Dele Ogun came to Britain from Nigeria aged 7. He is now a lawyer, practising in London and a keen campaigner against the top/down federalism imposed on Nigeria by British civil servants and against the top/down federalism imposed on Britain through the EU by British civil servants and politicians. He has given his permission for this letter to be circulated.
"The Nigeria experience shows that it is hard enough to integrate cultures within a shared race, it is harder still to integrate races. A permanent under-class with a colour badge is always a dangerous thing to leave lying around. This was my mother's take on the matter when I spoke with her earlier today (although her words were not so high-brow).
These troubles have come as no surprise to me. The seeds were sown in the short-sighted post-colonial policies that sponsored and propped-up crooks and bad leaders in the former colonies just so that the gravy would continue to flow. The Foreign-Office failed to see that the children of the lands thus blighted would be left with no alternative but to find their way to the Mother country and that unless opportunities here were opened up quickly (i.e through affirmative action) to absorb the new arrivals, resentment would simmer. If there were opportunities in the West Indies and Nigeria etc most of those on the streets would not be here.
These riots happened on a smaller scale in Tottenham 25 years ago. There is every certainty that they will happen again and again with increasing incidence and intensity if all that is done is to offer more grants to fund youth-centres and mentoring schemes. The solution needs to be much more far-sighted. The solution lies where the problem was created, in the Foreign Office. It requires a truly ethical foreign-policy that recognises a shared interest in a peaceful Britain and in viable former colonies. It requires recognising that the tide of immigration is best arrested, and then reversed, by advice and support that will leave these former colonies viable so as to attract their people back home (which is where they really want to be). This is not to be done by DFID giving Nigeria, for example, with all our wasted oil-billions, "financial aid" but by sharing political experience such as the Devolution Bill to manage our own internal contradictions that were created by the colonial encounter."
I would suggest that our political elite would do well to let their minds dwell once again, on the words: " A permanent under-class with a colour badge is always a dangerous thing to leave lying around".
Cristina Odone, who - in this article - writes in the manner of the Telegraph's 'token leftie' Mary Riddell, seems to be confused in her reasoning. She writes that the burgeoning immigrant community has been caricatured as anti-gay, anti-women, and dangerously intolerant; that traditionalists suspect that the Muslim influx, in particular, threatens to destroy the already fragile hold of our Judeo-christian traditions; that in the tight-knit enclaves peopled by Kurds, Sikhs, Poles and others, a strong sense of community does survive; and finally, that amongst these immigrants marriage is the model they live by and aspire to, continuing that divorce is almost nil, single motherhood ditto.
5 comments:
To a certain extent it depends on the immigrant community. Mrs SAoT came from Iran around 25 years ago having largely grown up there, but not being entirely welcoming to the regime change of Khomeini.
Her peer group has almost entirely integrated. I don’t know a single Iranian, male or female who has married another Iranian, indeed I recently went to one of her cousin’s weddings and the bloke Mohammed, was marrying a Jewish girl. That was unique in my experience. (They had to get a rabbi from Los Angeles to officiate!)
She recently invited more or less everyone of her immediate work colleagues around chez SAoT for a wine tasting evening and a jolly time was had by all. No Muslim prudery here, albeit she has a keen sense of morality which I think comes from the religion, and makes it a point never to be rude to anyone (except me obviously).
Ditto a friend of mine who is marrying a really charming girl from the Bengali community. It was a shock to the parents that the girl wanted to marry a white Brit, but they got over it and accepted him, and he is a perfectly decent fellow. Interestingly, after the chanlo (i.e. the public engagement ceremony), half a dozen of the girl’s friends have ‘come out’ and admitted to white boyfriends.
Communities that refuse to integrate, remain inward looking and have little or no contact with the indigenous culture are both suspicious and suspected. As Himmler once remarked (someone I am not in the habit of quoting) “SS men must refrain from social contact with Jews, they all seem to think the know the one decent Jew and for him alone we should make an exception”
And from one of the twentieth century’s most genocidal sociopaths we have the truth, integrate and socialise, and you probably won’t want to loot from or kill your neighbours, fail to do so and create a mini Gaza.
I should perhaps add, the benefits from doing so are significant, at least in the case of Mrs SAoT. In addition to some really splendid middle eastern and Rick Stein inspired menus, she is trying to bankrupt me at Berry Bros & Rudd
http://www.bbr.com/
A MUST READ
A Nation of What
The London riots are yet another episode in the slow disintegration of Europe. London is no longer an English city, it’s just another pin on a map. Much of London is a bunch of Third World cultures living in a geographical area that they have no cultural or emotional connection to. The culture around them is as shamelessly materialistic, vulgar and violent as anything in the dark ages– with the occasional tip of the hat to politically correct values involving the environment or tolerating gay people. And the same goes for the rest of Europe’s capitals. Paris, Amsterdam, Berlin, Brussels and Oslo are all obvious examples.
The real showdown in London was not between opportunistic rioters and the impotent police, but between African looters and Asian storekeepers fighting a purely materialistic battle. And if the UK’s immigration trends do not change, in a generation or two, the battle will have a much more open character. A struggle for ownership of the city.
http://sultanknish.blogspot.com/2011/08/nation-of-what.html
Bishop Nazir Ali was pilloried when he stated that there were dangerous no-go areas in most of the big cities in the UK. I wonder if those who pilloried him will apologise.
Our elites got it into their heads that our civilisation was universal and not specific to a people with a predominantly Judea-Christian root.
On that assumption they imported tens of millions of people who never had any such idea, if not downright hostile to it. Now we are paying the price.
The civil war has begun, and just like in the Balkans, is set to last for the foreseeable future.
Christina Odone is dotty and irrelevant. German research shows 33% "honour killings" have make victims, usually gay. Such killings are prevalent in certain groupings.
Divorce is easy under Islam, so is polygamy. Matriarchy is common in Caribbean households more than African in the UK.
Odone's father was a World Bank official so she did not live in Britain until she attended a private secondary school and Oxford;she too worked at the World Bank.
What does she really know about growing up in England when you don't have a silver spoon ?
Saot: As you so rightly point out, it is sections of each immigrant community that do not wish to integrate that cause the problem - and blacken (no pun intended) the reputation of the majority.
So BBR is the reason you turned to writing......? :)
DP111: Off to read........
TT: Agree divorce is easy for the men but not so easy for women, from what I have read.
Regarding O'done: yup knew her background but then as you say what do the privileged know of real life?
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