Can you believe what you read?
Discussion
birdbrain said:
I bet that was in the Daily Mail! 
Seriously, I would take anything any paper reports with a pinch of salt as they all have their own agendas.
I have also heard of all three cases-and they are as described.
Here is a serious question for everyone-Under the precepts of Multi-culturalism we are supposed to regard all cultures as being of equal value.
Which do you regard as better- our own culture or one in which the events described above are permitted.
Gazboy said:
But what would a domestic paper get out of it?
Well, given the Daily Wail's well-known dislike of anything foreign, probably something along the lines of "If this is what they do in their own country, we shouldn't let them in the UK to do that kind of thing here"
Obviously, this is just idle speculation.
birdbrain said:
But what would a domestic paper get out of it?
Well, given the Daily Wail's well-known dislike of anything foreign, probably something along the lines of "If this is what they do in their own country, we shouldn't let them in the UK to do that kind of thing here"
Obviously, this is just idle speculation.
Particularly as it is other Newspapers-The Daily/Sunday Telegraph for one
birdbrain said:
I bet that was in the Daily Mail!
Seriously, I would take anything any paper reports with a pinch of salt as they all have their own agendas.
The Daily Mail is disgusting. What it prints bears only a passing resemblance to the truth. They are the propaganda machine for a whole little Britain mentality. They are frightened of everything they don't understand, which is most things. Which they then vent their spite and bile upon.
They are racist, anti immigrant, anti European, anti Youth and pro bigot. Probably nastier than Murdoch, which takes some doing.
birdbrain said:
What is?
The three news stories mentioned above-I believe some were mentioned in the Economist as well which has a rather Liberal outlook on things.
They are all events that happened not made up by the Daily Mail to further it's own agenda if that is what you were asking.
JagLover said:
I bet that was in the Daily Mail!
Seriously, I would take anything any paper reports with a pinch of salt as they all have their own agendas.
I have also heard of all three cases-and they are as described.
Here is a serious question for everyone-Under the precepts of Multi-culturalism we are supposed to regard all cultures as being of equal value.
Which do you regard as better- our own culture or one in which the events described above are permitted.
nail on the head. bruciebabe said:
I bet that was in the Daily Mail!
Seriously, I would take anything any paper reports with a pinch of salt as they all have their own agendas.
The Daily Mail is disgusting. What it prints bears only a passing resemblance to the truth. They are the propaganda machine for a whole little Britain mentality. They are frightened of everything they don't understand, which is most things. Which they then vent their spite and bile upon.
They are racist, anti immigrant, anti European, anti Youth and pro bigot. Probably nastier than Murdoch, which takes some doing.
Can you describe what you mean by Little Britain?
esselte said:
birdbrain said:
I bet that was in the Daily Mail!
Seriously, I would take anything any paper reports with a pinch of salt as they all have their own agendas.
The Daily Mail is disgusting. What it prints bears only a passing resemblance to the truth. They are the propaganda machine for a whole little Britain mentality. They are frightened of everything they don't understand, which is most things. Which they then vent their spite and bile upon.
They are racist, anti immigrant, anti European, anti Youth and pro bigot. Probably nastier than Murdoch, which takes some doing.
Can you describe what you mean by Little Britain?
A more expansive version if Little Englander:
Diversity & the Little Englander (March 2004)
An article provocatively entitled ‘Too diverse?’ in Prospect, a British monthly, stirred up a good deal of interest. The author was its own editor, David Goodhart. Both the Sunday Observer and so did the Guardian offered him space to expound his views. He earned warm support from rightwing columnists like Peter Hitchens and Melanie Phillips but there were also rebuttals from Yasmin Alibhai-Brown (Independent, 26 Jan and 01 Mar), Gary Younge (Guardian 26 Feb) and the editor of New Statesman (01Mar04).
Goodhart poses as a ‘liberal’, a sort of leftie but his views are quite rightwing. Goodhart is really the Little Englander propagating the belief that, whatever the population mix, people prefer their own kind in the end. Trevor Phillips (Chair, Commission for Racial Equality), dismissed Goodhart as a ‘liberal racist’, adding that “the genteel and learned can have exclusionary notions of themselves, the country and its identity that are wholly in line the old Right’s idea of kith and kin.” So what does Goodhart have to say?
1. Support from a survey
Goodhart sought comfort in the results of a poll that accompanied his article. A sample was asked:
1: ‘To what extent do you agree or disagree that you would rather live in an area where people are from the same background as you?’
2: ‘What is to blame for a less cohesive society?’ (People were asked to grade their reasons in order.)
On Question 1, 18% of respondents said they definitely would like to live in racially exclusive areas. Another 21% of the 1000 surveyed said they didn’t strongly object to living in mixed communities. These two groups were lumped together and the statement that 4 in 10 object to black neighbours was presented as the central finding.
On Question 2, Goodhart didn’t get the results he hoped for. Most respondents said it was the longer hours at work that was fragmenting society. Next in importance came: time spent at the TV or internet. The third reason was the greater mobility of people. Only fourth was the concern about asylum seekers.
Poll questions on sensitive issues can be loaded to yield desired conclusions. How representative was the survey by location? The poll was also conducted at an unfavourable time when the tabloid newspapers (always anti-immigrant) were fanning fears of a new invasion of gypsies.
2. Waffle & gobbledegook
Goodhart does not launch a crude polemic on his kith & kin theory. He takes the intellectual route – throwing up abstracts concepts like social cohesion, solidarity, reciprocity, obligation, community, citizenship, rights and duties. He also seeks support from two 18th century philosophers, Edmund Burke (English) and Immanuel Kant (German) but how relevant are they today? He claims to have discovered ‘a central dilemma of political life’ about balancing solidarity and diversity and calls it "the progressive dilemma".
The New Statesman dismissed Goodhart’s resort to abstractions as ‘so much waffle’ and ‘just a clever man’s way of missing the point’, and, one might add, hiding his prejudices.
3. Common culture – what is it?
Goodhart says: “We not only live among stranger citizens but we must share with them… All such acts of sharing are more smoothly negotiated (under) a set of common values and assumptions. But as Britain becomes more diverse that common culture is being eroded’. But he doesn’t say what the common culture is – is it just football, beer, shepherd’s pie and pop music for the lower classes, Shakespeare and opera for the elites? Is it static or evolving?
As a Guardian editorial put it (24Feb04): “Britain remains a class-stratified society. Mr Goodhart speaks of the "glue of ethnicity ('people who look and talk like us')" being replaced by the "glue of values ('people who think and behave like us'). But back in 1945, people from different social classes neither looked alike nor talked like each other.”
Goodhart wonders whether immigrants and indigenous people have common values: “We need to be reassured that strangers, especially those from other countries, have the same idea of reciprocity as we do”. Note the abstraction introduced but not explained. And who are these strangers? How did they become strangers in their own land? And who is "we"? Must common values be based on race and derived solely from history?
4. Immigration & race – his real concern
In contrast to the decline in the native population, Goodhart notes the rising numbers of the non-white population: "about 9% of British residents are now from ethnic minorities, rising to almost one-third in London."
Gary Younge retorts: “Given that more than half of non-white people were born in Britain, what does this fact have to do with immigration or asylum? His failure to distinguish between race (the colour of people) and place (the movement of people) leads him up a predictable cul-de-sac.”
Goodhart goes on to say: “Since the race riots in northern English towns in 2001 and the attacks of 9/11, immigration has shot up the list of voter concerns. A Mori poll shows that 56 per cent of people (including 90 per cent of poor whites) now believe there are too many immigrants in Britain” (meaning non-whites of course). Always the fear about immigration. Mind you Goodhart has no objection to sharing with fellow Anglos from the distant settlements – North America, Australia, South Africa. As Yasmin Alibhai-Brown says, his discomfort is aroused by the presence of Mr Patel at the corner shop.To the Little Englander in Goodhart, British means white and black means foreign. He grudgingly admits Britain has its "established minorities with whom we are willing to share ..." What liberal generosity! Are not minorities equal members of society? Why only share with an ‘in-group’, why not with all as Christianity enjoins or at least with the more needy?
5. Anxieties & fears
The truth is white politicians and their media have deep fears about Europe’s demographic crisis. White population continues its inexorable decline while migrants are younger and have higher fertility. The UN has warned that Europe must keep an inflow of migrants in order to have a level of work force that can cater for the ageing population. The irony is that these migrants can only come from the Third World. Therein lies the dilemma of a racist Europe that is forced to take migrants it doesn’t really want.
Europe is paying a high price for prosperity. There are also deeper concerns about a decaying society, addicted to consumerism and hedonism. The family and community have broken down. Christianity is in decline, the old European values are crumbling and being replaced by a coarse, soulless culture, growing barbarism, anti-social behaviour, undisciplined children, teenage pregnancies and so on. So where are the common values?
Britain has never had it so good, so why behave so bad? In 2001, a former editor of Newsweek argued in an essay Rude Britannia in Prospect (Goodhart’s magazine) that ‘incivility has become a genuine issue of social policy – a society that is rude, aggressive and yobbish will, sooner or later, become a place in which people will be more fearful to trust others to behave decently.’
The TV channels which show much trash and trivia must share the blame for the social decline but incongruously, the same TV channels are now seeking to instil pride and patriotism by a return to nostalgia. There is a new genre of programmes on past glories and achievements – biographies of inventors, writers, war heroes, programme titles like What the Romans did for us, What the Victorians did for us, What the industrial revolution did for us, etc. And these are being shown repeatedly.
6. Imperial obligations to migrants
The west needs to come to terms with the poverty in the south and admit that much of it imposed by the west. Goodhart makes no mention of Britain’s imperial policies that enriched the country immensely. No restitution has been made for historic injustices - to the colonies or for the slave trade. Britain has a moral obligation for the welfare and security of its migrants. He does not touch on Britain’s on-going imperial adventures under New Labour - interventions in distant countries under cover of a war against terrorism but actually to grab more resources and look for re-construction contracts. Britain has no qualms joining the US in bombing defenceless and applying sanctions. The resulting dislocation creates more refugees, some of whom arrive in Britain and are rejected.
7. Economic issues
What Goodhart never asks is why migrants keep converging on Europe. He does not ask why billions live on a dollar or two a day and whether EU policies have something to do with it. Nor does he question the neo-liberal agenda that promotes the free movement of capital but not of labour. Herein lie the hypocrisy and greed of Europe's wealthier nations - letting their rich companies exploit poor countries for profit but barring the poor from seeking work in their own countries.
A just approach to migration management is for Britain to support reform on trade and aid policies, as well as desist from imperial adventures in defenceless countries under the pretext of a terrorism threat. Building higher walls and slashing the welfare rights of migrants may offer temporary respite from the chaos we wreak beyond our borders. It is time to recognise the work done by illegals or poorly paid migrants that keep retail and other services going.
8. Conclusion
We do need a sensible and open discussion about race, ethnicity and citizenship in this country: one that takes into account our past as an empire and acknowledges our multi-racial society in a globalised world.
We heartily endorse Gary Younge when he says : “there is indeed a progressive dilemma. It's the dilemma of what to do with people who pose as progressives and preach like reactionaries”. It is time to abandon the old kith & kin argument about preferring our own kind. Our kind today is a rich mix that cannot accommodate the Little Englander mentality.
bruciebabe said:
A very big post
Just a few points-why should anyone object to immigrants from Australia or Cananda-very often their parents or grand parents were British-I myself have family in Australia.
Secondly how exactly is the EU responsible for world poverty?
Thirdly a hell of alot of people live in ex British Colonies-If we are to take them all in from some sort of Imperial guilt-This Island is going to become very crowded.
and by the way most of your post was standard Guardian crap.
>> Edited by JagLover on Monday 7th March 15:07
>> Edited by JagLover on Monday 7th March 15:09
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