2 things from the Guardian

Richard Desmond

Simon Cooke

What the hell?

Could almost link this with Ron Atkinson's on air comments which Thus Spoke Zara-thingie (sorry) brought up yesterday.

And yes, I know you despise the Guardian TSZ

On the first article -

First of all, that's terrible. Wait a minute - irrelevant question - is that racism? Are the Germans considered a race? As for Desmond being arrested, that has to do with what the free speech rights are in UK (I don't know.) All of those headlines seem true. Richard Desmond I would like to personally find and punch in the face. What I bolded seemed insensitive. It could be true, but it didn't seem appropriate. Then again, Desmond was nowhere near appropriate - but he had the right to do what he did according to what I think - free speech. It's still disgusting, however.

The second -


I think it was very responsible for him to step down. This seems to be a bit overblown, though - This Joyce lady seems to be overblowing it. It seemed like a joke. Yes, I do agree with Ian though...the part I bolded was what I would have said and how I feel. He did apologize, and it didn't seem that much of a problem. And it was a nice apology, contrary to what she said. I can understand her being offended, but this isn't worthy of someone stepping down. It wasn't a good idea to make that joke, though, that I agree with. It's an issue you usually avoid, and I think it should be more avoided.

Yes, it was a joke. The following, however, is also a joke:

A black man walks into a bar with a parrot on his shoulder. The barman says, "Where'd you get that thing?" The parrot says, "In Africa, there's loads of the bastards."

I think both are equally unacceptable. Not being racist means not insulting anybody on grounds of ethnicity (and the Germans are an ethnic group). And gothictheysay, incitement to racial hatred is illegal in England. Both of those men could easily have been prosecuted, let alone simply stepped down.

I don't despise The Guardian, I was merely highlighting a hypocritical episode it suffered from

In the context of Fawlty Towers, John Cleese made it funny. In the context of public affairs, it stops being funny.

It is offending and hurtful to the young generations of Germans to be associated with mistakes--albeit terrible, grossly inhumane ones--that another generation made. Although this is not excluded from history lessons, like the Japanese treatment of the Koreans is, and Germans are well aware of what happened, it is not something that one assosiates oneself with, any more than British citizens consider their long bloody conquering tradition, or Americans their treatment of the Indians. To assume Germans are "all Nazis" is insensitive and unbased.

I'll keep an eye out for what Der Spiegel says and post it if possible.

edit: for those who are interested in the German perspective, Der Spiegel's article on the Desmond incidident is here. It's in German (obviously), but if you google a translation it makes a limited amount of sense. (Unfortunately, because "Mond" means "moon", the translation changes Desmond's name.)

It digusts me when I find out people are neo-Nazis. Is it me or are there more of them recently? (And of course, as a result, I hear more citicism of Germans, which is ignorant as well.) I find it especially ironic, considering this logic, that most neo-Nazis are not German--they are American.

One of the best campaigns to vote that I have ever seen was a picture of a man holding a sign saying 'Thank God for AIDs' followed by the Nazi SS lightning symbol. Underneath it said 'Use your vote, you know he'll use his.'

There has been a rise in Nationalism all across the Western world. In France a Nationalist party got a lot of votes in an election a few years ago (thankfully their share declined this year in the elections). It's hard to say what's causing it, but there does seem to be a revival in 'me' politics, where people have no compassion for the rights and welfare of others.

Simple things like paying your taxes go towards many social welfare causes, treatment centres for recovering drug addicts, benefit payments and other such causes. Many people think that if the 'scroungers' (as they view them) were not supported and cared for by the state then they personally would have to pay less taxes, and so any party that suggests removing such individuals from society, for example by sending all immigrants to their countries of origin, will always get support from self-interested individuals (some even suggest sending anyone who is of African origin to that continent).

In conversation yesterday I heard about a man who complained about other people questioning their tax bills but then would happily do jobs that were cash-in-hand, and he didn't see any contradiction in his views.

I'm really not too sure what we can do about this. As a species we need to take care of everyone else. The world is designed to kill us. If we really want to survive then we are going to have to work together, I suspect though that we will never be able to do this while there are still ideas of nation and state around. There will always be people who find it easier to hate than to help. I'm just not sure as a species whether we have the ability to raise ourselves over the petty differences and try to ensure a happy and healthy life for everyone.

It really seems to be a growing thing. I see more and more skinheads everyday and it frightens me. One of our favorite skate spots was trashed with swastikas and SS symbols and "Kill Jews" and "Kill fags" spaypainted everywhere. I actually went to Wal*Mart and bought white spraypaint to cover it all up. There were also a lot of stickers and what-not talking about how the white man is an endangered species and America is being infiltrated by foreigners and other crap like that. This all really saddens me. I remember running into a lot of Nazis when I would hang out with punks. It's really sad all the hatred that's going around these days.

Ah, the old "sieg-heil and goose-step"! It's good to use such a thing to describe the Third Reich, as such an establishment needs to be mocked and derided. It's good to make facism appear to be an unworkable joke, so nobody else bothers with it.

It's bad, however, to use it to poke fun at Germans. Not all Nazis are German, and certainly not all Germans are Nazis. Dirty Desmond is just huffy cos German owners will (quite rightly, IMHO) get rid of that fat oily pornmonger as soon as they take over. His actions merely confirm that position. I'm sure he'd rather have a British group take over, as at least his job stands a chance of being safe.

As for the rise in Nationalism (as it's now called), as Mata says it's getting more of a vote nowadays. In the UK, two large towns in the North West of England (Burnley and Oldham) have had seats taken by the BNP after large-scale race related rioting. They also have a large vote in Birmingham (but not enough to win anything) and I believe there are other areas where this, too, is happening. I haven't followed it that closely, to be honest, but there is a rise in feeling in some places. But not everywhere. There are plenty of multi-racial places where this just doesn't happen.

Why? Well, I blame the councils, myself.

I come from Oldham, and I recall that when the Bangladeshi immigrants moved into the area, they were given what many thought of as "preferential treatment". Oldham isn't an affluent area, and is populated with largely working-class people; people who work damn hard for a small pay. These people were paying taxes for services that were being handed to the immigrant population instead of the working people. This led to the ubiquitous "They come over here..." line when certain things happened. Such as a brand new, state-of-the-art Mosque, just because the original building assigned to them was considered to be "too Christian". And a brand new school built just for the Bangladeshi community, where English was taught as a second language and white kids were not allowed to go - while the surrounding state schools were crumbling and in need of attention. And the icing on the cake - the Freehold Community Centre, with it's logo portraying the white hand and the black hand, shaking in a spirit of camaraderie, which only opened it's doors to white folk when they paid to be there... I grew up amongst kids of other working-class families who felt equally aggrieved that they paid tax from their meagre earnings, just to help a community that contributed nothing. The icing on the cake, for many, was when road safety schemes were introduced in the Bangladeshi and Pakistani communities in Oldham, in preference to and to the exclusion of the white-dominated areas. Following this, the white folks took umbrage against the Asian communities, and then the reverse happened... and soon the discomfort became tension, the disquiet turned to hate, the name-calling turned to violence. I left the area in 1994 as it became obvious that things were coming to a head...

The local council made all these decisions, and since then they've had to face the consequences.

I do think there are genuine cases of people seeking asylum. But I feel that many of the immigrants are simply here for the meal ticket. "Taking the piss", as we'd say in Oldham. The UK gets lambasted for taking a slightly tough stance against mass immigration, and yet countries with more draconian laws get ignored by the same people that tell us off for being xenophobic.

The UK is a small island. We pay stratospheric prices for tiny houses, among the highest cost per square metre of anywhere in the world. All the green space in desirable residential areas is being turned into housing, so the kids have nowhere to play. There's a housing shortage, yet there's acres of residential areas where houses are boarded up unused, as they are considered to be in "undesirable areas". We have a high cost of living, with high taxes, but only above average salaries. There's not enough jobs to go around, and those that are here are in danger of being outsourced to India or the Czech Republic. We have rising crime, for two reasons: one is that people who need money turn to crime to get it or turn to criminals to help them, the other is from kids who have nothing else to do, and the few things they can do cost money. The place is overcrowded, there's not enough here for everyone, the last thing we need is more people!

Now that President Tone has toughened his stance on immigration a tad, we may see an end to the rise in popularity of the BNP. For now.

I agree with Leo that much of the racism in the UK is the result of people in power who have allowed racist ideas to become rooted in 'common sense'. It's fair enough that people should be angry if one ethnic group is given precedence over another, this means that when a party arrives promising retribution (rather than reconciliation) people will be in the mood for revenge, and so dangerous situations arise in a physical and political sense.

You can understand why councils have done the things that they have done, if there is nothing at all for a Muslim community then the council would seem prejudiced against them if other communities have facilities that Muslim's do not. Equally there is a lack of funding for all the projects that would improve life for everyone (hey, fire a few less missles in war and you could build a new school and repair the roads, but that's a different issue), so a council has to make the choices to try and integrate groups and provide facilities. This can lead to problems if they are also neglecting other groups at the same time, exactly as Leo said.

I think there are other factors too, and here comes my personal grudge; advertising. People are told that they can have everything, that they can be glamourous, sexy, fit, beautiful and loved by everyone. To be frank this just isn't realistic but most people don't seem to want to come to terms with this. The dream is appealing, maybe it's faith in this materialistic ideal that has replaced faith in gods, who knows, but when this dream fails to materialise it must be easy to look for targets to blame. If a person can say 'If I had that then I would be more successful' and really mean it then that's a problem, when a council appears to be giving a whole set of ethnic groups preferential treatment then it just sows the seeds for jealousy.

It's a tough situation. I wouldn't want to be the on the council that said to a Muslim that they should go and worship in a building that looked Christian, after all, that would be racist wouldn't it? Equally I wouldn't want to worship in a building that appeared to belong to a faith that was antithetical to my own. It needs people to be flexible and understand that there is a middle ground that must be walked on. If a council said to a Muslim 'no you can't have a mosque on the grounds that you have a perfectly good building' then that would be one thing, but to say 'no you can't have a mosque because the money is being spent on roads and school repairs' then that's another.

Let's face it, if there were a simple solution then I'm sure it would have happened by now. I think that we are part of the solution though. Even by thinking about this and trying to unpick the issues we are making that middle ground, perhaps we don't know what the final answer to racism will be but if we all keep open minds then we can create a fertile space for the opportunity of a solution to arise. More likely we'll find that eventually our willingness to overcome these issues will mean that the issue won't be there anymore. It may be a long way off, but we are part of it right now.

Optimistic aren't I? Someone has to be!

I agree with you on this.

Another thing that I've found many councils do, is house the immigrant population all together. You have whole communities of JUST Muslims (as an example).

This is essentially, seperating the 'races' (for want of a better word). I think that this is why people aren't tolerating each other. If you have never in your life met or spoken to a Muslim or a Jew, how are you supposed to understand their beliefs? And as we know, humans on the whole don't like what they don't understand.

The councils giving special treatment to minorities, as they do, is wrong, demonstrably.

But.

A human being is capable of thought and of rational understanding. And race-hatred is completely irrational. There is no excuse for racist abuse. I don't care how unfair the council is being, there is absolutely no excuse. Mismanagement of the situation by local government does not mitigate this in the slightest. Blame the councils? Were they the ones who took to the streets with rocks and shouted obscenities and hatred? Blame the scum who did that. Nobody forced them to. They did it of their own free will. They had a choice.

This touches on a sore spot for me. There are few things that anger me more than people not taking responsibility for their actions. I realise that nobody's saying this excuses anything, but I don't think it mitigates it morally at all. Only animals do not have the strength of will to resist provocation.

Fair point, well made, and I agree with you, I'm interested in how to change these people into more rational beings, and I think that responsibility for this has to come from many directions.

As well as many people being irrational, they are also lazy and stubborn. Given the chance to blame others they will, so it's up to councils to treat everyone as fairly as they can so that the lazy thinkers can no longer rely on racist stereotypes because they have no fuel for their fire. Until such difficult equality is achieved, and it is a tough balancing act, then many people will be too lazy to change their ways of thinking. No-one here would defend the racist's actions and opinions, but that kind of person is not going to educate themself, that's just a sad fact of life, so it falls to the duty of organisations such as councils to lead through example.

Of course, it's easier to be fair in your daily life to all people you meet than it is when you're balancing an authority budget with government leaning on you to provide community integration, but many people don't think about that. As I said before, it's not a job I envy.

I can't let this go...

Sure, house prices are insane at the moment. That's simply because there aren't enough top end houses on the market, meaning people aren't prepared to move out of their semis, meaning people can't move into them from their council houses and so on. Anyway, that's pretty much irrelevant, those 'undesirable' areas are easily populated with people willing to live there, and make it desirable. As for your perceived lack of jobs, it's fallacious. We've got nearly full employment. Employers are having a harder time finding workers than people are having finding work. Also, having a goal of 50% of the population having university degrees means that the population (from the POV of the economy) is over-educated, and so there is a shortage of people willing and uneducated enough to do the jobs at the bottom of the socio-economic ladder. Precisely the jobs that many (relatively poorly educated) immigrants are willing to do.

As for 'rising crime', the British Crime Survey says otherwise. Contrary to popular belief, crime (in general) is on the decrease, with only violent crime increasing. It's the fear of crime is rising, and mostly among those who are least at risk. Interesting how those most terrified of crime would appear to be elderly women, while it is young men who are most at risk.

An interesting statistic from the Independent is that in (I think) 2001 immigrants contributed two billion pounds more to the state in taxes than they consumed in benefits. Doesn't really sound like "scrounging" to me...