People are rioting, the media is blaming social media and specifically a man known as Tommy Robinson, but what exactly is going on?
In the simple explanation, the far-right has risen and they have used misinformation to weaponise fear and sympathy into public anger. For me it is too simple to present people as thugs who will grab at any morsel to enact the behaviour that they already deeply wish to. Some people think these rioters are just getting their thug on, simple as. Some folks think that muslims are a problem worth focussing on and it doesn’t really matter that this time it wasn’t one of them that provided the trigger, there has been trigger enough in past events, and there is always trigger enough in their potential incompatibility. I feel personally that no religious body is a force for good, but one in particular, in this epoch, growing in numbers within Europe, is a very definite and immediate existential threat to reasonable people, and to reason itself. A threat that cannot be ignored or dismissed by thoughts of fairness and tolerance. The paradox of tolerance is one to look at, how can we tolerate intolerant people? If we tolerate them they will change society so that they do not have to tolerate us, and that would be like tolerating a force that destroys your way of life.
If a person displays what we refer to as racism, then how did they arrive at their racist position? Tommy Robinson (who the BBC always like to point out, and for little reason, is really called Stephen Yaxley-Lennon) is a criminal, that is true. But he has recanted his earlier life and statements, and has been more recently less of a thug and more of a speaker against what he believes to be the extremist ideology that is, in his opinion, invading Europe. I suppose then he is an inspiration to thugs still, though do they need inspiration? He poses now as a journalist, I’m not sure if that is true, but he does make documentary films, and maybe there is some truth in them even if they are, as some claim, sponsored by Israel.
I wonder if someone is born with violent and intolerant intentions, or do their circumstances make them so? Robinson was born in Luton, a city that, in his lifetime, experienced a dramatic swing in demographics from white European British to Asian and Caribbean, with heavy weight on the Asian part of that. During this time the Vauxhall factory closed production and the town also suffered as Britain suffered in all it’s manufacturing and production heartlands. One might conclude that Luton must now be culturally changed by the influx of people of a culture, can we say that, is that not what a majority does?
We must remember that “Poverty is the father of violence and theft” – Aristotle. Tommy Robinson’s perspective has not arisen out of nowhere, he is a man who has seen a falling local economy in the same era as an increasing influx of persons bringing their culture, which is very important to them, into a place that matters to him, thus changing that place. Now I ask you, how could he be other than the angry intolerant thug that he became, and maybe still is, and why is he then wrong if he is wrong? If these are his experiences then how can he escape his perception and draw from something else? I grew up where there were no muslims, it’s easy for me to pass judgement on him and say he is a racist. The political class that tells us on TV, as a reaction to these rallies, that he is a racist, they mostly also grew up in places where there were few muslims, or they are a muslim in other cases, so what do they know either, and what is their perspective?
I know this, Islam and all that it bring with it scares the life out of me, and I know the people of my country (NI) will resist it with great enthusiasm. I haven’t lived amongst it, I haven’t had children that went to school and were outnumbered and influenced by a different culture, I have not seen rallies going through my home town calling for Britain to be an islamic caliphate in the ilk of the shithole nations some the men (I nearly said people, it’s always men, islam is not usually represented by its women) marching may have originated from. It hasn’t been in my face, and still it worries me, it worries my dad, it worries my friends, if we are honest it worries all of us. This doesn’t mean that I will take to the streets with these rioters, or loot a local Greggs, but it does mean I have some understanding of the feelings in play. I think they are scared, yes they have the wrong trigger this time, but maybe they don’t care.
The great hope is that these riots will indicate something, that people are unhappy and scared, and they do not want any more cities being swung from one culture to another. I personally favour the richness of a wide demographic, having lived in London for a few years I experienced it daily, and I welcome other cultures adding to our tapestry, but.. (someone once said everything said before the word but is likely bullshit) I don’t want any more of a certain culture from a certain region, I do not want any more followers of Chowdary (jailed in 2024 for leading an islamic terrorist group), or Hamza (jailed previously). I don’t particularly want to be outnumbered by people who need someone else to tell them what the words in a book mean, and that every other book or opinion is wrong and dangerous. That’s scary for anyone who knows how to read a book without help. Does this make me a racist? I think not, you may differ.
If people are angry, and it isn’t simple minded racism, then it should not be ignored or labelled as such so as to be dismissed easily. Ignoring it is dangerous, it will lead to ridiculous acts of lawmaking to protect things ill understood, to protect the radical from reasonable inquiry, to protect the intolerant from those that fear them with justification, to protect a loud minority from the commoner. I am no right winger, and I am no thug, I believe in rational immigration policies and rich difference, but where culture is involved why should mine be set aside so someone else’s can flourish where it is not welcomed, or by any stretch compatible?
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