Dogwash

Johann Hari has a comment piece in yesterday's London Evening Standard (probably not on line) about the obscene practice of female genital mutilation, sometimes blandly euphemized as 'female circumcision'. He starts off with a graphic description of the process and its effects, and concludes with some light editorializing and moralizing.

The piece is titled "Racism that condemns 15,000 girls to butchery". The "15,000" refers to the number of girl children in London who, according to one estimate, are at risk of being subjected to this savagery, though it is not immediately clear how this number should be interpreted. The "racism" reference, however, is initially puzzling. Johann's piece concludes:

This is happening to girls between the age of seven and nine. Today. Here. Adwoa Kwateng-Kluvitse, the tough, bluff Ghanaian woman who runs the anti-mutilation charity Forward, the source of statistics in this article, says there is "no doubt" that this practice is continuing in London. The British Medical Journal has warned that there "seems to be a conspiracy of silence in medical circles".

Some London girls are butchered in the backstreets, more are sent "home" (usually to a country they have never seen) to be mutilated. Yet some people bizarrely believe it would be racist to harry and hound the people perpetrating this abuse. Even the often-great feminist Germaine Greer has said "one man's mutilation is another man's beautification" and argued it would be cultural imperialism to oppose it.

But isn't the real racism to write off these young girls as aliens who do not grieve and suffer and weep just as much as white girls when they are tortured by their families?

"Some people get caught up in thinking of this in terms of imperialism or relativism or multiculturalism," says Adwoa. "They forget that behind these isms there is a little girl being attacked."

Why aren't we siding with African women like Adwoa and Muslim women like Ayaan who are desperate to stop another generation of girls being crippled? Why is the Metropolitan Police spending its time chasing down casual drug users and not the men inflicting the ultimate misogyny on little girls?

Johann has a problem here. He knows that FGM is barbaric and should be ruthlessly suppressed. But FGM is a practice confined to the African and Muslim 'communities', and as a paid-up member of the Righteous Left, Johann cannot quite bring himself to speak critically of them. Indeed, he seems to require the permission of his Ghanaian contact to legitimize (and to articulate on his behalf) his criticism of cultural relativism.

But in the end, he concludes, the fault clearly lies with White society and indigenous White insitutions for not grappling with the problem. Thus:

But isn't the real racism to write off these young girls as aliens who do not grieve and suffer and weep just as much as white girls when they are tortured by their families?

So it's all our fault again, chaps. Nostra culpa, nostra culpa, nostra maxima culpa. So that's all right then. Forgive me for being a cynical old Hector, but if the Met and social services were really coming down hard on FGM in London, I'd bet Johann would be out there with the other Righteous Liberals and the 'community leaders' screaming "racism" and "cultural insensitivity".

Remember the mutilated and murdered African boy "Adam" and the practice of kindoki? That's gone rather quiet, hasn't it?

Anyway, welcome to the real world, Johann. Hopefully one day soon you'll be able to cast aside your security blanket and face up to it without the need for scapegoats.

The reality is that if medics, police, and social services are leary of dealing with this minority-ethnic phenomenon in our midst, it's because you and people like you have worked so hard for so long to create a totalitarian antiracist culture which makes it at least career-threatening and at worst criminal to even suggest that black and brown people can be guilty of wrong-doing of any kind, let alone evil like this. Tua culpa, my boy, not nostra.

Oh, and the "Decca" reference in my title? I refer of course to the ineffable Aitkenhead, doyenne of Liberal self-delusion, who in this as yet unsurpassed masterpiece was able to admit to the existence of rampant homophobia in Jamaica by contriving to blame it on the British colonial masters.

In today's Sunday Times, Minette Marrin speaks her accustomed good sense about the ridiculous case of a ten-year old child being had up before the courts for exchanging racial abuse with another child in the playground. Not quite as bizarre as the case of the golliwog three but certainly a contender in the PC bollocks stakes.

At the end of Ms Marrin's piece, however, there is a jarring note:

Racism is, of course, a real evil but the current guilt-ridden obsession with it, so clearly expressed in this case, only serves to inflame it and actually to further the cause of racist politics — the reverse of what the politically correct protagonists intended.

(My emphasis.) This irritating qualifying usage is becoming quite common among writers who are otherwise brave enough to be critical of the politically correct orthodoxy.

Whatever racism is, it is not "evil". Questionable, unhelpful, counterproductive, unpleasant, destructive, damaging, unacceptable. Any of those perhaps. But "evil"? To call racism evil devalues the latter term and obfuscates the former.

Murdering a schoolgirl then disposing of the body by chopping it up and selling the meat to your customers in kebabs. That is evil. A prejudice against someone purely or substantially because of their membership of an ethnic group different from your own may be many things, but "evil" does not fit the bill.

Is this important? Well, in effect the usage is little more than a less clichéed literary variant of "I'm not racist but..." or "I've got nuffink against you jungle bunnies as such, I mean, like, some of my best friends are nignogs, but...". The usage is a concession to the hyperbolic language of the politically correct, it is a cringing conciliatory nod in their direction which seems to be saying, "Look, I know I disagree with everything you stand for, and, despite what I say, in my heart of hearts I accept that you are right, but, please, I'm not a bad person, really. Honest!" The use of this kind of apologetic language concedes the argument by default to the bullies of political correctness.

Have the courage of your convictions, Minette. If you really believe racism is "evil", then fair enough. If you just think it's a destructive or damaging force in society that we could do without, like double parking or cash for peerages, then say that instead.

Various people have already had a go at this piece of hypocritical racist tosh. But do they realize that, if they are UK taxpayers, they are actually paying for it?

BLINK is the web presence of the 1990 Trust, a lobbying organization at least part funded by the CRE.

The recent IPPR report on illegal immigration proposes, unsurprisingly, that we deal with the problem of half a million or more, probably significantly more, illegally present workers in this country by "regularizing" them. As well as taking an embarrassing statistic off the books, this step will, apparently, boost the coffers of the Revenue by £1bn a year of additional PAYE and NI receipts.

I'm not entirely convinced. Of course a proportion of illegals with fake documents are already within the formal economy anyway, if under false pretences. "Regularizing" them would have no fiscal impact. But let's assume all of our target population are working in the, if you'll pardon the expression, black economy. According to the IPPR, issuing these people with proper work documents will bring them into the formal economy, where they will pay income tax and national insurance and "contribute" to our vibrant multicultural society.

Nonsense. What makes low-skilled illegals attractive as employees is their cheapness and their vulnerability. They are attractive because you don't have to worry about such tiresome overheads as the minimum wage, tax, national insurance or such irritating inconveniences as health and safety and working conditions. Employers prefer illegal employees, preferably at arm's length, because they are a damned sight cheaper and much easier to push around. Industrial tribunals? Never heard of 'em. Minimum wage? What's that, then?

When Ade, Vijay, Ahmed and Piotr turn up one morning with their new work permits and announce that it will henceforth cost you three to four times as much to employ them, you are not going to be very impressed. When second cousin Ali shows you his brand new NI number and announces that he is no longer prepared to work eighteen hours a day in your kebab shop for a tenner a week plus food scraps, will you accept this cheerfully, or will you be on the phone to Istanbul – or Sylhet as it may be – pronto for a replacement (while making a mental note to cancel next week's meat order)?

"Regularizing" illegal workers will just lead to them being fired, and a new swathe of illegals will quickly arrive to fill the gap. The supply is effectively infinite and, crucially, the borders are wide open. The "regularized" illegals will have to decide whether to remain in the black economy to keep their jobs or stick to their guns by insisting on proper conditions, thus losing their jobs. And with their newly semi-legitimate status they will, in the latter case, one assumes, be able to cast themselves on the mercy of the welfare state.

After the dust settles, we will be fiscally worse off than before, with the addition of a new underclass of unemployed regularized illegals.

Illegal immigration is market driven. On one side there is a supply of people desperate for work. On the other there is a customer base of unscrupulous employers and the hypocrites who use their services knowing full well that they are indirectly employing illegal near-slave labour. It's one hell of a buyer's market.

The way to deal with illegal economic immigration is (a) to introduce serious border controls to keep the future supply out and (b) to come down hard, very hard indeed on the employers of illegal labour to throttle the demand. Never mind the £2000 fines, bang a few of the buggers up pour encourager les autres. Much of the existing illegal population, its raison d'être for being here having disappeared, will go home of its own accord. I'm sure the Treasury will be happy to help with their fares.