An organisation called 'NatCen' has conducted a survey on British attitudes to race and apparently discovered that the people of these islands are now more 'racist' than they were 30 years ago. This result has been publicised widely, notably by the BBC which finds it most exciting, but without really explaining anything much about the nature of the survey.
'NatCen' calls itself "Britain's largest independent social research agency" and goes on to say "By really understanding the complexity of people's lives and attitudes we give the public a powerful role in shaping decisions and services that makes a difference to everyone". So there we have it. They're another agency which spouts meaningless twaddle.
In support of this conclusion, the racism survey is a prime example. This survey has reportedly relied on interviewees to state whether they consider themselves to be very or a little bit 'racist'. Exactly what being 'racist' is hasn't been defined and there seems to be no explanation as to what criteria people used in order to arrive at their conclusions about themselves. On the face of it, this research is nothing of the sort and its conclusions are utterly useless.
My dictionary gives 2 definitions for the words 'racialism' and 'racism' :
1) The belief that races have distinctive cultural characteristics determined by hereditary factors and that this endows some races with an intrinsic superiority, and
2) abusive or aggressive behaviour towards members of another race on the basis of such a belief.
I suspect that very few of those questioned by 'NatCen' know either of these definitions, and I doubt that 'NatCen' enlightened them. Basically, I suspect that people were simply asked whether or not they were racist, which is a pointless question unless the meaning of the word is known and understood. Not liking to have your once white Anglo-Saxon home town turned into an Asian ghetto that resembles the slums of Calcutta does not make anyone racist; it makes them protective of their own history, origins and heritage. Not liking the family next door because they are scruffy, dirty and foul-mouthed does not make one a snob whatever colour or race the neighbours are but, according to the approach adopted by 'NatCen', it probably does make one a racist if the family happens to be from a different country. This has to be ridiculous and dangerous nonsense.
I am not a racist but I do have serious concerns over the scale of immigration into this country over the last 40 or 50 years. Not only has the rate of influx been so great as to make effective assimilation almost impossible, but we have also been assailed by the forces of 'multi-culturalism' which have allowed immigrants to take over large parts of many of our towns and cities to such an extent that these no longer appear to be British. This is wrong. Everyone coming to this country should be required to adopt at least an outward display of Britishness and should certainly be able to speak our language. They should obey our laws without question and should, by-and-large, adopt our customs; if they do not wish to do this, they should not come here.
This is not 'racism', it is common sense. Britons traveling to foreign parts are expected to obey the laws and customs of the countries they are visiting; why is it not the same for those coming to this country ? Years ago, Enoch Powell predicted that the immigration policies of the then government would lead to trouble and he was roundly condemned by all and sundry; in the intervening years matters have become far worse as the views and actions of successive governments have heaped coal on to the fire. Inevitably, the flames are beginning to come through.
Only now are the intelligentsia waking up to the fact that Powell was right and they and their predecessors have been horribly wrong. Let's hope it's not too late to prevent the catastrophe that he foresaw.
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