23 August, 2011

 

The apotheosis of Tariq Jahan

I like to think I'm a water off a duck's arse man on the whole. Certainly I take an interest in the "passing show" of largely unpleasant news that washes over us every day, and I reflect on it and occasionally go so far as to broadcast my obnoxious opinions in places like this blog. But I don't emote about it and I tend to regard with a certain wary suspicion those who scream and shout how much they are "sickened" and "appalled" by events which for them can only be remote and abstract, or who moralize in absolute black-and-white terms, dividing the world up unequivocally between Good and Evil — or, as we usually say round here, Righteous and Unrighteous. Life is complicated. There are rarely simple, unequivocal answers. And above all, as the Grand Unified Theory of Thermodynamics teaches us, Shit Happens.

However, with Jai the Prolix's latest effort at Pickled Politics I come close to being actually sickened. This saccharine tale of interfaith harmony, reconciliation, mutual support and ... well, read it for yourself; by Jai's usual standards it's relatively concise.

Interfaith unity from the ashes of the riots in England

Jai speaks lovingly of interfaith collaboration and shared commemorations. Mostly, it seems, between Muslims and Sikhs. Whites don't seem to get much of a look-in. He mentions interracial collaboration in post-riot clean-up efforts, though as I recall the Ealing clean-up was an almost entirely White effort and some of the non-White shopkeepers rejected offers of help, fearing that the White men were really looters in disguise. Links to MSM pieces are given, in which White journalists apparently recant their anti-Muslim prejudices. Eh? (Have a bucket handy if you decide to follow the link to Andrew Wilson's piece in the Mail.)

Jai even manages to squeeze in digs at the EDL (natch) and Anders Breivik (yawn).

Jai, my old mucker, stick to your last — tedious Indian supremacist diatribes about the superiority of Indian culture, about how the Indians inspired the industrial revolution and selflessly won the two World Wars on behalf of the ingrate British plunderers. I like a good ripping yarn and yours are quite imaginative — if overlong.


But enough of this ad hominem pettiness. Let's look at the substance.

Mr Jahan is a hero, an emergent hero of heroes, to be sure.

Let's think about that. Not the fact that Tariq's impassioned and timely speech defused a developing violent situation, but more that the situation — the realistic threat of violent generalized reprisals by one "community" against random and largely innocent members of another "community" in reaction to an intercommunal insult — that such a situation was there to be defused in the first place.

Let's step back a bit and try and get a bit of perspective on this; time for a spot of righteous whataboutery in the form of a counterfactual, methinks.

Terry James is a White Englishman living in a White community. During the period of the riots, and unknown to him, his son Harry is out on the streets with other young White men defending their community and property against the imminent threat of attack by looters, rioters and arsonists. A carload of young Pakistani-heritage men from an adjacent district arrives, intent on mischief. The Whites attack the car and the young Pakis, meeting an unanticipated level of violent resistance, panic and attempt to drive off at speed. In the process several of the young White men, including Harry James, are run down and killed.

Anger is rising within White communities across the country and there is serious talk of large groups tooling up, travelling down and exacting random revenge on the Pakistani community concerned.

In an impassioned speech before locals and the assembled press, Terry urges calm and restraint; he wishes to see no more violence and no more unnecessary deaths. Popular anger is mollified by his unexpected eloquence and is displaced into solidarity, expressed inter alia in the form of a huge memorial service attended by tens of thousands.

OK, there's your counterfactual scenario. And your starter for ten?

Well, would the young Whites be seen as defending their community against attack? More likely they would be condemned as thugs taking the law into their own hands. Investigations would begin attempting to implicate the NF, C18, BNP, EDL, etc and whoever else is on the hate list this week.

Would the anger in distant White communities be seen as an unfortunate but, well, understandable response, thankfully quelled? Perhaps not. More likely historical reflections on the chronic volatility of the indigenous rabble and a half gross of agonizing CiF pieces about the cancer of White violence.

Barely any mention was made in the press of the violent attack on the car by the "defending" Pakis. And as little mention as possible has been made of the ethnicity of those in the car. In the case of the late Harry and his mates, you can bet — though no bookie would give odds on such a dead cert — that the stoning by a White mob of a car full of Paki lads out for a spin would soon be parlayed into a a racist attack upon the disadvantaged.

Tariq Jahan is a comfortably-off scrap dealer. In his younger years, we learn, he dabbled with Hizb-ut-Tahrir. But thankfully he escaped their baleful influence and settled down to become a pillar of the community. So that's alright then.

Terry James is a scap dealer who seems to have an awful of cash floating about — we wonder if the taxman knows about this. Terry ran with C18 and the NF in his youth. Hey, we all know once a Nazi always a Nazi — a Nazi whose car mechanic son goes round stoning innocent Pakis.

Tariq never goes to Mosque but nonetheless is a deeply religious man whose faith is an example to us all. Terry last went to Church for his wedding ceremony. So much for Christian society, eh?

And so on.


Our shared gratitude to Tariq Jahan is comparable to the gratitude we might feel towards a huge tattooed thug who thoughtfully restrains his pit bull from mauling our toddler. Should we feel gratitude for his intervention; or should we feel anger that the danger he so helpfully thwarted was present in the first place?

My — necessarily abstract and remote — sympathy to Mr Jahan in his loss, and my pragmatic gratitude for the effect of his words, but let's not build an ecumenical Tariq Jahan Shrine in Winson Green, shall we? This is not the Second Coming.

A decent enough Brown man, through his well-chosen words, deflects a community of colonizing Brown savages from taking revenge on a community of colonizing Black savages while a largely White police force attempts to maintain order and largely White taxpayers foot the bill for reconstruction.

For this we are supposed to be grateful already?

Do me a favour!

Comments:
Yep, you pretty much nailed it there; but lets see what surprises 'Carnival' weekend brings.

 
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