The bigoted politics of diversity...

[dekker87]

Give me the brave trades unions over the bigoted politics of diversity any day

Julie Burchill

I am very much a creature of the Left. My mother was a cleaner, shop worker and factory hand while my father worked in a distillery (mmm... distilleries!) and later as a car-park attendant, so I would have been really stupid not to be.

We were a hardcore trade union family, my dad a shop steward who took a real delight in refusing the offers of promotion that his factory thought might stop him being such a hard-headed upholder of his members' rights.

I totally worshipped him; other people's dads had cars and hobbies, but my dad had his politics, and this made him such a giant in my eyes compared to them. It didn't hurt that he resembled a taller, fairer version of the actor Sean Bean, who actually played him in a vest lots of the time, happily in a brilliant BBC film I wrote about him ages ago, called Prince.

Only once in a while did his righteousness get on my wick. Like the Christmas when he heard there were some striking bakers nearby and he made my mum pack our Christmas dinner (with all the trimmings!) into Tupperware boxes so he could take it down to the starving brothers freezing around the brazier down on the picket line. "Mu-um!" I whined, full of tweenage self-pity (if nothing else), "they're ba-akers! I dunno, why can't they... BAKE something and have that instead?" My mother didn't miss a beat, shoving chipolatas into the squashed smorgasbord with real savagery; "Because if we don't do it, your dad's gonna be miserable all day. Best get it over with."

It's easy to sentimentalise those days when the trades unions held sway, but they were far better than what replaced them; the politics of diversity. While working-class Left-wing political activism has always been about fighting the powerful, treating people how you would wish to be treated and believing that we're all basically the same, non-working-class Left-wing politics is about... other stuff. Class guilt, sexual kinks, personal prejudice and repressed lust for power. The trades union movement gave us brother Bill Morris and Mrs Desai, heroine of Grunwick. The diversity movement gave us a rainbow coalition of cranks and charlatans.

Yes, it was an eye-opener for the teenage me when I came to London, got involved with non-working-class Left-wing politics and discovered that the Left contained easily as many bigots, bullies and ocean-going nutters as the Right. They weren't all like Julian Assange SORRY, I meant Gerry Healy of the Redgrave Revolutionary Party, but they were weirdos, no two ways. I'd been brought up to believe that the socialist way was colour-blind, but I quickly became aware that the non-working-class Left operated what was best described as Paint Chart Politics the further from white, the more likely you were to be right. In the 70s, this would lead to reggae bands who believed stuff about women that would have had them condemned as fascist Neanderthals had they been white playing under the Rock Against Racism flag; in recent years, it has seen the Left support similar Islamist stone-agers just because they're the right (Left) side of beige.

Thus democratic Israel, which gives full civil rights to women and gays, is worse than the countries which surround it, which don't but are darker. (It's always particularly funny to see pasty-faced Western pro-Palestinian activists being bundled into vans by dark-skinned mizrahi IDF, their simple Paint Chart Politics brains trying to take in the fact that Israelis can be brown- and black-skinned too.) Similarly, in Darfur the Left were thrown a curveball when it turned out that the Arab Muslims were terrorising the black Christians. Um, Islam good, Christianity bad but hang on, Christians darker here! DOES NOT COMPUTE!

If John Galliano had confined himself to insulting the Jews, he could probably have got away with it after a period of contrition. Mel Gibson, after all, had his defenders when he said that Jews start all the wars in the world, such as the writer Andrew O'Hagan. But then Gibson had to throw the N-word into the mix, as Galliano did with Asians; their gooses were cooked when they contravened the PCP rules on who it's ok to hate these days. Of course if a half-witted rag hag was going to hate an ethnic group, it would be the Jews, writing all those books and winning all those Nobel prizes! (22 per cent of recipients from a world population of 0.2 per cent, fact fans! Must be some sort of Scando-Semitic conspiracy, like the one that's gunning for Saint Julian!)

PCP being as dumb and destructive as it is, I was pleased to read this week that more Asian Britons than white ones believe that immigration should either be stopped permanently or halted until unemployment falls. Here at last is a return to the colour-blind common sense collectivism of my dad's day there's a reason why the CBI have always been against immigration controls, and it's called driving down wages, stupid! For a decade now I've been winding up my angsty liberal mates with the slogan STOP WHITE IMMIGRATION NOW! so how lovely to find that despite my five-star lifestyle, I am at one not just with the street, but with the Southall street. BOOYAKASHA!

Edited March 3, 2011 by dekker87

[Guest]

The mistake been made here is that those of the right try to claim the moral high ground because their beliefs are pure and simple and straight forward. Christianity is superior because it brought the west to where it is now (somewhat a misrepresentation of the facts at best).

I actually don't know anyone of the left who supports the Muslim cause over the Christian - instead they consider religion as the cause of the overall problems. Similarly it is grossly misrepresenting the facts when you point to people who support Palestinians as Muslim dupes, when infact it is systematic Imperalism and occupation which is the point at issue.

This attempt to rest the moral high ground back to conservative bigotry is comical at best - because it always mis-frames the beliefs of those it is attacking by painting them as simple dupes, when almost universally they are standing for the cause of general equality and fairness in world affairs - for everyone and not just the privileged few.

Br Cornelius

[dekker87]

The mistake been made here is that those of the right try to claim the moral high ground because their beliefs are pure and simple and straight forward. Christianity is superior because it brought the west to where it is now (somewhat a misrepresentation of the facts at best).

I actually don't know anyone of the left who supports the Muslim cause over the Christian - instead they consider religion as the cause of the overall problems. Similarly it is grossly misrepresenting the facts when you point to people who support Palestinians as Muslim dupes, when infact it is systematic Imperalism and occupation which is the point at issue.

This attempt to rest the moral high ground back to conservative bigotry is comical at best - because it always mis-frames the beliefs of those it is attacking by painting them as simple dupes, when almost universally they are standing for the cause of general equality and fairness in world affairs - for everyone and not just the privileged few.

Br Cornelius

did you actually read the article? because you seem to have deeply missed the point.

i'm left wing...i come from a proud line of working class leftists...

the article is talking about how the politics of diversity basically boils down to middle class 'left' wing racism.

identity politics...perhaps you need to re-read the article.

for everyone and not just the privileged few.

Thus democratic Israel, which gives full civil rights to women and gays, is worse than the countries which surround it, which don't but are darker.

[itsnotoutthere]

One of the great tricks of the Soviets to keep their peoples enslaved was offer them jobs for life, housing for life, free education and standard medical care for life. All in exchange for their complete and utter obedience. Rock the boat and you'd suddenly find that University place for your child vanished. Criticise the regime and your job would never advance above steaming open envelopes. Question authority and bang went your papers that allowed you to visit a beach.

We've seen a serious attempt over the last 13 years by a socialist Labour government to create an identical "client" state whereby the motto "don't bite the hand that feeds you" has seen millions working for the State (some rewarded very handsomely indeed for their party loyalty), millions on benefits, millions receiving handouts, millions dependent on a "benevolent Regime" borrowing money from our grandchildren to secure votes for a party that saw the biggest erosion in individual freedom since the storming of the Winter Palace.

Even the Soviets, who had literally everything to lose finally decided that freedom was more important to them than any promise not to starve and some free coal, threw off the shackles of the Politburo and decided to take their chances with freedom, no matter where that lead. For most, it has proved an excellent choice. No more waiting 15 years and licking the Party's **** for the chance to own a car. No more begging for the right to travel freely. Simply study and work and take the best paid job you can find.

Above the squeals from the socialists this morning, I discover that "mortgage interest" to the unemployed is to be cut from 6% to just under 4% and there is uproar. This is not social housing. This is housing that citizens have decided to purchase in the hope of making capital gains and retiring to a villa in Benidorm. And we're paying for it, yet again. Never mind the scandal of "right to buy" which saw the feckless rewarded with hundreds of thousands of pounds of taxpayer funded council house selling windfalls, enabling the South of Spain to become the new home to millions who would otherwise be facing the consequences of not bothering to work at school, p*** their wages up the wall every week and spend 16 hours a day watching Jeremy Kyle.

Owning a property is not a human right. It is what you achieve by applying yourself, taking responsibility for your actions, making sacrifices and being ambitious to better yourself and take control of your finances and your life. Why the hell do the unemployed have the right for the taxpayer to fund their property ambitions? Will we share in the capital gains when it's time to sell up and cash in? Will we hell. After a life of whizzing around on a mobility scooter and claiming every benefit known to man, they'll be off to a well earned "retirement" using the capital acquired by the taxpayer being forced to fund their property empire.

"If we don't, it'll create homeless people" the socialists scream. Yes, it will. One more reason to pay attention at school, learn a trade or a skill and save a bit of money instead of buying 42" TVs and big bore exhausts. One more reason to limit your reproduction until YOU can actually afford it. One more reason not to shack up with the first Somali asylum seeker who asks you in broken English if you want "jiggy jiggy. Get council flat, innit". One more reason to build a stable family that you can rely on in hard times.

It may be your expectation thanks to 13 years of bankrupting Labour socialist hell that someone else will always pick up the bill for your actions but it is a long way from being your right. Get used to it. There's going to lots more screaming before this spoilt baby is weaned from the tit of the socialist State. If we want a small state and small government then we will have to learn to prise our hands out of it's all powerful grip. All of us

[itsnotoutthere]

For those with short memories :-

Over the past 12 years, who has actually profited from Labour?

The poor. Fair enough, you got your minimum wage. What has actually happened is that anybody who is so unskilled that their labour is not worth £5.80 an hour is unemployable. Resulting in millions sitting at home on their arses. They'll never work again and they know it. To keep them placated, you've introduced a massive hike in benefits making it impossible for them to find work and profit from it. They don't care either way. Using Danegeld, you've bought their vote.

Immigrants. An open door policy has allowed every Dick, Tomascz and Mirek to arrive here and take up the jobs you are paying UK citizens NOT to do. Germany were smart enough to block EU new members from seeking work in Germany. You weren't. So millions sit on the dole, whilst Poles and Latvians work the fields and send the money home. Not counting the million illegals who are currently thoroughly enjoying themselves on out stayed visas.

Minorities. From Lesbians to radical Islamists, you've paved the streets with gold for them. You draconian laws and bizarre equality rules means they can shout as loudly as they want, incite violence, demand quotas, funding and "special" allowances that no one else can touch and we sit back and watch them abuse their new rights with a gusto.

The Feckless. Yup. Families ruined, lawless streets, idiot kids with O Levels, feral animals beating us to death, a powerless judicial and legal system, overflowing prisons. Have some tax credits, working family credit, whatever. Just vote Labour.

So there's your vote. The five million you've made life fantastic for. 12 years and you've helped 5 million people to "improve" their lives. Non jobs in the State, the unemployable bribed with Stella and benefits to behave themselves (they aren't) and you expected to win a fourth term?

What have you done for the other 20 million who are paying for the 5 million?

Nothing. Except treat them with utter contempt. You've legislated our rights away, you monitor our every move, licence our lives and tax us till we bleed. You regularly insult us, abuse us, search us, spy on us, prosecute us, deride us, laugh at us and then sneer at us.

So cuddle the poor, the unemployed, the feckless, the worthless, the unemployable and the immigrants, the weird and the wonderful, the "oppressed", the Islamofacists, the "culturally different" all you want. They're going to be the only ones voting for you and try as you might, they still only represent one in five of the British Electorate. 20 million of us are going to put you on your b****** arses for treating us like something you walked in. And then we're going to start undoing the damage you've wreaked on this country and it's hard working, honest, decent citizens who didn't deserve any of this.........

& so it came to pass.

[Dougal]

For those with short memories :-

Over the past 12 years, who has actually profited from Labour?

The poor. Fair enough, you got your minimum wage. What has actually happened is that anybody who is so unskilled that their labour is not worth £5.80 an hour is unemployable. Resulting in millions sitting at home on their arses. They'll never work again and they know it. To keep them placated, you've introduced a massive hike in benefits making it impossible for them to find work and profit from it. They don't care either way. Using Danegeld, you've bought their vote.

Immigrants. An open door policy has allowed every Dick, Tomascz and Mirek to arrive here and take up the jobs you are paying UK citizens NOT to do. Germany were smart enough to block EU new members from seeking work in Germany. You weren't. So millions sit on the dole, whilst Poles and Latvians work the fields and send the money home. Not counting the million illegals who are currently thoroughly enjoying themselves on out stayed visas.

Minorities. From Lesbians to radical Islamists, you've paved the streets with gold for them. You draconian laws and bizarre equality rules means they can shout as loudly as they want, incite violence, demand quotas, funding and "special" allowances that no one else can touch and we sit back and watch them abuse their new rights with a gusto.

The Feckless. Yup. Families ruined, lawless streets, idiot kids with O Levels, feral animals beating us to death, a powerless judicial and legal system, overflowing prisons. Have some tax credits, working family credit, whatever. Just vote Labour.

So there's your vote. The five million you've made life fantastic for. 12 years and you've helped 5 million people to "improve" their lives. Non jobs in the State, the unemployable bribed with Stella and benefits to behave themselves (they aren't) and you expected to win a fourth term?

What have you done for the other 20 million who are paying for the 5 million?

Nothing. Except treat them with utter contempt. You've legislated our rights away, you monitor our every move, licence our lives and tax us till we bleed. You regularly insult us, abuse us, search us, spy on us, prosecute us, deride us, laugh at us and then sneer at us.

So cuddle the poor, the unemployed, the feckless, the worthless, the unemployable and the immigrants, the weird and the wonderful, the "oppressed", the Islamofacists, the "culturally different" all you want. They're going to be the only ones voting for you and try as you might, they still only represent one in five of the British Electorate. 20 million of us are going to put you on your b****** arses for treating us like something you walked in. And then we're going to start undoing the damage you've wreaked on this country and it's hard working, honest, decent citizens who didn't deserve any of this.........

& so it came to pass.

**** me I think I just fell in love with a bloke for his eloquently worded political views! Can we shack up and claim some benefits? I'm bored of this job <3

[itsnotoutthere]

**** me I think I just fell in love with a bloke for his eloquently worded political views! Can we shack up and claim some benefits? I'm bored of this job <3

[Indiogene]

I always thought diversity was to promote liberty and tolerance of people different from the majority. But there were social psychological studies on diverse societies have more social problems, difficulty in establishing common rules/etiquette due to no centralized cultural norms, lack of trust in others (so many people are very culturally distinct) and cynical views of institutions.

What happened in the USA like in Europe is failure of cultural assimilation, although it is historic fact immigrants and the second-generation adapted to their new homeland to become "American/Canadian/British", etc. first. But the trend reversed in favor of government-engineered diversity by simply prohibiting criticism of immigration policy, which is the real problem today.

In order for a country to absorb immigrants from another: Like Christian-secularist western Europe developed Muslim-Middle Eastern populations...and "Anglo" North America acquired a large Hispanic/Spanish-speaking minority; immigrants learn to abide by our laws, rules and customs, though we don't allow xenophobia determine whom can live in a country. Diversity now encourages the majority not offend certain religions and to learn another language.

I agree governments and moral philosophers in the western world have protected minority cultural rights to resulted in micro-nations among a host nation. But what they have done is reminded native-born or autochtonomous people to avoid suggestion of the newcomers learn to adapt a little, except this is advice not bigotry to humiliate. Conformity is inescapable, wherever you are, try not to stand out and don't reject commonplace rules every world culture has.

[Sthenno]

I don't think you can really compare the trade union movement to the 'politics of diversity'. One is an actual period in history, while the other seems to be just an opinion on public attitudes. I also don't think it's fair to say that the 'non-working-class left' believe that the further from white you are the more 'right' you are. People don't support minorities because they want to suppress the majority, they do it because they want everyone to have an equal standing regardless of colour or race.

People often claim that minorities get more from the state then average white British families, but I've yet to see this proved. What exactly is this 'bigoted politics of diversity'?