15 January, 2009
Pakigate revisited
Over on CiF, Haroon Siddique tells us just how deeply he is offended by Prince Harry's off-the-cuff remark. 300+ comments follow. Unless you have nothing better to occupy your time, I wouldn't recommend wading through the article or the comments. Here's a summary. Most of the usual suspects participate and rehearse their usual positions, talking as ever over each others' shoulders. Final score: 80% "Who gives a shit?", 20% "This is the most deeply offensive thing ever to have happened in the history of the world; disband the royal family; shoot all White people".
As mego ("my eyes glaze over") was beginning to set in, I happened on this comment:
Obviously we don't know the context and backstory here. Did the goalkeeper have extensive "previous" on the abuse front? Was this particular remark motivated by general exasperation, with the phrase "fucking Paki" being merely an identifying term of abuse without specific racist intent, much as someone might call me a "fucking four-eyed cunt" without specifically intending to mock my mild visual disability? Was it a genuinely racist remark because the goalkeeper just "didn't like darkies"? Or was it a more directed abusive criticism: perhaps the goalkeeper thought the other player was faking injury in an attempt to get his opponent booked?
We don't know, so let's just take the post at face value, as "Mr Stewpot" posted it. A player makes an abusive comment about another player. Because of the particular form of words used, the referee reports the incident to the governing body who, because of this one remark, insist that the offending player be permanently excluded. Not rebuked, fined or even excluded from say, one subsequent match, but fired outright.
Do we not think that this is just a little disproportionate? Mutual abuse on the football pitch is certainly something to be discouraged and where appropriate punished, but throwing someone out of the game permanently for an off-colour comment? Again I offer a comparison with a different scenario. Had the fallen player been of short stature and the goalkeeper had called out "Get off the floor (floor?) you short-arsed cunt!", would the punishment have quite so draconian? I suspect not.
This heavy-handed reaction "[reduces] thuggery and [engenders] respect for other people", claims Mr Stewpot. I wonder. It seems more likely to engender an unwillingness to get involved with non-Whites at all. This guy's behaviour was clearly out-of-order, but it seems you never know when you're going to inadvertently cross some unseen line of offence and have your epaulettes of membership of polite society torn ritually from your shoulders before being cast into the outer darkness. Best not to chance it, perhaps.
There seems to be a hysteria, a mounting hysteria, about race relations in the UK. Each negative incident, however trivial, is parlayed by the Liberal Establishment, the liberal media and the professionally offended of the race industry into a shock-horror front-page crisis. The guilty are promptly taken away and hanged. I wouldn't be surprised to see soon the erection of a new gallows at Tyburn for the public execution of racists, pour encourager les autres. One almost gets the feeling that "They" are desperately trying to keep the lid on something, cracking down firmly on every development that might permit the White population to begin to express its concerns openly.
Frequently, insult is added to injury by actually stifling legitimate if "inappropriately" expressed criticism. Remember Big Ron and Marcel Desailly? Atkinson, believing himself to be off-air, referred to Desailly as "what is known in some schools as a fucking lazy thick nigger". A few people took issue with the "thick", indignantly reminding us how many languages Desailly could speak (an ironically unwitting reference to the Monty Python travel agent sketch, but let that pass). But the Great and the Good went suitably apeshit over the use of "nigger", and Big Ron was hounded out of employment. And yet behind the clumsy language, what was it all about? Desailly was due to retire from premiership football at the end of the season and Atkinson believed the player was slacking, no longer pulling his weight, to the detriment of his team, which behaviour Atkinson regarded as unprofessional and despicable. You know, I can't help wondering, even if Big Ron had not been caught using the N word, would he have got away with criticizing a Black man? Perhaps he should have asked somebody like Ian Wright to voice the criticism for him; that would have been safer.
Recall the current prosecution and shaming of fans for "racial and homophobic abuse" of Sol Campbell? Abusive and uncalled-for, yes, but what was it about? It was about Spurs fans barracking Campbell, himself an ex-Spurs player now playing for the "enemy" Portsmouth team. They were having a go at him for being a turncoat, not for being a Black man. A fairly typical fan reaction, I would have thought.
Do these two cases matter? Yes they do because they simply serve to stoke up White resentment, the sense that non-Whites, whatever they may do, however badly they may behave, are beyond criticism.
No, if the Establishment it thinks it can continue indefinitely to bully us into compliance by draconian overreaction and show trials, it may be mistaken. Every little Pakigate, every little Sootygate: read the newspaper reader-comment threads, talk to White people in the shops and the pubs, people are getting very very fed up of this stuff. I only hope it doesn't explode too messily.
Perhaps I ought to rename this blog, "It will all end in tears".
As mego ("my eyes glaze over") was beginning to set in, I happened on this comment:
jonniestewpot
12 Jan 09, 6:31pm
Football against racism has made a positive contribution to this subject in our society.
My local office football team are racing through the leagues at the moment. At a recent match an Asian lad playing for the opposition was fouled. Whilst he was laid out on the floor in some pain the white goalkeeper of our team shouted so everyone could hear "get off the floor you fucking paki". The referee reported the incident the punishment meted out was either drop the player permanently from the team or the team had to disband.
Ridding our country of racism has a civilising effect on it. Reducing thuggery and engendering respect for other people.
Obviously we don't know the context and backstory here. Did the goalkeeper have extensive "previous" on the abuse front? Was this particular remark motivated by general exasperation, with the phrase "fucking Paki" being merely an identifying term of abuse without specific racist intent, much as someone might call me a "fucking four-eyed cunt" without specifically intending to mock my mild visual disability? Was it a genuinely racist remark because the goalkeeper just "didn't like darkies"? Or was it a more directed abusive criticism: perhaps the goalkeeper thought the other player was faking injury in an attempt to get his opponent booked?
We don't know, so let's just take the post at face value, as "Mr Stewpot" posted it. A player makes an abusive comment about another player. Because of the particular form of words used, the referee reports the incident to the governing body who, because of this one remark, insist that the offending player be permanently excluded. Not rebuked, fined or even excluded from say, one subsequent match, but fired outright.
Do we not think that this is just a little disproportionate? Mutual abuse on the football pitch is certainly something to be discouraged and where appropriate punished, but throwing someone out of the game permanently for an off-colour comment? Again I offer a comparison with a different scenario. Had the fallen player been of short stature and the goalkeeper had called out "Get off the floor (floor?) you short-arsed cunt!", would the punishment have quite so draconian? I suspect not.
This heavy-handed reaction "[reduces] thuggery and [engenders] respect for other people", claims Mr Stewpot. I wonder. It seems more likely to engender an unwillingness to get involved with non-Whites at all. This guy's behaviour was clearly out-of-order, but it seems you never know when you're going to inadvertently cross some unseen line of offence and have your epaulettes of membership of polite society torn ritually from your shoulders before being cast into the outer darkness. Best not to chance it, perhaps.
There seems to be a hysteria, a mounting hysteria, about race relations in the UK. Each negative incident, however trivial, is parlayed by the Liberal Establishment, the liberal media and the professionally offended of the race industry into a shock-horror front-page crisis. The guilty are promptly taken away and hanged. I wouldn't be surprised to see soon the erection of a new gallows at Tyburn for the public execution of racists, pour encourager les autres. One almost gets the feeling that "They" are desperately trying to keep the lid on something, cracking down firmly on every development that might permit the White population to begin to express its concerns openly.
Frequently, insult is added to injury by actually stifling legitimate if "inappropriately" expressed criticism. Remember Big Ron and Marcel Desailly? Atkinson, believing himself to be off-air, referred to Desailly as "what is known in some schools as a fucking lazy thick nigger". A few people took issue with the "thick", indignantly reminding us how many languages Desailly could speak (an ironically unwitting reference to the Monty Python travel agent sketch, but let that pass). But the Great and the Good went suitably apeshit over the use of "nigger", and Big Ron was hounded out of employment. And yet behind the clumsy language, what was it all about? Desailly was due to retire from premiership football at the end of the season and Atkinson believed the player was slacking, no longer pulling his weight, to the detriment of his team, which behaviour Atkinson regarded as unprofessional and despicable. You know, I can't help wondering, even if Big Ron had not been caught using the N word, would he have got away with criticizing a Black man? Perhaps he should have asked somebody like Ian Wright to voice the criticism for him; that would have been safer.
Recall the current prosecution and shaming of fans for "racial and homophobic abuse" of Sol Campbell? Abusive and uncalled-for, yes, but what was it about? It was about Spurs fans barracking Campbell, himself an ex-Spurs player now playing for the "enemy" Portsmouth team. They were having a go at him for being a turncoat, not for being a Black man. A fairly typical fan reaction, I would have thought.
Do these two cases matter? Yes they do because they simply serve to stoke up White resentment, the sense that non-Whites, whatever they may do, however badly they may behave, are beyond criticism.
No, if the Establishment it thinks it can continue indefinitely to bully us into compliance by draconian overreaction and show trials, it may be mistaken. Every little Pakigate, every little Sootygate: read the newspaper reader-comment threads, talk to White people in the shops and the pubs, people are getting very very fed up of this stuff. I only hope it doesn't explode too messily.
Perhaps I ought to rename this blog, "It will all end in tears".
# posted by Edwin Greenwood @ 13:18 
