Re: The Bigger, Badder, Even More Serious Thread [4]

[Pettytyrant101]

when they randomly ask Young Asian Brits if they actually feel British a lot of them say no- Figg

I am curious when you are asked what you are what do you reply? Italian British? British Italian? Italian? British? English?
Do you speak Italian most of the time or English? Do you participate in Italian culture and norms?

Labels just make it easier to judge people on mass.


'Its fine having egalitarian ideals but the reality is messy and difficult'

The reality is messy and difficult, yes, but I dont think those are good enough reasons to give up trying and starting to segregate and point figures and allocate blame and start talking of 'sending them home' as UKIP have been.


'the feeling is people have had enough of pandering, focus groups, political correct hand wringing'

The means and manner of how it has been done so far might  not be ideal, thats something to work on not abandon. Whats the alternative? Isolationism? Shut ourselves away and hope he big bad world doesn't notice us? Stop johnny foreigner from entering the country? Interment camps for those who are here so we can keep an eye on them at all times? Where does that line of thinking lead and end?
History tends to say nowhere very good.

'The reality is if you live in someone elses country you dont try to impose Sharia law'

Where is your evidence that anything more than a minority of UK muslims want Sharia Law? (and actually we could do wore than to adopt some parts of it, (particularly the laws on financial businesses and personal loans- and why not? In UK history we have absorbed French Laws, Norse Laws and a host of other legal systems into our own over the centuries).

Its all too easy to blame everything on a group of people and not scrutinise the facts and the history closer. And doing so is never good in the long term.

[Mrs Figg]

when they randomly ask Young Asian Brits if they actually feel British a lot of them say no- Figg

I am curious when you are asked what you are what do you reply? Italian British? British Italian? Italian? British? English?
Do you speak Italian most of the time or English? Do you participate in Italian culture and norms?

Labels just make it easier to judge people on mass.

I say I am English because I am. I speak Italian every day, all day because its their country and I follow their rules and norms. I eat when they do, I adapt to their culture, I respect their way of doing things. I take my hat off in Church, I at least try to understand them. Some things I like, some not, but its their way or the highway which is right and proper.


'Its fine having egalitarian ideals but the reality is messy and difficult'

The reality is messy and difficult, yes, but I dont think those are good enough reasons to give up trying and starting to segregate and point figures and allocate blame and start talking of 'sending them home' as UKIP have been.

As for segregation what do you do with a closed society? you cant force people to open the breach, theres some self interest in being closed off, they would have to confront Western values, maybe change, maybe let go of the paternalistic attitudes? i know there is a conflict with Young Asians born in England and their parents values, its an impossible choice for them.

'the feeling is people have had enough of pandering, focus groups, political correct hand wringing'

The means and manner of how it has been done so far might  not be ideal, thats something to work on not abandon. Whats the alternative? Isolationism? Shut ourselves away and hope he big bad world doesn't notice us? Stop johnny foreigner from entering the country? Interment camps for those who are here so we can keep an eye on them at all times? Where does that line of thinking lead and end?
History tends to say nowhere very good.

The ideal way is to keep immigration under control, dont swamp urban areas, give the natives some room to feel secure and listened to. what happened in Rotheram is the symptom of a diseased attitude towards issues of race, its madness and people get angry. If UKIP is gathering support theres a good reason.

'The reality is if you live in someone elses country you dont try to impose Sharia law'

Where is your evidence that anything more than a minority of UK muslims want Sharia Law? (and actually we could do wore than to adopt some parts of it, (particularly the laws on financial businesses and personal loans- and why not? In UK history we have absorbed French Laws, Norse Laws and a host of other legal systems into our own over the centuries).

I heard on BBC tv only recently some muppet demanding Sharia law be imposed in the UK, yes, demanded! theres a lot more where that came from.

Its all too easy to blame everything on a group of people and not scrutinise the facts and the history closer. And doing so is never good in the long term.

this immigration thing is just part of a greater malaise. nobody is suggesting gulags or forced expulsions, but something has to change.

[azriel]

Well, I think, we will always have this debate, we will always have arguments, it will never change. Many people have tried & still do try to make this a more manageable world, people have died trying to find the holy grail of Sir cliff Richard but there is one thing that hampers us from attaining the ultimate goal....we have...the one thing that raises us above knuckle dragging stage...the power of thought. We have freedom to think. And thinking begets actions. I think one thing, you think another. Simple test, easy peasy. 100s watch a crime being commited. Those 100s give similar answers but some differ slightly. Before you know it a fooking argument breaks out because one person insists HIS story is the true & honest version,then, escalation, you know the rest. We can all get along if, we decode our brain, strip it down to basic,simples *tutt*. Even cavemen couldnt get along ( according to experts ) & beat on their cave neighbours & they were the simplest of minds !!

[Pettytyrant101]

I speak Italian every day, all day because its their country- Figg


And every Muslim , Indian or other immigrant in the UK I have spoken to spoke english. And Indians dont have so much adapting to do because we have adapted as well to their culture- curries are the no1 favourite food in the UK among native white Brits. Adaption is best when it works both ways.

'As for segregation what do you do with a closed society?'

You help to open it. Not housing immigrants in large numbers in one location for a start.
And not all muslims culture is closed. In the past it was one of the most progressive thinking outward looking religions in the world. There is no reason it could not be again.

'dont swamp urban areas, give the natives some room to feel secure and listened to.'

This I agree with. It was bad management and was always going to lead to difficulties. I have no idea why England adopted this policy in the first place.

'If UKIP is gathering support theres a good reason.'

UKIP are cashing in on a sentiment. But they are stoking the fires for their own advantage, distorting the facts and creating a potentially dangerous mood that could all too easily turn towards hostility and violence.

'I heard on BBC tv only recently some muppet demanding Sharia law be imposed in the UK, yes, demanded! theres a lot more where that came from.'

What do you base there being lots more like them in the UK on?
The muslim population of the UK is 4.4% of the population.
The way UKIP and others go on you would think it was nearing 50%.

A poll of UK muslims conducted after the London bombings found that a fifth of Muslims sympathised with the bombers reasons and motivations but 99% thought carrying out bombings as a response was wrong. And 91% said they were British and loyal to Britain.

It seems to me that the percentage of the 4% of Muslims in the population that support radical actions is therefore small.
To respond as if a majority want radical Islam is not right and an example of the sort the manner in which groups like UKIP have been distorting the arguments to suit themselves.

'nobody is suggesting gulags or forced expulsions'

No not yet. But it where this lead sin the end, always does. Already Reckless made the slip of saying there should be repatriation of foreigners back to where they came from.
UKIP later retracted the statement saying it was badly worded, and a slip of the tongue because he was tired (as someone in the QT audience brilliantly pointed out however even if it was a slip do we want MP's who become racists when they get tired?).
The mask slipped for a second and we saw what is really beneath.


Azriel- as I said at the start of this debate so much comes down to perception. Which is why its important to try to find a balanced view based on the information not emotional rhetoric.

[azriel]

For some people thats what it is..perception but, not in my town. We are slowly getting out numbered by the high incoming of immigrants. The schools have a high ratio of dark to white, you can see this without figures by watching them come out of school. A high section of shops here are run by Asians & Middle Easterners. NO, they dont fooking speak English & mumble in some weird fook pidgeon shit English. Many of the eating establishments are warned again & again for filth & hygiene. Fly tipping, Asians caught on CCVTV & arrested, Rape, often, again Asians. Knife crime, again Asians. The list in my neck of the woods is endless & outweighs the white English. Speeding on roads, when caught most revert to their mother tongue & make out they know nothing. Under counter illegal baccy, booze & drugs. A higher number are Asian & middle East. Burgleries, oh fook, it just goes on & on. And as "we" are living cheek to jowl, in even more cramped conditions, tempers flare. Its not histrionics or sentimentality.its seen on a daily basis. I sit on the Council Panel where I live. We have visits from the police, we have complaints come in from all sectors, I see written documentation that isnt privy to the public.

[Eldorion]

If you say UKIP is racist thats like calling thousands of ordinary people racist, and I dont believe we are racist, just realistic.

What exactly is so outrageous about pointing out that lots of perfectly ordinary people engage in racist patterns of thinking?  Western societies have made progress on this in the last hundred to two hundred years, but there are still plenty of deeply ingrained prejudices against certain "outsider" groups.  Just as there are in other societies all around the world; this is by no means an exclusively Western phenomenon.  It's not like racism is some malevolent thing that we can root out and destroy; it's a natural consequence of human tendencies to generalize about groups they are unfamiliar with as well as established power structures in society.  I don't think anyone is completely immune to racist thoughts, but challenging it is a matter of confronting easy/unconscious assumptions and trying to think outside your comfort zone.

Its fine having egalitarian ideals but the reality is messy and difficult, and sometimes racial integration is NOT possible, its just not, if the two cultures are so far removed, or unwilling to compromise, and i suppose the feeling is people have had enough of pandering, focus groups, political correct hand wringing. The reality is if you live in someone elses country you dont try to impose Sharia law, you dont abuse the system and you try to learn the Language and respect the host countries culture.

Is there even a shred of evidence that a majority -- or even a substantial minority -- of immigrants to the UK refuse to learn the language or are trying to impose religious law?  Learning languages is hard, a lot of people struggle with it.  I know I did in school, and I know my Italian grandfather struggled to learn English when he came to America.  It's not like living in a country where you don't speak the majority language is fun or easy; it shuts you out of countless industries and possibilities even if you are well-educated and otherwise qualified.  It's something that takes time, sometimes over multiple generations, but it's more or less inevitable that the children of immigrants can speak the language of the host country, and their grandchildren often can't speak the family's original language at all.  (This is exactly what happened in my own family's history, and it's common enough to have been studied by sociologists).

[Mrs Figg]

I speak Italian every day, all day because its their country- Figg


And every Muslim , Indian or other immigrant in the UK I have spoken to spoke english. And Indians dont have so much adapting to do because we have adapted as well to their culture- curries are the no1 favourite food in the UK among native white Brits. Adaption is best when it works both ways.

er how many have you spoken to exactly? there are translaters available in most police stations because many people dont speak English, and most instructions in councils have Urdu etc because of people who cant speak English.

'As for segregation what do you do with a closed society?'

You help to open it. Not housing immigrants in large numbers in one location for a start.
And not all muslims culture is closed. In the past it was one of the most progressive thinking outward looking religions in the world. There is no reason it could not be again.

yeah in the past. you said it.

'dont swamp urban areas, give the natives some room to feel secure and listened to.'

This I agree with. It was bad management and was always going to lead to difficulties. I have no idea why England adopted this policy in the first place.

its Always the English isnt it?

'If UKIP is gathering support theres a good reason.'

UKIP are cashing in on a sentiment. But they are stoking the fires for their own advantage, distorting the facts and creating a potentially dangerous mood that could all too easily turn towards hostility and violence.

actually people are not stupid, theres anger out there, and ignore it at your peril.

'I heard on BBC tv only recently some muppet demanding Sharia law be imposed in the UK, yes, demanded! theres a lot more where that came from.'

What do you base there being lots more like them in the UK on?
The muslim population of the UK is 4.4% of the population.
The way UKIP and others go on you would think it was nearing 50%.


A poll of UK muslims conducted after the London bombings found that a fifth of Muslims sympathised with the bombers reasons and motivations but 99% thought carrying out bombings as a response was wrong. And 91% said they were British and loyal to Britain.

It seems to me that the percentage of the 4% of Muslims in the population that support radical actions is therefore small.
To respond as if a majority want radical Islam is not right and an example of the sort the manner in which groups like UKIP have been distorting the arguments to suit themselves.

'nobody is suggesting gulags or forced expulsions'

No not yet. But it where this lead sin the end, always does. Already Reckless made the slip of saying there should be repatriation of foreigners back to where they came from.
UKIP later retracted the statement saying it was badly worded, and a slip of the tongue because he was tired (as someone in the QT audience brilliantly pointed out however even if it was a slip do we want MP's who become racists when they get tired?).
The mask slipped for a second and we saw what is really beneath.

This is nothing to do with racism, its not religious, its not anti-Muslim, its about looking after English people first in our own country, which people percieve as whats not happening, whether its true or not, thats what ordinary people feel. its not politically correct, but thats the beef.


Azriel- as I said at the start of this debate so much comes down to perception. Which is why its important to try to find a balanced view based on the information not emotional rhetoric.

[Mrs Figg]

If you say UKIP is racist thats like calling thousands of ordinary people racist, and I dont believe we are racist, just realistic.

What exactly is so outrageous about pointing out that lots of perfectly ordinary people engage in racist patterns of thinking?  Western societies have made progress on this in the last hundred to two hundred years, but there are still plenty of deeply ingrained prejudices against certain "outsider" groups.  Just as there are in other societies all around the world; this is by no means an exclusively Western phenomenon.  It's not like racism is some malevolent thing that we can root out and destroy; it's a natural consequence of human tendencies to generalize about groups they are unfamiliar with as well as established power structures in society.  I don't think anyone is completely immune to racist thoughts, but challenging it is a matter of confronting easy/unconscious assumptions and trying to think outside your comfort zone.

Its fine having egalitarian ideals but the reality is messy and difficult, and sometimes racial integration is NOT possible, its just not, if the two cultures are so far removed, or unwilling to compromise, and i suppose the feeling is people have had enough of pandering, focus groups, political correct hand wringing. The reality is if you live in someone elses country you dont try to impose Sharia law, you dont abuse the system and you try to learn the Language and respect the host countries culture.

Is there even a shred of evidence that a majority -- or even a substantial minority -- of immigrants to the UK refuse to learn the language or are trying to impose religious law?  Learning languages is hard, a lot of people struggle with it.  I know I did in school, and I know my Italian grandfather struggled to learn English when he came to America.  It's not like living in a country where you don't speak the majority language is fun or easy; it shuts you out of countless industries and possibilities even if you are well-educated and otherwise qualified.  It's something that takes time, sometimes over multiple generations, but it's more or less inevitable that the children of immigrants can speak the language of the host country, and their grandchildren often can't speak the family's original language at all.  (This is exactly what happened in my own family's history, and it's common enough to have been studied by sociologists).

I think you need to go and live in Bradford for a bit, then come back and comment.

[Pettytyrant101]

er how many have you spoken to exactly? there are translaters available in most police stations because many people dont speak English, and most instructions in councils have Urdu etc because of people who cant speak English.- Figg

Is there a magic number over which my point mysteriously becomes acceptable?
I grew up with two asian friends and the majority of small shops around me are run by Indians. All of them speak english, the majority sound Scots.
As to councils offering urdu ect- well in Scotland you can also get Scots and Irish Gaelic, in Wales you can get all the information in Welsh.
Whats the difference? Is English the only acceptable official language?

'yeah in the past. you said it.'

I also said there is no reason why it couldn't be so again. The point was that culture is not some fixed unchanging concept. It does change over time.

'its Always the English isnt it?'

No but you always take such points to mean that. There is an obvious and stark difference between Scotland and England regards immigration- we want more you want less being the most obvious example. We are neighbouring countries. It seems to me to make sense that if there seems to be better practice in assimilating immigrants in Scotland then England would be foolish not to look at how its done here and see if there are any lessons they can learn.

'actually people are not stupid, theres anger out there, and ignore it at your peril.'

A lot of people are wildly misinformed and take the statements from people like UKIP at face value and assume they are true.
And you are right, there is a lot of anger out there, which is why it so dangerous for UKIP to stoke it up further for their own gain. It could very easily turn from anger into the next step, violence.


'its about looking after English people first in our own country'

Who are the English people? Angles? Saxons? French? Dutch? Norwegan? Indian? Pakistani?
I would suggest its all of them.
You speak as if there is some group called 'the English' who have always been there as 'the English' but your own countries history tells a tale exactly the opposite of this.
Most of your upper and ruling class, the quintessentially English, are French in descent.

'which people percieve as whats not happening, whether its true or not'

You dont think that perhaps it might be better to inform people more rather than just letting them go off on there misplaced perceptions. Doesn't it matter whether its true or not?

[Mrs Figg]

well you dont have to live with mass immigration so its easy to be idealistic.

[Mrs Figg]

this from The Ecomomist. Nov 9th 2013

A new kind of ghetto

Britain no longer has a serious race problem. The trouble is isolation
STOCKBRIDGE VILLAGE HAS always been an island,” says Bill Weightman, a local politician. The large public housing estate, a mixture of towers and two-storey homes, was built in the 1960s to accommodate people cleared out of Toxteth and other inner-city slums. Residents were expected to commute to jobs in Liverpool, five miles to the west.

Things began well, but Stockbridge gradually slid. In the ward that contains much of the estate, 42% of working-age adults depend on benefits. Low aspiration begets low aspiration. The local secondary school, Christ the King, inhabited a spectacular modern building. But its pupils did so poorly in exams that it was closed earlier this year.

Stockbridge is also one of Britain’s most concentrated urban ethnic ghettos. Locals aver that people with the wrong skin colour are no longer beaten up if they wander into the estate, as they were until recently. Then again, few take the risk. Fully 96% of the population of Stockbridge is of the same race: Caucasian.

Ghettos are normally thought of as black or Asian: the Bangladeshi housing estates of Tower Hamlets or the intensely African neighbourhood of Peckham, both in London. But Stockbridge Village qualifies, too. It is whiter than Britain or Merseyside as a whole, as well as far more homogeneously working-class. And it has social problems to match any ethnic-minority ghetto. Many of its inhabitants are ill. It is plagued by loan sharks. And its children are failing spectacularly. White 16-year-olds in Knowsley, the borough of which Stockbridge forms part, attain worse GCSE results than do black 16-year-olds in any London borough.

Stockbridge also features the internal policing sometimes found in stable, homogeneous places. Graffiti are few and far between. Several notorious criminals have lived in the estate, but they do not foul their own neighbourhood. Muggings are rare; victims would recognise their attackers. Car thefts used to be more of a problem, but Tosh Fielding, who runs a boxing club, says that matters have improved. He and others would make a few phone calls: no questions, no accusations, but the cars ought to be returned. They duly reappeared.

In short, Stockbridge Village is isolated. Its isolation is partly geographical—it is two miles from the nearest railway station, and three out of every five households have no car—but mostly cultural. Its residents are trapped in a cycle of low achievement and low earnings. So are many other working-class whites in other public housing estates in Britain. Nationally, poor whites fare worse at school than poor blacks or Asians.

Places like Knowsley also reveal something about race in Britain. Not that poor whites are exceptionally hard done by, though men with shaved heads and black bomber jackets will argue that they are. Rather, that the country tends to look at race in the wrong way. These days, overt discrimination is not nearly as big a problem as isolation. This is true of blacks and Asians as much as whites.

Comfortably colour-blind

On just about every reliable measure, Britain is exceedingly tolerant on race, and becoming ever more so. In a large survey in 1986, 28% of respondents reckoned that most white people would mind “a lot” if a qualified black person was made their boss. Two decades later the proportion had fallen to 9%. Government surveys find that 87% of whites, and 91% of ethnic minorities, say people from different backgrounds get on well together in their neighbourhood—up substantially from ten years ago.

Lest this be thought mere political correctness, behaviour has changed just as much. With the odd and not too worrying exception of the Chinese, every ethnic group is becoming less segregated. Between 2001 and 2011 the number of Britons with mixed white and black-Caribbean parentage jumped from 237,000 to 427,000. There was a similar increase in the number of mixed white and Asian people.

Britons are also more tolerant than other Europeans. Polls show they are unusually at ease with the idea of a non-white political leader. Immigrants fare reasonably well in the job market. In 2011, 7% of British-born people and 8% of immigrants were unemployed. In Sweden, where racial attitudes are just as liberal as in Britain, the unemployment gap was much wider: 7% for natives, 15% for immigrants. Britain is the only large European country where immigrants are less likely to drop out of school than are their native-born peers.

Many Britons loathe immigration, and nearly all think there is too much of it. But this may be the reverse side of the same racially tolerant coin. People may be dubious about immigration partly because they set exceedingly high standards for their country. They assume that immigrants must be accorded precisely the same rights and opportunities as everyone else. The country has never had a large guest-worker programme.

Yet this harmonious picture is marred by some ugly blots. Some people in some places have fallen out of mainstream British life. This is bad for them, and also for everyone else. It is quite a different problem from broad racial discrimination: less serious, but also harder to solve.

In the 1960s and 1970s many Pakistani men were brought to England’s northern towns to work the night shifts in textile mills—a last-ditch effort to sustain a dying, uncompetitive industry. This failed, and within a few years thousands were thrown out of work. Men scattered to other unskilled jobs, heading for one in particular. A decade ago it was calculated that one in every eight Pakistani men in Britain was a taxi- or minicab-driver.

It was a bad beginning. But the Pakistanis of northern England, who started out as economically marginalised, have removed themselves in other ways. Old-timers remember how the earliest migrants, generally single men, adapted surprisingly quickly to British society, occasionally dating white women and frequenting pubs (they also adored Bollywood films). Then they started bringing parents and marriage partners from the part of rural Pakistan where they came from, the Mirpur Valley in Kashmir. They have kept on doing so ever since.

Bogged down in Bradford

The consequence, says Nuzhat Ali, a campaigner who lives in Bradford, is that culturally “we are constantly going back to the first generation.” Four in ten Pakistanis in the city were born in Pakistan—roughly the same proportion as a decade ago. And the community is mired in old ways. Ms Ali had expected the custom of first-cousin marriage to die out in her generation, but it persists. As a result, birth defects are too common: consanguineous marriage seems to double the risk.

Clans, or biraderis, are a mighty force in Bradford. They select marriage partners for young men and women. They run the mosques. They corral votes for politicians (almost invariably Labour ones). In Birmingham, another city with many Mirpuris, postal votes are occasionally delivered in suspicious batches.

The Pakistanis who live in England’s northern cities are not just isolated and backward compared with other ethnic groups. They are also far less cosmopolitan than many people in Pakistan. Irna Qureshi, a researcher who lives in a suburb of Bradford, says visitors from Asia are frequently shocked by the town’s traditionalism. They arrive wearing jeans, only to find themselves surrounded by British Asians wearing shalwar kameez.

Why are Bradford Pakistanis so cut off? Not primarily because of racism or Islamophobia, though both exist. Nor because they have decided to isolate themselves—though that is true of some. Pakistanis who make good, as doctors or solicitors, often move to mainly white suburbs. Their houses have fancy painted railings in front: an evocation of a South-East Asian family compound.

It is more their clan-based culture that sets them apart from British life, and perpetuates itself. Britain’s Pakistanis can escape this culture, but not easily, and their departure does not undermine it. Ms Ali says a growing number of people scorn first-cousin marriage, including herself, though she did marry a cousin. But the old ways remain mainstream: the biraderis and the imported spouses persist.

The problem is specific, not general. It is with Pakistanis in Bradford, not Pakistanis as a whole. Elsewhere, many have blended happily into British life—notably in London, where a fifth of Britain’s Pakistanis live. But this group in this place is stuck, just as the working-class whites who live in Stockbridge are stuck.

Much the same is true of Afro-Caribbean boys in rough neighbourhoods like Handsworth, in Birmingham—one of the places that rioted in 2011. Craig Pinkney, who runs Real Action UK, a mentoring and outreach programme for Birmingham’s most troubled youths, says black boys frequently slip into a posture of opposition to authority. They begin by challenging teachers and move on to the police. This culture persists down the generations. Handsworth has scores of gangs—tiny, often rather pathetic outfits that are nonetheless capable of trafficking drugs and the occasional gun. Some of the leaders of these gangs, Mr Pinkney says, are the children and grandchildren of the men who rioted against the police in the 1980s.

Again, the problem is specific—some neighbourhoods, even some families, more than others; black boys, not black girls. It is exacerbated by racial discrimination, including among the police. People in Handsworth say the neighbourhood-beat coppers are fine: it is the officers in citywide patrol units, charging out of vans as if high on drugs, who get young people’s backs up. Still, overt discrimination is not nearly as bad as it once was.

Out-and-out racism and Islamophobia have proved straightforward to tackle, if hard to stamp out completely. In the 1970s Britain made it illegal to discriminate on racial grounds in employment or housing. Since the 1980s the police have been under pressure to behave better. Hate speech has been criminalised. All of these reforms were resisted, but over time they have worked. It is harder to solve the problem of isolation.

Since the problems are distinctive and local, the solutions might be, too. In Knowsley, better transport connections would help, to make it easier for people to get to jobs. In Bradford, a dose of home economics for teenage boys would be a good idea. One reason so many Pakistanis go to college and university locally, and thus stay within the orbit of their parents’ and relatives’ marriage choices, is that they cannot cook. Black boys need alternatives to the streets above all.

The really important thing is to understand where the problems lie. They do not lie with whole ethnic groups, nor with mass immigration. Instead, they are specific and deep. Britain mostly gets on well—better than most other countries. But the exceptions are woven tightly into the national fabric.

[Pettytyrant101]

That just highlights my point about how badly immigration has been handled in England, leading to the problems of isolation and ethnic groups sticking to their own rather than engaging with the existing local community.
That isolation is a problem affecting whites too is hardly surprising. The problem of isolation is an acute one in Scotland- its on of the main reasons where I live has such poor opportunities for work. We have a very rural country with often miles of tricky to traverse hills, mountains and lochs in between places.

But I would take issue with some things in that piece, particularly the line -
'Out-and-out racism and Islamophobia have proved straightforward to tackle' as all the studies show this is in fact on the increase.


'Hate crimes against Muslims have soared in the UK this year, figures show.
Hundreds of anti-Muslim offences were carried out across the country in 2013.
Many forces reported a surge in the number of anti-Muslim hate crimes.
Tell Mama, a group which monitors anti-Muslim incidents, said it had dealt with 840 cases since April, with the number expected to rise to more than 1,000 by the end of March. This compared with 582 anti-Muslim cases it dealt with from March 2012 to March 2013.
They included 23 cases of assault, 13 cases involving extreme violence, 56 attacks on mosques and hundreds of instances of online abuse, with an average of more than two confirmed cases a day.

The study also highlighted a 400 percent increase in incidents a week after two Muslim converts murdered British soldier Lee Rigby in May 2013.
The attack was strenuously condemned by Muslim organisations but a spike in attacks followed, with one man subsequently convicted of murdering an 82-year-old man, Mohammed Saleem, as he walked home from a mosque in Birmingham.
The secretary of one mosque in Essex, attacked at the time by a man armed with a smoke grenade and knives, said that Muslims were afraid they would become "sitting targets".
"At this time, many people in Britain felt frightened and victimised," the report concludes.'

Which is why the irresponsible rhetoric of UKIP is so dangerous. Innocent people die and are hurt because of it.

[Pettytyrant101]

Although I am sure it will annoy you Figg, here are figures for the same period of time in Scotland-

' A series of reports on hate crime, religiously aggravated offending and the first annual statistics on the Offensive Behaviour Act were published today.
Taken together, the reports show that there has been a 15 per cent reduction in offences involving religious hatred.

The Crown Office published Hate Crime in Scotland 2012-13 today, which shows that:

-Racial crime remains the most commonly reported hate crime, although the number of charges has fallen by 12 per cent.

-The number of charges with a religious aggravation has fallen 24 per cent on 2011-12. Taken along with the statistics on the Offensive Behaviour Act, this suggests a total decrease in criminality involving religious hatred of 15 per cent.

A second report, Religiously Aggravated Offending in Scotland 2012-13, shows:

-A 24 per cent decrease in religiously aggravated offending, with a 24 per cent decrease in charges relating towards Catholicism and a 44 per cent decrease in charges relating to Protestantism.

As you can see the old sectarian problem of Scotland is still far worse than any islamaphopic sentiment.

However there was this-

-An increase in charges where conduct was derogatory towards Islam, from 19 charges in 2011-12 to 80 charges in 2012-13.

But it should be noted a whopping 57 of those 80 offences were all committed at the same time- when the little known SDL (the Scottish equivalent of the English Defence League) held a rally. And they are such a small group most people dont even know they exist here. So excluding them the rest of the year there were 23, an increase of 4 on the previous year figures.

Clearly something has gone horribly wrong in England when you compare the two sets of figures.
We are supposed to be the same country after all, Great Britain, there should not be this disparity, yet there is a widening gulf on this issue between us.

[Mrs Figg]

That just highlights my point about how badly immigration has been handled in England, leading to the problems of isolation and ethnic groups sticking to their own rather than engaging with the existing local community.
That isolation is a problem affecting whites too is hardly surprising. The problem of isolation is an acute one in Scotland- its on of the main reasons where I live has such poor opportunities for work. We have a very rural country with often miles of tricky to traverse hills, mountains and lochs in between places.

But I would take issue with some things in that piece, particularly the line -
'Out-and-out racism and Islamophobia have proved straightforward to tackle' as all the studies show this is in fact on the increase.


'Hate crimes against Muslims have soared in the UK this year, figures show.
Hundreds of anti-Muslim offences were carried out across the country in 2013.
Many forces reported a surge in the number of anti-Muslim hate crimes.
Tell Mama, a group which monitors anti-Muslim incidents, said it had dealt with 840 cases since April, with the number expected to rise to more than 1,000 by the end of March. This compared with 582 anti-Muslim cases it dealt with from March 2012 to March 2013.
They included 23 cases of assault, 13 cases involving extreme violence, 56 attacks on mosques and hundreds of instances of online abuse, with an average of more than two confirmed cases a day.

The study also highlighted a 400 percent increase in incidents a week after two Muslim converts murdered British soldier Lee Rigby in May 2013.
The attack was strenuously condemned by Muslim organisations but a spike in attacks followed, with one man subsequently convicted of murdering an 82-year-old man, Mohammed Saleem, as he walked home from a mosque in Birmingham.
The secretary of one mosque in Essex, attacked at the time by a man armed with a smoke grenade and knives, said that Muslims were afraid they would become "sitting targets".
"At this time, many people in Britain felt frightened and victimised," the report concludes.'

Which is why the irresponsible rhetoric of UKIP is so dangerous. Innocent people die and are hurt because of it.

actually if you had read the article properly you would have noticed that Asian communities are more backward and illiterate in England than their counterparts in Pakistans large cities. Because instead of marrying in the community they bus over non English speaking women from abroad, this is because the women from smal villages in Pakistan are less likely to question paternalistic attitudes or know about womens liberation, which leads to vast amounts of illiterate housewives stuck in the home, (whereas women exposed to western culture are more likely to rebel). so they become isolated from society. they do it to themselves.

you also conveniently ignored,


''Britain no longer has a serious race problem''.

and

''On just about every reliable measure, Britain is exceedingly tolerant on race, and becoming ever more so.''

I agree that cultures dont remain static, they evolve, Islamic Spain 500 years ago might have been the centre of illuminated thinking and art, they invaded a country, but gave back in terms of art and culture. As regards modern Britiain I dont want my culture of today turning back to medieval values towards women, the slow creep of fundamentalism invading British culture is NOT welcome, it gives nothing and takes away much that I value like equality and freedoms which is thankfully taken as normal. If a culture is negative its not progress its going backwards towards the dark ages. I dont want somebody elses culture foisted on me, I dont want to lose my traditions, I dont want minarets and polygamy in every town in England. This is nothing to do with racial purity or snobbery, I dont want to lose what makes England what it is, and that includes choosing ones religion, or choosing not to be religious, choosing what to wear and who to marry. I cant bear the thought of all that being swamped by a load of goody two shoes liberals who think they know better, think that harmony is possible between two fundamentally opposed cultures. I have very old fashioned views when it comes to immigration, I will admit and the longer time passes the more I think there could be the 'rivers of blood' Enoch Powell spoke about.

[azriel]

Enoch Powell, still spoken of today. Slated at the time now, by some, revered. He saw something that man. Definitely felt something on the wind.

[Pettytyrant101]

that Asian communities are more backward and illiterate in England than their counterparts in Pakistans large cities.- Figg

I did read it. But what you say just plays into the general theme of isolationism. If immigrants were more integrated into the community this would be much less likely to happen. Marriage across social groups would be more likely to occur over time.

'you also conveniently ignored,'

No, I didn't. It just isn't borne out by the statistics I gave above from the Home Office that shows large rises in racism and violence towards immigrant people, especially in England.
Also if England is so tolerant why does it need so many political parties that are anti-immigrant?
You have Conservatives, UKIP, BNP, EDL, ENP and several more smaller groups.
You'll have to excuse me if that doesn't strike me as being hugely tolerant.

'I dont want my culture of today turning back to medieval values towards women'

Nobody is advocating this.


'I dont want somebody elses culture foisted on me, I dont want to lose my traditions, I dont want minarets and polygamy in every town in England.'

So do you want all the existing foreign influences on our culture removed as well then? Or do you just draw the line at cultures you personally don't like. You talk of minarets, but as a person with a keen interest in art history you must be aware a large number of churches and cathedrals are not in the English style at all but imported from continental Europe and from someone elses culture.
This is also true of Country Houses, Mansions, Castles and a whole host of other buildings that are now thought of as part of England.
Hell the House of Commons is not even English in style and its the seat of government.

There is also no hint, suggestion or movement in UK law towards allowing polygamy. Its illegal and thats unlikely to change any time soon unless wider society wants it too.
And as Muslims make up only 4% of the population they are unlikely to be making huge scale changes to law through the ballot box.
I dont know of many Muslims who would openly support gay marriage, but we have that in the UK because that is the will of the wider society.

'that includes choosing ones religion, or choosing not to be religious, choosing what to wear and who to marry.'

Again there is absolutely no indication UK law is changing in regard to any of these matters. Freedom of religion is a fundemental right. One Muslims and other immigrants are free to exercise as well. And that includes the freedom to construct their own places of worship such as mosques.
You cant have it both ways. Freedom of religion for natives but immigrants arent allowed it.

'being swamped by a load of goody two shoes liberals who think they know better, think that harmony is possible between two fundamentally opposed cultures.'

The way to avoid as much conflict as possible is to find areas of common ground not to just throw your arms up in the air and declare 'they' are too different from 'us' we simply cant get on at all. Where does that lead but to violence, prejudice and division?

And do you think you are helping the women you speak of by giving up on them and abandoning them and condemning them to a culture you openly state is anti-women?
Is it not better to try to support their cause? Give them alternatives? Alternative view points? Better education?
All of which we are much more likely to help achieve among immigrant groups in our country rather than just cutting them off or sending them home.

Your argument is one of defeatism and pessimism it seems to me.

'the longer time passes the more I think there could be the 'rivers of blood' Enoch Powell spoke about.'

Yes I think this is likely, because of the sort of attitudes, misinformation, and misunderstanding being employed by politically motivated groups and encouraged in in working class people in particular.

These arguments make it a self fulfilling prophecy.

[Mrs Figg]

''So do you want all the existing foreign influences on our culture removed as well then? Or do you just draw the line at cultures you personally don't like. You talk of minarets, but as a person with a keen interest in art history you must be aware a large number of churches and cathedrals are not in the English style at all but imported from continental Europe and from someone elses culture.
This is also true of Country Houses, Mansions, Castles and a whole host of other buildings that are now thought of as part of England.
Hell the House of Commons is not even English in style and its the seat of government'' Petty

most of these imported styles are European, mainly French gothic, or Romanesque. All Christian styles with shared belief systems. The House of Commons is neo-gothic, and as Gothic has been an adopted style in this country for nearly 1000 years its a very English style.

[Pettytyrant101]

Yes but if you had been a live 100 years ago you would have been complaining about how your English culture was being swamped by these bloody Europeans with their cultural styles and architect. And complaining that if woad and daub was good enough for your English ancestors its good enough for you.

[Mrs Figg]

[Pettytyrant101]

Russel Bran makes some interesting points about Reckless getting elected. Also like the bit about the austerity cuts versus banker bonuses-

[Mrs Figg]

Its an Idiots Guide to politics, some truths, a lot of simplification.

[Mrs Figg]

this guy is a smug bastard but I do admire his total and brutal honesty. whether he is right or wrong, he doesnt shrink from facing tough questions.

[halfwise]

The Muslim responders were wonderfully courteous in their responses, wrapped around very sharp points. This has been my typical experience with muslims, though admittedly I know them all through the academic world. His replies were weak in comparison, and his logic does not stand up.

For example he told one Muslim who complained that as a muslim he was home and should not be treated as an outside group that he had no right to say he was a European when he goes to a mosque and addresses his "muslim brothers".

Have you ever heard Christians talk to one another? It's all about Christian brotherhood.

[azriel]

Yeah he did get a little confused there, Muslim is that guys religion but he's European in culture & living standards ? He may well have been born in Europe but, people do seem to go by skin colour first. His colour is olive so, he must be an outsider ? Born to parents who were immigrants & should think their lucky stars they came to such a wonderful country as ours !

[Pettytyrant101]

whether he is right or wrong- Figg

I dont see how anyone watching that can be in any doubt of just how wrong and prejudice he is. He contradicts himself. He is insulting to an entire religous group without showing nuances in the vast gulf of opinions within that group. He is promoting the sort of world view, discriminatory ideals and poorly reasoned arguments which leads directly to idiots attacking Muslims, such as the women who got attacked for being a 'scarfie'.
People like him bear some responsibility for every unwarranted violent attack on a Muslim by promoting this unpalatable ignorant rubbish in the first place.