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RaceThis essay did eventually turn out quite well but there's still a lot I can do with it and am hoping to find the time to include quite a lot of important points: last revised 16/01/05It might seem rather fatuous to talk about race in the sense of there being a political debate around the issue in this country insofar as the largest single political issue of our times is probably the issue of the corruptibility and the lack of accountability on the part of a political establishment that is arguably quite contemptuous of the will of the people. So the extent to which something is or is not an issue in Britains's political landscape today depends very directly on the nature of the nature of Britain's political system wherein the political Dinosaurs of the class and media based politics of the sixties and seventies, can quite happily from the point of powerless and exploited voters, be seen wallowing haplessly as their digitally inspired demise beckons and new Infotech makes it possible for people to communicate more effectively and eventually it is to be hoped e.g. thereby depriving professional activists and agitators of much of their obvious dysfunctional role in the swinging opinionate pendulum of Britains two party state. Insofar as the issues of Immgration to Britain and the ethnic background of British citizens is one of the major issues of our times, I should firmly state that these, as well as almost every other contentious political subject monopolising the attention of concerned citizens and householders really have to be put into the general context of WW2 and it's aftermath. This is of course unsurprising since most informed Historians and Academics would probably say that WW2 was such a big event that it will probably continue to define much of the nature of political reality and the thinking of serious politicians until well into the the following century. Be that as it may I don't purpose so much to make obvious comments here and now for example about the hypocrisy of a profiteering US in the 1940's and since which had discovered so much sympathy for the plight of stateless Jews so soon after murdering so many Native Americans, as I do to examine the current state of race relations in the English speaking World particularly in the British Isles in the present and most particularly with regard to examining the realities underlying official attitudes and commonly held notions on the subject of the evolving ethnicity of this, and other nations in the world today: most of all however I have the end in mind of examining exactly what it is that defines the attitude of the Government toward it's non ethnic citizens and what is it's prognosis of the likely future evolution of domestic society in this regard. That the question does require investigation is surely amply evidenced from such facts e.g. as :there are an estimable half million illegal and invisible immigrant workers in the UK and that the Government seems paralysed and unable to deal with the question from an organisational point of view and it should also be pointed out that any meaningful analysis has to be firmly viewed in the context of general human overpopulation of a magnitude that has never before been even contemplated. Some few years ago now I was talking to an elderly neighbour and his wife, (they were both in their eighties actually) who had of children but a sole daughter whom had been indecent enough to marry a West Indian Jazz musician whom so it seemed, was unable to provide them, or rather mostly her with the kind of society that someone of their background and achievements could typically hope for: they were definitely the sort of characters that One would consider at least middle class you see. She, (now deceased) asked me if I was at all colour prejudiced seeming to expect that I should or would reply in the affirmative; my response that there are better subjects available for consideration at any time than the matter of acquiring or acknowledging prejudices and that having been strongly socialised against the stupidity of imagining that any dogma about another individual's inferiority was actually going to render him or her thus, that the idea was ludicrous, that I held intolerance as a cardinal sin and was far more likely to discriminate against someone on the basis of social class than that they might happen to belong to any ethnic group not indigenous to Europe, certainly at least as likely. I say this without wishing to sound caustic or snobbish but because as far as Britons go my economic capacity for charitable behaviour of any sort is negligible and any inclination toward altruistic behaviour rather submerged beneath mounting age, consistent failure, the fact of my being disappointment with working class politicians or at least the stereotype of such, (which is another story however) and the slow death agonies of the Windsorian monarchy which I feel ought to be blamed for most of the anomie, hopelessness, double standards and downright pauperising iniquity of life in Britain today. It was with some modest surprise and indignation that I found myself adding that I much preferred the company of any intelligent, ethical, moralistic person to that of persons otherwise aligned or inclined, especially if they can buy their own drinks and that sort of thing, that the question of ethnicity was quite irrelevant to me in evaluating individuals except insofar as different ethnic groups tend to be socialised into the norms and values of their respective cultures, also of course in respect of the fact that ethnic background as a general denominator is fairly determinant of economic situation and status. This I would imagine is in fact true of many who are forced to speculate on such issues with even begging becoming 'illegal' in Bliarite Britain and in saying this I suppose it is also quite true that most Britons even today at the beginning of the new millennium are financially unable to indulge any genuine empathy we might have for others. I think their problem (or perhaps rather mostly hers) was that the dusky son in law wasn't the urbane sort of creature with first rate social skills that might have realised the sort of social ambitions that a venerable bourgeois Lady would typically aspire to and that his blackness, was rather a constant reminder of this than something she found intrinsically objectionable. In evaluating attitudes toward evolving racial intermixtures in our increasingly multicultural society I consider it worth noting that unlike most people below the age of say forty or so, that the older half of the population can remember being born and growing in a society which was effectively composed of an exclusively indigenous Caucasian population with only very rare token exceptions such as that of the Sikh Maharajah who was interned at Elveden Hall early in the century. Having made this observation One supposes that if you are a member of any of the minority ethnic groups in Britain today that people do still exist who have no experience of growing up in anything resembling a multicultural society, may not have given the matter any thought whatsoever and might have absolutely no thoughts at all about the fact that it is no longer the case. This is a worthwhile perspective insofar as we tend to assume that the question of race has to be examined from a pre defined perspective: it being patently obvious to anyone that race is a question which does monopolise a considerable proportion of the nations' resources in terms of things like media time and the capacity for a society to make useful calculations. Whilst there is no doubting the seriousness or at least the potential seriousness of genuinely racial/ethnic issues it is not by any means the only, or the necessarily most plain reason for serious social conflict; as for example the fact of hundreds dying regularly in Nigerian riots over what are at least 'prima facie' so to speak religious issues illustrates only too well. In attempting a meaningful exposition on the issue of race as it typically presented in it's problematic cultural/ political context and any meaningful evaluation of why what has happened to different ethnic groups over the last few centuries, I feel One has to firmly establish a distinction between what are purely racial/ethnic issues and what are racial/ethnic issues such as are for example, linked to a particular economic problem, environmental situation or social conundrum. Thus, in the first instance we can consider such questions as: what is the correct sequence of evolution of different ethnic types of 'homo sapien' and what are the philosophical rights and wrongs of making any sort of prejudicial value judgement of persons on such a basis as genetic parentage and ethnic background? In the second category we would consider such questions as to what extent we might consider eg a certain Asian minority to have specific problems and perhaps genuine grievances in a given city; or as to whether or not a given indigenous tribe is South America are really facing deadly threats from landowners and so on: or any such situation involving tension between differing ethnic groups and/or allegations of the superiority or inferiority of a given ethnic groups' life chances and general economic situation. I say this in view of the fact that there have been some very odd comments circulating recently about the relative fitness, strength and ability of black (specifically Negro) soccer players by the likes of Glen Hoddle and John Barnes; there certainly are a lot in the Premiership, and some well advised comment about limiting the numbers of foreign players, insofar as for example you might as well call the present Arsenal team Luigi's Eleven for all the relevance it has to either England or the East End with a majority of foreign players in a typical starting line up and a high proportion of them being dusky skinned. This isn't to say that this is necessarily a bad thing or otherwise but rather to merely point out that organised sport does have serious social/political aspects, requirements and perspectives which being inescapable whatever Ones' personal opinions are not serviced quite so readily by the fact of there being no restrictions on the employment of foreign players in English Soccer leagues. This isn't to say that English players are all of poor quality and need to be protected from competition but rather that the peculiarities of international finance do not make it expedient to employ domestic players. The fact that Negroes from the ex colonies especially in the Caribbean are physically larger and fitter than the average Caucasian is obviously due to the fact of slavery having made the fittest survive and needs no elaboration or elucidation. Such interesting facts as for example that Negro immigrants and their progeny do tend to do well in athletic pursuits as the result of their harsher evolutionary path have raised hackles to a certain extent in this country since the sixties and this rightly causes some debate about their Britishness. For example in a country where the population is supposed to be Caucasian, can such a thing as 'institutional racism' really be said to exist when players and sportspersons who are not ethnically British are trying to be so? Is it not just the empty slogans of champagne socialists who have never had to share a housing estate with lawless West Indian Immigrants and have no intention of marrying a comparative illiterate for example that has led to the paying of so much lip service to ill conceived and improperly analysed notions of integration? Too often when the subject is discussed the real issues are swept under the carpet and we are left in doubt as to whether a commentator means intermarriage between individuals from different communities and ethnic groups when the term integration is used or whether they are suggesting the integration of couples, families or communities of members of other ethnic groups: it obviously being the case that the former is more difficult to manage than the latter. I would tend to suggest that the issue of race insofar as it is a matter of some contention in our society has been the subject of too much wishful thinking and that in general people have tried to gloss over too many aspects of any serious debate about race insofar as anyone trying to run a School or a Health Service for example really needs to know how demographic structure will evolve, what society will be like in five, ten or twenty years time, and have made fatuous asseverations about how racial problems will be solved when we all become Coffee coloured. My own personal view is that should for example their be a pill available tomorrow which would render all members of the species Homo Sapien as one ethnic group that the first to complain vociferously would likely be those members of the less materially successful ethnic groups who like admiring 'white' film stars and so on; I will readily admit such an observation is not really fair in view of staggering and ludicrous degree of inequality in the World today but the point is as far as I am concerned is that we need to value and understand our individuality and that there are too many trendy lefty politico's who are too keen on advising others how they can alleviate racial tension whilst pursuing purely self interested agendas. Moreover I would also suggest strongly that it is a far better policy in seeking to promote racial harmony in general to worry about things like Aids and poverty in Africa, China and India and the likely trends in population movement and so on in the coming decades than it is to worry about comparatively cosseted ethnic minorities in Britain. I myself wouldn't say that I don't esteem such things as athletics medals at all, definitely not, but they aren't really what makes the World go round, those who attain them are all too often lacking in any other saving grace or quality than being physically strong an attribute that has become seriously downgraded in value since the invention of cartographic science, the Crossbow, the Firearm and the Atomic Bomb, lack cultural sophistication and attract the hatred of the mass of unfortunates whilst they are using their weight of opinion. This fact which has always been true is exacerbated by the fact of the homo sapien species in general having been so successful and having expanded in numbers too obviously too near a magnitude of maximum capacity and besides that, athletics stars come and go rapidly and for example are comparatively easily led and manipulated by those who are literate and can hold political power. This seems a convenient way of bringing the subject round to some of the dafter and even amusing (especially if you haven't a sick relative and need to communicate effectively with an Asian Doctor) aspects of race relations in modern Britain. One can see from such events as the fact of the proposal that English language skills among foreign Doctors working in our monolithic NHS ought to be something of a priority which was mooted a couple of years ago, having rapidly elicited protestations of 'racism' that the issue is at least taken seriously by those in positions of some real power. I really felt that the brief flurry of debate as took place over the issue was overshadowed by the cynical 'use,' which the traditional left sought to make of the issue or at least those who are presently, by whatever innovation in control of what is the left of the British political spectrum (if indeed such a thing can be said to exist at all in the Bliarite era). Some time since then I have had the misfortune to have been exasperated to say the least by hordes of foreign 'medics' with insufficient grasp of the language to make use of what they knew, whilst seeking to come to terms with the decline and death of a helpless relative and take distinct offence at the suggestion that it is 'racist' to consider linguistic ability indispensable. I mean to say One could be the best informed Virologist in the world but without the ability to communicate such knowledge One might as well not have it at all and what I have to say to any Politician seeking to dump me with loads of crap company of any colour on the basis that anyone other than myself stands to get any credit from it, is basically get lost, I haven't any resources, I can't afford a House, a Car, a Girlfriend or even an adequate diet and your self interested and unwholesome scheming has already cost me far more than I could reasonably afford, so fuck off! It seems worth mentioning that there are sound political strategic imperatives for allowing the immigration of significant numbers of dusky citizens from the ex colonies into the UK in the post war era and the 21st century, and obviously not the least of these is of course the fact of the issue of moral atonement over the question of slavery and exploitation of genetic Africans. One appropriate response to that is obviously that the majority of those descendants of ex slaves who complain of this historical fact and have managed to prosper at all in the modern state, (admittedly this very arguably isn't many) are paradoxically in the position of owing their literacy and prosperity to the fact of slavery having taken place. Insofar as it is almost certainly the case that they would still be living in a fairly stone age condition if this or no interaction between these different races and cultural groups had not taken place, and after all, it is hardly the fault of Elizabethan pirates that the patriarchs of African Negro societies were more often than not at least as keen on selling members of their tribes as such representatives of European civilisations were to to acquire them and profit from the business of slavery. Aside from all that, there is a genuine interest value in having different communities from the Commonwealth established in the UK. Individually genetic mongrels are physiologically stronger than thoroughbreds and this principle of strength in heterogeneity can also be so in respect of the psychology of individuals of mixed race or cultural background and in the case of nations seeking to adapt effectively to circumstances, in that happy or at least relatively untroubled immigrant communities will provide various forms of assistance to a nation in economic decline or embroiled in conflict that would be unlikely to be forthcoming from a persecuted or exploited minority. A fairly good example is the fact of the British Empire having decided to fight Nazism and defend Polish sovereignty in 1939 when many thought that we ought not to bother; the nation found many 'friends' from Eastern European nations who made vital contributions to British superiority in signals intelligence which eventually did more to win the war than anything else. A remark which conveniently brings me round to the subject of another amusing perspective on the question of race relations in modern Britain is that the unconventional French historian Fernand Braudel has interestingly calculated on a fairly authoritative basis, that not only have the Moslem nations enslaved significantly larger numbers of Negroes than Christian Societies over the centuries but in fact still do. The local football team Ipswich Town were playing a Uefa Cup tie somewhere in the troubled region of the southern Carpathanians recently and the appearance of one or two of the Town's Negro soccer stars (one of whom is Dutch) elicited a considerable amount of Monkey hooting, barracking, Nazi salutes and the like and these chaps were moved to say (I know this because it was published in the press) that the Stars in question felt their feelings were hurt by the occurrence and wanted apologies From the particular Czech? Club: I don't quite recall all the details. Anyway the point is that strictly speaking racial abuse is always bad of course: however in this case a number of factors conspire to make the allegation that the players deserved anything much in the way of sympathy look almost ridiculous. In the first place I think the fuss made about racial barracking in football is rather to do with members of ethnic minorities in inner cities who face a genuine potential threat of sorts, from racist gangs associated with or who like to try and associate themselves with various soccer clubs; human nature and crowd mentality being what it is and the danger that hooligans would be more likely to pick on some hapless West Indian teenager and hospitalise or cripple such an individual if racist chanting and so forth was not officially discouraged is in fact real if not particularly so in a Town like Ipswich. I daresay it is more real in urban working class districts where it is worth noting, the indigenous can hardly be said to bear much responsibility for, and have not noticeably profited from Colonialism, certainly more so than in middle class districts which comparatively illiterate immigrant populations obviously find more difficult to colonise in sufficient numbers to elicit any hostility from an in any case typically more enlightened tolerant and educated bourgeoisie. What made this case seem faintly ridiculous is the fact that this was in a really badly depressed and poverty stricken part of Eastern Europe and I really feel that the nature of the attention lavished on our black stars really rather reflected overwhelmingly that it was unusual, if not unprecedented to see or meet a member of such an ethnic group in such a place, let alone one who earned half the Town's annual income every month or whatever ludicrous disparities of wealth and poverty the precise figures would reveal, rather than the suggestion that a crowd of disease ridden eastern bloc spectators with black teeth and cheap shoes had taken a poisonous and malicious dislike to such and such a character on the basis that he was a Negro. To my mind most of the crowd would be at least as justified if not more so in claiming that the mere fact that he was such a high earning flunkie constitutes a considerably greater hurt and injustice in terms of the fact of being doomed to live in such a poverty stricken part of the world with God only knows what kind of a derisory life expectancy than does the fact of an unquestionably wealthy and privileged sports star finding them chanting at him about his unusual skin pigment: which as I say I'd put down to the novelty of the sight of a Negro Soccer star. Though having reiterated this it is true that Neo nazism can have a surprising currency in such depressed parts of Eastern Europe (people will be naughty and do what they're told not to) and I would be quite interested having made these observations to hear a little more from anyone who saw the game. The fact is that Serfdom was practised in parts of Eastern Europe until after abolition of slavery in Britain or at least until about that time and that many British blacks (even the unquestionably poor ones) could well do more for their cause in simply making themselves aware of such things as the fact that they are in most cases significantly better of than workers in exclusively Caucasian communities from the old eastern bloc for example, than in enacting out all the old familiar clichés about race as they relate to everyday life in modern Britain. I myself have suffered in a childhood in northern parts of England in many ways material poverty and official incompetence and malice of probably at least as significant a magnitude as the ethnic minorities in the comparatively prosperous southern town in which I have lived as an adult find it routinely fashionable to protest about. I personally esteem the virtues of tolerance and respect for others above all virtues and am therefore passionately anti-racist finding it hard to believe that anyone who is not mentally defective to at least some extent can seriously entertain the view that one race is genetically any less capable than another unless they have been socialised into such belief from early infancy, not in the least because the scientific evidence is overwhelming. Or, that disparities in achievements, are the result of anything other than factors of environmental and social evolution and that so called racial problems occur as the result of poverty and because there's little else obvious to talk or fight about. I can recall many cases of the first visitations of Asian shopkeepers into northern towns in the early seventies, the interest caused by their appearance among small children and curious adults who had really never seen a black person of any sort in the flesh. It really is an immense shame that this capacity to add to the wholeness and vastness of our culture that such interaction can create, has come about via the painful medium of centuries of colonialism and the unforgiving exactions of social, economic and political evolution, but that's life isn't it. Some ethnic minorities it might be said are perfectly or comparatively happy living in their own relatively closed societies: Muslims in particular have their Religion's own particular self perpetuating esotericism and as a result presently outnumber practising Christians of any particular denomination in the UK. I can remember being quite struck by the fact of having heard one of a group of youths of perhaps Pakistani origin being interviewed on Television after the latest round of rioting in the midlands a few years ago saying that they wished to 'integrate,' into British society and complaining that they were being 'cold shouldered,' by the local white society: again this is a question worth clarifying and perhaps with a view to suggesting that it is unrealistic to expect a homogenous society not to discriminate against those who are 'different' to some extent or other. By this token we can examine the term 'institutional racism' in the way it is presently being bandied about and say that the present evolution of the debate indicates rather a failure of typically propounded integrationalist philosophy and rhetoric than it does that so called racism or discrimination of majorities against minorities is some kind of unnatural aberration and possibly conclude that we should expect this is a natural if perhaps not desirable part and parcel of our existence. The big talking point really today, insofar as these issues attract a large amount of attention, to my mind anyway is the fact of race as it is linked to crime and the question of large West Indian and Asian populations having rapidly established themselves as identifiably 'British,' ethnic minorities since the nineteen sixties and the inevitable tensions that occur as a result of say for example what is often described as marginalisation having taken place rather than integration: such factors vary considerably according to different ethnic groups it being the case eg that West Indians have that much less of a parent culture than Asians and are more likely to try and identify with British culture and the English language than Asians who have their own cultures, religions and even alphabets. Now I have to take issue with the conventionally understood sense of the word marginalisation to a certain extent or at least separate the issues of social and economic marginalisation and point out that some minorities are in fact quite happy living within their own micro-british societies in the UK even many strongly afro-caribbean neighbourhoods. The point of making such a distinction is to say that with particular regard to the question of my own existence in a Town where afro-caribbeans have become a strikingly significant ethnic minority within the last generation or two where it is obviously the case that a large minority has as you might expect, in being composed almost exclusively of virtual illiterates who are of strikingly alien appearance and have rapidly become subject to various forms of marginalisation. It is an irresistible observation that this minority has become fairly effectively controlled by characters who have predictably copied the worst habits of the areas of poor housing, high crime and so forth that they have moved into and that in many ways, especially given that we do in fact live in a corrupt Orwellian latter day sort of Oligarchy where there is only a very limited amount of government by consensus rather than some kind of high minded Huxleyan Republic or a genuinely caring conservative mixed economy and that as a consequence the only people who can really keep order in poor urban housing zones are all too often the Gangsters. For what it is worth, my view is that such problems could easily be significantly remedied with comparatively little of the right sort of socialisation and that they are not quite as insurmountable as they may seem but I personally see the question of crime and attitudes toward it in 21st century Europe as a matter which is going to be dominated by the question of drugs and drug prohibition owing to the fact that it has placed vast fortunes in the hands of criminals and continues to fatally hamstring the efforts of first world governments to create order, a sense of social responsibility and any trust in the holy cow of so called 'democracy' in repect of which, I have to say as a comment on the issue of government by consensus that there is in fact a clear majority in favour of legalising drugs and that Governments are failing to provide inspired leadership and are simply distrusted as pauperising media tricksters especially in the first world where money can be used to cover up institutional failings that have led to highly disturbing levels of drug reated crime in modern Europe. My first reaction to the recent tribulations of Asian youths on northern housing estates was, apart from conceding that they obviously seemed to be deprived working class youths, to consider that integration is exclusively a question for the individual and that there wasn't much point in telling a TV camera man about the principles involved, which he obviously already understood and that the focus ought to be on more specific social and economic issues that ethnic minorities face when they seek to live with some or any dignity: individuals cannot be commanded to socialise with other individuals. To my mind a Government cannot easily encourage nor discourage integration of any sort of alien or semi alien individual into domestic society without offending against the individual's right to choose his or her company, and that whenever someone chooses to talk to another person it is entirely a matter for the individuals concerned and no business of anyone else. The Government can and should facilitate the ability of all individuals to interact well. This includes ensuring as far as possible that anti-racist laws which militate against the fact of individuals suffering discrimination on the basis of their ethnicity should be properly enforced in the spirit and manner in which they were intended and should actively discourage at least the economic marginalisation of communities as and where possible because just as we have witnessed in the last generation, such communities tend to become breeding grounds for crime and racists are able to portray these coloured immigrant communities as consisting of individuals whose 'race,' has inherently criminal dispositions. Here again whatever we might conclude, it is certainly possible to make a convincing argument that placing these considerations under the subject of race is highly illusory and that the legitimate desire for 'integration' into the culture and society of a parent and perhaps partly colonial culture stems principally from it's superior economic condition. In examining the question of integration the first thing that springs to mind is why? In terms of purely objective fact, why should it be logical for members of one ethnic group to want to mix with others, should not the desire for non-integration on the part of members of one ethnic group be considered just as logical and legitimate. We could say interestingly for example that red and black Ants don't live together, why should red and black people? The answer is of course that people are in some ways more gregarious than Ants, but the point worth bearing in mind is that our World has serious conflicts and problems which do need to be examined properly and objectively. In examining the question of integration and so called racism here again I have to take issue with conventional post war notions of what is fair and right. For example I find it thoroughly unreasonable that anyone should be accused of racism on the basis that they want their child or children to resemble themselves and do not wish to have a child that is a half caste or in any way unlike it's Parents and Grandparents. I say this in respect of the fact that it is obviously the case that this form of ethnic/marital integration is viewed as a legitimate objective by many of the dusky races from the ex colonies and I cannot help but feel that it is a bad thing that individuals will feel they have failed if they do not. One has to be happy with what One is and it has to be viewed as unhealthy if members of one ethnic group have come to consider that something is wrong with their vanity if they feel that they cannot find happiness or fulfilment except by pairing with members of another one. In the case of afro-caribbeans wishing to intermarry among Europeans it is an impossible goal to fulfil for their race as a whole given the present demographic structure of the human race: aside from the fact that such attitudes can only lead to conflict and despair the question arises as to how can anyone seriously respect people who have no respect for themselves? The goal cannot be achieved except by extermination of the majority of living Negroes and strictly speaking it is a racist philosophy. Such phenomenon as the possible extinction, adaptation or evolution of ethnic groups among modern man has it's precursor as an evolutionary pattern insofar as there are some very interesting archaeological/anthropological discoveries being made about the process in Spain where it is believed that for a time the lighter boned homo sapien coexisted to a certain extent with tribes of it's more atavistic and physically superior Neanderthal forbears before wiping them out. One worthwhile conclusion besides the fact that hunting indigenous females in packs is unlikely to prove a worthwhile survival strategy is that it seems fair to say in this respect is that many white communities in western Europe like what they have in the way of society themselves rather than it being the case that they have any actual racist dislike of black, yellow, or red people. Another is that it would profit the living better to learn about such things than to worry about what our descendants might look like and that science proffers many incredible possibilities, of which the destruction of the entire species in a holocaust is merely one. For example it could prove possible to give all the Negro women living in Africa babies like Dolph Lundgren with massive IQ's but would they want to know who their genetic parents are? Would they attach any importance to the fact of them being someone other than those individuals who had nurtured and protected them whilst defenceless? One supposes that it is a more important question as to whether they could they be persuaded to set out to solve the worlds' problems. Practical realities and possibilities in the question of race have to be firmly divided from wishy washy pie in the sky liberalism of which there is a good deal about left over from the nineteen sixties and which can easily do more harm than good. For example if someone of West Indian descent were to seek to engage me on the subject of race I would rather first concede that the possibilities for any sort of integration have very arguably declined since the indigenous Caucasian communities found the novelty of increasing numbers of poor and coloured immigrants was wearing off. For example the Labour party found in the early eighties that in certain areas of the inner cities it was no longer possible to fit coloured immigrants into any sort of social activity supervised on any basis by the indigenous ethnic groups with roots in the city communities where they appeared and that such immigrants were not going to be readily if at all integrated on any basis other than that of 'bottom of the barrel,' welfare claimants which it had often been hoped they would when they were being asked to fill vacancies in the job markets of the sixties. I therefore consider that a worthwhile examination of the likelihoods and possibilities for the next twenty or thirty years a far more useful way of spending time than in making fatuous and transparently insincere asseverations about humanitarianism and equality. Having said a little about how much harm liberalist lip service can do in terms of promoting specious ideas about racial harmony which are not going to have any real benefits for society, it might be worth pointing out why this is the case. We have examined how traditional left wing views can be insulting and patronising to members of racial minorities and have pointed out how confident the left wing parties are that they will capture a sackful of votes at the least excuse to mention the word racism. I personally have no doubt that many British blacks who have taken the trouble to at least try educating themselves and haven't bothered to acquire an inferiority complex about the fact they have no parent written culture of their own, (this is specifically a reference to the dark coloured members of the British nation, but can apply in principal to all whose family background failed to bless them with a sound basis for the acquisition of literacy, a virtually indispensable prerequisite for prosperity) such thinking members of society must be profoundly insulted by the obvious attempt to take them for granted and view them as electoral cannon fodder which for example the attempt to say that language ability in the NHS was unimportant and that it was racist most certainly was. There are many such instances of patronising ethnic minorities with worthless ideological bric a brac odds not all of which are quite so egregious but all of which are a poor alternative to some genuine equality of opportunity and here again it is perfectly possible to argue that the question of race is irrelevant and being mistaken for that of social class. For example it has become very trendy to call the children of ex colonial Negro immigrants British which they are simply not. The word British, is a noun used to describe that ethnic group which is indigenous to the British Isles and only in it's secondary meaning, which is that of members of the British political nation, can it really be accurately applied to members of other ethnic groups. The same principal would apply say for example in the case of a Pop Star having moved to a particular Town and having made himself a big success in say Leeds; within a few years the local papers are all crowing on about this great singer as a Leeds lad, and again this is inaccurate and an excessive unreasonable use of poetic license. It is commonly the case in British English, that if you refer to someone as being of a particular city or district you are referring to their place of birth or the place where the person in question principally grew up and was educated, not to that person's place of residence: so the purpose of my point here is merely to be accurate, not to patronise, insult or belittle. In the case of Race to say that someone is Black and British is a contradiction in terms and that the only immediately worthwhile observation that can be made about various sorts of Asian and African racial types is that they are not British. It does in many cases need to be said however interesting, meaningful or worthwhile any attempted imposition of moral standards on race relations may be, that in evolution things do happen in terms of boom and bust: the only logical destiny of healthy populations is their mutation or destruction and that the summit of evolution in the form of literate, philosophic, moralistic homo sapien only got where it is today as the result of innumerable exterminations and catastrophes. I suppose this is in some ways to point out that the optimism of the 1960's is unlikely to be realised in terms of a real general cessation of Ideological, ethnic or economic hostilities between nations or the evolution of a heterogeneous coffee coloured homo sapien and that any further large scale integration of other ethnic groups into the populations of Europe as they have taken shape in the 20th century will continue to be painful: which of course goes without saying, as much is all too plain from the crime statistics in these societies and the continuing genocidal agonies of African ex colonies in particular. My point here isn't to belittle the values of altruism, or the validity of eliciting or imposing genuine ethical behaviour insofar as this may be possible but rather to say that such speculation has to be honest and realistic if it is to have any real value to those who wish to enjoy their lives in peace and equity perhaps even with a measure of prosperity and fulfilment, though it is also the case that definitions of such are also evolving with spectacular celerity, at least in the first world. What does annoy me intensely at times, about the behaviour of the West Indian community in Ipswich (rumoured to have the highest proportion in England) is that the younger males typically get together in gangs behave badly and lower the quality of the social games it is possible for young, literate, socially active people to play and s arguably responsible for much serious decline of community spirit, most significantly by imposing atavistic and unwanted norms and values by legitimising the use of violence and the use of force to get what they want: I speak of such things as the spectre of new Bars being taken over by smirking, illiterate black musclemen with gold jewellery, nicknames, a propensity for poisonous extroversion and an obvious interest in the vice trade. This obviously militates against the likelihood of finding good company, conversation, interesting scenarios and broadly speaking is to point that no-one is going to bother to throw a decent party if some Leftie Councillor is going to insist that we have to let all the poorly educated and impoverished Young West Indians behave like thugs in order to demonstrate our concern and sympathy for their generally inferior situations. Once the leading social lights have had to accept this and/or disappear, cheap and tasteless macho behaviour permeates and propagates among the rest of society which does no-one any good. Again, this is absolutely a fact of social class rather than race or colour, except insofar as colour does inescapably mark out groups; which is a convenient juncture at which to point out that the Caucasian variety of eye, hair, and skin colour is in fact an adaptation to the weather which does not bestow any additional capabilities. Exactly the same thing would happen in any district with a comparatively large and rapid influx of exclusively working class immigrants of any sort as has occurred historically in Britain in the case of Italians, Belgians and of course Irish. If there is a problem in my home Town it does stem from the fact that the Labour Council (now threatening to fall apart after thirty years) had pandered much too much to the West Indian minority and that wilst their vocal visible presence may have helped the Laour party hold on to power it has upset traditional checks and balances and the population has grown fairly disenchanted with the spiralling murder rate and various unwholesome concomitances. If I were speaking in general about things I find intensely annoying rather than on the specific issue of race I would describe at length the nauseating sight and sound of some of the well to do children who were supposed to be setting a good example for unprivileged classes of persons in the early eighties when society was reverting to a more traditional model with less in the way of positive discrimination of various sorts and a supposedly authoritarian Tory Government. Forceful and invasive behaviour on the part of the children of poorly educated immigrants may be intensely irritating for those who hope to see some genuinely edifying, inspiring, constructive recreational and social activity but nauseating is the word for some of the exploitive, ingracious and practically wicked unconcern that I have witnessed among the children of well to do families locally (you know who you are) for their less fortunate compatriots. Such behaviour only encourages Socialists to attempt overt interferences with established order and eg lessens the belief of potential terrorists in the third world that real justice can be fashioned, and that detonating bombs can be a more effective and realistic answer to their own problems. I consider that the predominant factor in the general philosophy underlying post war attempts to define acceptable policy in dealing with ethnic minorities was the simple desire for peace and reconciliation in the years after WW2. The world and especially Europe had grown tired of conflict, militarism and intolerance and this is reflected not just in policy toward ethnic minorities after a racial holocaust, but in the welfare state in general, the NHS and Education systems where we find many statutes and regulations acknowledging a sort of moral absolutism even when they obviously cannot possibly be afforded. The logical swing of the pendulum was represented by the Thatcher era in it's surrender to the ineluctability of individual human greed, US style capitalism and more acknowledgement of the virtual inevitability of nationalism. Mrs Thatcher managed to get herself elected broadly speaking by pointing out that much altruistic social policy had become unrealistic, too expensive for a functioning nation and those expecting the pendulum to swing back have witnessed since Bliar came to power: a continued and distinct lack of acumen in government; a Labour party and electorate who have been duped into paying for a foreign war that if they don't vehemently oppose has become far too much of a red herring for an establishment seeking to extol the virtues of a democracy which is largely non existent or without any real value to the unfortunate members of society he has duped into accepting his incompetent administration with mendacious egalitarian woffle; that the Labour party is saying almost exactly what the Tories did in terms of ideology and economics in the early eighties is without question though as to whether or not it is actually doing so is a matter of continued debate. What it's apparent abandonment of the interest groups which put it into power and pursual of a remunerative re-election for the PLP and certain favoured individuals like Bernie Ecclestone and John Eastoe might mean is almost anyone's guess: that the Labour politicians who profited from the 'sleaze' issue at the last election were only concerned about a lack of moral standards in public life for as long as it took to install themselves in positions of influence and power is also significantly undeniable. What this might mean for the questions of race, immigration and asylum is, in the short term very difficult to evaluate. In general those pursuing moral absolutism with phrases like 'the value of human life' are going to find themselves increasingly viewed as quaint if not simply stupid liars for in a world where human life is quite patently worth very little except to the individual concerned and is constantly becoming even more cheap, owing in the 21st century largely to the lack of unexplored continents where surplus populations might be accommodated: there is only so much room on this particular orbiting starlet and to put it bluntly people, especially those without skills of real value to others are a waste of space and anyone who argues otherwise is whistling dixie. I myself prefer dogs as friends, (if not as lovers), they can actually be trusted: the precise fact of the matter is that very, very few individuals are actually of any notable value at all to the rest of the human population and it is in any case far more profitable to keep sheep, or used to be at any rate. By way of a recapitulation of what has been said, it ought to be pointed out that there is an awful lot of conflicting evidence which could easily be put together to present hugely varying portrayals of the extent to which people are or are not objective about the ethnic background of citizens with whom they regularly interact in many contexts and One supposes that it would be generally fair to say especially in more prosperous first world nations that people were increasingly ready to; but in stating that we are being failed by self interested soundbite politicians who fail to distinguish important nuances such as the difference between social integration and actual intermarriage, we have found many such cases of the neglect and abuse of terminological propriety with the result that all too much debate on the subject was effectively meaningless and signified only in many respects that people and indeed peoples had been thoroughly shaken up by the massive conflict that was WW2 and were still largely quite happy to concur in a general liberal shift of opinion in this respect without worrying too much over the particulars, even twenty, thirty, forty and as much as sixty years later though the question as to what extent this might be profound rather than symptomatic is obviously difficult to answer. This is a sensible vantage point from which One can consider the fairly obvious fact that Tony Blair's New Labour has been preoccupied with events and trends abroad that are directly related to the pursual of a foreign policy that might effect some political stability on the Countries from which individuals are obviosuly seeking to emigrate for political and economic reasons and that this can in the long term be the only true solution to the problem of large scale asylum seeking and economic migration into Europe. I think this fact was obvious to the media and the political establishment a long time ago and that the process by which people have been told to like what they are getting in the way of domestic debate is hardly less than a conspiracy. In validation of the suggestion that we are being generally lied to by politicians and lawyers about simple realities one only has to examine the simple fact that since the 1970's we have consistently been told that Government is necessarily in a constant state of crisis, that debts can never be met, that problems can never be solved, that they must have more control and more finance if they are to achieve anything at all and that they cannot meet their obligations. Consider that a few simple indicators such as the fact that in the '70's a Colour TV for example (haha perhaps I'm not allowed to call them that) was definitely a household luxury, whereas now even an unemployed and antisocial mental defective on welfare expects to own one. It is a fair conclusion that we are being lied to about material prosperity, it has increased immensely since the seventies. Why is it that all we hear is that the Government can't get things to work at a time when there must have been an immense increase in material well being for material values to have changed so enormously? What does this mean in terms of popular perceptions of racial/ethnic issues? Well however happy someone might happen to be with events of the last forty or fifty years whether it be as a result of financial/material success, co-ed schooling, racial integration or the NHS I am rather prompted to also examine the suggestion that we are faced with a very big gulf between how the Government likes to present the issue of racial integration and how it is seen in the public mind, since we have to consider this as the mind of Mr average not Mr interest group. I am afraid that politicians don't appreciate just how much things have changed since the nineteen fifties and that all they are doing in many respects is failing to appreciate the danger of increasing perceptions that they have nothing worthwhile to add to the concept of consensual democracy as the latest infotech continues to rewrite the rules of political journalism which in turn only tends to focus on fairly tasteless political realities, such as the suggestion that the question of racial integration is the subject of much official hypocrisy as obviously is much else; but in this case my personal experiences tend me to consider that we have been enouraged to indulge in much empty headed and worthles conjecture from an official point of view to put it very generously, and that matters were in many cases best simplified by saying that the Government ought not to be so opinionated and that it is for individuals to intermarry if they wish not for governments to concern themselves with as part of any policy. Rather more unseemly in this respect is the fact that it seems difficult to avoid commenting that human nature being what it is, that the reality is far different from the wishful thinking of Cabinet Ministers, and that much an informal counter conspiracy of sorts has been very effectively underway for some decades insofar as any left wing politicians have been self interestedly glib in seeking to take advantage of individuals with proselytising and empty exhortations; for example I couldn't tell you that off the top of my head that I knew of a single professional person who actually had succeeded whilst making a point of stating that he or she wanted to deliberately promote members of ethnic minorities other than those who were obviously good enough for certain roles, which was effectively none or a mere token handful, and that as a matter of fact it was unquestionably a characteristic of those who did succeed in the last thirty years, not only that they were those who did not obviously sympathise with the goal of active general racial integrationalism but defintely tended to be those who opposed it. Since this Government has proved at least from my personal point of view as worthless and exploitive as it has, (which isn't incidentally to suggest that any other would be necessarily less so) and has obviously started to look already aged and ineffective (if it ever looked anything else) I have no real reason to think that this actuality will be likely to change. On a more optimistic note it is probably worth pointing out that individuals with some sort of heterogenous cultural, linguistic ethnic or political background are probably increasingly influential in shaping world events and that they tend to break the rules of known predicatable behaviourism and anthropology. It has been many centuries since a dour Spaniard called Hadrian impressed the snobbish Latin rulers of a world in which the now dominant Germanic ethnic group were considered savage, odorous and at best just about capable of being trained as Soldiers and such historical instances underscore the suggestion that considerations of class, creed and race can all be overcome in fashioning a society a nation or even a federation. In the final analysis there's only so much that can be said about the equation, numbers of organisms into available living space and I suppose what we will probably see in the next few years is a 'volte face' on the part of the Government on the asylum issue, probably sometime before the next General Election, or the one after that, though it very much depends on what attitudes the Press are going to promulgate and how the public reacts to asylum seekers in coming years which of course depends on how they behave, which in turn depends significantly on how they are encouraged to behave. I myself don't give a Monkeys and could hardly fare worse under the post invasion regime of a foreign government than I have during the course of trying to mind my own business in seeking diligently to lead a good and blameless life in East Suffolk over the last quarter of a century: when it is the reality that I am in many ways seeking to emigrate and do not foresee that I will stay here long term if I can help it. I have personally had more fellowship of one sort or another than I can stomach from officials of my own nation and if my personal Britishness was supposedly ever worth anything to me I'd like to know exactly what it was? It is worth reiterating that people are obviously made evil or otherwise by their life experiences and that any of the forces at work prior to an individual's birth have little or no relevance to his or her personality and predilections, whilst we can't always be so objective during processes of reaction and interaction it is worth observing that there are numerous excellent reasons for taking a dislike to someone, other than the fact of him being a foreigner or black or whatever sort of alien you might care to imagine. We could argue if we wished that we should have a vote as to who could best serve society by offering to have themselves melted down into candles and soap, presumably the obese and the unpatriotic would attract many nominations, those who have done nothing whatever for anyone of their own nation except demand extensive social security rights the financial value of which would probably maintain a whole Indian village for decades would again acquire many detracting nominations. Perhaps many even of those who imagine themselves secure in some dank corner of Europe from the chill wind of fear and intolerance blowing ever more sharply through the World nowadays it all too often seems, find bad mouthing poor unfortunates on grounds of their race a callous and hasty refuge from ignorance: individuals with little or nothing to live for, who have crossed perhaps half the world looking for a space to squat in, water to drink, some basic sustenance and perhaps freedom from fear. I really think the fact of our nation being a target for asylum seekers genuine or otherwise ought in some respects to inspire a more worthy pride than that occasioned by iniquitous aspects of our Imperial history. As for the arguably shabby short term financial motivation or necessity of refusing anyone such 'charity' for want of a better word; I can only say that the majority of my compatriots are outrageously fat, to say nothing of being disgustingly spoiled, profoundly iniquitous and that some genuine hardship would do them all an immense power of good.
(wickedly murdered in central Ipswich circa 1987).
For an interesting perspective on the Soccer team click
More African Americans are in prison than in College.
British Negroes are very arguably somewhat better off than the average, person in the World today.
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