Let’s criticise David Ward, but not the way he likes his criticism of Israel

Tomorrow is Holocaust Memorial Day.

Commemorating the Holocaust (for younger readers, this is the Nazi attempt to exterminate European Jewry along with others they regarded as impure) Liberal Democrat David Ward, MP for Bradford East, says that those who have been brutalised and dispossessed by the Holocaust should learn a special lesson.

The Holocaust was one of the worst examples in history of man’s inhumanity to man. When faced with examples of atrocious behaviour, we must learn from them. It appears that the suffering by the Jews has not transformed their views on how others should be treated.

Just a few words on why this is facile and insidious. If you think a bunch of troublesome people have themselves been brutalised then the precise thing not to do is wag your finger chiding “You of all people should know better”. There are of course many different lessons one could learn from being brutalised – one might be to arm yourself to the teeth and lash out at the first sign of repeat. And if we’re going to psychologise, then psychologise properly. Why is it that so many people who “treat others badly” come from troubled, traumatised or abusive backgrounds? Should we treat the ones who don’t more leniently? Of course not.

Predictably David Ward is supported by antisemitic campaigners such as Gilad Atzmon, who celebrates the alarm of Jews with “The time is ripe for us to say what we see, think and feel”. I won’t help his search ranking by providing a link but encourage you to find him yourself.  Atzmon is just a man, but because he is so constant in his hatred of Israel and Jews we can view his support as a reliable litmus test for antisemitism. He has even turned the Savile scandal to his cause.

David Ward has earned this hopefully unwelcome support, so let’s criticise him along with his new mate Gilad Atzmon, his Lib Dem supporter Mark Valladeres – see Sarah AB on Engage – and all the others along the spectrum of bad reasoning to outright Jew hatred.

And I don’t mean the kind of ‘criticism’ David Ward favours when it comes to Israel. I wouldn’t describe that as criticism at all, but as a prejudiced double-standard demonising partisan campaign.

I mean straightforward criticism of his callous perversion and diminishment of the Holocaust – because if we fail to note and object to such moves, before too long it will be open season on the Jews again.

And let’s think back further than the Holocaust. How about central Europe between the World Wars – a time building to the attempted eradication of European Jewry. There’s a good, little-known book I’ve been reading about the Prague Circle – it’s called In and Out and it’s by Leon Yudkin. He describes the appeal of Nietzschian rhetoric of strength and vigour among threatened Jews of interwar Prague (p57). I was surprised to learn that this style was adopted by a young Martin Buber who later became better known as a supporter of a binationalist Jewish-Arab state. This was a minority position and one he reached in the 1920s, before the Holocaust. Others of his contemporaries took very different but no less cogent lessons from antisemitism.

Update – David Icke supports Ward’s original statements. Icke’s strategy is to embolden people who make antisemitic comments to stand by them, and to paint those who apologise as enthralled to an evil entity he refers to as Rothschild Zionists. Icke writes, “Jelly fish-shaking, Israel arse-licking, Rothschild Zionist-owned Liberal Democrats condemn one of their own MPs for simply speaking the truth – and they have done it before”. Again, I’m not helping Icke up the Google ladder (I note that while I’m tiptoeing around the antisemites by not linking to them, Icke doesn’t even mention Ward by name) you can find the piece on his site, 26th January, illustrated by a ridiculous cartoon of an elephant on its knees in somebody’s sitting room, blindfolded with an Israeli flag and sporting a red Star of David on one of its ears. Were I myself susceptible to baseless conspiracy beliefs I’d  probably be wondering whether Icke actually works for Mossad. But I’m not.

Update 2: Mark Gardner’s CST post on Ward.

Producerism

This is one of those posts where by the time you get to the end you feel more ignorant than when you began.

Looking for a definition of when extremism becomes populism I came across this definition of right wing populism at progressive USA think tank Political Research Associates:

Producerism —the idea that the real Americans are hard–working people who create goods and wealth while fighting against parasites at the top and bottom of society who pick our pocket…sometimes promoting scapegoating and the blurring of issues of class and economic justice, and with a history of assuming proper citizenship is defined by White males;

Anti–elitism —a suspicion of politicians, powerful people, the wealthy, and high culture…sometimes leading to conspiracist allegations about control of the world by secret elites, especially the scapegoating of Jews as sinister and powerful manipulators of the economy or media;

Anti–intellectualism —a distrust of those pointy headed professors in their Ivory Towers…sometimes undercutting rational debate by discarding logic and factual evidence in favor of following the emotional appeals of demagogues;

Majoritarianism —the notion that the will of the majority of people has absolute primacy in matters of governance… sacrificing rights for minorities, especially people of color;

Moralism —evangelical–style campaigns rooted in Protestant revivalism…sometimes leading to authoritarian and theocratic attempts to impose orthodoxy, especially relating to gender.

Americanism —a form of patriotic nationalism…often promoting ethnocentric, nativist, or xenophobic fears that immigrants bring alien ideas and customs that are toxic to our culture.

It appears to be quoted but isn’t well-referenced – probably the work of Georgetown University historian Michael Kazin.

I suppose three attributes – anti-elitism, anti-intellectualism, and simple majoritarianism – are necessary to populism of any persuasion, and the moralism and patriotic nationalism are distinctly right-wing.

The outstanding attribute is producerism. In its right wing expression, it views immigrants and bankers alike unfavourably as a leach on societal wealth from below and above. But can you have a popular movement other than a right wing one without some kind of producer ethic?

The Wikipedia definition says that producerism credits the middle class as adding surplus value, and therefore wealth. However, Kazin’s book The Populist Persuasion (p13 – see Google Books) calls it,

“…indeed an ethic, a moral conviction. It held that only those who created wealth in tangible, material ways (on and under the land, in workshops, and on the sea) could be trust to guard the nation’s piety and liberties.”

From elsewhere in the PRA collection this visualisation sheds some light.  It shows right wing populism directing anger above and below and exchanging supporters with the racist right as well as democratic reformers.  Interestingly, EDL supporters as a group have been observed to spend more energy berating the government (‘above’) than they spend openly attacking Muslims (‘below’), both of which groups are typified as unproductive. (Though having observed fairly unremitting antisemitism from certain quarters for the past 6 years, I’d adopt a subtler and sharper definition of racist language than that author did – one which included innuendo and stance relative to less veiled racism.)

The visualisation linked above doesn’t work for the British left since most of the organised anger (and they can only dream of it being popular) is directed upwards to perceived ‘elite parasites’ e.g. bankers, multi-national businesses, politicians, etc – and none that I can see is directed downwards at the unproductive – on the contrary, the left is defending – to name a few – immigrants and those who risk their benefits being withdrawn. Right wing producerism thinks that domestic capital is good capital, but financial capital – the international kind – is bad. The left rejects is sceptical of the first and hostile to the second.

Can’t see much sign of producerism on the left, then, which only directs anger upwards (I’d call New Labour centrist), though if there were it might look like Stalinism’s authoritarian ‘socialism in one country’, or the kind of trade unionism which was prepared to hold its fellow citizens to ransom – or perhaps a technophobic sort of Neo-Luddism (which might be a green-tinged variety).

But what can it mean when the the British TUC votes to ostracise fellow workers because they are Israeli?

English Defence League marches unescorted from Redbridge to Dagenham

An estimated 250 EDL supporters marched today from Redbridge to Dagenham. It got violent. The pretext seems to have been the conversion of a former butchers into a Muslim centre.

It seems I wasn’t the only one taken unaware. Hope Not Hate reports that there was no police escort, and while Dagenham had organised 10 police vans, Redbridge had one community support officer on a bike. When the EDL started attacking young Asian men, hospitalising one with a broken jaw, the police were nowhere (the net gain of Redbridge’s two-for-one police offer comes to mind).

In case there is any doubt, the EDL is a group associated with violence and consequently huge policing costs. Over the past fortnight:

• 18th June – suspended sentence for EDL supporter trying to punch two older Asian men in Halifax
• 16th June – weapons and racist chants in Halifax
• 16th June – Lancashire force put the cost of policing EDL marches at over £1,000,000; and are considering requiring the EDL to fund them (presumably the EDL will respond with more flash demos like this one)
• 15th June – founder of EDL faces assault charge
• 12th June – repeated threats to “burn your mosques” in Leeds flash demo
• 11th June – founder of EDL gatecrashes Home Secretary’s constituency surgery.
• 7th June – man in EDL t-shirt attacks Asian man in Rochdale
• 7th June – West Bromwich EDL support punches police horse 8 times
• May 26th – EDL supporters trash building hosting Labour Party and Unite Against Fascism meeting in Barking.

If the EDL try to control the streets, local police forces shouldn’t warn residents away as Kirklees force warned away young people in Dewsbury. Forces need to work with residents, as they have done in Bradford, Leicester, and Thames Valley to ensure that they remain everybody’s streets.

Here’s a positive grassroots response – due for an EDL visitation on 9th July, Derby has scrambled a multicultural music festival. But unlike us, they had forewarning.

The local group to support is Redbridge and Epping Forest Together (REFT) – details from Hope Not Hate’s directory:

Redbridge and Epping Forest Together
P.O.Box 1576 Ilford IG5 0NG
GerryGable@aol.com
020 8550 1805

Councillors Bhamra and Nijjar are involved in a nationwide initiative to counter the EDL’s “divide and rule” tactics with British Asians.

EDL background at:

• Bob From Brockley‘s EDL category
• Search Modernity for “English Defence League”
• I have got a lot out of reading the (Jewish) Community Security Trust blog posts on the EDL
• Liverpool Antifascists‘ EDL category
• Lancaster Unity’s EDL category
• And of course Hope Not Hate
• There are plenty of other places (be wary of SWP fronts, Islamist fronts, and any group which present EDL supporters as thick, evil, or deserving of a battering).

Update:

Still no cached page yet, not inclined to provide a direct link, so copy and paste this for the EDL’s report of the march: http://englishdefenceleague.org/content.php?382-Dagenham-Demo-18-June-2011. (On the poppy burning, I noticed that the Muslim Defence League, which grew up as an answer to the English Defence League and is cause for concern, has condemned that act at some length.)

A YouTube video interview of the man whose jaw was broken has a cesspit of anti-Muslim, anti-Asian comment underneath it (the video is by MPACUK, an organisation that means bad news for people like me; incidentally, the Muslim Defence League says on its Facebook page that the men involved were not part of the MDL, and Hope Not Hate doesn’t report any aggressive behaviour on their part).

Update: Barkingside21 has a piece on this. As B21 writes, we’re a pretty diverse bunch in Redbridge, we get along for the most part, and are all the better for it.

Update: a heads-up from Jams on a planned rally in Romford this weekend, seeking to broaden participation by badging it as a patriotic celebration of military service. They are actively encouraging people to bring their kids. Is this a way of keeping violence at bay?

Update: Sarah’s neighbourhood will have a visitation on July 9th.

Defend the Muslims of Redbridge

We won’t stand for this in Redbridge:

“RACIST abuse was shouted at worshippers at a busy mosque.

Police were called to Eastern Avenue in Gants Hill after reports of a group of men causing damage to parked vehicles in the road.

Six men were seen heading in the direction Redbridge roundabout towards Redbridge Islamic Centre, also in Eastern Avenue.

As they reached the mosque they shouted racial abuse and threw bricks at the building, which broke glass in the front doors.

The incident occurred at around 7.45pm on Thursday (March 24), near the start of evening prayers.

A number of worshippers had already entered the mosque but there were still some people outside the building when the attack occurred.

One man suffered a minor head injury but did not need any medical treatment.

Six men were arrested by police and remain in custody at Ilford Police Station.

Chief Inspector Stan Greatrick, of Redbridge police, said: “We would appeal for anyone who was in the Eastern Avenue area and saw the group of males to contact us.

“We have spoken to a number of people in the area and continue to liaise closely with members of the Redbridge Mosque.

“We have already secured additional patrols for Eastern Avenue and we would like to reassure the local community, and those who worship at the Redbridge Mosque, that we are treating this case extremely seriously.”

Anyone with information should contact Redbridge CID on 020 8345 2632.”

From the Ilford Recorder:

“The imam of a Redbridge mosque was injured yesterday after six people tried to smash their way through the front door moments before the final evening prayer.

Windows were broken and a stone was hurled at the imam of Redbridge Islamic Centre (RIC), Eastern Avenue, at about 7.45pm.

The group allegedly shouted racist and islamophobic abuse as they tried to smash their way through to the main prayer hall of the mosque, throwing bricks at worshippers and staff.

Neighbouring homes and cars were also damaged.

The six men are now being questioned by police having been arrested after being detained by worshippers and some passers-by.

The chairman of the mosque Abul Khayer Ali said: “This is a sad day.

“Redbridge is a strong and cohesive community with long standing record of unity and cohesion.

“We will not allow such callous attacks to create a wedge in the community.

“Rather, this will inspire the RIC to work harder to engage and work closely to reduce stigma and discrimination towards Muslims in the borough.”

Environment and community safety cabinet member Cllr Shoaib Patel described the incident as “callous and heinous”, but did not believe it was a premeditated racist attack.

He added: “Redbridge has a very successful diverse, multicultural and cohesive society where residents are able to live in harmony, respecting each other’s faiths and values.

“As the cabinet member for environment and community safety in Redbridge, I assure you that the council and its partners, including the police, will not stand by and let this incident change the very nature of these successes. “

Chief Insp Stan Greatrick, of Redbridge police, said: “We have spoken to a number of people in the area and continue to liaise closely with members of the Redbridge mosque.

“We have already secured additional patrols for Eastern Avenue and we would like to reassure the local community, and those who worship at the Redbridge mosque, that we are treating this case extremely seriously.”

Anyone with information about the incident should call Redbridge CID on 020 8345 2632.”

More at The Islamic Standard. [unlink that one after more investigation - we got 'Ed Miliband Zionist Jew' posts, we got swastikas in Israeli flags, we got "WE HATE OPRAH FOR THE SAKE OF ALLAH!" - don't want to  link to a racist site, oh no. But goes without saying that this unpleasant blogger is as deserving as anybody else of support against Islamophobia]

Time to renew my relationship with Hope Not Hate, I think.

HT Wes Tweeting, Mod and the ever-vigilant Lancaster Unity.

Update:

Via Mod, Hugh Muir in The Guardian:

“The first thing Abdul Wahab heard, he says, was the shouting. “Muslim bastards; Paki bastards.” Unpleasant enough in the street. But no one expects to hear such things in a mosque.

What to do? Just six old men there, four of whom were on their knees praying when the hoodlums intervened. Nothing to do but remonstrate, shoo them away and hope.

Why the Redbridge Islamic Centre? Hard to say at this point. No one who worships there seems to know. They think the attack last week was unpremeditated. Why would whoever was responsible want to spout their bile within the mosque itself? Why the ferocity? The snarling. The physical intimidation, the wall of noise, like a swat team flying in through the window. The smashing of the toughened glass; the hurling of the reddish bricks the mosque had bought for building work? One brick, Abdul says, struck the imam, who was also injured by flying glass. He had to go to hospital. By then at least, the terror was over and the assailants were gone. “He was lucky,” says Abdul looking skyward. “God helped him.”

The physical damage isn’t much. Abdul lifts the green metal grill to show me the broken glass; by now it will have been replaced. But there is damage that can’t be covered by insurance. The shock. “We have been here for nine years,” he tells me. “There has never been anything like this.”

He says they have done everything they are called upon to do. They engage with the community. Members of his mosque have visited local Christian churches. Those who follow other faiths have been welcomed through the same door. “It’s usually open,” he says. “It was open when we were attacked. That’s why they got in so easily.””

Update 2 April 7th – today’s Woodford Recorder reports that 6 face trial. Matthew Stephenson and Daniel Leal,19 and of no fixed address, Rockylee Beale of Woodford Green, also 19, and a 15 year old boy are on bail. Ryan Jones, 22, of Ilford and Elliot Jones, 19, no fixed address, are in custody.

Update: Councillors and MP said at a meeting that the attack was not connected with the EDL.

Them and us

On the disgusting murder of most of the Fogel family in Itamar, Melchett Mike writes in the Jewish Chronicle:

“Call me a racist, but no sane Jew, or other human being, could even force himself to stab a baby – or any child for that matter (the expression “cold blood” is entirely superfluous in such circumstances) – to death (never mind while he or she was asleep) however much he believed in his cause. There is, however, a long history of Palestinian acts of premeditated – cf. collaterally-caused (the distinction, morally, is an extremely significant one) – infanticide (even in Itamar).”

and more on “the essential difference between us and them”. Yes, we should call what he writes racist. I think there is more back to front about Melchett Mike than his name – he’s got the wrong ‘them’ – the ‘them’ is the bunch of people who bomb, stone, and knife one another, and who would fight to the death to drive each other out, and who actively seek to escalate the hatred and violence.

The ‘us’ is the people who look past all provocations to keep up a vision of mutual accommodation between the conflicting parties. Not that the extended family of Udi, Ruth, Yoav, Elad, and Hadas should be required to forgive the murderers or those who condone them. It is not for us to demand this forgiveness. But I am bowled over by the spirit of Hussein Rawidi after his son was knifed to death in a racist attack by Israeli Jews (one of many such racist attacks, by other people who feel that there are irreconcilable differences between Jews and Arabs).

I’d say that exterminating Jewish babies and children, who are innocent of any cause for retribution, is a clear statement of intent to genocide. But this intent cannot be laid at the door of an entire people. To hand out sweets on the occasion of a child’s murder is an obscenity and should be noted as such, but it is not a general response, and in any case I think we should be careful about how we relate it to intent to murder.

So I would like to tell Melchett Mike to be very careful, more careful than he has been, not to drive in wedges, lest he bring about a self-fulfilling prophesy. He may have these dark thoughts, he should acknowledge them, and he should keep them to himself out of a sense of responsibility if not respect. Because the logic of his position, no matter how polite, is not so far removed from that of the murderers: segregation and war.

Meanwhile, throw your weight behind OneVoice, the antidote to identity politics.

HT Jess.

Update: while some Palestinians pass out sweets, many others denounce the murders, including Fatah’s military wing the Al Aqsa Martyrs.

Update 2: the consequences? Attacks like these always strengthen nationalism. “Reuven Rivlin, the Knesset speaker, said: “We will live, we will continue to build and to plant, we will continue to grip on to the land of Israel. More construction, more life, more hanging on to the land. This is our answer to the murderers.”"

Update 3: that blog post shouldn’t be hosted at the JC, should it. Email editorial@jc.com with your respectful and carefully-explained request to remove it.

Update 4: The activist left must condemn the murder of the Itamar family. Without a doubt.

Sam Leith: “You can’t force Britishness on everyone, Dave”

As I commented on Modernity’s post ‘Words Matter’, words always matter. In the execrable Evening Standard last week, I read a piece about a delinquent family living on housing benefit in a beautiful house. The ethnic or religious group of the family was completely irrelevant and incidental but the Standard dropped it in anyway – as Jennifer Lipman in Mod’s post puts it, to be notched up by haters of this particular group as another good reason for hating them.

And then I remembered how, on the occasion of David Cameron’s disasterously-timed damning speech on multiculturalism, columnist Sam Leith managed to dose the confused wits of Evening Standard readers with smelling salts with his, ‘You can’t force Britishness on everyone, Dave‘. Here is is.

“Classical rhetoric gives us the concept of kairos, or “timeliness”. The PM could have done with some of that, having just given a talk on how multiculturalism fosters militant Islam within hours of English Defence League thugs stomping through Luton shouting “Who the f*** is Allah?”

Timing does matter in the race relations game. An unimpeachably theoretical discussion, depending on context, can be incendiary. Defenders of Enoch Powell rightly point out that he didn’t say “One, two, three, four, I declare a race war!” He said (to paraphrase): “I’m worried it will all kick off if we carry on like this.” But the two aren’t as easily separable as all that. Think of the man in the pub who tells you: “Look, this is a rough old boozer and your face don’t fit. Don’t get me wrong: I wouldn’t lay a finger on you. But I can’t vouch for my mates over there…”

Mr Cameron, mind you, speaks in good faith. And he articulates a widely held anxiety: that the passage from separate to separatist, separatist to extremist, extremist to terrorist, is an established one; and that the “hands-off tolerance” of bien-pensants eases that passage.

Personally, I’m quite in favour of “hands-off tolerance”. In fact, I’d say “hands-off” is pretty much the definition of tolerance. “Hands-on tolerance,” or perhaps “clear-off tolerance”, is the sort of tolerance the EDL wishes to extend to Muslim Britons.

When the PM says we shouldn’t fund jihadi youth clubs, or treat Islamic fascists as spokesmen for their co-religionists, we’re as one. But where he says we need an “active, muscular liberalism” that “believes in certain values and actively promotes them”, we part ways. Insisting that people hold certain values is not the job of even someone as important as the Prime Minister. It’s an impertinence to imagine it’s in his gift, and dangerous folly to seek to achieve it by state fiat. “Britishness” is the sum of everything British people think, say and do: not a handful of ideas politicians decide are good for us and administer like a dose of cod-liver oil.

Closed ethnic communities may not be to your taste but unless you can imagine a policy remedy that isn’t insane – racial housing quotas or banning the public speaking of Urdu, say – you have to live with them. Separatists are citizens too.

What you are entitled to expect is that the law of the land – not some idea, or some “British value”, but the law -applies as absolutely within them as it does everywhere else. And the law, lest we forget, forbids violence, hate-speech, oppression of women and the building of bombs out of fertiliser.

It’s frustrating to think that it’s only at this point that the state can intervene, but there are good reasons why we don’t have “pre-crime” police. You can’t make people love each other, and you shouldn’t try to.”

Why Nick Griffin and the BNP lost

I woke up this morning to unwelcome news of a Conservative MP with an increased majority and a modest increase in the BNP vote share in Ilford North.

But there was a consolation which made me feel happy all day – the BNP lost every single place they contested in Barking and Dagenham, including their existing 12 seats. They lost because the weren’t wanted by voters, who never had the heart to make Barking and Dagenham the “race hate capital of Britain“. They lost because they are awful politicians, because they appeal to the worst in voters, and because they undermine each other. They also lost because the Daily Mirror took a risk. I hope they also lost because their political opponents began taking their electorate’s needs seriously. Margaret Hodge and John Cruddas are fine MPs. But the BNP also lost because of the unstinting efforts of Hope Not Hate.  I’m a Hope Not Hate donor and leafleter and I’m so proud of their part in this.

Nick Lowles asking Nick Griffin about Bob Bailey’s attack on a young Asian man, a good illustration of why the BNP lost:

No wins for BNP Council candidates in Redbridge, either. Goodbye Julian Leppert.

BNP candidate Bob Bailey kicks and hits Asian man until he bleeds

Even though the entire BNP project is an ideological assault on humanity, nobody has any business getting physical with the BNP (including missiles and gobbing) unless the BNP attacks them first. This has to be a war of words and non-violent opposition. If you can’t manage that then you can fuck off – you’re a liability the rest of us, particularly Hope Not Hate.

But for the love of god, somebody prosecute BNP candidate Bob Bailey. He is dangerous.

BBC News has a piece that tells us (in case we were in any doubt) that Nick Griffin doesn’t give a shit.

Nick Lowles of Hope Not Hate says:

“The man shouldn’t have spat on Bailey. But it’s clear this moment unleashed the streak of violence that underpins the BNP’s entire political agenda.

Just look at the pleasure Bailey took at attacking this lad – and continuing to pummel him as he lay on the ground, defenceless and bloodied.

Bailey and his thugs could be running Barking & Dagenham by this weekend.”

My borough-next-door.

Lancaster UAF on Bailey, concluding “unstable, abusive, foul-mouthed, a liar and stupid”.

Update: ‘Vote No To The BNP‘ – keeping up with the BNP.

Update 2: clearly the question “Who started it?” is far less important than asking “Is the BNP really expecting me to put up with violence on the street from an existing Councillor who wants to become an MP?” Sack him now.

Update 3: The Daily Mail (which has stills) and the Barking and Dagenham Post are unbelievably soft on Bailey. They seem unperturbed that an elected extreme right wing representative to refers to Asian men going about their business as “robbers” and kicks the shit out of a young man, with the enthusiasm you might expect an avid racist to exhibit when his victim had dark skin. With a press and elected representatives like these, no wonder Barking and Dagenham is where it is.

The Mirror reports that nobody is pursuing allegations, but there’s news to the contrary. Somebody needs to explain to those young men that they would be doing an immense service to their local community and to the country in general if they would take it further. Bailey has got to go. He is a social menace.

On the blogs, Mod, Norfolk Unity, John Understood, East of Dulwich has a great post.  I’ve been reading some blogs with names like Islamic Awakening and Pakistan Defence. Don’t spit on the BNP – get your arses down to the polling station and vote, says Araz:

“I am sorry to hear your remarks.These are not the remarks of a wise man. Stop being emotional and think this one out. BNP has a vote base because of deteriorating economic conditions in UK. Most of their supporters are ones who have lived their lives on DOLE and now think that immigrants are the root of all the ills facing Britain. However, for the most part British society and its people are peace loving and VERY TOLERANT, and they should be commended for that. By responding violently to these hate mongers you are playing into their hands by giving an impression that the BNP is important enough for you to care and be afraid of.
The place to defeat them is by ballot and on the debating floor. You have to firstly conduct your self in a manner to gain respect. Secondly, their arguments need to be countered by words rather than by physical actions. Mostly by ignoring them, you are denying them the publicity that they crave.
But by stupid actions like fighting with them, you indirectly prove them right.
Araz”

On the BNP more generally Rumbold on Pickled Politics and Hope Not Hate on Harry’s Pace.

Update 4 – Bob Bailey lost the 2010 election in Romford but that 2.5% increase in share is a worry. BNP in Barking and Dagenham: losers in every seat they contested, including the 12 they already had.

Anti-immigration campaigners, Gordon Brown and Gillian Duffy

Gordon Brown is alright. I think that Gillian Duffy is probably complaining to the Daily Mail about the way they’ve illustrated their latest toxic immigration piece with a picture of her and misrepresented her views.

She spent 4 minutes reproaching Gordon Brown about nearly everything including tax on her pension and her grandchildren’s prospects for university. In amongst this was:

“All these Eastern Europeans that are coming here. Where are they flocking from?”

That question had no place in her grievances, Gordon Brown responded diplomatically and to her credit Gillian Duffy didn’t pursue it then or later.

Update: Kellie points to this link in the comments below – Gordon Brown attributing his own diagnosis of bigotry to Gillian Duffy’s comment about immigration. That rather undermines my case against the Daily Mail below. This time.

So it’s entirely vexatious and reprehensible of Gordon Brown’s right wing political opponents to suggest that he called Gillian Duffy a “bigoted woman” because of her question about immigration. The Mail has no grounds to claim:

“When grandmother Gillian Duffy suggested immigration was a problem in Rochdale, she was swiftly dismissed as a ‘bigot’ by Gordon Brown.

But the Prime Minister was betraying not only his real feelings about the worries of millions of Britons, but also his ignorance of what has been going on in the northern town – which provides an acute case study of issues afflicting the whole nation.”

“Bigot” is not the same as “racist”. Dictionary.com defines it as “a person who is utterly intolerant of any differing creed, belief, or opinion”. The Free Dictionary defines a bigot as “One who is strongly partial to one’s own group, religion, race, or politics and is intolerant of those who differ”. Gillian Duffy was in no mood to change her views that afternoon – she was very angry – but Brown had to talk to her anyway, of course. In the end, his “dismissal” of Gillian Duffy as a “bigoted woman” was not swift – it was minutes afterwards and can’t safely be associated with the tiny proportion of what she said which was about immigration. This is a perfect example of why nobody should expect truthful reporting from the Daily Mail. The Daily Mail is a chronicle of bigotry.

Gordon Brown’s going to be the last person to defend himself – his job now is to be abjectly sorry. So I’ll do it. He let off steam in the car when he thought his mic was off – and the steam was just a puff. Insulting, but not an explosion by any stretch. He didn’t reveal anything toxic – on the contrary, think about what he could have said about Sue (whoever she is) given he held her responsible for his exposure to public lambast. In fact he was very restrained. He just made an unprofessional mistake – the kind which catches out many senior people fairly often.

But if I was having a conversation with somebody into which a strange out-of-place question about immigrants crept, I’d have the  suspicion that they were a bit racist, despite also knowing that they had hopes, fears and stories to tell. I’d keep that to myself and try to come at things another way – like Gordon Brown did when he knew the mic was on. But privately I’d wonder about their views.

Worldwide it’s normal to think in racist ways about the rack and ruin (actual or perceived) of any given country. You can see attempts to make immigration the cause and poverty the effect throughout the right-wing media in this country – The Sun, The Mail, The Telegraph. The reason this is wrong is that it’s well known that immigrants do the jobs that other citizens won’t get out of bed for, as well as other jobs they won through their own merit. For richer and for poorer, we invited most of these people through our borders to staff our boom years of the last decade, but nowhere was it written that they had to wrench up their lives and leave when the boom turned to bust. That wasn’t part of the deal, and nor should it have been. In this country we don’t tell people how many children to have, and we certainly don’t use reproduction law to discriminate on grounds of where you are from. The reason I might be homeless is that my council sold off its stock and didn’t build sufficient to replace it. There’s plenty of wealth to go round here but it’s badly distributed. It’s wrong to have a go at immigrants while neglecting to scrutinise the way we distribute our country’s resources.

Bad mouthing immigration, or asking questions about immigrants as part of a long diatribe about what’s wrong with the country is very normal in British life these days. I don’t like it on principle and I don’t like it on a personal level – only today some colleagues commented (without hostility) on my outlandish name and un-Anglo-Saxon appearance. I’m under no illusions that the politicians who think that fewer immigrants than we currently have would solve their economic problems would be trying to get rid of me sooner or later.

We are all immigrants now, as they say.

So I’d like people to feel more inhibited about bad mouthing immigration or immigrants, exert a bit of self-censorship. I don’t know whether this is reconcilable with my other hope, which is that people will also feel that racism is one of those normal but unhealthy things in our society we need to work on ourselves about, like tending towards overweight.

But if the Mail, Sun and Telegraph are going to make Gordon’s gaff into an immigration thing then I think Gordon deserves some moral support.

He might not feel he could perform it with the cameras on while being harangued by an angry voter, but I’d share his private frustrations about people who lay into immigrants.

However, I’m still not convinced that Gillian Duffy’s brief reference to immigration was the reason Gordon Brown referred to her as a bigot. Sadly, Labour probably wouldn’t thank me for this post. They aren’t mounting much of a defence of immigrants or immigration either.

Update:

Or only in private, as I thought.

• John Prescott on the derelict ethics of the Murdoch empire – but wtf is he talking about – “an Australian with an American passport cannot buy our General Election“.
• Elmyra from Eastern Europe is sickened by politicians grovelling to bigots; richandme points out a few things.
  
• Don’t do it, Mrs Duffy. (My hope is that she comes out tomorrow with her own apology.)
• On Newsnight Danny Finkelstein said that talking about immigration was a problem because you get called racist if you try to bring it up. That’s when Peter Hyman, Olly Grender or Jeremy Paxman should have pointed out that there is a lot of racism in the debate about immigration. None of them did. In fact Peter Hyman pointed out that Labour is tough on immigration in their manifesto, and could talk about it with confidence. What that has to do with incomers from EU member states I’m not sure. Chasing votes has come to this.
• That’s it from me on this now. There’s an enormous funding shortfall to consider – that and attitudes to immigration are not unconnected.
• Update 2 – except for this postscript – this morning Alan Johnson called Gillian Duffy a very fine woman and said that her question about immigration was totally reasonable. Appeasement..
• Update 3 – the final televised leaders’ debate in Birmingham this evening, the nearest any of the leaders got to being respectful to immigrants was Nick Clegg’s pragmatism about delivering the incognito ones “into the hands of the tax-man”. Cameron and Brown were trying to outdo each other in severity – but as Clegg first pointed out 80% of immigrants are from the EU. I was pretty appalled at how low this country has sunk, that three politicians could judge it unwise to have a genuinely “honest debate” about immigration.. An “honest debate” about immigration involves talking about how if you were born in Angola your life expectancy at birth would be 38, and about how badly our councils have done on housing and schools. I felt like throwing a bucket of water over the television.
• Update 4 – above I commented that the question about Eastern Europeans had no place in Gillian Duffy’s lambast, and I still don’t think it did. Imagine hearing it as an Eastern European. It’s not a question of Eastern Europeans, but of how the government came to underestimate and consequently under-resource the incomers  at the expense of  the established population. Writing in Dissent, Alan Johnson is more interested in persuading us to indulge the kind of belligerent and pointed curiosity (as he would have us think of it) of people like Gillian Duffy (who do indeed have valid grievances but are mistaken in their causes and wrong-headedly defiant about the charge of racism) rather than taking the opportunity to explain this. Disappointing to see somebody of Alan Johnson’s stature elevating the idea of debate over the substance of that debate. Intelligentsia right there along with the political classes running scared of a British public at our most ignorant and ornery.
• Update 5 – good for Gillian Duffy – she can’t be bought by Rupert Murdoch’s Sun newspaper. Seems she’s more angry about being dissed by her prime minister than being thought a bigot. Why did the media get so worked up?
  
• Update 6 – it’s a new world. The Web is rounding on Murdoch as anti-democratic. See Avaaz’ petition UK Voters v Rupert Murdoch, and 38 Degrees’ The People v Murdoch. This seems very important, but I can’t quite figure out how. First taken at face value you have to ask what about The Daily Mail, which is Associated Newspapers Ltd? What about the big blogs? What about Labour supporters’ use of fear to consolidate Duverger’s Law? Secondly, what role is new media assuming in relation to old media?
• Update 7 – wish I’d seen Rosie’s allegorical post ‘At the court of Queen Demos’ earlier: “So all her courtiers – The Sun, The Daily Telegraph – many who view Master Brown’s advancement with unease, denounce him for his insolence and his forgetting his place. She might want to shrug it off, but they roar his treachery at every opportunity at the top of their voices. The courtiers don’t want her to balance Master Brown’s usefulness in the treasury against a hasty remark, because, after all they have their own men to place.”

So all her courtiers – The Sun, The Daily Telegraph – many who view Master Brown’s advancement with unease, denounce him for his insolence and his forgetting his place.  She might want to shrug it off, but they roar his treachery at every opportunity at the top of their voices.  The courtiers don’t want her to balance Master Brown’s usefulness in the treasury against a hasty remark, because, after all they have their own men to place.

Bloggers are responsible for the comments they attract

I feel a deep debt of gratitude to Harry’s Place for reasons I set out in my last, and in more depth here, but basically I agree with Marko – Harry’s Place’s commenters are Harry’s Place’s problem. I’ve raised this – too mildly – in the past here and in messages.

I missed most of the examples Marko points readers to, but the Laurie Penny stuff particularly disheartened me – as well as being personal, it was aimless. I meant to say something, couldn’t quite grasp the nub of it, and I’m glad that Marko did. Following his experiences by reading the comments trails he links to is pretty dispiriting, too.

What is going on beneath the Harry’s Place posts – particularly those on Islamists – worries me, because British Jews need Harry’s Place, which is so vigilant about antisemitism, to be serious about anti-racism in its own back yard. Anti-Islamists need Harry’s Place to be serious about anti-racism. Anti-racists need Harry’s Place to be a serious opponent of the BNP, but I know at least one person who favours both.

Commenter Zkharya is broadly right I think:

“I like HP. I like the freedom. I like, by and large, the company. There is a problem with Islamophobia.

But if you like Israel, there aren’t too many internet forums to hang out that are vaguely as sociable or linked up to other issues.”

I’d qualify that. I think the gender mix on Harry’s Place is poor, and the linking to other issues has large gaps (environmentalism, a critically important movement which continues to harbour misanthropic and anti-industrial tendencies, needs Harry’s Place’s attention, for example).

Judy:

“One point I’d say she [Laurie Penny] does have is her focus on bullying on HP. Under the banner of free speech, HP is happy to have and sometimes encourage a degree of entirely personality-based vilification and abuse of individuals on the basis of their opinions (as opposed to any political actions) which has nothing to do with politics with either a small or a large p.

There’s no problem in my view with ridiculing and satirising of political positions, including inconsistencies and shifts therein. But it does seem to me that HP is complacent about personalised bullying on the basis of assertions about opponents’ insanity, encouraging others to bully, advocate violence towards and/or ostracise opponents on account of that or of opposition to a declared favourite or personal arbitrary preference of one collective member or another.”

I wish that Harry’s Place bloggers would look to their own back yard. Below the posts it’s like a frat party (yes I’ve been to a few during a year in the US – rarely felt so lonely).

The thing is, there’s a difference between attracting aggressive, obscene and bigoted commenters who pile in because you have interfered with their world view and they feel the need to disagree with you, and attracting the same who basically support your blog and feel at home there. The first is inevitable – when you are courageous and stick your neck out like Harry’s Place bloggers, your wages will include opprobrious comments. But if the people approving of you, defending you, or just hanging out, are aggressive bigots, and you don’t put an end to it, then, yes, it’s yours. You host it. You can’t disown it. You will be known for it. And it’s not feasible, as one HP author tried to do, to suggest a division of labour where you, the author, ask your moderate readers to take responsibility for the comments. You can’t rely on volunteers who haven’t volunteered – it’s your blog, it’s on your head.

Here is what Laurie Penny said:

‘you condone bigotry by allowing hateful, misogynist, racist, Islamophobic comments to be published on your site, and allowing bigoted, ignorant trolls to control the debate. I don’t apologise for that assessment: it’s you that needs to step up and look at what your site has become.’

I will limit my agreement with her to that.

Marko, defending this and told by Harry’s Place author Brownie to withdraw his “slurs” or “fuck off”:

“Here at HP, Brownie, you’ve provided a site in which pretty much anyone can make any slurs they want against anybody else. Slurs that should not see the light of day receive wide publicity, thanks to HP. When you provide a forum in which this sort of filth appears in print, and when you make a point about refusing to delete it, then you are condoning that filth as something legitimate; with a right to be heard. You are harrassing and victimising innocent people by allowing anonymous psychos to defame and abuse them in the name of ‘freedom of speech’.

So I’m sorry, but you have no right to complain about being slurred, when you have provided a forum that enables the slurring of so many other people.

For the record, I don’t think that you, Marcus, David T, Brett or any of the other regular posters here are racists. I do, however, think that your comments moderation policy is an utter, utter disgrace, and that you should be ashamed of yourselves. And I say this as someone who likes you as people and who mostly agrees with your politics.

Right, now I’ll fuck off.”

Harry’s Place has a problem. Unlike HP blogger Neil, I don’t think Comment is F***** – plenty of blogs manage to attract conversations which are respectful of the person, even while trenchant in opposition of their views. See for example Bob From Brockley, a blog with interests that overlap with Harry’s Place.

I think a more purposeful approach is in order on the part of the authors to putting themselves on the opposite side of the Islamophobes and bullies. I think it’s generally true of campaigns and things like campaigns that to define your support you have to frame what you’re against in terms of what you’re for. If this could be embedded into every post I think that would probably be all that was required.

In the absence of that, a moderation policy backed up with time taken to moderate.

Otherwise, it may be time to turn off comments. But that would be an act of defeat.