Hirsch’s political agenda is to smear critics of Islam. Same for newly woke Frankie Boyle. Sarah Pascoe and Richard Osmon are there for the entertainment value and are a couple of hapless woke celebrities along for the ride.
Headline: Has Racism Been Normalised?
Yes. Both by actual racists and the supposed anti-racists such as those on this show.
The discussion at this point revolves around grooming gangs and the opposition to someone like Tommy Robinson having a say in the matter. Let’s pick it up with Afua’s point about how serious the Muslim grooming gang problem is:
… there are really serious problems that led to them [the girls … or the culprits?] being abused.
Yes. Specifically Pakistani Muslim grooming gangs, as pointed out by the following, when they too are not being accused of being racists.
Voices on Muslim Grooming Gangs
Andrew Norfolk, Times journalist, who sat on the story for a couple of years for fear of being racist, allowing who knows how many other girls to be groomed before he broke the story.
The Sikh community that for years pointed out the grooming of Sikh girls by Muslim grooming gangs, but were ignored.
Ray Honeyford, head of Drummond Middle School in Bradford, became the target of a campaign by an action group involving a number of parents (not unlike the ‘No Outsiders’ head of Parkfield now, by homophobic parents in Birmingham).
Labour MP Sarah Champion, kicked off the Labour front bench for speaking out (you won’t hear much, if anything, of Jeremy Corbyn … search his Twitter feed for Rotherham, Rochdale, Oxford, etc. not a word)
Labour MP Ann Cryer, who while getting some support from some Labour colleagues, had to suffer the smears of being a racist by others – simply for caring about the girls.
Maggie Oliver, police investigator in the Rochdale 3 girls case. Oliver was prevented from investigating the problem in Manchester and since gone on toe actually call for ‘people power’ because politicians, the press and the police had actively covered up the problem for years.
You can butter it up all you like, and blame Robinson as much as you want, but you are lying when you do.
Here’s Maggie Oliver directly accusing her police chief of covering it up. [Update 2019-07-16 – In her recent book release interviews she points out the grooming continues and many groomers remain free of prosecution]
If you want the longer and more harrowing tale of just THREE girls (1400+ in Rotherham alone … estimated) then watch this:
Saira Khan, who has made similar comments to those of Tommy Robinson … on the TV show, Loose Women. My one issue with Saira is she’s still too afraid, or too blind, to see the problem: The Enlightenment of the Brave Saira Khan
Nothing to do with Islam?
When you’re done digesting what Saira Khan has to say, go back to Afua Hirsch:
They [Tommy Robinson and co] are only interested in this minority (Muslims)
Yes, why is that? How come Robinson and co aren’t interested in Sikhs, Hindus, Christians, or even ex-Muslims, … or even Ahmadi Muslims?
Let’s go to Ahmadi Muslims – I don’t know that Robinson has EVER criticised them.
But you know who has?
Other Muslims. Ahmadi Muslims are not allowed to call themselves Muslims in Pakistan, and they are persecuted there and have their mosques attacked – BY MUSLIMS.
In the UK, we had Ahmadi Muslim Asad Shah, killed by a Sunni Muslim from Bradford.
And when the Ahmadi Muslims held an interfaith peace rally, other faith leaders turned up – but the Sunna and Shia Muslim representatives refused to do so.
And even recently we have had the BBC reporting that a mosque in Britain has been making available leaflets demanding the killing of Ahmadis.
And the Council for British Muslims on their own site state that Ahmadiyya are not Muslims, rejecting the Ahmadi Muslim right to identify as Muslim.
How come we don’t hear much from Afua Hirsch on that problem? Or does racism only count when Afua Hirsch sees it in one particular direction?
Afua Hirsch Lies
they try to create a narrative that all Muslims need to be accountable for the actions of the paedophiles …in one or two towns
Wow. Let’s get the first lie out of the way before addressing the very cause of this problem of ‘Tommy Robinson’.
No, It is not the case that the narrative is about making all Muslims accountable *for the actions of the paedophiles*. What many critics DO ask is that Muslim organisations and local Muslim communities stop trying to cover the crimes up.
Any other working class grooming gang, if found out in a local community, would find that the gang members would be lucky to escape with their lives and their genitals intact, so outraged would the local community be. So, from early in the piece …
… does Tommy Robinson really care about the vulnerable girls?
Yes. Why on earth would you think otherwise, unless your own agenda was to smear him. His own relative was groomed. So, yes, damned right he cares about the girls. That’s how working class communities would react if press, politicians and police, and other local community members were trying to over up any ‘white’ grooming gangs. And, what’s more, the town wouldn’t be safe for them to return after their sentence were complete.
Which has not been the case for many of the Muslim grooming gangs, where family and friends support them, even shouting support in trials; where after serving their sentence they return to their communities with no problem, and are even seen by their victims; where protecting the good name of Islam is far more important to the community than the victims.
Here comes the necessary disclaimer: NOT ALL MUSLIMS. There must be many Muslims that are horrified by these acts by members of the ‘community’. The problem for many decent members of the Muslim communities is that it’s actually risky for them to speak out if they live in those communities. Ask Saira Khan, who has received terrible abuse, … FROM PEOPLE ON THE LEFT AND MUSLIM COMMUNITIES.
Let’s get back to the really egregious part of this dreadfully dishonest programme
And they are towns where some prosecutions have taken place, but where we have no real idea of the historical unreported cases, and no idea of how many other towns may have been affected. On some occasions the victims have been driven to other towns to ‘serve’ the Muslim men of those communities.
THIS has been the problem that has created Tommy Robinson: the utter stupid denialism of people like Afua Hirsch. She can’t even leave her “there are really serious problems” sit without diminishing it with “one or two towns”
White Paedophiles – Whataboutery
We never talk about white paedophiles
What utter BS.
Let’s start with ‘white working class‘ paedophiles. Do you know when we talk about white paedophiles? When they are rooted out by long winded police investigations into their secretive gangs.
What’s different about the Muslim grooming gangs? They do it openly, in front of schools, in shops and taxi firms in the ‘local community’. They do it with police knowledge, and social services knowledge, and press knowledge, and local council knowledge. They do it with impunity.
THAT is why you have Tommy Robinson, and specifically why Tommy Robinson gets so much support from the working class.
But, of course, what about paedophile politicians and celebrities, like Jimmy Saville. YES! It’s the same press, police and politicians covering up their crimes as it is the Muslim grooming gangs – for entirely different reasons of course. YES. That’s the point. Cover ups.
THAT is why you have Tommy Robinson, and specifically why Tommy Robinson gets so much support from the working class, because not only have the press, politicians, press and celebs been covering up Muslim grooming gangs, they do it for their own too!
Whataboutery of Numbers
even though the majority of paedophiles are white
Not proportionate to population size.
The estimates vary, but of course you’d expect a 90% white population to produce more paedophiles that the mere 5% population of Muslims.
But that’s not the point, is it. The point is, that even allowing for variations in population estimates, for street grooming gangs 84% are Muslim. And, it gets worse. For race targeted (white non-Muslim) victims, by Pakistani Muslims, it is almost exclusively Pakistani Muslim grooming gangs (small clusters of other Muslim grooming gangs such as in Somali communities do exists).
Find ANY substantial reports where white paedophiles are targeting Muslim girls, or Sikh girls, or Hindu girls, or girls of other nationalities at all – have you heard of ANY?
The ONLY other significant perp profiles is where girls are trafficked by criminal sex gangs, and sex tourism in the far east, … and powerful people protected by politicians, press and police.
Who Defines a Legitimate Debate?
it’s frustrating when he (Tommy Robinson) is given a platform by mainstream media …because it’s not a legitimate debate
Well done on giving him a platform then, on this programme, you utter clown. How many programmes have we seen where critics of Tommy Robinson have given him far more air time than he has created for himself.
But the real problem is caused by NOT giving a platform to more reasonable voices, like those listed earlier, that have been talking about this for decades.
YOU are part of the problem that has created Tommy Robinson.
And, you think voicing an opinion about the cover up of Muslim grooming gangs is NOT legitimate?
We’ve got to a really dangerous position where now, if someone like me who is anti-racist is in a debate there’s this need to put me on against a racist …
YOU and pundits like you, and the press, and police and politicians have created Tommy Robinson by your neglect.
Robinson started campaigning against Islamic extremists over a decade ago, and grooming gangs shortly after, … after he gained EDL notoriety and other people from around the country reported to him how grooming gangs where operating freely, just as they had with his relative.
If we were talking about rape, you wouldn’t have me on with a pro rape activist
What the heck are you talking about? YOU are asserting that Robinson is racist, with no evidence whatsoever. YOU are equating his criticism of Islam, Islamists and Muslim grooming gangs with racism. YOU are fabricating the debate that isn’t being had.
And, I don’t know if you noticed, but the subject matter IS about rape and other abuse, and Robinson has been opposing it. And YOU are opposing Robinson’s opposing of it. How twisted can you get.
The term ‘Cultural Racism’ could mean a number of things. Let’s start with a couple of issues around the component terms that should be easy to acknowledge.
Racism – I’m taking this as a given. It exists. In all societies as far as I’m aware, and the differences amount to who the targets are, the power and numbers differentials between the groups that engage in it and are victims of it.
Cultural bigotry – I think this obviously exists too. There are some people that reject other cultures, or innocent aspects of other cultures. Sometimes it’s based on pure ignorance, and sometimes a deep xenophobia, or indeed based on the association between the ethnicity and the culture, which in turn often comes back to ignorance.
Combining these you could have ‘Cultural Racism’, but I’m not entirely sure how much that differs from simple racism.
In fact there is a danger here, and we witness its effects now, and often. And that danger is the conflation of racism with disagreements over the value of ‘elements’ of cultures.
Note here the distinction in that last sentence, between ‘elements’ of cultures, and whole cultures. Humans on this planet are far more uniform than we sometimes tend to think, and our differences are not as complete as a superficial comparison might suggest. If you can imagine the most different culture you know to your own, there are still going to be elements of that culture that your culture shares, or which are not sufficiently different to your own such that you would reject everything about the other culture.
This idea that one can accept at least some elements of other cultures does not rule out the possibility of one’s racism. In fact it might be that one’s racism includes a condescending love for elements of other cultures. From a white British perspective I’ve seen examples in some favourite British holiday destinations, like Spain, where a love of sun, siestas and Spanish food provides little disguise the contempt displayed for Spanish locals. And who doesn’t like an ‘Indian’ (See Good Gracious Me “going out for an English”). Or Mexican hats. Or … but we’re straying into ‘cultural appropriation’ territory, which I’ll put to one side for another time.
But what about Nazism? Yes, I know it was a short live ideology of early 20th Century Germany, with fascist affiliations elsewhere, but let’s be honest, not all Germans were Nazis, so disliking Nazism isn’t synonymous with disliking Germany or Germans. We get this. Why can’t we get it with other ideologies and cultures? Why can’t we pick and choose? Why can’t we be ‘discriminating’?
I do discriminate, and I discriminate against some elements of some cultures. I discriminate against the violent boozy laddish culture of Brits abroad. I discriminate against British Imperialist culture that tried to dominate the world for a few centuries. And I discriminate against elements of Christian culture that demands special privilege and deference for Christianity in our culture and in our government.
However, I’m a Secular Humanist, and with that comes freedom of belief. So I will not discriminate against religious beliefs.
But I will discriminate against religious action based on religious beliefs that tries to impose religiously motivated values that I don’t agree with on those that don’t want them. And, here’s the sticking point for many hypocrites, I feel the same way about Islam.
In fact I find more wrong with Islam than I do with Christianity. Not that some Christian groups can’t be as bigoted as some Muslim groups, but on balance I find the Islamic ideology particularly conducive to bad ideas and bad actions. And I find this to be the case even though many Muslims are themselves decent people that I have no problem with.
We have a problem with Islam, and it’s not my ‘Cultural Racism’ that determines that I have such a problem, it’s the nature of Islam that determines it. There are some ‘elements’ of Islamic culture that I don’t have a problem with at all, and in fact find them to be interesting and worthwhile. But, I find there are many more elements I do have a problem with.
But of course we have a relatively recent history of British Imperialism in India and what is now Pakistan and Bangladesh that fitted the ‘Cultural Racism’ meme pretty well. And that in turn led to many immigrants coming to the UK from the Indian sub-continent, on one route or another (including Ugandan Asians). That then, in turn again, resulted in more racism in the UK, in which we saw ‘Paki bashing’ as a symptom common among far right racist groups and football thugs in the 1970s. We also now have some notable campaigners against such racism. Kenan Malik being one; initially a man of the Left, but disgruntled with the Left’s response to the Rushdie affair. A another, younger, victim of the racism, Maajid Nawaz, took a different route, becoming an Islamist, but he too had a change of heart; he remains a Muslim but is staunchly secular and campaigns against all forms of racism and bigotry, but obviously focuses on Islamism, Islamic extremism and the far right.
This is the background in which you might think that the rational secular, and often non-religious, intelligentsia might rally to oppose all racism and bigotry, including that of religions.
I say you might think it, because from the 60s onward, when Christianity still dominated British religiosity, there were many progressive gains against the bigotry of religion. In other words, we discriminated against British Christian bigotry with enthusiasm.
By the late 70s, change was already under way. Many will remember with delight the night the Python duo, Cleese and Palin, took on Malcolm Muggeridge and Mervyn Stockwood (the then Bishop of Southwark) in a programme hosted by Tim Rice, where they discussed the merits or otherwise of Python’s The Life of Brian. And, however you think that conversation went, even then it was noted by Malcolm Muggeridge that Islam was receiving special protection … out of fear
May I make another point here, which is rather interesting, which is if you had made that film about Mohammed, there would have been an absolute hullabaloo in this country. The antiracialist people would have risen up in their might. The same people who would have approved of this (Life of Brian), but would have said that (a film about Mohammed) was quite disgraceful.
Sadly, many of us secularist were so busy enjoying the special pleading of the Christians we didn’t really pay much attention to that point. Oh, how times have changed. I can’t now figure out, by today’s standards, whether that makes Malcolm Muggeridge an appeaser of Islam, an Islamophobe, or indeed a realist that saw the hypocrisy even then. Christians aren’t quite as bold as they were in pointing out the privileges that British Islam enjoys.
Of course Cleese was spot on with his reply
Your quite right Malcom. Four hundred years ago we would have been burnt for this film. Now, I’m suggesting we’ve made an advance.
And I’m now suggesting we had made an advance with regard to Christianity, but we have regressed with regard to Islam. And, that the accommodation of Islam goes above and beyond the noble intention of reducing racism, to a fawning submission, not even to Islam itself, but to the victim playing bullies of Islamist supremacism that are dictating the narrative on moral discourse to the point of persuading Western pseudo-liberals to self censor and suppress free speech on the grounds that if offends the religious sensibilities of religious bigots.
Wikipedia Page Authors’ Submission to Islam
I suppose you might like some evidence that it is the case that the regression regarding Islam is taking place. I offer you the Wikipedia page on ‘Cultural Racism’. This page, it seems, was originally based on a translation from Swedish. Sweden, a Western liberal country apparently hell bent on submitting to Islam.
Unsurprisingly this page suffers from one of the problems that social justice warriors love to point out, though apparently it goes unnoticed here, and that’s outright Eurocentrism. You will see throughout, that all the problems discussed are Western, European and White, and the only victims of note are Muslims, thanks to our Islamophobia.
Not a jot on the Cultural Racism in Islam, where the term fits like a glove. Nothing on the hate filled state of Pakistani Islam, that sees the persecution of Christians like Asia Bibi for ten years, before inciting violence against her on hear release from prison. Nothing on the Muslim-Hindu Cultural Racism that sees Muslims abducting young girls for forced conversion to Islam – not unlike Boko Haram’s tactic, and indeed not unlike Mohammed himself, who married a slave. How about something on the rising Islamism in Indonesia, where young people are submitted to the Quran’s imposition of one hundred lashes on an ever increasing frequency? Or perhaps the article could have mentioned the Cultural Racism in the Arab world, where Mulsims from around the world are treated as indentured slaves with their passports withdrawn, salaries unpaid, and, even in London, where house maids are virtual sex slaves to some Arabs. Maybe the many cases in Islamic states where women are prosecuted for sex outside marriage … when they report rape.
Cultural Racism against Ahmadiyya?
Not only is there persecution against all other religions and peoples throughout the Muslim world, there are some spectacular instances of it in the West, against Muslims.
Where is the discussion of the persecution, the Cultural Racism, of Muslims towards Ahmadiayya? In Britain an Ahmadi Muslim, Asad Shah, was targeted and killed by a Sunni Muslim who travelled up from Bradford to Shah’s home of Glasgow with the specific intent of killing Shah. And only in the last few days have we heard that a UK mosque has been distributing leaflets that call for the killing of Ahmadi Muslims. And, do remember that in Pakistan, a cultural heritage for many British Muslims, the Ahmadiyya are persecuted, killed and have their mosques attacked and destroyed, an not even permitted in law to call themselves Muslims.
And where is one of Britain’s largest Muslim organisations on this, the Muslim Council or Britain, of which Miqdaad Versi is a spokesman? Here we have their view of the Ahmadi:
In recent days a Catholic journalist has been investigated for misgendering a trans teen. But has there been an investigation into the MCB’s mis-religioning of the Ahmadi, who self declare as Muslims?
For that matter, the BBC report on the leaflets that call for Ahmadis to be killed doesn’t say whether or not the culprits have been charges with a hate crime, and incitement to murder, or indeed incitement to perform a terrorist act? The BBC does not say. It only says they have been warned.
Why is this?
Why is it that we are now told that pointing out all the Islamic extremism is tantamount to inciting far right terrorist attacks, while the endless complaints of Islamophobia and anti-Islam bigotry are not themselves further incitement to Islamic revenge attacks (we may have had at least one already)? If the news media, in their reporting of Islamic attacks, are culpable in the recent Christchurch attack on a mosque, in what way is Miqdaad Versi or MCB not complicit in the killing of Ahmadis, only the link between the CMB’s opinion on Ahmadis, the situation in Pakistan, and the actual persecution of Ahmadis is far more obviously linked.
Isn’t this a far more concrete example of ‘Cultural Racism‘, if anything is?
Cultural Racism of the Left
It isn’t just the Islamist organisations that are pushing this agenda of excusing Islam of it’s own bigotry. The Left in the West are pure gullible idiots – a topic worthy of a post in its own right.
I have criticised religion for decades, and in the earlier years it was mostly targeted at Christian bigotry – remember Westboro, the far right religious group that ‘hates fags’? Why isn’t Islamic homophobia considered far right?
Rarely, if ever, did I get any pushback from non-Christians for such criticism of Christian bigotry, for most were on board with such criticism. Whether it was opposing the Christian churches on homophobia and misogyny (re women and gay priests and bishops), or simply disagreeing with theists on the metaphysical matter of origins of the universe.
Not so when it comes to Islam. Any number of non-Muslim defenders of Islam will leap into any conversation where they perceive offence against one of the worlds ‘great’ religions … but only that one. You won’t hear many charges of antisemitism from the Left if you criticise Judaism either, funnily enough – yet another topic for another day.
And this is where the whole Cultural Racism narrative is at the moment. Whatever the possibility for a real academic subject being built around the term (on which the Wiki article points out there’s much disagreement), it’s main practical purpose has been to brand critics of Islam as racists.
Islam isn’t a race.
This seems to now be greeted as a sure sign of one’s racism. And no wonder, because, as the Wiki article points out, there is an intent to redefine race and racism. This has been a road they have driven themselves down over a few decades. From a practical scientific point of view, race offers no grand story, no great scientific truth, even though there are health reason for making distinctions.
Can agree we are all one species? The problem the racists of various ethnicities have is that they treat race like they would a sub-species. But, even if that were the case (if Neanderthals and others still existed) that wouldn’t make the racists right in their discrimination.
So, what are the determined critics of the west to do? After all, declare ‘race’ itself a cultural invention and it becomes a bit inconvenient for the narrative, where ‘racism’ is a great tool for demonising your enemies. Invent ‘Cultural Racism’ in order retain all the stigma of being a racist, while expanding the scope to pretty much anything that allows you to identify a distinction, which to me seems a suspect dogma designed to sustain ‘racism’ rather than to fight it.
Cultural Racism Newspeak
Just noticed this Cultural Racism definition comes from an Education textbook, "Teaching for Diversity & Social Justice."
Reminder: Ed Schools increasingly require diversity courses to earn a degree & become a teacher. But there's a lot here that's not just about diversity. 12/ pic.twitter.com/lSW8VZGu1G
Read Selina’s full thread on the redefinition of terms and the Newspeak it has ushered in.
The context in which I’ve presented the problem is narrower, which you might expect, given my Secular Humanist Atheist opposition to oppressive religions, and the difference between religion in the US and the UK, and the different context in which racism has played out given our colonial history, and the greater extent to which slavery affected people in the US, and victims and perpetrators.
Selina’s thread starts out with this Aero Magazine article that addresses some of the problems with the book upon which the thread is based.
In modern democracies like Australia (from whence both Manne and I hail), the US and the UK, we have by and large outgrown the notion that women don’t deserve to be treated as full moral equals to men.
Except, in our British context where Islam is a problem (unprosecuted FGM, until a recent first case; years of hiding Muslim grooming gangs rather than dealing with them; pseudo-feminist support for the hijab as a choice, but not a word on the women suffering in Iran) it is no longer the case that we have outgrown such misogyny. We’re growing right back into it, thank you very much. And homophobia too, where parents in predominantly Muslim schools have protested, successfully, the teaching of the program ‘No Outsiders’ (re-emboldening homophobes of other religions in the process).
Flipping to this homophobia for a moment, the ‘No Outsiders’ program does what it says – it teaches children to avoid the unintentional, or intentional, persecution of others for, among other things, their sexual orientation, so avoiding making people feel like outsiders.
I know from my school days, even with no malicious intent, we made it uncomfortable, to say the least, for any emerging gay child or teen to come out. Of course there were no same-sex parent couples that we knew of back then, so now, ‘No Outsiders’ even teaches acceptance of same-sex or variable gender parents of any children too.
However, despite the fact that you might expect Muslims to understand the problem with being considered outsiders, you’d be mistaken, since Islam has its own special way of seeing pretty much anyone that doesn’t conform to Islamic standards as an outsider.
Islam is a particularly divisive religion that also creates no compelling desire to avoid playing the victim – as has been the case in other instances. It is not unusual that following an Islamic terror attack, UK Muslim organisations spend more time lamenting the anticipated explosion in anti-Muslim hate than they do the killing of innocents in Islam’s name – except to the extent to which it blackens the good name of Islam. This is very specifically why criticism of Islam, or even mentioning the horrendous attacks done in the name of Islam, is declared ‘Islamophobic’. The act of terrorism is of course “Nothing to do with Islam” (and echoed by Western world leaders like marionettes of the Islamists) … except that the perpetrators will cite chapter and verse of why it is precisely something to do with Islam.
Is this duplicity on the part of supposed liberals in the West not its own Cultural Racism? (And here I’m not condoning the ridiculous identitarians that base their complaints of apparent ‘genocide’ of their ethnicity – I’m far more concerned about the damage done to liberal inspired freedoms when the pseudo-liberals play ball with Islamists)
There are many more examples of the distinction between actual and perceived misogyny in the West, … and figures are given from a Pew poll that show the stark difference between the West and some Islamic countries.
Of course such misogyny is all to do with ‘Toxic Masculinity’. While many object to the term in a Western context, I actually agree such a thing exists. Except I blame religion. Religions are generally patriarchal systems, and the big religions were created in a time of ‘Toxic Masculinity’ and they perpetuate it into the present. No surprise then that some ultra conservative US Christian sects and Islamic sects that buy into the religious Toxic Masculinity. Strangely, some feminists seem totally blind to this when it comes to Islam – yes, Islam again. Not Christianity, where the patriarchal nature of the church is easy to admit. When discussing the all too frequent incidences of terrorism at the hands of Islamic terrorist one might be told it’s “Nothing to do with Islam” and all to do with “Toxic Masculinity”. OK, then let’s play that game:
(actually, despite my agreement with Sophie, it turns out all terrorists are not in fact men … but they mostly are, so it hardly diminishes the point)
It doesn’t take much rooting around in Islamic and ex-Muslim circles to find plenty of misogyny. Many Muslim women will not only defend the hijab as their free choice, but will even deny Islam’s misogyny, and then tell you why they are not as reliable as men.
The Left’s Cultural Racism – Against Ex-Muslims
What you won’t find among non-Muslim apologists for Islam is much acknowledgment of ex-Muslims. In some cases, like Ayaan Hirsi Ali you come across outright venomous opinion. But, who else would know Islam, and be prepared to be honest about it, than ex-Muslims that were themselves devoted to it at one time, of subject to its oppression, or both.
Is this ‘Cultural Racism’? OK, perhaps some old white guys are racist haters of Muslims. But, come on, can you honestly deny the voices of ex-Muslims? Or the women of Iran that plead for support from Western feminists?
Apparently you can. The Women’s March, or any tragedy that befalls Muslims, such as the horrific attack at Christchurch, will be met with Western feminists donning the hijab. Not the men, note, just the women. It strikes me as a particularly ignorant or wilful betrayal of women around the world that have suffered under Islam’s toxic masculinity.
Conclusion
For the most part, in the wider world, outside the most rational of academia that might make sense of it, ‘Cultural Racism’ is an entirely bogus meme, used by apologists for Islam, and those intent on demonising Western ideas.
I’ll tell you why it’s not racism. Those that are on the receiving end of the charge support many people of the same ethnicities as those that are supposed to be victims of our racism. The secular Muslims, the ex-Muslims that become secular humanists that support western style democracy over theocracy are some of the most rational critics of Islamic theocracy, knowing it as they do. And the members of the Left that criticise critics of Islam but not critics co Christianity … ex-Muslims have your measure.
Poor Tommy and Owen are from not too dissimilar backgrounds – at least that’s what Owen says. Tommy’s mother worked in a bakery, and apparently left Tommy with no particular political education or affiliation. Owen’s parents were a shop steward and a lecturer, so basically aspiring middle class with plenty of political awareness. Dead similar.
Tommy went to a local school in Luton, while Owen attended a sixth form college, equal opportunities being what they are. So, let’s hear no more about Owen’s privileged background.
But their paths changed after leaving high school.
Owen received a top education in one of the most prestigious universities in the world.
Tommy left school and had various jobs.
Nevertheless, they retain an uncannily similar campaigning style. [Credit to someone else for spotting the similarity – but I’m blocked by Owen and can’t find them now]
Every single day, the British media, and the media elsewhere, whips up racism and bigotry against Muslims, against migrants, against refugees, and against other minorities, those people being a particular favourite target right now. Now there are some consequences. It fuels, it drives, it legitimises street level abuse, harassment, bullying, in the playground, the workplace. It fuels overtly racist attacks. It drives violence, and it drives the rise of the far right. After Christchurch, the massacre of dozens of Muslims, there can be no more tolerance, and no more silence within the media industry, about the role of the media, effectively acting like hate preachers, with megaphones that reach tens of millions of people, every single day. Now there are some that get very angry in the media when it’s called out, how dare you call out the media, as though they’re being victimised and attacked and insulted, rather than using their platform to speak out and challenge the racism and the bigotry which has consequences for people. Now the media is an industry which is overwhelmingly dominated by those from those from those privileged backgrounds who do not suffer the consequences of the bigotry and racism that the media fans. But it has to now be called out. And, to fail to use one’s platform, if you have a platform, to speak out against racism and bigotry by the most powerful institutions, or some of them, in the country, is to be complicit. So, enough of people responding in this defensive way, or being silent, or themselves peddling racism and bigotry. Call it out.
And the following wouldn’t be out of place in a video from Tommy …
Every single day, the British media, and the media elsewhere, whips up hatred and bigotry against those that criticise Islam, those people being a particular favourite target right now. Now there are some consequences. It fuels, it drives, it legitimises street level abuse, harassment, bullying, in the playground, the workplace, of Islamic supremacism. It fuels overtly Islamic attacks. It excuses Islamic violence, and it drives the rise of the far right Islam. After Manchester, the massacre of dozens of victims, or Rotherham and the 1400+ child victims, there can be no more tolerance, and no more silence within the media industry, about the role of the media, acting like cowards, more afraid of being called racist hate preachers themselves, with megaphones that could expose the Islamism to millions of people, every single day. Now there are some that get very angry in the media when it’s called out, how dare you call out the media, as though they’re being victimised and attacked and insulted, rather than using their platform to speak out and challenge the grooming gangs and the consequences for children. Now the media is an industry which is overwhelmingly dominated by those from those from those privileged backgrounds, like Owen Jones, who do not suffer the consequences of the Islamic terrorism and grooming gangs, that the media fans, by screaming ‘Islamophobia’. But it has to now be called out. And, to fail to use one’s platform, if you have a platform, to speak out against grooming gangs, which Andrew Norfolk eventually did. The most powerful institutions, or some of them, like the police, politicians, and media, that say “Nothing to do with Islam” is to be complicit. So, enough of people responding in this defensive way, or being silent, or themselves peddling excuses for Islamic homophobic bigotry. Call it out.
The thing is, there WAS silence in the media, on Muslim grooming gangs, from Owen, and especially from Corbyn, who sacked (sorry, managed to ‘persuade’) Sarah Champion from the opposition front bench for daring to talk about Pakistani Muslim Grooming Gangs. There has been collusion in the silence from press, police and politicians, specifically many Labour councils.
For over a decade any attempt to raise the issue found the media hunting down those that complained and labelling them as racists – teachers that saw the grooming happening outside the school gates were demonised and hounded out of office if they expressed any concern in too explicit terms.
Maggie Oliver, of the eventually infamous case of Three Girls in Rochdale, which came only after she had been thwarted in her attempts to investigate the problem in Manchester, has been campaigning for more awareness, and for investigations into the neglectful and complicit senior police and social services that shut down anyone trying to expose the problem.
Even Times writer, Andrew Norfolk, admitted he sat on a story of grooming gangs for a couple of years, for fear of being called racist. A self-censoring press! You’d actually think Norfolk would have been sacked for NOT getting the story out sooner. Instead he was honoured as the brave soul that eventually did publish. Let that sink in. The problem is so bad, you’re more of a hero for publishing what should be a straight forward crime story, than a demon for covering it up for a couple of years while who knows how many girls continued to be abused by those eventually prosecuted.
And don’t get me started on the mind boggling utter nonsense of Islamic terrorism being “Nothing to do with Islam”, which we have heard countless times from politicians, when Islamic terrorists tell you explicitly they are doing it FOR Islam, and cite Quran and Hadith in detail as justification.
Hot head Tommy has his issues. He says things that are too close to the edge of anti-Muslim bigotry, but if confronted he’ll generally walk it back. On many occasions he’s been very explicit about how he has no problem with most Muslims – he even talks of a local Muslim who he finds to a better example of a decent person than anyone else he knows. His issue is always with Islamism, Islamic extremism, Muslim grooming gangs, and the attacks on free speech that are targeted at speech against Islam specifically. You may not like the way he goes about things – fine. You may reject him for his criminal record – fine – except let’s not see double standards where other ex-cons are deemed to have been redeemed. But if you dismiss what he has to say in totality for who he is, rather than listening to what he has to say first, then, guess what, you’re a bigot.
Owen has no excuses, other than he’s been indoctrinated into a political class that searches for victims that they can make their next project … until the victims no longer want to be saved. You won’t see much concern for the working class if they happen not to like one particular religion.
Why has there been a Labour failure to make any criticism of Islam in practice? Where have Corbyn and Owen been on LBGT issues while the Parkfield Islamic homophobia has been going on?
If you want to see the utter hypocrisy of Owen, look no further than this race baiting tweet of his (don’t forget, Islamophobia=racism). [H/T Damo – @Concretemilk for these images]
There is absolutely no chance a newspaper would splash a childhood photo of an Islamic terrorist who murdered 49 Christians in a church as an “angelic boy”. Displacing focus from the victims to oh how could a sweet WHITE boy become a terrorist.
Funnily enough, the Mail and the Sun, had already displayed such a sentiment, using the term “angelic schoolboy”. This is what you get when you’re so biased in your political ideology you refuse to read anything that opposes your views. This is how dogmatic bigoted ideologues like Owen survive.
Let’s go back a bit further to look at what Owen had to tweet about Jihadi John:
Now there’s a surprise. The guy who complained about someone using Jihadi John as “a pop at Corbyn”, then four years later he’s using a newspaper front page to have a pop at what he perceives ‘Islamophobia’ in the press.
When he’s not throwing a tantrum and stomping off interviews that aren’t going his way, despite his persistent rude and entitled interruptions when it’s time for another guest to speak, and when he’s not spending his day blocking people on Twitter, he’s writing bigoted two faced pieces in The Guardian (“my newspaper”) that exhibit his own bigotry towards the ‘working class’ – no wonder Labour struggles for their support when they have mouth pieces like Owen.
This is where you get to with Grievance Politics that has infested Labour. Not that grievances shouldn’t be exposed, but that bigot Owen will be very selective about which he exposes, erring on the side of not exposing grievances by Islam, and conjuring up grievances even when there are none to be found.
For all Robinson’s antics, his ‘reporting’ actually has more credibility that Owen’s. That is deeply worrying, that an activist like Robinson that shouts about genuine grievances is an outcast that’s driven out of social media, while Owen Jones is, to a vocal yet gullible number on the left, is a heroic voice for the underdog. You won’t find much from Owen Jones on FGM (though he endorses “my newspaper’s campaign” – hardly a campaign, but rather too few articles); and when he writes about homophobia he won’t comment how much more of it there is in Muslim communities – because, of course, that would make him a racist … against a political religious far right homophobic ideology.
Update: Since I wrote this post, Saira has given up on Islam. More at the end.
When it dawns on the enlightened Saira Khan that the truth must come out, she really goes for it, and reveals some tragic long held secrets of abuse. She surprises herself at the behaviour of Pakistani men (not all, we must inevitably add), and rallies around our shared values for peace and freedom.
I’ve become an admirer of Saira, because it takes some doing for a Muslim women to speak the way she does on Loose Women (UK daytime TV show). I’m sure she’s been influenced and helped by being part of that show, and the result is that she is providing a significant contribution, for the benefit of young girls and women suffering abuse.
This important of voice of hers cannot be under-estimated.
I don’t agree with Saira on all points. It’s nothing to do with religion? Yes it is…
We start with Saira’s input on an episode on Islamic terrorism.
Let’s dig into this a little …
Whether you are white or you are Muslim …
There are no white Muslims? There are no non-white non-Muslims opposed to Islam?
ISLAM. IS. NOT. A. RACE.
Islam is a political judicial ideology, as well as a religion – it says so itself. Read the texts.
It’s not only legitimate to oppose Islam, as it is Communism, Fascism, Christianity, or any ideology, … more than that, for any liberal, it’s a duty: read the texts of Islam, especially the Quran, which is presented as the ‘inerrant’ word of Allah. What honest liberal would not oppose such an ideology?
Religions are let off the hook far too easily.
We have to feel what we can say without being deemed a racist.
Let that sink in. I ask you to do this, not to pick on Saira, but to point out that to declare criticism of Islam to be racism is a very common defensive stance we see regularly.
Every time there is an issue about Muslims, I’M brought out to talk about it.
Saira! You go on Loose Women and CHOOSE to talk about it. And, now that you are being more open about it, I’m very glad that you do.
I want Jane to come out, I want you to come out. Because we are united by our values, not by religion. If we live in this country we have to put our hands up and say we are British, and we are all aligned by the same things.
Who would Saira not want to talk about it? White working class men?
Nevertheless, it’s warming to hear Saira say this.
(But, note later, that she also effectively says she IS the sort of person that CAN talk about some issues, because she is ‘part of the community’. Mixed messages like this are common.)
Saira moves on to integration, and how Britain is a well integrated society, an yet so many Muslim children don’t feel integrated …
But we are not integrated. If you go to a school … and your best mate goes on six weeks school holiday and doesn’t come back and nobody asks you, why didn’t your friend come back, you’d feel angry. Who do you talk to? You can’t talk to your family, you can’t even talk to your school.
In 2012 I visited 75 primary schools, and I have to say, some of those schools would have been quite happy as if they were in Afghanistan. How can you have that in Britain? How can you have schools, with white teachers, and fully Muslim kids, and the parents are dictating the agenda?
These are strong words. So, don’t be surprised if Saira gets some flack for this.
And those teachers say to me, we don’t have the powers, we don’t have the resources. We are too scared to say something in case we are deemed racist.
And, that applies to authorities outside the ‘communities’ that Saira refers to, such as schools, social services, police, politicians, there has been this reluctance. And that’s because of the recent history of conflating Islam, culture and ethnicity to the point where it is all too easily labelled as a racist Islamophobe.
Jane asks about Jihadi John …
He came over here from Kuwait. As far as I know he went to a multicultural westernised school. He got our free education, free healthcare. We were nothing but kind to him and his family. Where did that hatred for Britain and all that we represent, come from?
Saira …
It comes from home. It comes from ordinary Muslim families that don’t speak up, who actually hear what’s being said, and don’t make a big deal about it. And that’s why I say today, it is not good enough for the majority of peaceful Muslims living in this country not to come out and speak up and say, not in our name. And these people are using Islam, and Muslims, and it’s branded all over the place. I’m a Muslim. Not in my name
A great sentiment, Saira. Thank you. I agree. It’s not in your name. But … it’s NOT nothing to do with Islam.
This is quite the opposite of what we have been told for years, not only by peaceful Muslims, but by Islamic apologist non-Muslims. Here’s why:
By adopting the narrative of “Nothing to do with Islam”, how can you then come out and say, “Not in our name?”
Islamic terrorism clearly does have something to do with Islam.
And it’s not in ‘your’ name that they do it, but in the name of Islam.
And, Islam isn’t just ‘your’ Islam – remember how diverse Islam is? So we are told.
This is where it becomes a bit tricky for a critic of Islam.
You can hardly use unifying calls to Islam, as many Muslims do, and then deny that unity. We hear about the Caliphate, the Ummah, Brothers and Sisters, ‘Nation of Islam’, ‘Muslim lands’ – there is no doubt that if one claims to follow Allah, Mohammed, and the Quran, and declare you are a Muslim (the shahadah), then you are a Muslim (except Ahmadis, apparently).
Despite that, Muslims around the world are endlessly declaring other Muslims to be non-Muslims, not proper Muslims, not Islamic enough, not authentic, …
If any particular Muslim thinks they are an authentic Muslim, then without some ‘Pope’ to determine otherwise, who are they to then to say which Muslims is not a Muslim?
But, Muslims denounce other Muslims regularly. And “Nothing to do with Islam” has been a huge confidence trick in this process: Assert that those specific Muslim perpetrators are non-Muslims – QED: nothing to do with Islam.
And what’s more, the fools on the left are all too eager to join in with this duplicity.
Saira …
I want to see a million people marching in this country, led by Muslims, led by moderate Muslims, to say, this is not in our name. Because I think indigenous people of this country, now, deserve people, somebody looking like me, saying, we are with you.
Wow! But she has a point.
However, here’s a contradictory point. You’ll note that indigenous peoples around the world are a common cause for supportive activism, among the left – with the exception of white people.
Of course, the term ‘indigenous’ doesn’t carry the same meaning in a genuinely mixed race multicultural society like ours, and quite rightly. We have many generations of British born people, of various ethnicities, and many children or other descendants of mixed raced relationships. A person with any skin colour could be as ‘indigenous’ as any particular white person. At least in part, my heritage on both sides is Irish from about three or four generations. There will be descendants of other ethnicities with a longer heritage than mine.
But, I hope you see the problem. When Saira thinks there’s a point in mentioning ‘indigenous peoples’ she might feel as though she’s referring to white people, as a majority, but already Saira has declared, and goes on to declare, the issue is about cultural values. It’s not about race – or at least it wouldn’t be, if only the left and much of the press weren’t so keen to make it about race. There’s a lot of race baiting going on, and far less actual racism.
Race baiting … such as that engaged in by Saira a few years ago, while screaming at Tommy Robinson on TV … for saying pretty much what Saira says in these programmes … for marching in the street … It doesn’t add up, does it.
Saira …
Just to let you know, when I say things, I get abused, I’m called a coconut*, .., I’m called a racist.
(*coconut: brown on the outside, white on the inside)
It’s tragic how many non-white racists are prepared to call other people racist, including other non-white people like Saira, if they step out of line and deviate from the approved narrative.
I’m attacked by white British liberals, as well as members of my own community. I don’t care.
Nuff said.
The discussion moves on to parental responsibility, and being aware of the radicalisation of children,
You can’t watch them all the time, but you do have a sense of who their friends are, what they are doing, and how they’re acting.
Fair point.
But I do have some concern for some Muslim mothers. Some of the more pious and misogynistic parts of the Muslim community actually give young sons greater authority over the female family members, both sisters and mothers.
In some places, like Saudi, there are widowed women who are under control of their young sons, their ‘guardians’, that prevent the women going out alone. They may even require the son’s permission to take up employment. This Islamic male domination reaches out to other Muslim communities too.
With regard to the Pakistani Muslim community, when Pakistani model Qandeel Baloch was killed by her brother, many British Muslim young men were on social media declaring they’d have done the same had their sister dishonoured the family.
This is how messy it is, and though I agree with Saira that parents should take more note, there are cultural and religious influences that prevent that happening.
Saira is also asked whether parents should ‘shop’ (expose, report to authorities) radicalised children.
I’ve shopped my own cousin who came to this country on a sponsorship form and disappeared within fifteen days. It was all pre-planned, I had not idea about it. Am I not going to shop him in just because he’s my cousin? No. I’m going to shop him in because he went against my British values of honesty, decency and respect.
Honest? Decency? Respect? Respect for the law? Well, yes, I agree.
This is worth noting, because there are so many people on the left that actually condone illegal immigration. It doesn’t matter that honest legal immigrants are prevented from coming here, or that illegal immigration cannot vet those arriving for their intentions.
Even ex-Muslim and fanatic for ‘open doors’, Maryam Namazie doesn’t want to avoid proper vetting:
Open borders doesn't mean no vetting. EU has open borders within itself; is there no vetting. Absurd misinformation. https://t.co/LQgWIezoFV
But, back to a final remark in the video above, from Saira ..
I say to people in my own community, if you don’t like it here, go and live somewhere else. I want you to own it. I want you to stop cowering behind “Oh, I’m too scared to be racist.” If you want to have a conversation, and you want to put people on the spot, then you own it and you say it, you are not a racist.
That’s quite a statement. Well done Saira.
Abuse in Pakistani Muslim Families
Bear with me on this aside, you’ll get the point. …
Some time ago, atheist Richard Dawkins collected and published on his site some of the many examples of abuse and death threats he receives through various channels, from lovely religious people that didn’t appreciate his atheism. He made light of it. The messages were hilariously stupid.
But Mayor of London, sad Sadiq Khan didn’t quite take the same tack. He made a racist meal of it, and wallowed in his Muslim victimhood as he read out the abuse he received. … Except …
One of the examples he read out was a mere question, from the daughter of Muslim father and non-Muslim white mother. It was from none other than Shazia Hobbes, author of The Gori’s Daughter.
This was the ‘hate speech’ that Sadiq Khan read out:
If you use a knife to mutilate your daughter’s vagina will the full force of the law be brought down on you? Asking for a Muslim. Thanks.
Given that at the time this was written there were thousands of recorded incidents of FGM, and zero prosecutions, it seems like a reasonable question, especially from a daughter of a Muslim. For more context, here’s Shazia’s letter in response.
This is the context of ‘hate speech’ and the fear of being called a racist, that Saira has been talking about above, with the other context of Islamic terrorism, when Sadiq Khan, Mayor of London, can use a message from someone aware of the problem of FGM as part of his own race baiting agenda.
And so, it was with some surprise, and great admiration, that I heard Saira broaching this subject, again on Loose Women. …
Saira begins by telling this story …
In June 2002, Mukhtār Mā’ī was the survivor of a gang rape as a form of honour revenge, on the orders of a tribal council of the local Mastoi Baloch clan that was richer and more powerful than her Tatla clan. See here.
Saira …
She [Mukhtār Mā’ī ] then went on to set up a charity in Pakistan to help women like that. … She was put on a fashion show in Pakistan, which shows that progress is being made, slowly. The designer said that she wanted her to be a symbol of hope and for women’s rights.
Picking up Saira’s earlier point, “I’m attacked by white British liberals“, we find this sort of attack on one’s intentions happens so often if non-Muslims try to support Muslim women at all.
Yes, as a Humanist I oppose all religions, and yes, I find Islam to be particularly bad. But that doesn’t negate my support for women, even Muslim women, especially Muslim women, that are oppressed by cultural norms that are perpetuated by Islam.
Now, specific cultures may result in different specific brutal and misogynistic practices, but you will still find that much of the justification comes from the religious modesty and honour system. I’d like to see anyone justify these acts of abuse using the Humanist Manifesto. Old religious texts perpetuate old misogynistic values into the present.
And it’s here I’m guessing we’d still see Saira reacting negatively to comments on Islam, despite her earlier statement, “Because we are united by our values, not by religion.” Yes, we should be, and religion should not be let off the hook so easily.
But, to continue, at 2:10, we come to Saira’s brave revelation …
… at thirteen years old, sitting in my bedroom, a male member of my family – he’s died now – came in, and did things …
Please, listen to Saira’s story directly, in her own words. She struggles to hold it together, but does manage to do so.
I’ll pick up points salient to the wider message. …
It is wrong. It is not culturally acceptable. It is not religiously acceptable.
Correct. It is not acceptable. But note that Saira points out that it is unacceptable both culturally, and religiously.
For those that want to protect the religion and say, “It’s not the religion, it’s the culture,” well, it is both, and is unacceptable as both.
The culture in Pakistan is a mixture of older traditional culture and religion. The religion and the culture ARE used to justify these behaviours, because in both, women are second class citizens.
How on earth can a religion be excused, when it endorses: taking a woman’s testimony to be worth half that of a man; beating of wives; … Of course such a religion will perpetuate the misogyny and ‘toxic masculinity’ that was present when it arose – in Islam’s case, 1400 year old misogyny.
Culturally we can’t talk about it [abuse], because we [women] are seen as the ones that inspired it, there’s no help.
Quite. And this aspect of the culture is right there in the religious texts, and encouraged by the modesty rules that see women as the provokers of men’s uncontrollable lust.
It is not JUST the culture. Because this attitude remains prevalent across many cultures that are intertwined with Islam. And with other religions (e.g. conservative Christianity in the USA).
On the Fusion of Culture AND Religion
Let’s hear more from Saira, on another Loose Women episode, about a visit to Pakistan, because that will reveal more about the cultural, AND the religious acceptance of the abuse of women.
I was sent to Pakistan by the BBC to do a documentary … There was one day where the prophet Mohammed’s birthday was to be celebrated. I had an all-male British team with me. We went to this square, and there were just thousands of men, and there wasn’t a woman in sight. And my director was quite nervous, and I said, look, we need to get into the heart of this, we need to find out what the atmosphere’s like.
And my Pakistani fixer was, like, there’s no way you can do that. And I just looked at him, why not, I want to do it. A was wearing traditional chemise, I had my head covered, because it was a spiritual day, they were celebrating the prophet’s birthday, and I thought, what’s going to happen to me. And I didn’t want to believe ….
“And I didn’t want to believe ….” – and that, I’m afraid, is what drives a lot of opposition to the criticism of Islam. It’s what drives many interactions with Muslims.
They will close their eyes and flat out tell you it’s night, when they’d see it’s clearly day, if only they’d open their eyes and look.
“I’m attacked by white British liberals” – Well, yes. because they too don’t want to believe there’s a problem with Islam.
… with everything my parents told me about men from those cultures, I thought, no, it’s not true, I’m going to prove to them them that it’s not true..
Denialism is a powerful psychological force, and it controls many a religious mind. Saira eventually had the courage to face the reality of the moment.
They’re going to respect me as a woman. … I went down, into the crowd, and only on the sidelines, and within moments I’d been bustled into the middle of a group of men … it was horrific
… my boobs were touched, my bottom was touched, my legs were touched .. I was just shaking “Get me out, get me out, get me out.”
… My fixer came in, and grabbed me.
… I dread to think what would have happened. I believe I would have been raped.
… I was so angry. … No one would have helped me [had the British camera crew not been there]
That’s an astonishingly brutal awakening. Bear in mind that Saira isn’t some wet lefty that has a couple of Muslim acquaintances that wear the hijab and claims, “But my Muslim friends are lovely,” as if to explain why these stories couldn’t possibly be true.
Saira is, as she says, part of the Pakistani Muslim community (or one of the variety of those). And her parents warned her. And she knows of the honour culture, the treatment of women …
Denialism is a powerful psychological force, sustained only by cognitive dissonance. You WANT to believe, and when faced with stories, the stories must be racist lies … or so the conversations often go.
There’s more …
We have to accept, that when we are bringing in migrants, asylum seekers, people from different cultures, they have a very different upbringings. Their societies, their political systems, …
Islam is the bedrock of the social and political features of these cultures, and often contributes to the judicial system too, and the misogyny in Islam informs it, as does the behaviour of many of the men. Young boys are taught to both respect women, but also devalue them, to the point where if a woman is a victim, it must be her fault for bringing it upon herself, for shaming her family, … for shaming Islam.
… what they think is normal in their country is not normal in our country …
Sadly, many of those ‘liberals’ that attack you, Saira, are post-modern relativists, who ask “Who we are to judge their culture, their religion” – racism of low expectations. And many Muslims pick up on this and ask, who are YOU to tell me about MY religion.
And, also sadly, many think that imported behaviour should also be normal behaviour in this country, and some act as if it is, … and it may seem as if it is, in a closed community.
… and we have to do that to protect ourselves, and to also protect them …
You can see why racist Muslims talk of Saira in terms of ‘coconut’ … I’m surprised she hasn’t been called a white supremacist, for daring to suggest these behaviours aren’t up to our British value standards.
But, of course, Saira is dead right. Spot on.
Our standards of equality, across race, religion, gender, are significantly better than any that privileges one race, one religion, one gender over another other.
We may not succeed in achieving this equality (and no thanks in small part to religions that perpetuate the inequality – looking at you CofE, not just Islam), but in law, and mostly in practice, we are all equal.
It’s quite common to see these faults as the domain of the white racist misogynist male xenophobic bigot – aka Nazi – but that is engaging in precisely the false accusative rhetoric that Saira has been opposing in these programmes.
Religions get off far too lightly. Some of the highest privileges we have go to religion. The Church of England is the state church, and we have unelected bishops … and child abuse. The Roman Catholic Church is even further behind … and child abuse. And Islam is virtually untouchable, despite Islamic terrorism … and child abuse by grooming gangs now appearing in our newspapers regularly.
As Andrew Norfolk said, after publishing his Times report on grooming gangs, his political correctness and fear of being thought of, of thinking himself, as a racist, made him sit on the story, while who knows how much child abuse continued.
Ruth Langsford chips in …
We all have this fear of being labelled a racist, or you can’t talk about somebody’s religion … this is not a religious thing, this is a cultural thing …
What???
Have you ANY idea what that sounds like? Let me spell it out. It sounds like this:
You can’t talk about somebody’s religion, so let’s not talk about religion, even though I just did, because I don’t want to blame religion, so let’s blame their culture …
Let that sink in for a while. You’d rather throw rich and potentially adaptable cultures under the bus, rather than even contemplate that it’s related to the temporally closed and persistent impact of the religion has on those cultures?
And this, remember, is in a context where Saira is talking about sexual abuse occurring right in the middle of a festival dedicated to the celebration of prophet Mohammed’s birthday, where there was absolutely ZERO conflict in the minds of those that abused Saira?
The abuse by Muslim men, in the middle of a religious celebration, see no conflict with their religious devotion … and abusing a woman, right there and then? Nothing to do with Islam??? What???
Jane Moore has a stab at excusing religion … but then, after Saira’s, interruption goes on to say …
Explain to me, surely there is not a culture, your experiences aside, where a couple of these assaults we’re talking about do extend to rape, I mean, obviously, white men commit rape as well, but surely there is no culture in the world where it is acceptable to rape a woman who is a stranger to you.
Wow! The mind bending needs some unpacking.
They have just decided that it’s the culture, not the religion.
Now Jane wants to make sure there is no culture in which it is acceptable to rape a women who is a stranger to you.
The point here, regarding culture, AND religion, is that some cultures, or even sub-cultures, DO condone rape, of any women, because they see women as a lower value than men. AND, that perspective is all over the Islamic texts.
Jane is confusing two points that Saira has already managed to be pretty clear about, … but I’ll help out with the third one:
It’s not acceptable TO US that ANY culture should condone this.
But it IS accepted in some cultures
And it IS accepted in some religions.
And very clearly so, if THEY find it acceptable to molest Saira in the middle of a religious festival dedicated to the birthday of the prophet Mohammed. It really is accepted in the religion.
You can keep on playing around with words all you like, but it’s right there in front of you.
Saira responds …
You’re right , it is unacceptable, but rape, in many cultures, goes unreported, because men can get away with it, because it’s not seen as a serious crime.
Jane, how is that not clear enough to you. SOME cultures DO see rape as acceptable behaviour by men towards women?
So, again, I have to disagree with Saira, and the panel. It very clearly IS acceptable in the Islamic texts. As is slavery, as is sex slavery. The Quran has passages that excuse various behaviours, regarding one’s wives, and ‘those that your right hand possesses’, which is usually referring to slaves, and female slaves. Mohammed married one of his female slaves, to which the excuse it usually, “Oh, she became a Muslim first.” Was that an ‘Offer you can’t refuse‘, from the Islamic godfather.
Saira …
I was taught that as a woman, if I ever got raped, or if anything happened to me, it was going to be my fault. What were you doing in that situation? Why were you on your own? What were you wearing. I was brought up with that mentality.
And the Quran has plenty to say about modesty and women covering themselves, and about the intellectual deficiency of women.
Blame culture?
No. Cultures adapt. Cultures don’t both persist ancient codes of conduct, and resist modern improvements, without some strong underlying encoded system that traverses generations, even skips generations and re-emerges. Religion fits he bill.
We have seen 1970s westernised Afghanistan, and Iran, with women in the mini skirts that were fashionable at the time. Cultures adapt to the times. In both cases it was the oppressive religion that re-asserted itself so that women became oppressed again.
Blame religion? A BIG YES. It’s no coincidence that the Taliban in Afghanistan and the Ayatollah in Iran swept away the modern cultural adaptation to more liberal values, and dragged both those countries back 1400 years.
Come on, Saira, you can’t keep excusing the religion.
Jane again …
Is the issue here then, mass uncontrolled immigration, where everyone arrives at once and there’s no expectation of integration? Because surely, you growing up in Britain, you must know lots of law abiding men from your culture who would never behave like that.
Saira …
Yeah, we’re not talking about Britain, because they’ve been brought up in Britain, with Western values, with British values, who know that you cannot do that, that women have equal rights, … [End of clip]
Notice here that Pakistani heritage men, who have been brought up in a British culture, … so, well, not them, obviously. Except, British Pakistani heritage men, and British white men, and others, get religion, get Islam, become more religious … before going off to join ISIS? NOT ALL, of course … but those radicalised by ISIS messages are not receiving instruction in Christianity or Hinduism.
And yet we are often told how most sexual abuse in Britain is committed by white men. Terrorism is a far right problem.
There are some confused messages that emerge when you’re focus is to explain something and yet not blame a religion. You are bound to tangle yourself in knots.
I’m sure there are many decent people in Pakistan and in other cultures that know that the cultures they’re in, on the whole, don’t treat women well … and, yes, Britain has been more like that too in the past.
As I said, cultures can adapt. Britain’s culture has, and continues to do so.
But hold on there Saira, some of those British Pakistani men do do it in Britain. That was the point of your brave exposition on your misfortune.
Let’s look at this next clip to clear this up …
Christine Lampard …
They’ve also told us of a noticeable rise in calls [about abuse] from Asian women
Another aside …
You have to be careful when the media use the term ‘Asian’ regarding abuse and grooming gangs. It is used so often to mask a more specific identification, such as in the case of Pakistani Muslim grooming gangs, or grooming gangs generally. This is a really weird and dishonest narrative.
First, after years of insisting that if anyone starts a critical view with the word “Muslims, …” they are immediately tarred as racist Islamophobes by the left, because, well, “Not all Muslims”…
But, when the left are talking about Pakistani Muslims, they prefer to use ‘Asians’. Surely “Not all Asians” should apply here. Are they Asianphobic racists?
Well, I’d certainly say using ‘Asian’ is more racist than being specific. If “Muslims …” unfairly implicates all Muslims, then surely “Asians …” implicates all Asians, and is racist towards even more people.
I think these confused people are struggling for an angle: if you implicate an ever wider range of people, then you are not being a specific racist. Maybe that’s better, I don’t know entirely how this PC mind-set works, but it seems to be something like that.
In truth, this is a total fraud, because this never happens to other ‘Asians’ – Chinese, or Koreans – they would be identified by their original ethnicity.
We know this is only used to protect Islam, and to avoid criticising Muslims.
You will spot this ploy most when referring to grooming gangs, because though most are Pakistani Muslim, some are Muslims from other cultures, including African.
Back to Christine’s main point …
They’ve also told us of a noticeable rise in calls from Asian women who suffered abuse in childhood, and the main perpetrator is usually someone from their own family …
I remind you again of Shazia Hobbes’ story.
It just sounds shocking, but this is not even surprising to you, Saira, from the stories you’ve heard.
Saira …
We had the fight for the girls in Rochdale, and I think we now need to put a real fight up for the girls that can’t be seen or heard, because they don’t have representation in society.
That’s another devastating statement. Let that one sink in too. Nobody in their community will represent them? Are social services able to operate in these communities? What are the police doing?
I’m afraid that what we’ve learned from Rochdale, Rotherham, Telford, Oxford and other places, is that if the police won’t act for child victims from outside the community, they sure as hell won’t act for children inside those communities – and one suspects, given some of Saira’s comments above about schools she visited, they wouldn’t find much cooperation from within those communities if they tried.
Look, I can talk about it because I come from culture, I come from a community, and I’m talking about the Pakistani community.
Bear in mind that Pakistan is substantially occupied by Muslims, and that most British Pakistanis are Muslims. Pakistan was, after all, created as a nation for Muslims. It is a Muslim nation. What does that tell you about the ‘community’? It’s not merely a Pakistani community. It’s a Pakistani Muslim community. Currently, I know of no Pakistani Humanists that would or could use Humanists texts to excuse their abuse of women.
Well, as I said, the problem is that some of these closed communities will not allow outsiders, non-Muslims, to investigate. This is the non-integrative isolated community that reeks of bad Multiculturalism.
Multiculturalism will fail, if we are not more discriminating about which cultural/religious practices we will tolerate – some, as Saira has said, are not acceptable. And though we mouth off about FGM … there have been no successful prosecutions. It’s very un-PC to investigate the inner women’s business in such a community, and your average non-Muslim PC plod isn’t up to it, and I doubt many Muslim PC plods would dare expose problems in their communities.
Note that my objection to Islam does not mean banning or not tolerating Islam. Part of our ‘British values’ that Saira subscribes to is freedom of belief. You can believe what you want.
But if you turn your beliefs to actions, and those actions contravene basic human decency, and/or the law, then those beliefs need dealing with and must not be left to fester, the way the Muslim grooming gang problem has, and, according to this episode of Loose Women, the way abuse has within those communities.
I have to say that this isn’t based on religion, this is culture, and the culture I was brought up in is, keep your mouth shut, and make sure you do not bring dishonour on our family, you must not bring shame.
Except it is religion. Various religions. Bringing shame through the behaviour of children, especially girls, is pretty standard across many religions, including Christian conservatism of the USA, and has been in Roman Catholicism, such that it resulted in the Magdalene laundries of Ireland.
So, again, we have Saira desperately trying to avoid blaming Islam. Why is that?
Because that would bring down even more wrath upon her head, if she dared blame the religion of Islam. It’s that simple.
Saira’s perspective might be induced by her own indoctrination, so that she really believes that what is blindingly obvious, is not so.
Or, …
It might be self preservation. Because to blame Islam would be blasphemous. A very dangerous game, in Islam.
… you must not bring shame. And what that means, as a young girl, .. or a young boy, growing up, you’re too scared to talk. If terrible things happen to you, you are too scared to talk.
There is no representation, because it’s such a tight knit community. There are other things that go on in the culture that basically mean you’re isolated.
I have sat amongst a group of people, and I have heard stories of a young girls being raped in the family, of a young girl being abused, or a young boy being abused.
And I’m sat there thinking, why doesn’t anybody do something, please.
Again, let these devastating statements sink in.
And when asked, why don’t the victims speak out, …
Because, there is no one to talk to. Most of the elected community members are men …
Religious men. Muslim men. Do they elect atheists, or Christians? Are Pakistani Christians allowed to exist in the ‘community’?
No, I’m sorry, Saira, but your fantasy has to be shattered. These leaders are religious men. Good Muslims.
.. and they know that you can’t just go and snitch on your family …
Bear in mind how Saira had no trouble with HER British values, with regard to snitching on her cousin’s ‘bunking off’. But this is child abuse we’re talking about. Or not talking about, depending on your ‘culture’. So, you’d think that a British Pakistani community that isn’t suffering the misogynistic throwbacks of Pakistan would be more forthcoming in solving this problem. Apparently not. More like Pakistan than is good for us … or rather than is good for the children.
When asked whether a young girl could speak to her mother …
You are so brainwashed into what shame means and what dishonour means.
In these communities, rape in a marriage is not recognised …
Again, I refer you to Shazia Hobbes who has been resoundingly castigated, as an Islamophobe, for saying these very same things. Do read her book.
Culturally, you can marry somebody that’s thirteen years old. You can do it back in Afghanistan, in Pakistan, you can do it in India.
Except, of course, it is endorsed by the example of the prophet Mohammed, and his marriage to his six year old wife, and in some places they take that specific age even more seriously. And, even if the state doesn’t allow it, oddly enough the religious do it.
See here: Marriageable Age. Note that most state determined ages are 15 – 21, but some allow younger than the self-consent age, with parental/judicial approval. Given that many marriages are forced anyway, parental approval will often apply. It’s self-determination that suffers.
Note also, from that linked page, the table lower down on religion, and the various sects of Islam. Hanafi and Jafari Islam: age 9 for girls. These are the sects of Islam of Pakistan and Iran, where child marriages occur.
Still nothing to do with Islam, Saira?
When that’s acceptable, you think that’s normal.
They are taboo subjects anyway, but in this culture they are even more taboo.
Once you bring shame to your family, that’s it.
The consequences are, you could be killed, you could be ostracised.
Killed??? In the UK, you might be killed, for honour. We know of several cases that have made the news.
I wonder how the rest of the Loose Women panel are taking this. They are the ‘liberals’ that would shoot down as a racist any non-Muslim that said the things Saira has said (despite Saira’s insistence they should not be called racist) .
But, this is general knowledge.
NOT ALL MUSLIMS – Yes, we know. But enough. Too many.
Literally, the whole family splits up. When I came on here to talk about me, it was a family member. It took me years to come out and say it. I think I just did it spontaneously on Loose Women. The repercussions on my family have been horrendous. They didn’t believe me. They had a go at my mum. …
But wait … this is important …
It went all the way back to Pakistan and the family there.
This is what a lot of liberal lefties don’t get.
They see our lovely British Muslims like Saira, or their hijabi friend at school, and they are totally clueless about the extent to which these ‘unacceptable’ cultural practices are so easily imported to the UK, whether it’s this topic now, of abuse, or the earlier one, of Islamic terrorism. They have no idea what their nice Muslim friends are NOT telling them.
The left just don’t get it. Labour just don’t get it. Jermey Corbyn just doesn’t get it. That’s why he’d rather nudge Sarah Champion, MP, off the front bench, for daring to say, “Pakistani Muslim grooming gangs“, … and then leave the gangs to continue grooming.
The Conservative government hasn’t been much better. But, just this week, we had …
About time!! I called for research in 2012 when I gave evidence to Home Affairs Select Committee but people have been slow to take up the offer https://t.co/YO17ETj6aZ
They did a study at Hull university, and the research in 2015 found out that “Official police data suggest that incidences of sexual violence among South Asian women are low, however, this new research suggests it is happening, but not reported.
As you would expect from a close knit community.
I want to say that, if there is anybody, in the South Asian community, or any community for that matter, please note that there are help lines, and you can talk in confidence. Even if you don’t want to take it any further, or get something off your chest, please do so. I’ll tell you something, that happened to me at thirteen, and that affected the rest of my life.
Now, here comes Jane Moore, working her way up to the patently obvious, …
They are saying that the increase [in reporting] from the Asian community has increased since the broadcast of the Three Girls**, because that was largely, but not all Asian men.
(** Rochdale’s infamous an dramatised case of the prosecution of a Muslim grooming gang abusing young white girls)
I think what Jane should have said was, they were largely but not all Pakistani Muslim men, because some were Muslim men from other Muslim backgrounds. I’m not aware any were non-Muslim. To be specific:
Nine men were convicted, of whom eight were of British Pakistani origin and one was an Afghan asylum-seeker. – from Rochdale child sex abuse ring.
They were all Muslim.
And here comes the obvious …
The majority of perpetrators of organised abuse are white. And the second largest group are Asian. Now that may be because a lot of it goes unreported. We should also point out that it happens in white families.
The conflation of issues here is astounding.
It’s not white v Asian that’s significant. The significant figures are Pakistani Muslim v everyone else.
Of the ‘family’ child abuse, those numbers differ so much you’d expect an absolute figure to be greatest among the numerically largest group you’re identifying, whether that’s white, non-white (including black, for example), specifically Asian (including Sikhs and Hindus, for example), even more specifically Pakistani Muslim, or Muslim. This matters.
Muslims are only a small percentage of the UK population, and Pakistani Muslims even smaller.
Again, you’d expect a largest absolute figure in other groups.
You’d expect a similar rate (%) among all groups, except, with lower reporting in Pakistani Muslim communities, the numbers should be expected to be lower.
Jane is also conflating in-family abuse, with the grooming gang abuse.
Of this particular type of grooming, it is public, under the noses of the community, local police and social workers
A think tank has claimed that 84 per cent of people convicted of child grooming-gang offences since 2005 were Asian.
Type 1 offenders work in groups such as grooming gangs to target victims based on vulnerability, while Type 2 offenders form paedophile rings to carry out abuse because of a specific sexual interest in children.
However you massage the figure, Pakistani Muslim grooming gangs far outway any other categorisation of perpetrators, as a proportion of the population. This is what police, politicians, press and gullible celebs really don’t want to talk about.
Jane …
The whole thing that props this up is the conspiracy of silence …
And you, Jane, and you Saira, continue to be silent on the religion. But, on the specific problem of abuse, no matter what the cause, I’ll leave the final word with Saira …
The only thing that I would say, is that whereas those girls [Three Girls case] did go to the sexual health worker to get condoms, and the social worker was involved, there was a pattern, so it could be traced. In an Asian household, these girls aren’t seen.
They can never be detected, unless somebody from the community or a member of the family puts their hands up bravely and says we’ve got a problem here.
Best of luck with that.
A Problem for Islam
Muslims generally don’t want Islam to be criticised at all – I mean really don’t want it to be criticised. This is all to do with the depth of conviction they are indoctrinated into.
Many will even throw other aspects of their own identity and the identities of others under the bus, in order to save face for Islam, to save the honour of Islam. Characters like Miqaad Versi, of the Muslim Council of Britain, seem to devote much effort to writing to editors of newspapers to point out how racist and Islamophobic they are for any headline or piece that tarnishes the name of Islam.
The BBC have been so cajoled into submission that all ‘Asians’ are now smeared, by a refusal to make a more specific identification of the culprits in some case or other. They refuse to identify culprits as Pakistani Muslim, when in so many cases they clearly are, and instead identify them as Asian, as if spreading the blame around a bit is somehow less racist.
We’ve seen this instinctive protection of Islam many times following Islamic terror attacks. This is how it often goes:
Islamic terrorist commits some heinous act, and declares it to be in the name of Islam.
The press report it as an Islamic terror attack (if ever more reluctant to do so).
Islamic organisations cry out, “Nothing to do with Islam! … Islamophobia!” Because the good name of Islam is the most important thing in such a situate.
Eventually the same organisations get around to expressing sorrow for the loss of life … but they don’t really see why they should need to, since it’s nothing to do with Islam or the many peaceful Muslims who wouldn’t dream of doing such a thing.
Watch how quickly these organisations take the opportunity to point out the white far right when a far more rare non-Islamic terror attack occurs.
Basically, Muslims have talked themselves into a corner, in order to defend Islam.
They could have been straight from the beginning:
Yes, there are some uncomfortable aspects of the religion which are too easy to take literally.
Yes, the Quran is inerrant and that makes it difficult to move on and away from the value systems that were prevalent at the time the religion emerged.
Yes, we need a reformed Islam … WHAO! NO!!!!
Of course, this is basically what the Ahmadi Muslims did. They invented another prophet. They even went to the trouble of getting round the thorny issue of Mohammed being the supposed last prophet, by declaring Mohammed was indeed the last prophet of revelation. Their later prophet came along to help interpret Islam so that it was truly a religion of peace.
And look how they are persecuted for it. In Pakistan they are unable to call themselves Muslims. Their mosques are attacked.
The problem with all Islam, even the Ahmadi version, is that it’s a massive fudge.
And as much as I admire Saira Khan’s efforts to deal with some of these problems, I can see the conflicted position she is in.
Islam has influenced cultures for so long that those cultures are Islamic ones – the people of those cultures say so themselves … ‘Muslim lands’. Pakistan was created as an Islamic nation. And yet, there are other aspects of those varied ‘Islamic’ cultures that remain unique and visible. And it is this variety that the apologists for Islam latch on to. They will throw many of these diverse cultures under the bus, in order to save the honour of the one common factor: Islam.
I say all this is a problem for Islam. But of course it’s actually a problem for Muslims. And more recently has become a problem for non-Muslims.
Saira Gives up on Islam
See the follow up to this post, The Further Enlightenment of Saira Khan, which looks first at the Mirror report on Saira no longer being a practicing Muslim, and then links to the BBC report of death threats against her.
I was asked what Richard Spencer said that was wrong in the interview with Gary Young.
Where do I start. Well, let’s start right here – and this alone has many things wrong with it:
“Africans have benefited from the experience of white supremacy”
No. On many counts. If this rambles a bit, it’s because there is so much wrong with it and the notions its built on.
Starting with those living at the time of slavery, there were zero benefits and lots of negatives to being a slave, … or do you not think so? Slavery was a system of supreme power and cruelty. Not really something our slave owning ancestors can be proud of. Slavery showed no intrinsic sign of superior intellect. Many working hands on slave ships might have been pressed into service and will have been dumber than many of the slaves they transported. Many slave owners survived by their capacity for cruelty, not because of their intellect. But sure, some cruel and intelligent slavers made a good living. All of which begs the question, is intellectual superiority enough, or even necessary, for power supremacy?
So, let’s have a look at ‘supremacy’ more generally. We know from the way the white supremacy narrative goes that they think the power superiority of Europe derives from a greater intelligence, so I’ll try to focus on power and intelligence first.
Smart People or Dumb Luck
Not all modern self-made millionaires are the brightest people. They make their money by being hard working, persistent, good at making money off the work others put in, or luck.
There are many rich crooks that earn their money by being just clever enough to outwit the competition in their own sphere, and just clever enough to steal from the less clever, and crooks need not be particularly bright in other respects. Crooks can also make money off people far brighter than themselves. All it takes is the capacity to break a trust, to engage in fraudulent and corrupt practices, or to be brutal.
There are some really clever people, with high IQs, that don’t have the capacity for empathy that others have, and are quite able to manipulate their way to power. We call them sociopaths, or psychopaths (clinical details of terminology aside) – they are not all mad killers.
Oddly, the most empathetic people we have can suffer a severe empathy loss, and so we find that many very empathetic people have none to spare for the sociopath. What? You think the sociopath chose to be born with that empathy empty brain? Someone with a high empathy, but without the intellect or interest to think things through, will see these fellow humans as being nothing but non-human monsters.
Conversely, the natural sociopath with an intellect can learn the skill of appearing to have empathy while feeling none.
Some sociopaths might be ruthless and selfish in business, while others might make great contributions to our societies because they are single minded in their focus on what interests them, rather than dedicating time and energy to feeding their feelings towards others.
It’s and odd world.
So, with this, and many other factors that lead to power, in a society as a whole, and members of a particular society, what does it mean to be ‘supreme’, to be a ‘white supremacist’ in particular. This ‘supremacy’ attribute is a pretty complicated thing.
European Supremacy … Wasn’t Your Whiteness
The power superiority of European nations came from fortunate circumstances in Europe.
At one time other parts of the world were way ahead of Europe. There hasn’t been enough time in a few short centuries for evolution to have an impact to make white Europeans suddenly smarter.
And, there’s a certain irony here in that many white supremacists are idiots that reject much of evolutionary theory, yet they think they are able to figure out that ‘something’ made white Europeans smarter, all of a sudden. Round about 1500, maybe? Or 1700? Who knows when we lucky whites became supreme, but I know that for some time, in what we call ‘the dark ages’, we weren’t.
The strange truth is that centuries ago, any bell curve difference on intellectual supremacy was already there when Europe was a dumber civilization. If Europeans got smarter, it wasn’t some sudden genetic brain boost.
If anything history would suggest that it was mixing of cultures made Europe ‘superior’ in power.
A single stable culture that works well in a stable climate setting with sufficient resources has little pressure for technological change.
But warring small nation states with lots of trade, and an exchange of ideas and peoples, stimulates change. The Renaissance, The Enlightenment, science, philosophy, … if they come together they can create massive progress, as they did in Europe.
The introduction of Arabic works, the re-introduction of Greek works, they all boosted a Europe that was awakening in the ruins of Rome, looking back on a civilization that had been way ahead in its prime. Then, once technical progress was under way, it took off quickly – which in itself is a massive story, involving many famous people, most of which were ‘white’ because, as happens with one’s religion, or nationality, they happened to be born where they were. Any bright African, Indian, Asian in Europe at that time, free of any racist persecution, could join in as well as any white person – except that for many of our famous early scientists, privilege gave them the capacity to do the work they did.
That’s why much European science history is ‘white’, not because of any innate white supremacy. This idea of being lucky enough for many factors to come together is the reason that during our European ‘Dark Ages’, Islamic civilisation prospered – not because Islam has some superior message that to hand.
Social change that’s unnecessary in small tribal systems becomes crucial in a more complex mercantile trading and technical societies. Wars and revolutions bring change too, but do much damage. Democracy works better.
But a democracy doesn’t work so well if many of those within it are actual or effective slaves.
Kings and lords ruled Europe. But the barons wanted a greater say. And while aristocratic elites still ruled, the money of mercantile power started to speak. Actual slaves, and the non-elite free men, and women, they all eventually wanted the freedoms the elites enjoyed.
Education spread, increasing the diversity of opportunity with it. With luck, a bright kid from some slum could break out, end up at university, and become a great engineer, while his intelligent counterpart in a South American tribe has no chance of learning any of the mathematics and science his European brother is exposed to. Privilege begets privilege, unless the privileged and powerful are prepared to share what they have.
All this comes together in Europe, and by fortune of circumstances, both dumb and bright white people, far from supreme, living in slums in the cities of the west, start to demand fairer conditions. Social change comes along with the greater voting franchise. A better understanding of biology, health, suffering … all these inspire many bright people to be better towards their fellow humans, to demand change.
What amounts to a supremacy of power, money, technology, science, brings European states into competition, war, and world domination, at the very time social improvements are afoot at home. This contradiction is why we have heroes and villains, often in one and the same person: Churchill, Washington … great leaders when their countries needed them, but not averse to indulging in the less worthy norms of their times.
Not all changes are smooth or balanced. While a good man might be helping the poor in slums back home, his sibling might be in India beating down an uprising of oppressed and starving people. The power supremacy that can bring good continues to bring much harm in parallel. This is the messy world of the reality of Empire, not the simplistic ‘white supremacist’ world that idiots like Richard Spencer have in their minds. There are many dumb, evil and far from supreme people among the supreme European race, and many very bright and genuinely superior intellects among the people oppressed by this European superiority.
Don’t get me wrong. Empires have come and gone in the past. It was mostly shear good or bad fortune that determined whether you were a thicko with power in the supreme echelons of the white European culture, because your aunt was bedded by some duke, or you were a brown genius trying to figure out how to get this white European oppression out of your country, … while still having to deal with cruel idiots in your own culture that made money off the back of the oppressors and helped them maintain the oppression.
This is a very messy history with so many strands that it’s impossible to do them all justice here. But it should be clear enough that ‘white supremacism’ is one of the dumbest notions you could dream up, if only for the fact that so many white supremacists are thick. What the heck is supposed to be supreme about them?
I’m All White Jack
The big joke is that by around the time Europe becomes a supreme power base, we are already mixed race. Apart from some isolated families that protect their ‘blood lines’, whether for race or mere genealogical reasons, we have been screwing our way around the world for several hundred years, and many people that think they are true blood white are not.
How about all white supremacists subject themselves to DNA tests and ANY ‘impure non-white genes’ gets you rejected from the master race. Good luck with that. Many will be rejected.
The thing is, this definition of ‘white’ that’s supposed confer supremacy is such that a) it doesn’t exist; b) it certainly doesn’t confer supremacy (again, have you seen some of these dumbos).
But, let’s go with one of the tools the white supremacists use. Let’s play ‘Bell Curve’.
Suppose you can categorise of peoples, that are identifiable by ‘race’, and that some bell curves on intelligence show Group A is higher than group B on some measure. What does that mean? …
It means in the overlap there are some seriously unintelligent people in both A and B. And there are some people in Group B that are brighter than most people in group A, the supposedly supreme group. That’s the problem – individuals are not the population they are in: bell curves have tails, in both directions.
So, what do I want, if YOU insist we must split society?
I’ll tell you. I want to be in the group of white, black, brown, yellow, purple, any colour, as long as they are the smart non-racist ones. Those smart Jews that are top of the charts? I want to be in their camp, not stuck with knuckle dragging racist morons of my own race.
The thing is, and this is where much of the controversy lies, statistics can be helpful.
Identify a group and see that there is a group tendency to have some health deficiency, and you can target treatment better. But even here, individuals still count. Not all people in a statistically identifiable genetic group need have the condition your looking at – and that has serious implications if you get the targeted treatment wrong. If group A has a tendency to have the condition more than those in group B, so you target only group A, you leave those in group B with the condition to suffer? Such a statistical difference can only benefit everyone if limited resources are distributed according to the relative number of people in the groups, and the relative occurrence of the conditions. You have to do a lot of Bayesian stuff to be effective. You can’t simply say, “Oh, group A has a high statistical bias for this condition, we’ll target only group A.”
And yet this is what the ‘white supremacists’ don’t get about the bell curves that they rely on for intelligence and supposed ‘supremacy’. It’s more complicated than just ‘race’ – and their racism isn’t even just about ‘actual race’, but apparent race, because, at least until they have prepared the internment camps where they too are forced to endure genetic testing necessary to determine their own racial purity. They can’t tell who’s white and who isn’t, outside a very simple stark difference in colour. You could have a fine blood line going back to mad King George, but if your great gran got too friendly with a slave, you’re out of the master race.
On so many grounds, these ‘white supremacists’ don’t really know what they are talking about.
But, hey, those bright Jews? If it’s genetic, why don’t we dumber white folks want what they have? If some Jews are so bright, how seriously dumb was Hitler. Exterminated or exported a minority people, because he could. And yet they could have helped Germany recover from the devastation that resulted from its previous screw up of WWI.
But those Jews, those philosophers, scientists that survived, helped make America great, not the dumb white supremacists in the south. One of my heroes, Erik Kandel, left Europe in his youth to escape extermination, and went on to contribute to neuroscience of memory. I’m sure most sensible people can happily name their own great Jew. If what the the ‘white supremacists’ think is true, can you give me a genetic injection of Jewish intelligence please. If, as many antisemite will tell you, the Jews are really ruling the world, because they are so good at it, then instead of exterminating them, why don’t we work towards making ourselves that bright? Why make the world dumber, by killing off the intelligent ones?
This ‘white supremacism’ simply doesn’t make sense by their own standards of reckoning.
Getting back to Spencer’s claim. No. Africans Americans didn’t benefit from ‘white’ supremacy. They suffered under white idiocy and cruelty that was coupled with technological supremacy. They suffered at the hands of Christian men and women that failed to live up to the principles that a Jew supposedly taught them. The number of ironies to the ‘white supremacy’ stupidity is astounding.
Thankfully, enough decent Europeans saw things differently, and just as they fought injustice that befell the ‘white inferiors’ at home, they opposed slavery. The African and Middle Eastern world under Islam continued with slavery long after Europe came to its senses. Europe banned slavery. It just took some time and a civil war to convince some thickos in America.
Mixed Race Europe
And, of course, winning a war on slavery and persecution doesn’t end it. It exists everywhere in the world.
But it’s odd that the white supremacists in the USA look to Europe, the place that has done most to end racism, that is the least racist place on earth. This is not an idle claim.
Check out Russia, China, Japan, South Africa, Middle East, India … These are not the mixed race societies you might hope for. These are not non-racist societies.
Why is there still an ethnic cleansing occurring every now and then around the world? Because one ethnic group doesn’t like another – they are racists. Why are there multicultural problems in Europe with Islam? Partly because of Islam’s own version of supremacy – it’s Islam or nothing.
Now, Islam is not a race – in fact one of the few good ideas that both Christianity and Islam encouraged (at least theoretically) was anti-racism.
But that doesn’t prevent Muslims being racist. There is much racism in the Islamic world. There are Arab, Pakistani, Turkish, Indonesian and other Islamic sub-cultures within Europe, and they won’t even intermarry among themselves as Muslims. Pakistanis are well known for keeping their ties with Pakistan. There are Pakistani families in the UK, screaming to high heaven about white racism, and yet they’d kill their daughter if she tried to marry a non-Muslim or non-Pakistani.
Again, we have to be clear, that this is messy. Many white, brown, black people get along fine, and mix socially, and marry, and have children. Europe is the least racist place on earth – even with our racists, of every colour and cultural origin. Has racism been ousted from Europe? No. Too many white Europeans are racist… but I’d hazard a guess that proportionally there are more POC racists in the UK than white racists.
So, what is Richard Spencer thinking when he talks of his superior white European heritage? Well, it’s not the whiteness that’s superior. He’s referring only to the coincidences of history that made Europe powerful, that then allowed it to dominate the rest of the world, for a time.
Politics, Race, Multiculturalism
Political ideas are far more important than skin colour or race – in fact I can’t think of anything that requires differentiation based on race or skin colour other than the beneficial statistics that can help target healing of genetic conditions – and even then, there are genetic differences within what Spencer would think of as a race that are just as important to health. Race is simply a really bad demarcation that mostly leads to great harm. Racism is a bad political idea.
To think in terms or racial superiority is so bad that it has caused a double whammy of hate. First, there are the racists themselves. Second, and more recently, in response to white racism, we have seen a SJW backlash that has become so toxic we have who knows how many white people actually hating their own race. This currently is a dangerous political direction that actually perpetuates racism.
Pause … Let than sink in for a moment: those that campaign vociferously against racism, that declare race isn’t important, see their own race as the only source of racism, and actively want an end to white people, while being quite willing to support other cultures and sub-cultures that are based to some extent on racial division.
But, on the bright side, at least the white SJW racists provide yet more evidence that white people can be as dumb as anyone of any other skin colour.
We should be discriminating – of political and cultural ideas, not race.
“Multiculturalism has failed!”
No. The implementation of multiculturalism has failed, by not being discriminating about what is of value and what is dangerous, in various cultures.
If you think good multiculturalism consists of exchanging recipes from around the world, while turning a blind eye to honour killing, or FGM, or forced marriage, then you are failing at multiculturalism, and failing to uphold the political egalitarianism that Europe was supposed to be famous for.
Living With History
Time to get back to the Richard Spencer quote. Let’s suppose he accepts that white supremacy was cruel and unjustified (I don’t know that he does). What does Richard Spencer mean when he says African Americans have benefited? Maybe Spencer is thinking, hey look ‘shithole’ Africa, compared to great lives African Americans have. He’s wrong there too. Centuries of persecution, with legal persecution stopped only decades ago, and social persecution still active (that’s what Spencer is engaged in) are not benefiting African Americans now, but still hindering them.
Can many African Americans have successful lives, better than many whites? Sure. That’s what equal opportunity should result in. And great lives too, if only they could avoid idiots like Spencer. Again, don’t get me wrong. There are stupid racist black Richard Spencers among groups like BLM – we’ve seen them. We’ve seen the idiots in Africa that think some of their ancient tribal practices are somehow superior to ‘white science’ – as if science is ‘white’. Dumb racism isn’t a white prerogative.
But, to take Spencer’s line of reasoning: that all that suffering in slavery, and post-slavery racist laws, and post-racist law racist persecution, … all that has given current African Americans the great reward of living in the soon to be great again USA.
There’s a trivial ironic truth to this point of view. I was saving this speech for the Oscars, but you get a preview …
I’d like to thank all the people that made me what I am today. I’d like to thank Hitler, and all the dead Jews in the Holocaust, for bringing my mother and father together, post-WWII, which led to my lucky existence – oh, and thanks to my dead uncle that was killed in the war. And I’d like to thank those that contributed to the Irish famine that drove my recent ancestors, on both sides, to leave Ireland and come to England and marry some English people. A special thanks to the invading Normans that persecuted others in my family tree that were mere serfs … oh, and my other ancestors that were Normans that persecuted them. A great big thank you to Julius Caesar, for without his invasion and killing of so many people we wouldn’t have some of the lovely straight roads that I enjoy today. I don’t know who you are, but thank you Neanderthal woman for being raped by my other early human ancestor. And thank you Africans, for starving and migrating to Europe in search of a better place – twice – you really made the effort form which I now benefit. And thank you, African ape mother of all humans today. Thank you all.
Any history that humans have gone through that has been objectively bad for some people and good for others, in terms of material reward, security, health, social status, self determination, has resulted in the people we are now. So, is a black guy in America now better off because his recent ancestor was brought over in a slave ship?
Trivially, yes. But it’s actually a dumb question, and a dumb point from Richard Spencer.
First, that person would not have been present in Africa today had his ancestor not been a victim of slavery. Any number of things might be different without European slavery. Islamic slavery was present in Africa long after it was stopped in Europe, so maybe his ancestor would have been a slave after all. Or maybe his tribe would have become slavers themselves in turn. Maybe if decent European explorers had brought only benefits of European progress to Africa … but hold on, before we get too far into this, remember that much of the technical and mercantile progress in Europe was made on the back of Africa and other places, by the consumption of the resources found there. Mmmm. Tricky. History is complicated, and the ‘What if?’ games don’t really tell us that much.
White Minority Identity
And now the ironic aspect of the Richard Spencer quote. The problem is that if you play the same game as Richard Spencer, and try to say that African Americans benefit now from the cruelty of past white Europeans, then he could be letting himself in for a whole pile to grief. White people, as defined in the simplistic terms of Richard Spencer, are actually a minority in the world population.
Suppose all non-whites made slaves of whites for a century or so, it wouldn’t be that bad, would it? After all, in a few more centuries there’d be a black Richard Spencer saying, …
“Whites have benefited from the experience of black supremacy”
No. Enough of the ‘white supremacy’ stupidity.
How about Identitarianism, White Separatism, and the other BS terms that mask a white supremacist agenda?
Anti-Racism
It’s simple:
If you want to marry and mate with someone of your own ethnic background, then go for it. Nobody is stopping you. As white separatists point out, there are many self contained ethnic groups that value their heritage, why can’t white people? Yeah, fine, again, go for it.
Here’s the problem – and it’s one I touched on above. What if I, as a white person, don’t want that? What if I am friends with and enjoy the company of people of all backgrounds, all races? What if we want to get together and make mixed race babies? What’s your problem?
Only I can tell you OUR problem is – YOU, Richard Spencer. Not because you want to play with white people only, but because you want to make the rest of us do it too.
And it’s not just the Richard Spencers of this world – and here’s where I depart form the current white hating SJW loons. Many ethnic groups insist on their own ethnic purity, just as Spencer does. Where they insist that applies to all their children, we have a problem, again, and it’s the problem caused by the separatists, of any colour or culture.
There are Muslims and Hindus in India that will kill anyone of the other religion that tries to marry their daughter. There are Pakistani heritage British men (get this, they are actually English by birth) that will kill their sister if she tries to marry outside their race and religion. Many of us are supporting the Kurds, and the Yazidis, and the Christians that have been persecuted by ISIS – and yet there will be some among those groups that will be separatists and will not let their culture die, and will persecute those of their own that try to stray.
This #ValentinesDay spare a thought for millions worldwide forced into marriage with a life of despair ahead of them & for those whose childhood is taken through early marriage & for those who are harmed because they are not allowed to choose their partner thro so called honour
It’s not just race. Religion is the other great divisive influence. My Catholic mother married my Protestant father, and she converted. My mother’s Catholic priest damned her children to hell. Well, I am an atheists, so I guess he got his wish. My wife’s Baptist mother, on first hearing my name, asked my future wife, “He’s not Catholic, is he?”
There are those that fear the loss of their race, culture or religion. But I’m afraid they are only entitled to perpetuate those in as much as they can personally, with like minded people.
They are not at liberty to demand that their children should be separatists racists too. They are not at liberty to protect their racial, cultural and religious ideology through separatism.
So, to Richard Spencer specifically, the rest of us don’t want your racist BS. Tough shit.
White supremacism! Eurocentrism! Murticulturalism! Western Values! …
Endorse, deplore, assert, denounce, support any of these, vociferously, emotionally? Want to promote freedom and equality without stumbling over these dilemmas? Read on.
Richard Spencer is an ‘Identitarian’, in his own terms – though not all ‘Identitarians’ are quite like Richard Spencer. He’s a white separatist; white nationalist; whatever he wants to call it; but, it’s about being white. He values ‘White European’ values.
His ideas are based on a fallacy, because what we really value, what Spencer pretends to value, is not whiteness, or anything associated with the rather poor attribution of being white. His is really an ancient tribalism, something that we acknowledge the human race went through naturally, but not something that’s worth hanging on to.
The origins of the ‘Identitarian movement‘ suggest something more specific than just being white, but rather the desire, one which many ethnic groups aspire to, to have an ethnicity and culture remain intact. Other ethnicities cling to their ‘ethnic identity’ without receiving any push back. White Identitarians (and Jews) do seem to take a lot of flack for expressing what other ethnicities do.
I’m not a ‘white Identitarian’. As you’ll see when I get to the thought experiment later. I can understand some of the concerns – they are mostly related to opposition to the political ideology of Islam. Now, that I do oppose.
The problem I have with the ‘White Identitarian’ movement is the specificity of the ‘white’ aspect. I know, it arose arose in opposition to the perceived non-white Islamification of France. However, it erroneously conflates a difference that matters, culture, with one that does not, ethnicity. I doubt very much the ‘White Identitarian’ movement would be much of a thing (outside Richard Spencer’s tiny mind) had it not been for Merkel’s open door policy. But, let’s put that aside, and focus on the fallacy of the ‘whiteness’.
When Spencer uses the qualifier ‘White European’, when referring to culture, he’s doing so to pretend to loftier things, but he’s really about nothing more than base tribalism.
What’s worth valuing is something else other than racist ‘whiteness’; or even anything specifically ‘European’, despite Europe being historically the most localised origin of what we do value … and here I presume ‘we’ value freedom and equality, though I recongnise some do not.
Ramblings 