featured northie groups can — they don’t feel that commonality because they are too self-conscious of the ethnic differences.
=>”We within our community might make those distinctions, but to white Americans, we’re basically all the same.”
Yes I know, I’ve heard some fairly humorous anecdotes from some American South Asian friends about that.
=>”As a side note, you say that Bengalis don’t exist in large numbers in the UK.”
I was referring to Indian Bengalis. There are plenty of Bangladeshi Bengalis around here too, especially in London, but both groups are massively outnumbered by Indian Punjabis most of all, followed by Gujaratis. The Punjabi population increases further if you include people originally from Pakistan, although I wasn’t referring to them in my original comment. The northwestern bias is much more pronounced in the UK than in the US, both culturally and numerically.
=>”In the US, skin color plays a HUGE role in US society; having spent time abroad, I’ve noticed that in the US, we are one of the most color based societies.”
I’ve noticed that too, and observing the debates on SM confirms this. As a point of comparison, it’s interesting to note that the term “brown” has not developed amongst British South Asians as a term of informal self-identification — we use geographical/regional origin (and sometimes religion) instead, not our skin-colour. But your point is even more pertinent due to the fact that it took a very long time for me to realise that some of my comments on SM regarding South Asian ethnicity had been (mis)interpreted as referring to skin-colour, not facial-features. It’s an interesting example of how people’s cultural and social environments can affect the way their minds work.
I agree with most of the rest of your post, so I think we’re on the same page there.
Jagdeep – I haven’t done a great deal to intergrate at all recently, on account of currently being chairbound. I had Indian friends when I lived in Hendon, but they have moved to High Wycombe, and we don’t get to see each other much any more. My black American girlfriend recently moved to Berkhamstead, but we speak a couple of times a week. My Nigerian neighbours, and good friends have moved back to Abuja. The racial mix of my other friends are approximately 50/50 Jewish and non-Jewish, the lovely young lady who comes and sorts my house out twice a week and her extremely hardworking husband are Romanian graduates (legal immigrants, btw), my hairdresser is Croatian and her husband Italian, my late husband was a lapsed Catholic from Liverpool, and his antecedants were English, Irish and Scottish, and his family is my family. In December we had candles for Chanukah, and a tree for Yule.
When my husband died, 150 people of all shades and creeds attended his fueneral.
I am ashamed to have been provoked into writing this bizarre and offensive list to justify my intergrated credentials.
To be honest, I don’t think you should have done anything of the sort – though realise you were placed in a rather invidious position. There is too much of this on PickledPolitics – a single incident would be too much.
I think the issues should be dealt with, rather than trying to work out whether or not someone is white and then accusing them of being fearful of swarthy chaps sporting beards (to pick one example).
Chris Stiles – As late husband, admittedly not swarthy, sported a beard for most of his life, I know that they are indeed fearsome things!
Perhaps more accurately, I don’t think you should have had to have done anything of the sort.
Chairwoman I just realised how my post could have seemed accusatory, actually it was the opposite, and meant to convey how strange it feels on an individual level to be queried on your ‘integration’ or whatever, especially when you exist in good faith without issues like that. I apologise for my clumsiness of expression.
I am ashamed to have been provoked into writing this bizarre and offensive list to justify my intergrated credentials.
Me too, and that is what happens virtually every day, in one form or another for many people, me included sometimes.
Please give me your address for chocolates and apologetic flowers to be sent to.
There is too much of this on PickledPolitics
I don’t do this, never see the point, this is my country, end of.
Jagdeep – That’s the trouble with the written word. Without facial expressions, tone of voice, and body language, it is easy to misunderstand and be misunderstood. I both accept and appreciate your gracious apology.
Chairwoman,
If you don’t mind me asking, are you really Katy’s mother ?
Yes it is Chairwoman – and it is not the first time that I have sent out the wrong message from my posts here, and I feel awful for having done it to you.
Please cheer yourself up by watching some of these videos of Richard Pryor live on stage – had me laughing out loud and cheered me up no end when I saw them at lunchtime:
http://youtube.com/results?search_query=richard+pryor
Jai – Yes, I really am.
Jagdeep – I will save Richard Pryor for later, as I must confess to watching Thirtysomething at this time of day. How I missed it in the 80s I’ll never know. Perhaps it was because I had too much else to do. The one advantage of being a widow, as my mother used to tell me, is that one can indulge oneself with the televisual rubbish of ones choice.
Chairwoman,
Re: post #231
In that case, I was considering that it may be worthwhile for everyone here to perhaps be careful about the sort of language used, especially when talking to Katy (repeat offender — you know who you are). Joking aside, I know that I wouldn’t be comfortable swearing in front of someone who is approximately the same age as my own parents — as a mark of respect and courtesy. Saying certain things to a young woman in the presence of her mother is probably not cricket either.
Just a thought anyway; possibly I’m just being very Asian about all this, for once.
Chairwoman, for all the pleasures of married life, there is a massive Universe Shaped Hole in the centre of your existence when you have a wife/husband and kids, and that is the ability to sit down with a DVD box set of the Sopranos of the Godfather films and eat pizza all alone for days at a time.
And satellite TV is as addictive as crack. You know on the rare times when I get to flake out in front of the TV, I lose afternoons in the world of MTV, bhangra music videos, repeats of Colombo and George and Mildred, the Liver Birds, in depth reporting on a schoolboy in Darlington who got his arse stuck in his chair on News 24 and what this means for childhood obesity, BID up TV, shopping channels. I think that man can live on bread and satellite TV alone you know, I really do.
I was considering that it may be worthwhile for everyone here to perhaps be careful about the sort of language used, especially when talking to Katy.
Why? I think it would be patronising to treat her any different because her mums here. She’s a big girl I’m sure she can deal with the compliments and critisisms like anyone else.
Leon,
Read my post again, especially the part I put in brackets, and you’ll understand what I’m referring to.
I don’t mind people swearing to me, I don’t like them swearing at me. I have been known to swear myself, but only in appropriate company.
I think Jai is referring to someone who has an obsession with what Monty Python referred to as his ‘naughty bits’.
The naughty corner was invented specifically for him.
Katy had a colleague who made similar suggestions, who, like K (oops) is actually a very nice chap indeed. I shall get her to blog about it one day.
Jai, just re-read, who did you have in mind (I’m obviously missing something here…)?
Nm, just read Chairwomans post…
Well i learned one thing from this thread and that is Sahil has no understanding of an idea called free speech.
Everybody – Katy has just phoned to say that she’s just looked at this thread, and that she enjoys the unrestrained banter that goes on here, and she wants it to continue.
So keep on trucking.
You can’t muzzle Goat-boy.
Leon,
Correct, Chairwoman has understood who and what I’m referring to.
I was just talking about the inappropriateness of making obscene comments to a woman in front of her mother, even if it’s all obviously in jest. Potentially it’s highly embarassing towards the former and certainly disrespectful to the latter. Bad manners and all that.
However, if neither party objects — which appears to be the case here — then it’s all okay, apparently.
****************
Chairwoman,
I’m still going to treat you with the appropriate degree of courtesy, as per my previous “aunty” comments. I suspect that many other people here have already been doing this anyway. Asians are generally brought up to be very respectful towards their friends’ parents and people of that generation, although this custom is by no means exclusive to Asians of course. But it’s still a good habit to cultivate, unless the other party takes advantage of their position and/or is malicious (neither of which applies to you).
Jai – I truly appreciate the respect that you and others show me here, even when they are dynamically making their point.
I think that someone enjoys being a bit of a maverick, so we shall indulge him. I am sure that if he was actually here in my sitting room, it would be a different story. Something like Kathy Bourke’s ‘Perry’ from the Harry Enfield Show (‘Thank you Mrs Patterson).
I’m sure the “Perry” analogy will bring a huge grin to a certain someone’s face.
I like the swearing here, and the freedom to say what you want. More than this, I like the self policing and responsibility shown by pretty much everyone. Nobody swears to offend, and nobody banters to cause offence. If offence is caused it’s quicky forgiven or forgotten, at least on the surface and I hope deep down too. On a multiculti board the thing that can really bring people together is humour, which does make me at least feel a genuine affection for whoever bought a smile to my face whatever I think of their views or how they put them across.
‘“I’d say- just as there are Britons in France or Spain even who reject the existence of every aspect of the country they live in except for the weatherâ€
Well I’ve never met one. Though I can’t speak for those in France.’
Well, Bert, I was going by newspaper reports of Spanish resorts where British people live, eating “British” meals, drinking imported beer, watching imported videos and Sky TV and not learning a word of Spanish. I have come across people like that in France as well. Just as it is much easier to change our skies it is also much easier not to change our customs when we do.
Don’t the British have a bad reputation in some parts of Spain, due to the sight of Brits on the piss, rivers of puke in the holiday resorts, and all the general sleazy behaviour there?
Now just imagine if hundreds of thousands of foreigners came to England to act like that….
Roger wrote: “Well, Bert, I was going by newspaper reports of Spanish resorts where British people live, eating “British†meals, drinking imported beer, watching imported videos and Sky TV and not learning a word of Spanish. I have come across people like that in France as well. Just as it is much easier to change our skies it is also much easier not to change our customs when we do.”
Yes. But while they are contributors to the economy and aren’t complaining about the government, why do you have a problem with that?
Jagdeep wrote: “Don’t the British have a bad reputation in some parts of Spain, due to the sight of Brits on the piss, rivers of puke in the holiday resorts, and all the general sleazy behaviour there?”
No. If you’d spent your life fishing for sardines you’d know why.
Yeah but doesnt their behaviour embarass you a little, as a Brit in Spain?
No. Those are tourists, and they’re no worse than the Germans.
Loving the generalisations about my little community, mind.
Arent you all ex criminals and cockney gangsters getting sloshed and sunburnt in the Spanish sun, trying to hide from psychotic Ben Kingsley lookalikes who want you to do one last job? In rivers of puke and casual sex?
Basically, you got it.
“Yes. But while they are contributors to the economy and aren’t complaining about the government, why do you have a problem with that? ”
I don’t, any more than I have a problem with the people who live in England as though they are still in their native country. Oddly, however, the people I met in France with that way of living did have problems when people did it in Britain though.
Daily Mail readers, shouldn’t wonder. Here we are a more sophisticated class of ex-pat, and we read The Sun. And wear string vests. And have tattoos. And drink too much beer.
I’ve never trusted the type of ex-pat who’d choose France to be honest. At least we’re painfully honest.
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