Immigration and the "Poo Flick"

I’m not in favour of immigration. Bizarre, you’d think given my ‘wife’ is a second generation immigrant, as is my best friend, but no I’m not in favour of immigration.

People who’ve read my blog in the past will be confused at this juncture. You might be asking how I could come to such a conclusion. Have I suddenly gone mad and watched Cameron’s infamous ‘multiculturalism speech’ so many times I made some semblance of sense out of it?

Or am I just trying to play some sort of semantic game? Perhaps I’d rather call immigration “a natural and fluid interchange of people from between arbitrarily prescribed boundaries.” But no that’s just a definition, and I’m not a lexicographer.

The media and politicians have renewed their attack on the political hot potato of immigration to worryingly little dissent. Their lies and half-truths go unnoticed and unpunished, fed to an audience often too stupid and racist to question the things they want to hear whatever their veracity.

Which is why stories like this and this make me so angry, because they’re littered with hate and inaccuracies and an unfortunate number of people don’t have any ability to interrogate source material so it goes into their brain unquestioned, unthinking and, ultimately, unaltered.    One of those people is apparently the Prime Minister of this country, who along with Theresa May, has shown a worrying dedication to the lies and twisted truths found in the Daily Mail.

Cameron’s speech against immigration shows a worrying desire for the kind of racist, fear-mongering more associated with the American South than Britain. “Shop an illegal immigrant” schemes will raise fear, mistrust and racial profiling. Hardly the mark of a free society.

Point out the stupidity of a comment based upon this kind of nonsense and you get a series of uninterruptable “well they wouldn’t print it if it wasn’t” or “they’re everywhere, my mate at work…” The big problem at the last election wasn’t that immigration was an issue but that Labour refused to discuss it, in a negative attempt to win votes, whilst the Lib Dems did what the Lib Dems do, say a lot of nothing before breaking the mould and manoeuvring themselves into power with a party not one of their voters would ever vote for.

What we must realise is that if families have been forced out of everywhere they once called home and Britain played a major role in that destruction, we have a responsibility to help them with a life, to find the opportunities we denied them in finding our own. Our kids will find out all about this when we have our giant war for resources with China in 2040.

If you raise your family with a work ethic and love of education and pay your taxes and work, you are to be respected as a human being. The colour of your skin and the arbitrary borders you were born within are not a mark of character. These people must be respected, not held in contempt for doing everything a good citizen, a good human being, should do. The truth, and shout it from the rooftops please, is that immigrants add to the culture, stability, economy and integrity of our country.  

Immigration should be a willingness to incorporate the best of every culture and individual, not a battle for supremacy. When Cameron and others talk of integration, they mean assimilation into an ill-defined culture with ill-divided opinions and priorities. Our country is already multicultural, all Western nations are. Look at the states in America. That is the beauty of living in a free and rich country.

Immigration often comes in “waves”, the decision in 1948 to extend citizenship to those of the Commonwealth brought West Indian immigration alongside those fleeing the Stalinist oppression of Poland. The 60s and 70s brought waves of South Asian immigration as a result of Ugandan and Kenyan oppression and outright poverty in India and Pakistan, caused by the end of the Raj, amongst others.  

All of these “waves” added something to the diverse culture of Britain and immigration continues to do so, forget the fear-mongering about how Islamic culture is overrunning Christian culture. We live in a predominantly secular nation with a small minority, about 2%, of practicing Muslims, the vast majority of which have nothing but contempt for the hatred spouted by fundamentalists like bin Laden and his ilk.

It’s also important to remember the impact these waves had in the British labour markets. Without immigration London’s streets would not have been cleaned, the postal service would have failed, the NHS would not have developed and the manufacturing heart of this country in the Midlands, something the Right is so keen to reclaim, would not have survived without the work of decent, motivated people who gave up everything to make a new life on this island.

We are all immigrants, pick up a history book. The Anglo-Saxons invaded Britain when it was inhabited by the Welsh and Celts. Over the next 1500 years waves of French and Danish immigration and invasion further altered the cultural make-up of Britain. Add to that the British penchant for invading any country we fancied and you have a nation made up of a million little pieces of a thousand different nations, races and cultures.

Which is why I’m not in favour of immigration, I’m in favour of an immigration exchange. Every racist, lazy, hateful, workshy arsehole who calls themselves “British” just because they’re white and they were born on this island should be exchanged for an immigrant, principally asylum seekers running for their lives.

It’s what I call the “poo flick”, what my friend does to remove the floating turd her son has just unleashed in the bath. You don’t get your hands dirty much and the shit ends up somewhere hot where they won’t survive long. That should be policy instead of stigmatising and breeding hatred of a group of people who have contributed more and have far more right to be here than smug, ignorant arseholes like Cameron, May and Griffin who only divide our country instead of relishing the real Britain, in all its technicolour glory.

Meredith Kercher and her family are the only real victims in this trial and its media storm...

The Kercher trial is a sickening example of how the media can distort and misrepresent, revealing just how victims often take a back seat in coverage.

Today as Sian Williams sat on the BBC Breakfast sofa and stated that some had called the trial of Amanda Knox a “media circus”, she quickly jumped on the tightrope herself and immediately invited two guests to discuss the case as if it had been held in some kangaroo court led by the whims of a dictator in a land far away, not a European court with a legal system far older than our own.

The Kerchers themselves told how, “Meredith has been almost forgotten in all this. It's very difficult to keep her memory alive in all this.” And you’d be forgiven for agreeing if you’d followed the media reaction with Knox’s tears and smiles all over the front pages and TV news headlines. Against the might of the Knox’s PR machine, the true victim had no hope of making the front page. Remember in her own country, if convicted, Knox may already be dead. If she was black. Or poor. The blindness of many Americans continues to terrify.

Throughout this trial I’ve found myself shouting at the TV: 

Can we remember the actual victim please? Meredith Kercher. Her family have been so dignified and reserved, is it possible we can act similarly? Perhaps justice has been done for Knox but what about the Kerchers? Surely they should be our sole concern, Amanda Knox may be innocent of murder but she lied and cost the investigation valuable time and labelled an innocent man, a killer. She is not a wholly innocent party.

Whilst misconstruing the verdict on Monday night, the Daily Mail decided to publish their reaction and, in doing so, gave a horrifying example of how they invent entire stories and quotes. They even invented the reaction of the Kercher family; on what planet they think this is acceptable I am not quite sure.

I should point out that although writing certain articles such as obituaries is common place and allows the media to respond with news, but speculating on the reaction of a murdered 21 year-old’s family is surely unimaginably disgusting. Given the furore over Johann Hari’s indiscretions perhaps right-wing media-lovers may wish to question their own sources (although we all know they won’t, that’s the problem with the Mail).

However, things reached a sickening nadir today when The Wright Stuff decided to ask “Foxy Knoxy: Would Ya?” with the Channel 5 website asking:

So Amanda Knox has been cleared of the murder of British student Meredith Kercher. She’s entirely innocent. She’s also undeniably fit and loves wild sex. Or did.

So if you were a guy who’d met her in a bar and she invited you back to hers, would you go? I’m being quite serious. Or would something in your brain make you think twice?

No something in my brain thinks this may just be one of the most sickening things I’ve ever read or heard. Why would anyone think to debate this? Surely a more worthy topic for a phone-in show would be “did the Knox PR machine result in her acquittal?” Not, would you fuck her against some bins because it turns out she’s had a conviction for murder squashed? I mean are they serious?

Which brings me way off topic, because what I wanted to do is shift the focus back to the Kerchers however impossible it is to imagine the hell they continue to suffer. I just can’t understand it and neither apparently can the British public which is why stories like the Mail’s will go unpunished and without apology and Knox’s face will continue to sell papers. The Kerchers did not cheer and smile when Knox and co were convicted, they accepted it with a grace no one else has shown in the whole case, from the accused, their families, the media right through to the prosecutors.

Let us be in no doubt that in focussing on Knox we represent the worst of Western culture, its justice system and media. The only victims here are Meredith Kercher and her family. Their quiet, reserved response in the face of this horror has been an example we should all learn from, but the sad reality is we won’t. In the meantime perhaps we could simply show the family the respect they entirely deserve by keeping Meredith and the search for the truth at the centre of any coverage...