One by one, where there's a point to answer...
If you describe a ghetto as somewhere where poor immigrants live, then pretty much by definition many poor immigrants will live in a ghetto. So? If that's all then indeed there is no problem. But you complained as though it were a problem that many of our Muslims live in ghettoes... I point out that by your definition, yes many of them will.
The point about a ghetto is that if you are the wrong <other> you are forced to live there. If not by law then by overwhelming custom and the certainty of being attacked for being elsewhere.
The point about my mention of '30 years' is that substantial Asian immigration only began here 40 years ago, Muslim immigration became more prevalent only 30 years ago, and so of course many of the basically illiterate farmers who moved here have not prospered and moved on. Give it another 40 years, perhaps, before you compare it with the proportionately far more limited immigration of rather more educated groups from Europe into the US. Or, ass you say, the group to compare is not the Jews but the Irish - perhaps imagine the Irish if they'd also had a more alien religion.
I'd imagine that our Bangladeshi immigrants in particular are most comparable in background to Mexicans - predominantly poor, barely literate farmers speaking a foreign tongue, and without us having the advantage of substantial farms or indeed much spare land. Whereas the tiny proportion of Hispanic immigrants here probably are far more educated than average!
Honestly, the majority of anti-Muslim feeling in the NE is from the BNP, in places like Bradford and Leeds. I'm familiar with that area and parts north, having lived there for a decade, quite contentedly, even in some of those very Asian 'ghettoes'.
There's a sizeable neo-fascist movement and they often do look like this:
newsbiscuit.com
They can be recognised also by their knuckle calluses and low, furrowed brows. (thinking about it, some of them probably would like to kill me. Well, shucks, consider the source.)
By your comments, you are allying yourself with them: your rhetoric is theirs, your sentiments theirs, except you use somewhat longer words.
The remainder of the anti-Muslim comments in the North - again from my own direct observation - comes from their elderly parents or grandparents, who see their unskilled young dispossessed by others equally unskilled but more willing to work hard. I don't know if you have the non-PC sitcom "Till Death Do Us Part" but Alf Garnett was the true role model for this, originated in the East End slums pre-war which so admired Oswald Mosley.
In the South, you also have the casual, patronising racism of the relics of the upper classes, those who mourn the days when they shat on anyone who didn't like them, and think darkies shoudll still be servants. Oh, my heart weeps for them.
As for my comments on the US, well, have you not noticed how Bush & Cheney are attempting to extend the Presidential office to override all others? IN times of war, of course - but oh, yes, the 'war on terror' which only the POTUS can see and only he need declare over - or not. A war demanding no higher taxes, no great sacrifice from the rich, just a few thousand dead US soldiers. Hey, no big, huh?
Spying on whoever, wherever... tapping any conversation deemed at risk - if they say it's a risk, but you're not allowed to know... imprisonment in secret, sans trial, representation or recourse... these are the current practices of the US leadership, against the protests even of their own Senators (Congress seems sadly silent). But these are the characteristics of the Stasi, and if you don't like it then you should really be arguing more forcefully against them! If you dare.
>>And you constantly invoke 'fascism' as the enemy.
We don't, actually?
Er, yes you do. Check the speeches.
news.bbc.co.uk
Mr Bush used the term on at least two separate occasions this week. On Monday, during a press conference from his ranch in Texas, he said terrorists "try to spread their jihadist message - a message I call ... Islamic radicalism, Islamic fascism".
A moment later, he said "Islamo-fascism" was an "ideology that is real and profound".
Then, on Thursday after the arrest in Britain of two dozen people suspected of plotting of bomb planes travelling to the US, he said "Islamic fascists... will use any means to destroy those of us who love freedom".
Protesting too strongly, perhaps? How could he possibly BE what he rails AGAINST? |
