Viewpoint: You Are A Potential Far-Right Extremist

Here’s another “Viewpoint” from the Left. And it’s a real insight into the beliefs of the Left and the BBC on this particular issue. When I directly associate this viewpoint with the BBC, I do it because this essay didn’t happen randomly or spontaneously: it was predetermined by a BBC editor, as are all these “Viewpoint” pieces. They want something on a given topic, and they go out and find someone to do it. So I believe it’s quite fair to tie the BBC to Goodwin’s mast (or is the other way around?) In any case, here it is:

What are BNP supporters really like?

The opening section is a classic example of using an outlier to make a point about the main group. You’ll never guess who academic Matthew Goodwin chose to use as his example of a BNP member. But first, as this is a classically structured piece from an academic-type, Goodwin has to do the exposition, in which he sets the scene for his protagonist.

Sharon was born and raised in the local village. She knew everyone, and devoted much of her spare time to helping the Residents Association. She was never really that interested in politics. Her husband was a Conservative, but she only went along to the meetings because she liked the sandwiches.

So we the “A” theme: an ordinary citizen, a good neighbor, etc., someone who was never politically active before. Now for the “B” theme.

But then, over the years, things began to change. For Sharon, it seemed as though the way of life she had become accustomed to was under threat.

She talked about feeling a sense of injustice about what had been perpetrated on her fellow citizens – our increasing involvement with Europe, the loss of our manufacturing base, a dwindling sense of respect among young people and the creeping advance of political correctness.

You can all guess what’s coming next, right?

But more than anything, she was concerned about a new phase of immigration into the country. She was profoundly anxious, especially about the impact of this rapid and unsettling change on her friends and loved ones.

Her concern wasn’t simply about the economy. It stemmed from her feeling that British culture, values and the national community were under threat.

This is not meant to be a strawman (woman), because Goodwin’s agenda is not merely to strike it down. He’s got a much bigger point to make. So on to the development section. So far, this is someone whom we could easily dismiss as being the usual xenophobic Little Englander, who hangs the St. George Cross out her window even when there’s no sports tournament going on. But then we get the shocking revelation about our Sharon, meant to focus your concern:

Sharon was Jewish, and the party that she decided to join was the British National Party.

Shock

This is very clever. By using this outlier, whom Goodwin believes should cause some cognitive dissonance in his readers, he can instantly claim that the awful beliefs of the BNP are spreading far beyond the usual white suspects.

Though aware of its history of anti-Semitism and holocaust denial, for her the far right was the only movement that was serious about tackling the threat from Islam.

As if it’s only the far right who are concerned about it. Right there we have the Narrative. Any concern about the specific type of Islamic immigration is “far right”. The development of her tale continues, in which Goodwin tells us of the approbation Sharon faced from her friends, neighbors, and even her boss, as well as abuse from the local anti-fascist kiddies.

Sharon told me she could handle all of that, but what really hurt, she explained, was that she was reviled by the very people that she was fighting to protect.

Now the big picture, Goodwin’s main goal here, is starting to come together.

When I asked Sharon why, despite all of these consequences, she carries on there was little hesitation: “Because doing nothing is not an option. I am fighting for the survival of my people.”

“My people”, as in the British people. I must say it’s very refreshing to see something allowed through the BBC in which a Jew is presented identifying herself as British without hints of dual loyalty. Better still, Goodwin doesn’t present this is as Jew vs. Muslim, either. He uses her as an example of how the “far right” concern about how extreme immigration policies are harming British culture is spreading. That, to Goodwin and the BBC, is a very, very serious problem.

So he starts with the scaremongering.

I spent the next four years travelling up and down the country to interview some of the most committed followers of the far right. Conventional wisdom tells us there is something “wrong” with people like Sharon. Implicit in the stereotypes is that they are driven by crude racism, irrational impulses, and psychological problems.

The inadequacy of these stereotypes became quickly apparent during the interviews. On the whole, most of the activists appeared as relatively normal people.

What a shock, eh? Who could have imagined? Although notice how anyone concerned is still labeled “activist”. Goodwin realizes that it’s ordinary, apolitical, non-activist people feeling this way (hence his use of our Sharon to set the scene), but can’t process it. They’re still all activists to him. In other words, this is not an ordinary concern, held by ordinary people who don’t have a specific agenda of any kind. The next bit is very revealing of his and the BBC’s mindset, though. Check out the attitudes laid out, as if this is what everyone ought to think about the BNP or anyone concerned about extreme immigration:

Rather than isolated, they seemed well connected to their local communities. Rather than irrational, they had a clearly defined and coherent set of goals. Rather than psychologically damaged, they seemed balanced, reasonable and articulate.

How many people outside the far Left and the BBC and Leftoid media believe that anyone concerned about extreme immigration must be psychologically damaged? As I said, very revealing of the mindset. Goodwin spends another paragraph on his realization that not everyone he spoke to was a Nazi. Then he again uses Sharon as a launching point to show how these concerns are spreading. And he continues to use the “extremist” label.

Driving back from that first interview with Sharon, my mind wandered to my own grandparents who had expressed similar though not as extreme views about the scale and pace of immigration. I used to ask them why they never supported parties like the BNP, or the old National Front and they would look at me as though I were mad: “The Blackshirts?’, they would say, “oh no, we’d never vote for that lot.”

Implicit in their reaction is a sentiment firmly entrenched in the collective British mindset – that no matter how bad things get, Britain is immune to the appeals of extremists. It is difficult to quantify, but centres on the notion there is just something fundamentally “unBritish” about supporting extremists.

The thought occurs at this point that at no time does Goodwin discuss any of the other platforms of the BNP, e.g. Socialism, anit-war isolationism, or deporting Jamaicans as well as all Muslims. If one supports even a single one of their notions, one is then labeled an extremist. It’s the intellectual fascism of the Left which causes this kind of thinking. One must not hold a single unapproved thought, and any thought which isn’t approved by the bien pensants is “extreme”. There is no reasoned argument, no middle ground permitted.

And so the point of this Viewpoint is that this “extremism” is spreading much farther than we might think.

But is Britain really immune to a successful far right party? I think it would be mistaken to assume that this tradition has deprived extremists of fertile soil.

When we look at the evidence there is a large reservoir of potential support for a far right party. Large numbers of us have become concerned about the issue of immigration – at one point, it was more important to us than education, crime and the NHS.

In fact, one out of every five of us thought it was the most important issue facing the country. And the concern was not simply about competition over jobs or council housing. Surveys told us that two-thirds of the population thought Britain was “losing its culture” because of immigration.

Note the clever academic use of the first-person plural. In this way, Goodwin cements the notion that more and more ordinary people – possibly some of your neighbors, friends, or even relations – might be susceptible to this extremist thought. Fortunately, he’s much sharper and more honest than your average BBC journo regarding the actual concern about extreme immigration:

Also, those who are concerned about immigration are not concerned simply about traditional immigration. Significant numbers of us are also anxious over the presence and perceived compatibility of settled Muslim communities.

“Settled”. I like that. Presumably that includes “no-go areas”. Are those merely “perceived”? The mindset is revealed again.

At the time that two BNP members were elected to the European Parliament in 2009, over two-fifths of the population expressed agreement with the suggestion that even in its milder forms Islam poses a danger to Western civilisation.

Now we get the conflation of concern over extreme immigration and the refusal of some to join society with religious bigotry. It’s a slippery slope from here, really. Goodwin begins to attack the credibility of those who express concern about extreme immigration.

Muslims now find themselves at the core of a new and potent far right narrative, which vilifies Muslim communities while claiming to defend traditions of tolerance, gender equality and the rights of homosexuals. It downplays socially unacceptable arguments about race in favour of more acceptable arguments about the compatibility of values and cultures.

In other words, any of you here who complain that the BBC tends to play down or ignore how the more conservative, fundamentalist Muslims treat women and homosexuals are really just bigots using a smokescreen. You don’t really care about women getting acid thrown on their faces or young girls sent off to Pakistan to be forced into copulation with a middle-aged man, or killed by their fathers and brothers for being seen with a non-Muslim, or about regular executions of homosexuals. That’s all a facade used to slip your bigoted beliefs in under the door.

It is quite easy to see how this argument could be implanted in Britain. Imagine a far right populist who was free of extremist baggage and who talked about the need to oppose Islam in order to protect British traditions of parliamentary democracy, or who rallied against Muslims while proclaiming to defend the rights of women, homosexuals or civil liberties.

“Far right”. If you have any concern about extreme immigration, or that honor killings, abuse of women, no-go areas, the transformation of your neighborhood into something in which you are made to feel alien, or even just your local shop no longer carrying your favorites in favor of comestibles from another country, you are “far right”, and extremist. Again, no reasoned argument is allowed, no middle ground permitted. You’re either with Goodwin, or against common decency.

The rest of the piece is more of the same, but the last line is very amusingly blinkered, in which Goodwin drives home his theme about the BNP message spreading far and wide:

My view is that if they were free of baggage and political amateurism they would be met with significant support.

He’s taking the position that this is only about how the modern BNP is attempting to re-create its image, and distance itself from the fascists of distant memory. But it’s clearly much, much more than that. The concern about extreme immigration goes far beyond people how identify as “far right”, and that scares him. Goodwin seems not to understand that people can draw the conclusion that unfettered swarms of fundamentalists from medieval or even more primitive societies will have difficulty integrating and will do what most every other immigrant group has done historically: live amongst their own kind and attempt to recreate a bit of the old country in their new home. This is normal behavior for all immigrant groups, but becomes a real problem when the incentive to join the society of their new home – even only peripherally, in the manner of many ultra-orthodox Jews, for example – is not only removed but anyone who asks about it is scolded and ostracized. Yet Goodwin and the BBC believe that this is only a “far right” viewpoint, and one that can really only be spread by “far right” extremist activists.

The other problem is that he insists on associating concern about a single issue with all the rest of the “baggage”. Goodwin will not address the issue of extreme immigration except to tar anyone concerned about it as being “far right”. Debate is stifled yet again. And this, sadly, is exactly the BBC Narrative on the issue.

PS: Goodwin is described as an academic who is “an expert in electoral behaviour and extremism at the University of Nottingham”. Curious how his books only on the BNP are enough to secure his bona fides as an expert on extremism. Is there no extremism from the other side? Or his he an expert only on one side of the spectrum? I think we know the answer to that, and I won’t hold my breath waiting for a “Viewpoint” piece coming from the other side.

Everybody Draw Mohammed Day – 1st Anniversary

What with all the noise about the US President selling Israel down the river due to a combination of naiveté, wrong-headedness, and a soupçon of anti-Israel sentiment, but apparently still not doing enough to please Hamas and Kim Ghattas, I missed out remembering that May 20 is the 1st anniversary of Everybody Draw Mohammed Day. Yes, I realize it’s officially over in the UK as I write this, but when I started there was still five minutes to go US EST. So there. The BBC is going to censor all of it because they bow to unjust demands of Islam on these things. Mark Thompson himself said that Islam gets special treatment.

I’m recognizing the day not out of any malice towards Islam itself, as I personally bear none (I’m aware that I’m in the minority here, but this blog is actually a pretty big tent). I do this in defense of individual religious freedom, something that is as relevant in the US as it is in Britain, even though my country doesn’t have an official state religion (If anyone tells me that Christianity is the official religion of the US, they’ll need to tell me which version before I start laughing).

The reason I say this is about individual religious freedom and not malice towards Islam is because I take the position that non-Muslims are not required to obey the rules of Mohammed. Why do I bother? Because of the continued pressure to avoid saying anything that offends Muslims. Except the real concern isn’t as obvious as having the freedom to burn a Koran (which is an act of malice towards the religion), but rather the freedom to do things that Muslims wouldn’t do without being told to stop because it’s offensive to their sensibilities. The vast majority of media outlets in the UK and US censored even the most innocent cartoons out of appeasement and fear. Freedom of speech was thus taken away from non-Muslims, who instead were forced to obey the law of a religion not their own.

I’m talking about things like preventing non-Muslims from having a plastic pig included with their childrens’ farm toy set, because pork is verboten in Islam. More food companies are shifting their products into halal compliance, in the US and in the UK, in spite of many non-Muslims’ objections to that particular method of butchering. It’s being forced on non-Muslim children by the school system as well. No option for both choices: only the Mohammedan option on offer, period. Then there’s telling non-Muslims they can’t eat in front of Muslims during Ramadan. Nobody’s going to ban eating a sandwich in any public sector workplace during Passover in order to avoid offending Jews who don’t eat leavened bread during that time, so there is a clear unjust double standard which cannot withstand the scrutiny of the laws of freemen. Nobody should be forced to obey the rules of a religion not their own, or even their own if they don’t want to.

Yes, the above examples are mostly a couple years old or more, but where’s the evidence that this no longer happens anywhere, all cases are solved and will never happen again?

I fully support offering halal or kosher or Klingon dietary options in an area where that’s what the majority wants, if it’s a commercial decision. If KFC or Domino’s want to have halal-only food in Mohammedan neighborhoods because that’s where the money is, it’s perfectly fine by me. But nobody should be forced by the government to obey the rules of another religion.

It’s in the spirit of continued religious freedom that I mark this first anniversary of Everybody Draw Mohammed Day. Muslims are forbidden from making graven images of people, most especially Mohammed, but non-Muslims can do whatever the hell they like in a free country. That is not an attack on Islam, but a defense of freedom against any form of fascism or oppression.

My contribution is below. Everyone is encouraged to add their own contribution or links to others. It’s not an attack on Islam, but rather a statement of individual freedom. Mohammedans are as free to make fun of me as celebrated artists are for such brave acts as dipping a crucifix in urine or producing a play featuring Jesus as a homosexual. I don’t care. Freedom, baby. Censorship is against the best interests of a free society.

Wake up Call

Blogger Hadar Sela has written an article that sends shivers down the spine. Alarm bells should be ringing in Westminster and at the BBC. It’s about the steady infiltration by organisations like the Muslim Brotherhood into British institutions and all manner of British life. It’s also a lament about the blind spot which is currently escorting us as we sleepwalk to hell.

She provides a meticulously researched “Who’s Who” of British based Islamist leaders, their affiliates, associates and useful idiots, who are working to effect a seismic shift in UK politics. It’s a bleak warning. We are being led by the hand, meekly, towards the wholesale Islamisation that is slowly but surely becoming established in Britain.

“a Muslim Brotherhood organization has influence at the highest levels of British politics and legislation.”

“There is barely an aspect of British life today in which Muslim Brotherhood and/or Hamas supporters lack influence. From the academic world, including student organizations, through politics and government, trades unions, the media, the legal system and even some Christian churches, they have succeeded in re-writing the prevailing narrative by means of the employment of the language of charity and human rights.”

“[they] manage to market themselves as the face of ‘moderate Islam’ so successfully that they are often invited to act in an advisory capacity to decision makers and are even able to secure government funding .”

With the menacing shenanigans at Tower Hamlets, and the other dodgy electoral practices that were glossed over almost as soon as they surfaced, we must demand the BBC rouses itself from its slumber.
If the coalition government is too afraid, or too complacent to act, it’s high time the BBC came to its senses and used its massive influence to influence the masses. For good this time. Last chance.

Charade

Today again.

“………Immigration is second only to the economy. Difficult to discuss. Here’s Kevin Connolly in Peterborough. Highest concentration of immigrants. Bigots. Bigotgate.”

At last, the discussion that dare not speak its name. At last they’re going to mention what is on everyone’s mind. Say the unsayable. Hoorah! No more taboo. No more intimidatory reminders of the unfortunate consequences awaiting those who mention you know what. Been waiting for this.

“………………Eastern Europeans. Polish shop. No Fox’s biscuits. Urinating in me garden. The American Dream. Nice migrant. Eastern Europeans. Polish. Jobs. Dad’s Army. Honest Debate. Warmington on Sea.”

Oh well.

Bigots R Us

Where’s Peter Oborne? He likes lobbies and documentaries doesn’t he? Documentaries about lobbies are his speciality I’m told.

I am a bigot, because I don’t like Islam and I don’t really fancy the Islamisation of this country. Also, I support Israel’s ‘right to exist within secure borders.’ So, definitely, a bigot.

I write about these things, so in my own little way I am a lobby. How about that? A lobbying bigot. Bigoted lobbyists R Us. But, Mr. Oborne, you’ve done one about the likes of me already. Change, that’s what we want.

So Mr. O., if you like exposing lobbies, and you like making documentaries, you’ll like the idea of making one about the Muslims.

Muslims, in case you hadn’t noticed, have organised themselves into various pressure groups, and are making considerable headway with their efforts to exert their regressive influence on UK policy. Someone thought of a word you might like to use. Tentacles, I think it was.

Schools have been targeted by them for years, and all too often have caved in for fear of being labelled with the smear of smears, racism. Since they engineered the downfall of Ray Honeyford in the 80s Muslims have ganged up against any school exhibiting signs, real or imagined, that someone is attempting to impede their progress. The BBC habitually colludes by insinuating Islamophobia.

The latest wrangle between Erica Connor and Surrey County Council is no doubt costing the taxpayer £squillions.

The tentacles reach much further. Are you listening Mr. Oborne? What about the influence on our universities? Islamic studies here, Islamic studies there, here a veil, there a threat, everywhere a burqa. Old MacDonald had a news agency. Ee Aye EE Aye Oh.

Document that Mr. O, and this time you won’t need to make any of it up . Only, I wouldn’t rely on the BBC to commission it., but for funding you could try approaching one of the greedy rapacious Jews you’re such an expert on.