Does everyone have a favourite book? A book that they read and re-read year in year out? That is spiritually and emotionally nourishing and rewarding, and that provides fresh insights every time into both oneself and the world around? In news that will come as a surprise to precisely no one who knows me and my endlessly paranoid mindset, my favourite book of all time is 1984 by George Orwell. And yesterday, I finished reading it for something like the 13th or 14th time. I've read it once a year since I was a precocious and arrogant teen. It remained my annual treat as I grew into a pretentious and arrogant student. My development into a pompous and arrogant twentysomething was accompanied with readings once every 12 months. And now, as a presumptuous and arrogant thirtysomething, it's still my bible when it comes to informing my thought processes. But is the book, written as a post-war warning about a totalitarian menace long since discredited and dismantled, and set in a future that is now our past, still in any way relevant? Or is my constant referral and re-referral to it just so much pseudo-highbrow headwank?
For those (hopefully few) of you who don't know, 1984 concerns itself with the life and thoughts of Winston Smith. He is a citizen of Oceana, a totalitarian state ruled by The Party. He lives in London, the chief city of what is now referred to as Airstrip One. A lot of language now in everyday use has its roots in 1984. Big Brother, for example, was created by Orwell (along with the phrase "Big Brother is watching you"). The Thought Police receive their debut mention in terminology in 1984. Somewhat more worryingly, the idea of a controlled reality created by a select few and imposed on the majority was discussed in unflinching detail here. Why disturbing? Well, compare the words of O'Brien in 1984;
"O'Brien silenced him by a movement of his hand. 'We control reality because we control the mind. Reality is inside the skull. You will learn by degrees, Winston. There is nothing that we could not do. Invisibility, levitation -- anything. I could float off this floor like a soap bubble if I wish to. I do not wish to, because the Party does not wish it."
With the comment that a senior aide to that lovable scamp Dubya made to Ron Suskind, a journalist for the New York Times, in 2004;
"We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you're studying that reality - judiciously, as you will - we'll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that's how things will sort out. We're history's actors . . . and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do."
To me, those words read as something alarmingly similar to the triumphant insanity that is shat into Winston Smith's brain by O'Brien This alone would seem to serve as proof of the relevance of 1984; that those in power can say, without a hint of irony or self awareness, things that Orwell wrote pretty much for the shock value of having an authoritarian figure say them. Does that mean then that we are living in a similar state to the bleak hell that Winston is eventually destroyed by?
Another major feature of the society that Winston Smith finds himself in is the lack of accountability, and the habitual falsification of figures to prove that those in power are unerringly correct about everything at all times. Indeed, Winston's job is (despite his growing hatred of The Party, and the almost unconscious desire to rebel) to falsify information that has appeared in the media. Now, I will freely admit that we are perhaps not quite at that stage yet; in 1984, there is no one to offer up any opposition to or disbelief of the figures that are continually changed. In our society, whenever the Government produces figures about immigration to say that hardly anyone is entering the country, it can be guaranteed that some faintly right-wing group will produce utterly different figures proving that our nation is overrun with dirty foreigners who want to have sex with our roadsigns. Whenever a New Labour drone tries to triumphantly claim that the NHS is in great shape, we invariably hear from the Unions that the NHS is being stripped and raped by profit-hungry Public-Private partnerships.
So we can see that our leaders don't quite get away with making up bullshit figures and facts to prove that they're perfect. However…am I really the only person who is disturbed at how often they still try? We have become so used to those in government telling us lies, damned lies, and statistics that we are now conditioned to treat whatever pronouncement made in much the same way as one would treat a crippled Jimmy Carr; something to be laughed at and then ignored. Although the methods used to achieve it differ from those in 1984, I would argue that our government has gone out of their way to ensure that they don't have to answer to those who elect them. The continual use of smoke and mirrors to present their figures in such a way to make them seem correct, and our subsequent lack of interest in what we assume to be their lies has already meant that they can do pretty much what they want because we just don't care, and don't feel we can make a difference. You don't agree? Look at what happens on those rare occasions that an issue arises that does excite public interest. The Iraq war was opposed by hundreds of thousands of people, and there were protests all over the country. And what happened? They were given a collective pat on the head, told they didn't understand, and why didn't they all go home and leave the important work to the grownups?
And what has this lack of accountability done to the government? Well…ask yourself this; when was the last time that you can think of something done by the government that wasn't either a knee-jerk reaction pandering to a frightened and ignorant middle England, or something that was an out-and-out attempt to enrich themselves? I genuinely can only think of one piece of legislation in the last 5 years that was for the benefit of the majority rather than something to curtail freedoms and benefit the ruling class (for the record, it's the increase in Statutory Maternity and Adoption Pay periods; new mothers and those who adopt now get an extra 3 paid months off). Any government elected in this country seems to now have the maintenance of their power as their first priority, and they have no fear of answering to an electorate in their efforts to do so.
However, there is more to the continual relevance of 1984 than mere commentary on what power does to the soul of those who wield it. For instance, the book makes reference to the media (such as it is). It talks of tatty tabloids pumping out sport, lottery numbers, and gossip for the benefit of the Proles. The Proles are the lumpen majority of people who are kept docile and satisfied by a conscious effort to keep them ignorant. I would contend that this view of the Proles is exactly the same view that most in the mainstream media have of their audience. How else can one explain the continued existence of Heat magazine? If ever there was a magazine that encouraged its readership to become obsessed with banalities and nonentities then this is it.
My hatred for scandal rags aside, the implicit suggestion in 1984 is that the media are complicit in keeping the Party in power. Whilst the Party falsify the information that really does matter a damn (news of the war, political figures, statistics on everything from immigration to production), the media ensure that this falsification goes pretty much unnoticed anyway, because it bombards it's readership with fluff (at this point I have to make clear that I swear I'm not as humourless as this probably makes me sound. As my vast expenditure on ladmags will prove, I think there is a place in the media for fluff. It's just that…well, does it have to be the dominating and overriding concern?).
As an example of this, I'd return to opposition to the Iraq war for a moment; I've already mentioned the strength of Anti-War feeling, and how completely it has been ignored by the government. Yet we do have anti-war elements in the mainstream media, and they will all go out of their way to report on anything that would bolster their cause, right? Right?
Then how come in Chicago a gentleman named Malachi Ritscher was, on 3rd November, able to douse himself in petrol and turn himself into a patiently-sitting human fireball in protest against the war? You've not heard of him? Not really surprising; you'll have to scour the media for mention of his name (even in supposedly Anti-War media outlets such as the BBC, the Guardian, the Mirror etc). However, if you want to find out who was evicted from I'm a Celebrity last night, or if you're keen to know some of the details behind Pamela Anderson's divorce from Kid Rock…well, it's not exactly difficult to come by that information, is it?
The final point I'd like to make in this increasingly frantic and mildly outlandish attempt to make everyone as paranoid as I am concerns the fate of Winston Smith himself. I've talked of how parallels can be drawn between the corrupting influence of power as described in 1984, along with the role of the media in keeping the Proles in their rightful place as doughfaced, mouthbreathing brain donors who clap with glee at the sight of a Z-list celebrity being humiliated on live TV. But what about the parallels between the actual human beings in 1984 and the likes of you and I today?
At the end of 1984, Winston has been utterly broken by the tortures inflicted on him. However, although the Party are triumphant, the only thing they have achieved is complete dominance over a washed out old drunk, a man who obliterates himself with gin and who sits unthinkingly and unquestioningly at his unimportant desk in an unimportant job doing unimportant things to keep the despair at bay. It's quite difficult not to recognise a lot of ourselves in that if we're completely honest. There is a reason that we in the UK drink more than pretty much any other nation, and take more drugs than almost every other country. It's because we rarely feel in charge of our own destinies, or that we have any effective control over our own lives. Successive governments since the 60s have certainly succeeded in making themselves less accountable, but it's been at the expense of the gradual debasement of the very people they want to have power over. More than any other comparison between 1984 and today’s world, I find that the one between the fate of Winston and our own fates in a world that has done it's best to remove all hope that we can ever make a difference to be the most pertinent and the most frightening.
Anyway, if I've depressed the hell out of you with this rant then please console yourself with a thought; it'll be at least a year before I read 1984 again, which means 12 more months until I inflict something like this one you.
Wednesday 29 November 2006
Welcome to Lights Out
Hola,
I've been writing rants about whatever my kitten-like attention span has been able to focus on for about 5 years now. For some reason (definitely not sloth...) I've never got round to blogging 'em. This is my first tentative step in remedying that.
I'll be posting up all of the rants I've written over the coming weeks. I'll also add a few notes of commentary; looking back at some of the things I've written, I find myself wondering what the hell I was thinking.
I hope you enjoy what is to come!
Cheers,
Light
I've been writing rants about whatever my kitten-like attention span has been able to focus on for about 5 years now. For some reason (definitely not sloth...) I've never got round to blogging 'em. This is my first tentative step in remedying that.
I'll be posting up all of the rants I've written over the coming weeks. I'll also add a few notes of commentary; looking back at some of the things I've written, I find myself wondering what the hell I was thinking.
I hope you enjoy what is to come!
Cheers,
Light
Monday 23 October 2006
Ideals and Idealism
I admit it; this whole rant was an overlong and rather bizarre love letter to my wife.
It should come as no surprise to any of you that I’ve always thought of myself as an idealist. Throughout my life, I’ve sought a cause to identify myself with. I’ve wanted, as the song says, something good to die for to make it beautiful to live. I’ve also been of the opinion that such idealism is invariably a good thing. As such, I’ve ranted and argued for my beliefs to a truly ridiculous and more than slightly obsessive degree. But I’ve never found one unifying cause that I could 100% identify with. However, I’ve had cause recently to think about just what my motivation is for such romanticism. Is my idealistic viewpoint due to a genuine desire to do what is right and to make a difference? Or is it (like an awful lot of my motivation) down to having an ego the size of a solar system?
One of the things that set me thinking along this path has been the stunningly inept morass of death and failure that constitutes the occupation of Iraq. When this invasion took place, if one were being charitable to the Neo-Conservative advocates of the war, it did so as a result of boundless idealism. In this case, the ideal was to free the people of Iraq from an indisputable goatrimmer of a dictator and to bring democracy and freedom to an area of the world that is littered with totalitarian regimes.
So much for the idealism. What has actually happened is that a vast army blundered it’s way from one disaster to the next. Misery upon misery has heaped upon the Iraqi people, and the optimistic justification behind the invasion now sounds more and more like a fig leaf trying and failing to hide the big fat cock of failure.
In this instance it would seem that idealism, something we are all taught can only lead to good things, has led to disaster. Rather than making realistic decisions about what needed to be done to ensure stability in Iraq, idealism has blinded those in a position to make those decisions. “The people of Iraq will be so happy to get their freedom that they will welcome us with open arms! We won’t need to keep the Iraqi army, or guard facilities rammed full of explosives; there won’t be many Iraqis who want to do anything other than celebrate their newfound freedom!” This view persisted in the face of a fast growing unease (and faster growing body count) about the stability of the country. It’s only in the last week or two that a sense of pragmatism seems to have been injected into considerations on Iraq.
That said, I’m not going to simply dismiss idealism as blinkered conceit on the basis of an unholy balls-up caused by a man who can’t be relied on to chew and swallow without assistance. When one looks throughout history, it is littered with examples of the idealism of a few changing the world for the better; the abolition of slavery for example, or the creation of the National Health Service. The Emancipation Proclamation, and the Civil Rights Movement, or the advancement of Women’s Rights; all of these things were given momentum against the opposition and indifference of the many thanks to the idealism of a few.
It’s just that I cannot shake the notion that, to many of the idealists responsible for these great things, the motivation of “I want to change the world for the better” is inextricably bound up with “I want everyone to know that it was me who made this change”. What’s more, I’m still undecided as to whether that egotism is a bad thing; does the result, the ideal that one is fighting for, matter so much that the fact that it’s being done for reasons of self-aggrandisement become irrelevant?
Another example springs to mind at this point; The 1916 Dublin Uprising. Patrick Pearse, one of the leaders of the rebellion, was determined to free Ireland from British rule. He wanted freedom for his people, and you may well agree that there is nothing wrong with that. Yet his method of achieving this was to begin a rebellion that, by his own admission, had absolutely no hope whatsoever of success. He told outright lies in order to get the Irish Volunteers to assemble for the uprising, and he got well over a 1000 of them killed. This was idealism splattered with blood and dripping with gore, and there are those who say that he did it entirely because he wanted to be seen as the martyr who won Ireland it’s freedom. If that is why he orchestrated the uprising, then my own view is that he was romantic fool who was happy to sacrifice anyone on the altar of his own ego and who would have been equally as happy had Ireland never been freed. Just so long as people remembered him.
I would contend that this example, as with that of Iraq, is a situation where the idealism that provided the driving force was gradually eclipsed by ego. Whereas in the case of, say, Martin Luther King, the ego was the engine behind the idealism and never obscured the whole point of the ideal.
That’s not to discount the possibility of living humbly for a cause rather than dying nobly in it’s furtherance. There are countless people out there working quietly and effectively in the furtherance of causes both good and bad. That said, one shouldn’t discount ego being a driving factor there. One may only want to lord it over ones friends and colleagues or simply feel smug about ones own innate goodness rather than assure themselves of a place in history, but it is ego that drives them to do this (at least partially).
So what am I driving at? Well, in the main I’m trying to say that ego is almost always a big factor behind ones pursuit of an ideal. And in itself that is not a bad thing. The problem only arises when the ego that drove the idealism in the first place becomes more important than the ideal itself. In other words, as can be seen from the examples of Iraq and the Dublin uprising, idealism can lead to one become blinkered to the actual facts of a situation and, far from improving it, can actually make it a lot worse. Thus, idealism can lead to bigotry (when one is idealistic about ones own country or culture and blind to any of it’s failings), or to ignorance (such as when people who are adamant that multiculturalism will work do their best to ignore the issues that stop it from doing so, such as people’s natural unease about that which is different). In that respect, we should beware idealism and ensure that we don’t ruin our lives to become its slave. After all, it can also lead to one becoming a lonely and friendless person who has driven ones friends away because they’ve failed to live up to the ideal that drives that person on.
That last one is most pertinent to me. If I could be allowed to wallow in sentimentality for a moment, I’ve spent my life searching in vain for something good to die for. And to the annoyance of pretty much all of my friends, I tackled all of those things with equal vehemence. I’ve lost count of the number of people who have patiently sat through whatever I was haranguing them about, and I’m astonished at the number of people who have subsequently remained my friend. It never occurred to me that maybe I could find the cause I was searching for to complete my life in the form of a person. Since getting married, I’ve come to realise that I have someone good to die for and it truly is beautiful to live.
You may all begin vomiting now…
It should come as no surprise to any of you that I’ve always thought of myself as an idealist. Throughout my life, I’ve sought a cause to identify myself with. I’ve wanted, as the song says, something good to die for to make it beautiful to live. I’ve also been of the opinion that such idealism is invariably a good thing. As such, I’ve ranted and argued for my beliefs to a truly ridiculous and more than slightly obsessive degree. But I’ve never found one unifying cause that I could 100% identify with. However, I’ve had cause recently to think about just what my motivation is for such romanticism. Is my idealistic viewpoint due to a genuine desire to do what is right and to make a difference? Or is it (like an awful lot of my motivation) down to having an ego the size of a solar system?
One of the things that set me thinking along this path has been the stunningly inept morass of death and failure that constitutes the occupation of Iraq. When this invasion took place, if one were being charitable to the Neo-Conservative advocates of the war, it did so as a result of boundless idealism. In this case, the ideal was to free the people of Iraq from an indisputable goatrimmer of a dictator and to bring democracy and freedom to an area of the world that is littered with totalitarian regimes.
So much for the idealism. What has actually happened is that a vast army blundered it’s way from one disaster to the next. Misery upon misery has heaped upon the Iraqi people, and the optimistic justification behind the invasion now sounds more and more like a fig leaf trying and failing to hide the big fat cock of failure.
In this instance it would seem that idealism, something we are all taught can only lead to good things, has led to disaster. Rather than making realistic decisions about what needed to be done to ensure stability in Iraq, idealism has blinded those in a position to make those decisions. “The people of Iraq will be so happy to get their freedom that they will welcome us with open arms! We won’t need to keep the Iraqi army, or guard facilities rammed full of explosives; there won’t be many Iraqis who want to do anything other than celebrate their newfound freedom!” This view persisted in the face of a fast growing unease (and faster growing body count) about the stability of the country. It’s only in the last week or two that a sense of pragmatism seems to have been injected into considerations on Iraq.
That said, I’m not going to simply dismiss idealism as blinkered conceit on the basis of an unholy balls-up caused by a man who can’t be relied on to chew and swallow without assistance. When one looks throughout history, it is littered with examples of the idealism of a few changing the world for the better; the abolition of slavery for example, or the creation of the National Health Service. The Emancipation Proclamation, and the Civil Rights Movement, or the advancement of Women’s Rights; all of these things were given momentum against the opposition and indifference of the many thanks to the idealism of a few.
It’s just that I cannot shake the notion that, to many of the idealists responsible for these great things, the motivation of “I want to change the world for the better” is inextricably bound up with “I want everyone to know that it was me who made this change”. What’s more, I’m still undecided as to whether that egotism is a bad thing; does the result, the ideal that one is fighting for, matter so much that the fact that it’s being done for reasons of self-aggrandisement become irrelevant?
Another example springs to mind at this point; The 1916 Dublin Uprising. Patrick Pearse, one of the leaders of the rebellion, was determined to free Ireland from British rule. He wanted freedom for his people, and you may well agree that there is nothing wrong with that. Yet his method of achieving this was to begin a rebellion that, by his own admission, had absolutely no hope whatsoever of success. He told outright lies in order to get the Irish Volunteers to assemble for the uprising, and he got well over a 1000 of them killed. This was idealism splattered with blood and dripping with gore, and there are those who say that he did it entirely because he wanted to be seen as the martyr who won Ireland it’s freedom. If that is why he orchestrated the uprising, then my own view is that he was romantic fool who was happy to sacrifice anyone on the altar of his own ego and who would have been equally as happy had Ireland never been freed. Just so long as people remembered him.
I would contend that this example, as with that of Iraq, is a situation where the idealism that provided the driving force was gradually eclipsed by ego. Whereas in the case of, say, Martin Luther King, the ego was the engine behind the idealism and never obscured the whole point of the ideal.
That’s not to discount the possibility of living humbly for a cause rather than dying nobly in it’s furtherance. There are countless people out there working quietly and effectively in the furtherance of causes both good and bad. That said, one shouldn’t discount ego being a driving factor there. One may only want to lord it over ones friends and colleagues or simply feel smug about ones own innate goodness rather than assure themselves of a place in history, but it is ego that drives them to do this (at least partially).
So what am I driving at? Well, in the main I’m trying to say that ego is almost always a big factor behind ones pursuit of an ideal. And in itself that is not a bad thing. The problem only arises when the ego that drove the idealism in the first place becomes more important than the ideal itself. In other words, as can be seen from the examples of Iraq and the Dublin uprising, idealism can lead to one become blinkered to the actual facts of a situation and, far from improving it, can actually make it a lot worse. Thus, idealism can lead to bigotry (when one is idealistic about ones own country or culture and blind to any of it’s failings), or to ignorance (such as when people who are adamant that multiculturalism will work do their best to ignore the issues that stop it from doing so, such as people’s natural unease about that which is different). In that respect, we should beware idealism and ensure that we don’t ruin our lives to become its slave. After all, it can also lead to one becoming a lonely and friendless person who has driven ones friends away because they’ve failed to live up to the ideal that drives that person on.
That last one is most pertinent to me. If I could be allowed to wallow in sentimentality for a moment, I’ve spent my life searching in vain for something good to die for. And to the annoyance of pretty much all of my friends, I tackled all of those things with equal vehemence. I’ve lost count of the number of people who have patiently sat through whatever I was haranguing them about, and I’m astonished at the number of people who have subsequently remained my friend. It never occurred to me that maybe I could find the cause I was searching for to complete my life in the form of a person. Since getting married, I’ve come to realise that I have someone good to die for and it truly is beautiful to live.
You may all begin vomiting now…
Tuesday 1 August 2006
Hezbollah Town vs Israel United
After comparatively quiet and peaceful times in the Middle East (presumably they were all pre-occupied with watching the World Cup), the good folk of Israel and Hezbollah have gone back to competing in their favourite sport; savagely murdering one another. And, as with every other bout of brutality in the Middle East, the rest of the world have watched with a mixture of media sanctioned outrage and of rooting for their chosen side in the conflict. I'll just repeat that last part; the killings of innocent Israeli and Lebanese people is being treated as a scoreboard where pro-Israel and pro-Hezbollah commentators can tally up who is winning.
Am I getting overly sensitive here, or has everyone else become so jaded about the killing of innocents that we can best deal with it by picking a side in a conflict and supporting them in the same way I support Newcastle United? Every single comment or opinion I've read about the current tit-for-tat atrocities being committed seems to have a "My Team; right or wrong" aura to it. For example, whilst discussing the matter briefly with a left wing friend of mine, I made the point that although he was condemning the bombing of Lebanese civilian targets by Israeli planes, he made absolutely no comment or criticism of the launching of rockets at Israeli civilian targets by Hezbollah. This was because, apparently, there is "no moral equivalence between the two."
Words actually failed me when I tried to articulate just what a vast pile of rapestained cocksludge that statement is. My friend, a man whose opinions I have a lot of time and respect for, was actually telling me that the murder of an Israeli citizen was completely excusable whereas the murder of a Lebanese citizen was a crime against humanity as a whole. What's more, a lot of people with similar opinions to him couldn't see that their mantra was no different or any more excusable than that of the pro-Israeli commentators (the ones who seem to make up the majority of the media, certainly in the US and UK). You know; the ones who make the rather laughable claim that any and all Lebanese deaths are the fault of Hezbollah because they're the ones who started it (am I the only one who reads these tissue thin justifications for murder as a variation on "Ooooh, miss…MISS…he started it miss, it wasn't me!"?)
Perhaps this is all a part of our desire for things to be simple and easy to classify; there is a conflict between two sides, so there must be a bad team and a good team. If that is the case, then what confuses and concerns me is that everyone is so fixated on the result and cares not a damn about how the game is being played. But what I do find rather bizarre are the tangled and sophistic lengths people will go to in order to convince everyone that THEIR team are in the right and EVERYTHING they do is justified.
For example, the supporters of Israel will point to the kidnap of 2 of their soldiers as the spark that ignited this particular shitstorm. Anything before then, they will tell you, is irrelevant. Whereas the pro-Hezbollah team prefer to concentrate on events such as the shelling of a Palestinian family on a Gaza beach by Israeli warships (allegedly; Israel deny responsibility), or Israel's continued occupation of parts of Southern Lebanon after their withdrawal from Beirut in 2000. These arguments have one thing in common; they are entirely arbitrary and are picked by the supporter only to show their team as the wronged victims in the conflict.
Fact is that the murders have been going on since Israel's creation. You could go back and blame Israel for taking land that was not theirs and displacing Palestinians whilst doing so. You could blame the various Arab states for attempting to wipe Israel from the map. You could blame Lord Balfour and the British for their cack-handed creation of Israel from the British Palestinian Protectorate. You could even blame blobs of sentient purple goo that have used Israel as an interdimensional toilet where they've mindshat negative emotions onto an unknowing populace (in fact I think I'd prefer it if you did; at least it'd be original). But to do any of these things would be pretty much pointless in any respect other than playing to your teams’ gallery. The current murder spree is much like all the ones that preceded it; an aggregate of decades of misinformation, mistrust, violence, and struggle for power. You can sum up every single heart wrenching set of murders in one phrase; Come on boys! Let's commit an atrocity in revenge for the atrocity that was recently committed against us".
It doesn't take a genius to realise that, as long as that phrase is the justification for every act of war committed by either side, then the bloodshed will continue. The only solutions would seem to be either lasting peace (which is impossible whilst both teams' cheerleaders insist that two wrongs equal a right, just so long as one of the wrongs is committed by/against Israel) or mass genocide (which won't happen for the rather unsentimental reason that there are simply too many people on either team for them to all be killed efficiently). Unfortunately, being as both sides' appetite and energy for murder seems undiminished, then innocent people will continue to endure atrocity after atrocity.
Which leads me onto my final point; just why is there such an appetite for this constant cycle of revenge in the Middle East? Vendettas take up a lot of time and energy to pursue; I used to think I was an Olympic Standard Grudge Bearer until I turned 30. Now I find it's just too much effort to maintain bloodcurdling hatred for any length of time. For instance, I was at a friends wedding recently and I found myself in the same room as a man I'd once sworn to emasculate with a rusty carving knife before kicking a petrol-soaked pineapple up his ringpiece and lighting it up. All of this wholly balanced ill feeling was due to something that happened 3 or 4 years ago now. And when I came face to face with him…well, he was civil to me and I to him. Why? Because to maintain a grudge with the distance of years between the reason for it was just too much effort. Neither he nor I could be bothered, and it was much less hassle to smile politely and try to forget we hated each other. By the end of the evening I think we were both pretty much neutral about one another (perhaps even quite pleased to no longer be wishing one another dead). We're now both free to expend our energy on more important things (such as brand new feuds with a wholly different set of greasy little mongfuckers).
I realise that a feud between two individuals cannot realistically be compared to a feud between two nations (or two different power blocs to pre-empt the ever-pedantic supporters of each team), but surely it's easy to see that if they're not spending their time trying to wipe one another from the map, they can perhaps concentrate on improving things for their own people? Well, I think that the reason why this isn't happening is because of something I briefly mentioned earlier; the struggle for power.
This struggle isn't for power over each respective team. It's about power over their own people. What credence would be given to the murderous old men who make up the leadership of either side if both sides were at peace? Why would anyone allow them to hold onto their positions of privilege if they stopped worrying about their demonic enemies and started to take a long, hard look at what their leaders have actually achieved other than lowering the average life expectancy of their people? And in the young generations of Israelis and Palestinians, you have a endlessly energetic and (most importantly) easily led resource to prosecute your needless and pointless wars for you. The easiest way for the leadership of each side to remain in authority is by ensuring that they ensure their people fear and hate their enemy. If they didn't…well, they may have to come up with some plans to actually improve the lives of those whom they lead. And whilst it's difficult to effectively plan and implement an coherent set of policies that will enhance the quality of life of ones people, it's a piece of piss to order a plane to bomb a village or a rocket to be launched at a city. As long as that is the case then not only will we not see peace in the Middle East, but we'll not see it anywhere.
Am I getting overly sensitive here, or has everyone else become so jaded about the killing of innocents that we can best deal with it by picking a side in a conflict and supporting them in the same way I support Newcastle United? Every single comment or opinion I've read about the current tit-for-tat atrocities being committed seems to have a "My Team; right or wrong" aura to it. For example, whilst discussing the matter briefly with a left wing friend of mine, I made the point that although he was condemning the bombing of Lebanese civilian targets by Israeli planes, he made absolutely no comment or criticism of the launching of rockets at Israeli civilian targets by Hezbollah. This was because, apparently, there is "no moral equivalence between the two."
Words actually failed me when I tried to articulate just what a vast pile of rapestained cocksludge that statement is. My friend, a man whose opinions I have a lot of time and respect for, was actually telling me that the murder of an Israeli citizen was completely excusable whereas the murder of a Lebanese citizen was a crime against humanity as a whole. What's more, a lot of people with similar opinions to him couldn't see that their mantra was no different or any more excusable than that of the pro-Israeli commentators (the ones who seem to make up the majority of the media, certainly in the US and UK). You know; the ones who make the rather laughable claim that any and all Lebanese deaths are the fault of Hezbollah because they're the ones who started it (am I the only one who reads these tissue thin justifications for murder as a variation on "Ooooh, miss…MISS…he started it miss, it wasn't me!"?)
Perhaps this is all a part of our desire for things to be simple and easy to classify; there is a conflict between two sides, so there must be a bad team and a good team. If that is the case, then what confuses and concerns me is that everyone is so fixated on the result and cares not a damn about how the game is being played. But what I do find rather bizarre are the tangled and sophistic lengths people will go to in order to convince everyone that THEIR team are in the right and EVERYTHING they do is justified.
For example, the supporters of Israel will point to the kidnap of 2 of their soldiers as the spark that ignited this particular shitstorm. Anything before then, they will tell you, is irrelevant. Whereas the pro-Hezbollah team prefer to concentrate on events such as the shelling of a Palestinian family on a Gaza beach by Israeli warships (allegedly; Israel deny responsibility), or Israel's continued occupation of parts of Southern Lebanon after their withdrawal from Beirut in 2000. These arguments have one thing in common; they are entirely arbitrary and are picked by the supporter only to show their team as the wronged victims in the conflict.
Fact is that the murders have been going on since Israel's creation. You could go back and blame Israel for taking land that was not theirs and displacing Palestinians whilst doing so. You could blame the various Arab states for attempting to wipe Israel from the map. You could blame Lord Balfour and the British for their cack-handed creation of Israel from the British Palestinian Protectorate. You could even blame blobs of sentient purple goo that have used Israel as an interdimensional toilet where they've mindshat negative emotions onto an unknowing populace (in fact I think I'd prefer it if you did; at least it'd be original). But to do any of these things would be pretty much pointless in any respect other than playing to your teams’ gallery. The current murder spree is much like all the ones that preceded it; an aggregate of decades of misinformation, mistrust, violence, and struggle for power. You can sum up every single heart wrenching set of murders in one phrase; Come on boys! Let's commit an atrocity in revenge for the atrocity that was recently committed against us".
It doesn't take a genius to realise that, as long as that phrase is the justification for every act of war committed by either side, then the bloodshed will continue. The only solutions would seem to be either lasting peace (which is impossible whilst both teams' cheerleaders insist that two wrongs equal a right, just so long as one of the wrongs is committed by/against Israel) or mass genocide (which won't happen for the rather unsentimental reason that there are simply too many people on either team for them to all be killed efficiently). Unfortunately, being as both sides' appetite and energy for murder seems undiminished, then innocent people will continue to endure atrocity after atrocity.
Which leads me onto my final point; just why is there such an appetite for this constant cycle of revenge in the Middle East? Vendettas take up a lot of time and energy to pursue; I used to think I was an Olympic Standard Grudge Bearer until I turned 30. Now I find it's just too much effort to maintain bloodcurdling hatred for any length of time. For instance, I was at a friends wedding recently and I found myself in the same room as a man I'd once sworn to emasculate with a rusty carving knife before kicking a petrol-soaked pineapple up his ringpiece and lighting it up. All of this wholly balanced ill feeling was due to something that happened 3 or 4 years ago now. And when I came face to face with him…well, he was civil to me and I to him. Why? Because to maintain a grudge with the distance of years between the reason for it was just too much effort. Neither he nor I could be bothered, and it was much less hassle to smile politely and try to forget we hated each other. By the end of the evening I think we were both pretty much neutral about one another (perhaps even quite pleased to no longer be wishing one another dead). We're now both free to expend our energy on more important things (such as brand new feuds with a wholly different set of greasy little mongfuckers).
I realise that a feud between two individuals cannot realistically be compared to a feud between two nations (or two different power blocs to pre-empt the ever-pedantic supporters of each team), but surely it's easy to see that if they're not spending their time trying to wipe one another from the map, they can perhaps concentrate on improving things for their own people? Well, I think that the reason why this isn't happening is because of something I briefly mentioned earlier; the struggle for power.
This struggle isn't for power over each respective team. It's about power over their own people. What credence would be given to the murderous old men who make up the leadership of either side if both sides were at peace? Why would anyone allow them to hold onto their positions of privilege if they stopped worrying about their demonic enemies and started to take a long, hard look at what their leaders have actually achieved other than lowering the average life expectancy of their people? And in the young generations of Israelis and Palestinians, you have a endlessly energetic and (most importantly) easily led resource to prosecute your needless and pointless wars for you. The easiest way for the leadership of each side to remain in authority is by ensuring that they ensure their people fear and hate their enemy. If they didn't…well, they may have to come up with some plans to actually improve the lives of those whom they lead. And whilst it's difficult to effectively plan and implement an coherent set of policies that will enhance the quality of life of ones people, it's a piece of piss to order a plane to bomb a village or a rocket to be launched at a city. As long as that is the case then not only will we not see peace in the Middle East, but we'll not see it anywhere.
Thursday 13 April 2006
Keep an Open Mind
One of the things I’ve always prided myself on (apart from my dashing good looks, razor sharp wit, and gargantuan genitalia) is that I have an open mind. As I sat and snorted in contempt at the shower of curtain-twitching cockwasps who quake in fear as they read the latest “Be AFRAID!” headline in the Daily Mail, I felt the warm fuzzy feeling of the self-righteous; I wasn’t infected with prejudices that only exist to sell papers and elect governments. I made up my own mind, and did so with as little bias as possible.
Unfortunately, like most of things I’ve prided myself on over time, this has turned out to be gold-plated horseshit. Turns out that my mind is just as cluttered with prejudice, petty dislike, and entrenched hatreds as any blue rinsed battleaxe.
How did I reach this conclusion? Well, it was all thanks to the Austrian government. A couple of months ago, David Irving was sentenced to 3 years in prison for Holocaust denial, a crime in Austria (for obvious reasons really; having gifted both Adolf Hitler AND “Rock me Amadeus” to the universe, perhaps Austria feels they owe the world an apology). And my instant and unguarded reaction? I laughed. Just a little chuckle at first, but soon deepening into the kind of rich belly laugh that I reserve for headlines such as “Gary Glitter faces death sentence” or “Dubya repeatedly smashed in the face with a shovel”.
My next move was typical of news-obsessed nerds such as myself; I logged onto the Internet, went to a discussion board, and looked for other smug, counter-culture wannabes such as myself to share in my gloating. The reaction I actually got puzzled me.
Most people felt that the sentence was an utter disgrace. The idea of jailing a “prominent historian” simply for speaking his mind was akin to something from the very dictatorship Irving acts as apologist for. Not only that, but the law that jailed him was itself disgraceful and unnecessary. And even if he does believe that the holocaust never happened, so what? It’s his opinion, and where is the problem in that.
Now normally, when I get into an argument with someone over the Internet, I remember that wise adage “Arguing over the internet is like competing in the Special Olympics; even if you win, you’re still retarded”. In other words, I don’t take it too seriously. On this occasion though, I found myself having to go for a walk to calm down. I was furious with these people. The arguments they used about free speech were the very same arguments I’d seen applied to everyone from academics in the US (many of whom face the prospect of losing their job if they dare even imply any criticism of US foreign policy), to that odious orange arsehole Kilroy.
Anyway, once I’d calmed down, I started to ask myself a few questions. Principle among these was “Why have you just lost your temper at some words on a computer screen?” And after some discussion with the people whom I disagreed with, the answer seemed to be “Because you know more about Irving’s history than these people”. My perception of him is that he’s an unpleasant nazi who has spent his life constructing a transparent tissue of lies (that the holocaust never happened, and that Nazi Germany was a fluffy and lovely place where kittens and puppies lived an idyllic lifestyle) and passing it off as “History”. He also tried to sue an author who called him an anti-Semitic holocaust denier. He lost (I laughed then too).
Anyway, this didn’t seem to be common knowledge among those I was arguing with. And after I’d explained this…well, I’d love to say everyone bowed before my superior knowledge and offered me their firstborn children by way of an apology for having dared to disagree with me. This didn’t happen. In fact, one chap castigated me for “not having an open mind”. He then bragged about how he didn’t view the extreme right with hatred and fear, merely seeing them as people with their own opinions. Moreover, he boasted about how he, unlike me, had “a truly open mind”.
It was then that it hit me just how much of an annoying twerp I must’ve been whenever I made the same boast that this 6th form wonder had made. He obviously viewed “having an open mind” as meaning “accepting everything without judgement”. And there is no way, no way whatsoever, that I could claim that about myself. I had the opinions I expressed about Irving because of the prior knowledge I claimed. Therefore, there was no way I was going to view his imprisonment with an open mind; I was prejudiced in my opinion.
It seems to me that to have a mind as open as this gentleman claimed requires an almost Zen level of disinterest in the world around you. I’ve never failed to be moved by injustice, human suffering, and pictures of small animals. But on closer analysis, these things evoke a response in me because I despise the injustice that seems to permeate every level of human society. I abhor the fact that people suffer pain and depredation around the world. And I think small beasts are simply adorable (shut up). And I have all of these responses due to having made judgements on them.
It’s simply not possible to keep an open mind in all circumstances. And if you do, then you’re denying yourself that most human of things; an opinion. If one gathers information but has no opinion on it…well, what’s point of that? Isn’t that just dullardry of the first order? Imagine a conversation with him?
“Did you see this on the news?”
‘Yeah, saw it last night.’
“Shocking innit? I dunno how they can…”
‘Actually, I have no opinion on it.’
“Oh…well, what about the footba…”
‘No opinion on it.’
“Erm…how about the…”
‘NO OPINION!”
As a side note, I would say the chap was kidding himself; the fact that he castigated me for my opinions shows that his mind wasn’t as open as he would like everyone to believe, but I digress.
So what is the difference, then, between my opinions concerning nazi fuckwhales, and the opinions of a rabid bigot who want every tanned person in the UK to be dumped in the North Sea? Well…obviously I’m going to say that the difference is that I’m right, and the Daily Mail reading public is wrong. But then, I’m sure they’d say the same. Although my opinions differ from those of the blue-rinsed right, I can no longer use the excuse of open-mindedness to differentiate myself from them. On balance, I think that’s a good thing; for the reasons I’ve explained, although open-mindedness is an admirable quality I no longer feel that complete open-mindedness is either possible or desirable. Which means whenever I get into debates in the future, I’m actually going to need to work on cogent arguments to rebut right-wing arguments, instead of relying on my own righteousness.
And lets face it; anything that makes me less smug has to be a good thing.
Unfortunately, like most of things I’ve prided myself on over time, this has turned out to be gold-plated horseshit. Turns out that my mind is just as cluttered with prejudice, petty dislike, and entrenched hatreds as any blue rinsed battleaxe.
How did I reach this conclusion? Well, it was all thanks to the Austrian government. A couple of months ago, David Irving was sentenced to 3 years in prison for Holocaust denial, a crime in Austria (for obvious reasons really; having gifted both Adolf Hitler AND “Rock me Amadeus” to the universe, perhaps Austria feels they owe the world an apology). And my instant and unguarded reaction? I laughed. Just a little chuckle at first, but soon deepening into the kind of rich belly laugh that I reserve for headlines such as “Gary Glitter faces death sentence” or “Dubya repeatedly smashed in the face with a shovel”.
My next move was typical of news-obsessed nerds such as myself; I logged onto the Internet, went to a discussion board, and looked for other smug, counter-culture wannabes such as myself to share in my gloating. The reaction I actually got puzzled me.
Most people felt that the sentence was an utter disgrace. The idea of jailing a “prominent historian” simply for speaking his mind was akin to something from the very dictatorship Irving acts as apologist for. Not only that, but the law that jailed him was itself disgraceful and unnecessary. And even if he does believe that the holocaust never happened, so what? It’s his opinion, and where is the problem in that.
Now normally, when I get into an argument with someone over the Internet, I remember that wise adage “Arguing over the internet is like competing in the Special Olympics; even if you win, you’re still retarded”. In other words, I don’t take it too seriously. On this occasion though, I found myself having to go for a walk to calm down. I was furious with these people. The arguments they used about free speech were the very same arguments I’d seen applied to everyone from academics in the US (many of whom face the prospect of losing their job if they dare even imply any criticism of US foreign policy), to that odious orange arsehole Kilroy.
Anyway, once I’d calmed down, I started to ask myself a few questions. Principle among these was “Why have you just lost your temper at some words on a computer screen?” And after some discussion with the people whom I disagreed with, the answer seemed to be “Because you know more about Irving’s history than these people”. My perception of him is that he’s an unpleasant nazi who has spent his life constructing a transparent tissue of lies (that the holocaust never happened, and that Nazi Germany was a fluffy and lovely place where kittens and puppies lived an idyllic lifestyle) and passing it off as “History”. He also tried to sue an author who called him an anti-Semitic holocaust denier. He lost (I laughed then too).
Anyway, this didn’t seem to be common knowledge among those I was arguing with. And after I’d explained this…well, I’d love to say everyone bowed before my superior knowledge and offered me their firstborn children by way of an apology for having dared to disagree with me. This didn’t happen. In fact, one chap castigated me for “not having an open mind”. He then bragged about how he didn’t view the extreme right with hatred and fear, merely seeing them as people with their own opinions. Moreover, he boasted about how he, unlike me, had “a truly open mind”.
It was then that it hit me just how much of an annoying twerp I must’ve been whenever I made the same boast that this 6th form wonder had made. He obviously viewed “having an open mind” as meaning “accepting everything without judgement”. And there is no way, no way whatsoever, that I could claim that about myself. I had the opinions I expressed about Irving because of the prior knowledge I claimed. Therefore, there was no way I was going to view his imprisonment with an open mind; I was prejudiced in my opinion.
It seems to me that to have a mind as open as this gentleman claimed requires an almost Zen level of disinterest in the world around you. I’ve never failed to be moved by injustice, human suffering, and pictures of small animals. But on closer analysis, these things evoke a response in me because I despise the injustice that seems to permeate every level of human society. I abhor the fact that people suffer pain and depredation around the world. And I think small beasts are simply adorable (shut up). And I have all of these responses due to having made judgements on them.
It’s simply not possible to keep an open mind in all circumstances. And if you do, then you’re denying yourself that most human of things; an opinion. If one gathers information but has no opinion on it…well, what’s point of that? Isn’t that just dullardry of the first order? Imagine a conversation with him?
“Did you see this on the news?”
‘Yeah, saw it last night.’
“Shocking innit? I dunno how they can…”
‘Actually, I have no opinion on it.’
“Oh…well, what about the footba…”
‘No opinion on it.’
“Erm…how about the…”
‘NO OPINION!”
As a side note, I would say the chap was kidding himself; the fact that he castigated me for my opinions shows that his mind wasn’t as open as he would like everyone to believe, but I digress.
So what is the difference, then, between my opinions concerning nazi fuckwhales, and the opinions of a rabid bigot who want every tanned person in the UK to be dumped in the North Sea? Well…obviously I’m going to say that the difference is that I’m right, and the Daily Mail reading public is wrong. But then, I’m sure they’d say the same. Although my opinions differ from those of the blue-rinsed right, I can no longer use the excuse of open-mindedness to differentiate myself from them. On balance, I think that’s a good thing; for the reasons I’ve explained, although open-mindedness is an admirable quality I no longer feel that complete open-mindedness is either possible or desirable. Which means whenever I get into debates in the future, I’m actually going to need to work on cogent arguments to rebut right-wing arguments, instead of relying on my own righteousness.
And lets face it; anything that makes me less smug has to be a good thing.
Monday 23 January 2006
Immigration
Ever since the last election, I've found myself puzzling over why there is such a big screaming deal about Immigration. For the life of me, I couldn't understand why it was becoming a rallying cry for both the left and right; from the perma-tanned sociopaths who wanted anyone vaguely foreign kicked to death, to the well meaning wet lettuces who would have you believe that everyone from outside the UK is physically and morally incapable of committing any crime whatsoever. All of them seemed to be fervent in their belief that immigration was either the worst or the best thing that could ever happen to this country.
And I really don't understand why this should be. Personally, I have an attitude of "Who cares who lives on which particular bit of dirt on this planet?" Living in Newcastle means that I don't have the aversion to bizarre accents that some people cite as their reason for feeling uncomfortable around foreign types. That, along with having had the proverbial ripped from me mercilessly by a party full of Kenyans for my obvious discomfort at being surrounded by black people (hey, until I was 18, I'd never seen more than 2 black people in the same room before...) before pretty much dismantling all of the parochialism that caused my discomfort, means that I'm comfortable around people of any hue and sound. No matter whereabouts in the world someone originates from, they're just as capable of being personable. Or arrogant. Or charming. Or violent tempered. Or stupid. Or witty. In other words, I believe people are people, no matter what they sound or look like.
But apparently, I'm in the minority on this. During the election, I found myself embroiled in a ferocious argument with a chap who was absolutely adamant that all of the problems that this country faces are due to immigrants. NHS underfunding? Immigrants; their presence puts a strain on our Health Service that it wouldn't face otherwise.
Housing crisis? Immigrants; because they're here, it leads to an increased need for housing, which in turns sends prices up, which in turn makes it more difficult to buy a first home. Benefit fraud? Immigrants; they're all here to scam the Social Security fund, which means that the Government are cracking down on genuine claimants. Unemployment? Immigrants; despite the fact that they're all here to rip off benefits, the cunning little swine also simultaneously manage to steal all of our jobs.
Naturally, this is for the most part, uninformed and ignorant toss that Kilroy dreamt up during a particularly nasty psychotic episode (incidentally, I have a plan for capturing Osama bin Laden; ask the Islamic world to give him up to the West, and we'll give them Robert Kilroy-Silk to do with as they please in return). If one wants to find reasons for the NHS farting and dying, one could point the finger at the amount of money it is forced to spend patching up both the victims and perpetrators of alcohol fuelled mischief on a Friday and Saturday (approx 164 million back in 92; anyone care to bet that it hasn't gone up since then?). The housing crisis? There are between 150 and 300 thousand second homes in the UK. That's before we even consider the size of some of the estates owned by the great and good. The majority of us live on less than 10% of the UK's land. I'd be looking at these reasons before I started to blame people for being brown and sounding funny (plus, lets be honest; anyone already in the housing market is almost certainly sexually aroused at the rise and rise of their house price).
The benefit fraud complaint...well, no doubt some immigrants do indeed scam the service. As I said earlier; people are people, with all their failings. However, the only people I've ever met who actively boasted of ripping off the benefits system were very much white Anglo-Saxons (including my own dear and bloated former sister in law, who probably counts as 2 white Anglo Saxons). When I spoke to someone working for the Benefit fraud office, she said that the cases that grab people’s attention are the ones involving immigrants. People who were born and raised here commit the majority of the actual fraud they deal with. As to the idea that the Unemployment figures are due to immigrants, that strikes me as one of the more unpleasant side effects of globalisation. Don't blame the lady from Slovakia who has taken your job. Blame the businesses that are doing their best to keep profits high by using the cheapest labour available.
Of course, all of that only goes so far to assuage the fears of many in this country (whipped up by equal parts "tabloid frenzy" and "insular arrogance") that it is turning into an overcrowded, underfunded hellhole. Even when you mention the studies that show that immigrants give the UK a net profit of something like £2 billion in terms of taxes and general income, people tend to the view "Well, you can prove anything with statistics...".
Part of this fear seems to come from the general inability (or unwillingness) to differentiate between immigration, and illegal immigrants. However, even then I have a hard time believing that illegal immigrants are responsible for so many woes; if any of them escape from being enslaved by pimps, drowned in cockle beds, or worked half to death in sweatshops...well, good luck to 'em. As near as I can tell, illegal immigrants tend to be the ones who suffer the most in the whole sorry debacle. The only paid that the average Daily Mail reader would experience is an increased difficult in getting an English speaking prostitute to degrade on a Saturday night.
I also used to think that the British fear of immigrants was down to simple, old-fashioned racism. After all, the main objection to our immigrant population used to be based on colour; Enoch Powell and his Rivers of Blood speech exemplify this. It's an attitude I've always found someone idiotic; until recently, the majority of immigration into this country was from nations that used to form the Empire. Call me overly liberal if you like, but I don't see that we have the right to complain when, having invaded and subjugated half the world and told them all that Britannia is the greatest, some of them decide to follow us home.
I'm less sure of that now (or at least, less sure that's it's to do with the colour of people's skin). Mainly because I hear equal amount of grumbling that the biggest problem arising from immigration is the gangs of men originating from Eastern Europe who hang around various cities trying to either get work or beg for money. The main source of that complaint is women, who say that they feel uncomfortable when faced with a large group of men whom they don't understand. As you may have noticed, I'm not a woman, so I don't feel I can either dismiss or confirm that argument, but I present it to you for your consideration.
So where am I going with this? Basically, I'm saying that a large number of people in this country have a skewed view of both immigrants and immigration. And that is a problem, because both sides of the immigration debate are fairly polarised and almost totally unwilling to even consider the point of view of the opposition (weighing in on the Pro-immigration side myself, I'd love to simply dismiss all anti-immigration people as ignorant doughfaced bigots, but alas for me, that's just not the case). However, in my view there are 2 things that prevent any sort of reasoned debate from taking place. One is the media, particularly the tabloids. Whilst the Mail and the Sun insists on giving disproportionate acres of print to "the problem of immigrants", and whilst the Mirror and the Guardian do the same about how we should all feel guilty for not having the positive attitude and blameless lives of immigrants, there is no chance of a calm and rational debate. In addition, whilst the government fudge figures to show immigration is worse or better than we thought (depending entirely on which group of people they want to influence at the time), we cannot even point to any hard facts as a starting point.
Until we can have such a debate, then we can look forward to bigots continuing their bigotry, apologists continuing to apologise, and ignorance flourishing unchecked. Surely putting an end to that is worth it?
And I really don't understand why this should be. Personally, I have an attitude of "Who cares who lives on which particular bit of dirt on this planet?" Living in Newcastle means that I don't have the aversion to bizarre accents that some people cite as their reason for feeling uncomfortable around foreign types. That, along with having had the proverbial ripped from me mercilessly by a party full of Kenyans for my obvious discomfort at being surrounded by black people (hey, until I was 18, I'd never seen more than 2 black people in the same room before...) before pretty much dismantling all of the parochialism that caused my discomfort, means that I'm comfortable around people of any hue and sound. No matter whereabouts in the world someone originates from, they're just as capable of being personable. Or arrogant. Or charming. Or violent tempered. Or stupid. Or witty. In other words, I believe people are people, no matter what they sound or look like.
But apparently, I'm in the minority on this. During the election, I found myself embroiled in a ferocious argument with a chap who was absolutely adamant that all of the problems that this country faces are due to immigrants. NHS underfunding? Immigrants; their presence puts a strain on our Health Service that it wouldn't face otherwise.
Housing crisis? Immigrants; because they're here, it leads to an increased need for housing, which in turns sends prices up, which in turn makes it more difficult to buy a first home. Benefit fraud? Immigrants; they're all here to scam the Social Security fund, which means that the Government are cracking down on genuine claimants. Unemployment? Immigrants; despite the fact that they're all here to rip off benefits, the cunning little swine also simultaneously manage to steal all of our jobs.
Naturally, this is for the most part, uninformed and ignorant toss that Kilroy dreamt up during a particularly nasty psychotic episode (incidentally, I have a plan for capturing Osama bin Laden; ask the Islamic world to give him up to the West, and we'll give them Robert Kilroy-Silk to do with as they please in return). If one wants to find reasons for the NHS farting and dying, one could point the finger at the amount of money it is forced to spend patching up both the victims and perpetrators of alcohol fuelled mischief on a Friday and Saturday (approx 164 million back in 92; anyone care to bet that it hasn't gone up since then?). The housing crisis? There are between 150 and 300 thousand second homes in the UK. That's before we even consider the size of some of the estates owned by the great and good. The majority of us live on less than 10% of the UK's land. I'd be looking at these reasons before I started to blame people for being brown and sounding funny (plus, lets be honest; anyone already in the housing market is almost certainly sexually aroused at the rise and rise of their house price).
The benefit fraud complaint...well, no doubt some immigrants do indeed scam the service. As I said earlier; people are people, with all their failings. However, the only people I've ever met who actively boasted of ripping off the benefits system were very much white Anglo-Saxons (including my own dear and bloated former sister in law, who probably counts as 2 white Anglo Saxons). When I spoke to someone working for the Benefit fraud office, she said that the cases that grab people’s attention are the ones involving immigrants. People who were born and raised here commit the majority of the actual fraud they deal with. As to the idea that the Unemployment figures are due to immigrants, that strikes me as one of the more unpleasant side effects of globalisation. Don't blame the lady from Slovakia who has taken your job. Blame the businesses that are doing their best to keep profits high by using the cheapest labour available.
Of course, all of that only goes so far to assuage the fears of many in this country (whipped up by equal parts "tabloid frenzy" and "insular arrogance") that it is turning into an overcrowded, underfunded hellhole. Even when you mention the studies that show that immigrants give the UK a net profit of something like £2 billion in terms of taxes and general income, people tend to the view "Well, you can prove anything with statistics...".
Part of this fear seems to come from the general inability (or unwillingness) to differentiate between immigration, and illegal immigrants. However, even then I have a hard time believing that illegal immigrants are responsible for so many woes; if any of them escape from being enslaved by pimps, drowned in cockle beds, or worked half to death in sweatshops...well, good luck to 'em. As near as I can tell, illegal immigrants tend to be the ones who suffer the most in the whole sorry debacle. The only paid that the average Daily Mail reader would experience is an increased difficult in getting an English speaking prostitute to degrade on a Saturday night.
I also used to think that the British fear of immigrants was down to simple, old-fashioned racism. After all, the main objection to our immigrant population used to be based on colour; Enoch Powell and his Rivers of Blood speech exemplify this. It's an attitude I've always found someone idiotic; until recently, the majority of immigration into this country was from nations that used to form the Empire. Call me overly liberal if you like, but I don't see that we have the right to complain when, having invaded and subjugated half the world and told them all that Britannia is the greatest, some of them decide to follow us home.
I'm less sure of that now (or at least, less sure that's it's to do with the colour of people's skin). Mainly because I hear equal amount of grumbling that the biggest problem arising from immigration is the gangs of men originating from Eastern Europe who hang around various cities trying to either get work or beg for money. The main source of that complaint is women, who say that they feel uncomfortable when faced with a large group of men whom they don't understand. As you may have noticed, I'm not a woman, so I don't feel I can either dismiss or confirm that argument, but I present it to you for your consideration.
So where am I going with this? Basically, I'm saying that a large number of people in this country have a skewed view of both immigrants and immigration. And that is a problem, because both sides of the immigration debate are fairly polarised and almost totally unwilling to even consider the point of view of the opposition (weighing in on the Pro-immigration side myself, I'd love to simply dismiss all anti-immigration people as ignorant doughfaced bigots, but alas for me, that's just not the case). However, in my view there are 2 things that prevent any sort of reasoned debate from taking place. One is the media, particularly the tabloids. Whilst the Mail and the Sun insists on giving disproportionate acres of print to "the problem of immigrants", and whilst the Mirror and the Guardian do the same about how we should all feel guilty for not having the positive attitude and blameless lives of immigrants, there is no chance of a calm and rational debate. In addition, whilst the government fudge figures to show immigration is worse or better than we thought (depending entirely on which group of people they want to influence at the time), we cannot even point to any hard facts as a starting point.
Until we can have such a debate, then we can look forward to bigots continuing their bigotry, apologists continuing to apologise, and ignorance flourishing unchecked. Surely putting an end to that is worth it?
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