Dogwash

Aaronovitch uses the publication of a pro-immigration report by the RSA to berate the evil little Englanders who fruitlessly continue to oppose overwhelming, unlimited mass immigration to the UK. Aaro's thesis is that unlimited immigration is a) good for Britain, and b) unstoppable anyway.

I read Aaro's piece while standing waiting for the train, accompanied by assorted Nigerians, Chinese, Vietnamese, the occasional miscellaneous South Asian, and, oh yes, a couple of other White people, though whether they were natives or the usual Albanian/Russian mafia that has taken up residence in my part of South East London was impossible to say.

Aaro's thesis rather depends on your understanding of the term "Britain". If, as the tenor of his argument seems to imply, it is simply UK Ltd, a territorial subsidiary of Global plc, then of course he is entirely right.

But there is an alternative interpretation of what Britain means (or England, or the UK, or whatever of a group of overlapping concepts you prefer to concentrate on). It is a nation, a territorially-based, ethnically-homogeneous society based on the labour, struggle and social consensus over a period of 1000 to 1500 years of my ancestors. You might possibly make a plausible case for the economic benefits of unfettered migration, though I'd not necessarily agree with you, nor would the likes of Coleman and Rowthorn, but if the consequence is the effective destruction of my nation as a distinct entity, then the price is unacceptable.

I'd sooner be a slightly poorer Englishman than a feelthy rich shareholder in UK Ltd. Thanks, David, but on the other hand, no thanks!

Commenters on the Left have, predictably enough, blamed the French riots on poverty and isolation arising out of White racism. Those on the right have been more inclined to blame that poverty and isolation on Muslim separatism, indolence and a benefits/victimhood culture.

But both tendencies see the solution in terms of "integration", greater participation by minorities in the broader French society; they differ mostly in saying who should make most of the effort.

That's all very nice, but I have a question. What if the indigenous French majority don't want to be integrated into on such a scale -- a process that will inevitably have a modifying effect on the host society? Racist bastards, you say? Well, only because they are White Europeans. A culture's desire to maintain its cultural and ethnic integrity, to deal primarily with "its own kind", would be regarded as normal and healthy for any other group.

In the UK we have achieved a superficially more successful integration of our largely uninvited guests, but it is held in place by a covert culture of "positive" discrimination and subsidy, enforced by a taboo on critical comment. "You will love your Black neighbour and clasp him to your collective bosom!" "Look, guv, he's a nice enough geezer and all that, and I wish him no harm, but I prefer being with my own people." "Racist scum! Off to gaol with you!"

You can't force the indigenous French to accept the beurs and the nègres. And if they won't...

Interesting times.

Laban points out this piece of egregious nonsense, but overlooks the underlying core message:

In the 1970s and 1980s, reports of inter-ethnic squabbles were rightly greeted with suspicion and derision by anti-racists. This was for two reasons. Firstly, Asians and blacks more often shared a common experience of racial oppression under the authorities and freelance racists. Secondly, reports such as the Sun's loathsome 'Ten reasons why blacks and Asians hate each other' were a transparent attempt to excuse official white racism.

In today's climate, racial prejudice against ethnic minorities no longer has official backing. Without that common experience of racial oppression, fractures between ethnic groups can begin to emerge.

So there you have it; it's all our fault. We evil indigenous Brits eventually got used to these exotic strangers that had been thrust upon us and largely overcame our not unnatural initial suspicion of them. While we didn't entirely embrace the aliens and their strange ways to our collective bosom, we came to tolerate their presence and to interact, on the whole, peacefully and constructively with them.

This, clearly, was the wrong thing to do. Because we stopped being beastly to these assorted resident foreign Johnnies, they were forced to turn on each other to satisfy their need for victimhood.