Monday, August 25, 2008

Identity, Immigration, and Islam

El Inglés returns with another guest essay, this time about the collision between national identity and mass immigration, especially Muslim immigration.


Identity, Immigration, and Islam
by El Inglés


We have allowed our Islamic cancer to metastasize without limits because we feared ourselves more than the enemy.

Section 1 — Identity

John BullIn November 2006, a documentary called ‘100% English’ was broadcast on British TV. Eight people who identified themselves as being entirely English were quizzed on their beliefs as to the criteria that would have to be satisfied for someone to qualify as being English. Each one of the eight also provided a DNA sample that was used to determine their genetic background by subdividing their DNA into four categories: European, Native American, Sub-Saharan African, and East Asian. The results of the tests were then conveyed to them, and their responses recorded.

The program, though interesting, was unconvincing in some regards. So many of the eight seemed to be genetically atypical for Northern Europeans that it was hard to avoid the conclusion that a larger number had in fact been involved in the production, and the less surprising results discarded. More fundamentally, though the program did a reasonably good job of exposing the difficulties of deciding what Englishness might consist of, it made no attempts to formulate any answers to this question itself, and seemed intellectually hollow as a result.

Now, needless to say, the program was not a piece of disinterested investigation, but rather a piece of implicit advocacy for a ‘We Are the World’ perspective on mass immigration. Incurable cynic that I am, I was left unmoved by this clumsy attempt at indoctrination when I recently succeeded in tracking the program down online. However, I was fascinated by the obvious sense of disapproval directed towards one of the participants who replied in the negative when asked whether Ian Wright, a black British footballer who had played for the English football team, could be considered English. Of course, decent people in the UK today are expected to vehemently disagree with those who express such opinions. But, having shed such intellectual taboos as I once possessed over the last few years, it was far from obvious to me on what grounds one might be expected to disagree at all. If the rejection of black people as being English was wrong, how was it wrong?

It is undoubtedly the case that the vast majority of people with motorcycle licenses in the UK also have normal driving licenses. If one were to argue, however, that the converse was also necessarily the case and that a majority of those with normal driving licenses also held motorcycle licenses, one would have committed a logical fallacy. Do we detect some similar logical fallacy in the claim that black people (however defined) cannot be English? I do not see that we do, for if logic had anything to say on the subject, it would surely have said it by now. A hundred years ago, virtually every English person would have rejected the potential Englishness of black people; today, a majority accept it. But this is clearly not a movement towards or away from more logical thought processes. Rejecting the notion that black people can be English is not illogical.

Moving on, if I assert that the gravitational force mutually exerted by two bodies is inversely proportional to the cube of the distance between them, I have made a claim that can be rejected as incorrect on empirical grounds. The claim is observably untrue, if one has the scientific prowess to make the requisite observations. Can we talk about the potential Englishness of black people in these terms? Could we imagine a scientist emerging from the laboratory with a test-tube fizzing away in each hand, claiming to have proved that black people can or cannot be English? I think not. One can observe black people in England, but not Englishness in black people. Rejecting the notion that black people can be English is not flawed on empirical grounds, as empirical evidence cannot be brought to bear on the question one way or the other.

There is only one other obvious sense in which the rejection of the potential Englishness of black people can be considered wrong, and that, of course, is the sense that it is morally wrong. For myself, I cannot see that the claim ‘black people cannot be English’ is a claim that has any moral content at all. It may have moral implications, but it has no moral content. One can advocate policies of whatever sort on the basis of whether or not one claims that black people can be English, but there are no policies that follow inevitably from either claim. It is perfectly possible to believe that black people should not be allowed to immigrate to England but can become English should they get there, and equally possible to believe that they should be allowed in but can never really be English however many generations they may be there for. These combinations of opinion may be uncommon, but they certainly exist.

Let me illustrate the distinction by way of a different example. There are those who would argue that if Darwin’s theory of evolution by natural selection is correct, then human beings are merely animals and morality does not exist. Let us suppose for a moment that they are correct. Does this imbue the claim that Darwin’s theory is in fact correct with moral content? I would argue that it does not. The claim that Darwin’s theory is correct has potentially massive moral implications, but it is not intrinsically moral or immoral. It is simply an empirical claim, whether it is true or false. The claim that black people cannot be English similarly falls into a category of claim other than the moral.

I have now argued that a denial of the potential Englishness of black people in question is not a claim that can be refuted logically, undermined by any kind of empirical evidence, or criticized for its moral content, because it has none. But it is obviously some sort of claim. It is not an incomprehensible string of gibberish. What other type of claim could it be?
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The word elephant is used to refer to a large mammal, characterized by large ears, tusks, and a prehensile nose called a trunk. There is no logical, empirical, or moral reason that the word elephant should refer to said mammal, but it does nonetheless, at least in English. To rephrase slightly, there is an overwhelming consensus amongst English speakers that the word elephant refers to elephants. When we call elephants elephants, we implicitly claim that the word elephant maps onto a particular type of animal. This is to say that we make a definitional claim, which can only be considered true or false by reference to whether or not relevant parties happen to consider it true or false. I can refer to elephants as parasols, or indeed parasols as elephants, without falling into logical, empirical or moral error, though communication with other English speakers may well become difficult and tiresome whenever the subject of elephants (or parasols) comes up. But if I do so, I will be committing a definitional error, at least until such time as my usage becomes prevalent. Definitional error is rarely absolute, and can turn into definitional correctness via a physical relocation or the passing of time. The opposite is also true.

I argue here that the claim that black people cannot be English is virtually identical in nature to the claim that the word elephant refers to a certain type of animal. I am not arguing that in 21st-century Britain the rejection of the possibility of black people being English is as universal as the correct understanding of the word elephant. Nor am I suggesting that it should be. I am simply trying to point out that, in the final analysis, Englishness is whatever English people say it is and that one cannot meaningfully appeal against their decision, any more than one can appeal against the current meaning of the word elephant. It is interesting to note (and this touches on the question of whether denying the potential Englishness of black people can be considered immoral) that there is very little, if anything, in definitional claims that could be considered volitional in nature. People simply do not decide what to make of the word elephant. If you were to kidnap a man’s family and tell him to call elephants parasols and parasols elephants if he wanted them back unharmed, he would undoubtedly comply, but he will not believe that the referents of these two words have changed in any meaningful sense. So it is with identity. It can evolve over time, and it may be that certain concepts of identity will be presented as being functionally superior to others. But people will either accept them at an instinctive level or not at all.

This makes the attempts of government and large portions of the media to try to impose a new definition of British identity by fiat so alarming. Britain is now a multi-ethnic, multi-religious, multi-cultural country, our betters tell us. We have moved from the dull, uninspiring, vanilla Britain of the past, to a new, exciting, tutti frutti Britain, one pregnant with potential. Of course, no one really believes this anymore. No one says it with confidence, without a little voice in their head telling them that, in all honesty, things could have worked out better. Indeed, it is precisely the presence of this voice that prompts them to make such ridiculous pronouncements in the first place.

Let me put this differently by making a further refinement to the earlier notion of identity. I suggested that claims of identity are not logical, empirical, or moral claims, but definitional claims. However, there is one type of identity the existence of which can be considered an empirical matter, and that is the legal identity conferred by bureaucratic means. For our purposes, the possession of citizenship, usually symbolized by the possession of a passport, is the most obvious example of this type of identity. Its existence is undeniable, and its possession, under normal circumstances, unambiguous. I shall refer to it hereafter as formal identity.

I ignored formal identity earlier as it is qualitatively different to the informal identity I wanted to discuss. Informal identity is the wellspring of our basic societal outlook, irrespective of whether we happen to be discussing ethnic, religious, cultural, linguistic, national, class identity, or some complex superimposition of them all. It is an expression of what people feel, at the very deepest level, themselves and others to be. Formal identity is, in one sense, what their politicians tell them they should feel themselves and others to be.

Political elites in European and European offshoot countries have, over the last few decades, allowed vast numbers of people not included under the umbrella of the informal identities of their respective countries to immigrate and take on formal identity. To the extent that they concerned themselves with notions of identity at all, decision-makers simply assumed that the host society’s informal identity would expand to welcome the newcomers, and that this process would be aided by the adoption of prevailing cultural norms by the immigrants. But this has not happened nearly as much as might have been hoped. Indeed, there is now a clear divergence, a mismatch, between formal and informal identities, and the ridiculous declarations of our floundering politicians are simply manifestations of it. When countries enjoy tight fits between formal and informal identities, such declarations are redundant. It is only when a growing sense of concern about the gradual ripping apart of formal and informal identity starts to take hold that politicians respond, however ineffective their responses are doomed to be.

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Section 2 — Immigration

ImmigrantsImmigration in its own right is a natural enough phenomenon, and one which is difficult to see as being a threat per se to the social cohesion and long-term viability of any polity. Indeed, unless a polity is prepared to act in a totalitarian fashion, refusing entry to or exit from its own territory, some degree of immigration is inevitable, especially in the modern age. Millions of people of British nationality are currently living, working, or travelling abroad, and millions of foreigners are currently living, working, or travelling in Britain. Given the resultant inevitability of British and non-British people therefore meeting, falling in love, getting married and having families together, some degree of immigration (and emigration) is bound to happen unless we adopt a North Korean style of politics.

In a similar vein, it could legitimately be argued that a country that tried to completely cut itself off from the international labour market and associated movements of people would cause itself a degree of intellectual and economic stagnation that would outweigh the possible benefits of retaining a higher degree of ethnic, cultural or religious homogeneity. The merits of this sort of immigration would have to be discussed on a case-by-case basis, but there seems to be a consensus among developed countries that there is nothing intrinsically injurious about this type of immigration. Whether or not facilitating these sorts of inflows should be accomplished by providing temporary working visas or routes to permanent residency or citizenship is a separate question.

Though one may remain relatively unconcerned by these types of immigration, there is a third type of immigration which appears to be slightly more problematic. This is mass immigration, in which numbers of people, often equivalent to single-digit percentages of the host population, who are by and large statistically representative of their home countries, are permitted to settle permanently in countries on time scales that are, historically speaking, very short. They come largely for economic reasons, but also to escape the dysfunctionality that often obtains in their countries of origin, usually bringing it with them in the process. By and large, they have no particular ethnic, cultural, religious, or social similarities with the host societies, though they frequently have historic connections and often, therefore, some linguistic overlap as well. Exactly why this type of immigration has been allowed to happen at all is the subject of much debate. I will let others argue about this, being content here to observe that it has happened and needs to be discussed, as it is the root of our manifest and rapidly growing problems of social cohesion in Europe.

I will start by making and justifying four points about mass immigration:

  • That it is, in at least one important sense, based on altruistic urges;
  • That it cannot be expected to result in a net increase in the material prosperity of the host country;
  • That it is qualitatively different to other ostensibly altruistic policies that a country can implement; and
  • That it is intrinsically predisposed to move beyond the control of the host country.

1) Economic Nature of Mass Immigration

Mass immigration consists of the movement of people from relatively impoverished countries to relatively wealthy countries. This is not only a characteristic of said immigration, it is the driving force behind it. People seek both material prosperity and the social conditions that allow it to exist in the first place. The size of the prosperity gap can be smaller, as in Turkish immigration to Germany, or larger, as in Bangladeshi immigration to the UK, but it is always there. It is not for nothing that the people selling pirate DVDs on the streets on London are Chinese, not Japanese. Migration between wealthy countries is more a matter of mutual drift than anything else.

Due to the extant wealth gap, the average educational deficit of the immigrant, and the linguistic and cultural gulfs that will often exist between immigrant and host society, it is clear that all groups of mass immigrants will arrive in the country at or near the bottom of the socio-economic ladder. As such, one obvious way of trying to get a handle on the economic consequences of mass immigration is to ask to what extent socio-economic convergence occurs. If convergence occurs on the key indicator of GDP per capita for immigrant and native groups, then an intuitive first-order analysis (i.e. one that ignored potential secondary effects of the immigration) of the economic effects of immigration would suggest that, after convergence has occurred, the immigrant population does not constitute a net drag on the material prosperity of the country. One could claim that the catch-up period does make some slight economic drag inevitable before convergence occurs, but I will ignore this here.

The first point to be made is that when considering mass immigration, convergence tends not to occur during the timescales we have so far been able to observe. Though Jews and East Asians seem to be able to consistently outperform their host societies, they tend to make up relatively, if not overwhelmingly, small fractions of the total number of mass immigrants into those societies and therefore have only a minor impact on the larger picture. In the UK, professionally and educationally high performing Indians and, more recently, Eastern Europeans, have improved the relevant statistics. However, Pakistani, Bangladeshi, African, Caribbean, Somali and other immigrants have consistently failed to display convergence. Though individuals may do well, communal convergence is not on the cards for these groups at present, and there are no obvious reasons to believe it will ever happen at all.

It is interesting to note that this clustering of mass immigrants on the wrong side of the mean for important socioeconomic indicators is virtually inevitable. It would strain credulity to suggest that educationally, culturally, linguistically disadvantaged people from failed or failing states with little, if any, history of intellectual or technological achievement could catch up economically with the citizens of the world’s most advanced states. That Jews, East Asians, and a subset of Indians do catch up is the mystery that needs explaining, not that others fail to do so. Note also that in the case of ongoing chain immigration, convergence becomes simply impossible, as even successful immigrants are numerically swamped by the ever-growing influx of people at the bottom of the socioeconomic ladder.

Similarly, it takes a remarkably obtuse person to evince surprise at the disproportionate criminality of many immigrant groups. In a prosperous, free, and overwhelmingly law-abiding society, it is scarcely conceivable that large numbers of economically underachieving immigrants from impoverished and dysfunctional countries will not commit a disproportionate fraction of the types of crimes that people most worry about, such as murder, rape, and robbery. Again, it is the unusually law-abiding minorities such as, in the UK, Jews and Hindus, who require an explanation, not the criminally over-performing Jamaicans. When the immigrants in question also adhere to an intrinsically supremacist and seditious ideology like Islam, such as the North African populations of France or the Netherlands, their criminality is a foregone conclusion, and available statistics back up this conclusion with no exceptions.

Those who find the above economic analysis too impressionistic should bear in mind that in the last couple of years we have started to see the emergence of rigorous scientific studies of the economic effects of mass immigration into European countries. The House of Lords Select Committee on Economic Affairs published a report entitled ‘The Economic Impact of Immigration’ in the spring of 2008 which concluded that there were no net economic benefits to mass immigration in the UK. In other words, the European country whose immigrant community contains the greatest fraction of law-abiding, productive immigrants still has no net economic benefit to offset the increasingly hideous social and cultural costs of mass immigration, which need no elucidation here.

Moving across the English Channel to France, an organization called Contribuables Associés (Associated Taxpayers) recently published a report finding that immigrants, who make up 11% of the population, reduce economic growth by two thirds, create a net annual tax burden of 26.19 billion Euros, and necessitate an annual security budget of 5.2 billion Euros. Immigrants therefore constitute a significant net drain on the French economy, a net drain with no obvious solution. Whatever economic benefits the French may have gained earlier from relatively targeted mass immigration are now being rapidly undone. It is widely claimed that restrictive labour laws in France hold back the economy because employers will not hire, even during a boom, people they cannot fire during an economic downturn, as the eventual costs will outweigh the immediate benefits. Ironically, France itself has not had the wit to act with similar prudence, having ‘hired’ in the 50s and 60s a large group of immigrants whose massively and uselessly bloated numbers form a constituency it cannot ‘fire’ now that times are hard. The shocking criminality and hostility these people are spewing forth into the country is too well known to be adduced here as further evidence for my claims above.

2) Altruistic Nature of Mass Immigration

I stated above that the reasons mass immigration had been permitted were many and varied, and vigorously debated. Still, it seems to me that there is at least one sense in which mass immigration has become purely altruistic in nature, and that is the sense in which those who oppose mass immigration, in the present or retrospectively, will inevitably be opposed on the grounds of altruism. As hinted at above, attempts to justify mass immigration on economic grounds are becoming increasingly feeble and perfunctory, quickly discarded as their erstwhile proponents bump into the facts and fall back to the better-fortified line of defence that altruistic reasoning supposedly constitutes.

We must open our hearts to the world. We must embrace the entire population of the world as our brothers and sisters. This is true even if they hate us, true especially if they hate us. Besides, consider the poverty so many people live in throughout the developing world. What could be wrong with giving these people a chance to prosper, to build a better life for themselves and their families back home? What are you, some kind of racist? Where is the love?

This is the bedrock opposition to doubts over mass immigration. It may not always have been so, but this is how things are today. It is often combined with a related semi-altruistic stance whereby it is argued that mass immigration will allow us to ‘build bridges’ with other people, as a result of which we will all benefit in some unspecified fashion. Strictly speaking, this is more an example of mindless intellectual candyfloss, but it is similar enough to be mentioned here.

Thus, Turkey must be allowed into the EU as a bridge between Europe and the Muslim world. The merits of actually having a bridge between Europe and the Muslim world in the first place are not explained, and decent people are not expected to enquire as to what they might be. Presumably it is thought that the rapidly growing hostility between believers and kuffar in Europe can be solved by the influx of vast numbers of Turkish believers, their culture, and their behaviour. If it is, the underlying reasoning escapes me.

3) Nature of Altruism Inherent in Mass Immigration

There are then, elements of altruism in popular support for mass immigration, whatever the reasoning of our political elites may be in this regard. Undoubtedly, this altruism is sincere for many people. But this observation leaves unanswered the question of how it might be categorized. Giving money to help 50,000 earthquake victims in Pakistan would be a type of altruism. Airlifting them into your country and giving them passports would also be a type of altruism. But it would not be the same type of altruism.

We need a special name for this type of altruism. My preferred candidate is ‘deranged altruism.’ Deranged altruism is that type of altruism in which a member of a group, X, passes some portion of the common assets of X to a member or members of an unrelated group, Y, without the permission or consent of the other members of X, in a manner likely to seriously and irrevocably compromise the interests of X. Note that Y need not be ideologically opposed to X, but that the derangement is all the more obvious if it is.

Consider the example of foreign development aid. All developed nations devote at least a portion of their budgets to trying to help less developed nations make socioeconomic progress. Though politicians may argue that economic progress in these countries will be in our long-term interests, I think it is fair to suggest that this type of aid is essentially altruistic in intent, rather than self-interested. But is it an example of deranged altruism? The answer is clearly no, because the condition of causing serious and irrevocable damage to X is not satisfied. This type of altruism could be opposed as ineffective by development economists or unethical by libertarians, but it is not deranged altruism.

So what is deranged altruism? Deranged altruism is a man donating all his worldly assets to Al Gore’s re-election campaign, thereby forcing his wife and children to make a living begging on the streets. Phrased slightly less stiffly than above, it is, for our purposes, when representatives of a nation ignore or sacrifice the interests of those they are duty bound to serve, putting ahead of them the interests of those they have little or no responsibility for, and do so in a manner which takes the country on a qualitatively different historical trajectory than that it would otherwise have followed, one of incremental degradation, decay, and destruction. This notion of trajectory is important. If a country is likely to be able to retain, more or less, its initial trajectory, the altruism in question is not deranged.

Which brings us onto the final point.

4) Intrinsically Uncontrollable Nature of Mass Immigration

The final and perhaps most important point to make about mass immigration is its intrinsically uncontrollable nature in any country which has bought into the background assumptions of European and European offshoot countries, to wit:

  • That mass immigration is an unmitigated good;
  • If it is not an unmitigated good, its benefits massively outweigh its costs;
  • If its benefits do not massively outweigh its costs, it is still economically indispensable;
  • If it is not economically indispensable, it is still an inescapable part of the modern world;
  • If it is not an inescapable part of the modern world, it would still be immoral to bring a halt to it.

In such countries, allowing mass immigration to gain momentum is an act of staggering foolishness, as we can see with chilling clarity that it possesses positive feedback mechanisms that will very likely result in it turning into a runaway process.

Firstly, family reunification and the right to bring one’s spouse to live in one’s own country will very often ensure a steady flow of chain immigration into a country once a foreign population has been established there. Even if we ignore the obvious importance attached to maintaining familial, tribal, and religious links in some communities, the massive wealth disparities between source and host nations ensure that there will be a steady supply of people wanting to immigrate to our countries. Our extant immigrant communities will facilitate this flow at some rate in accordance with their own interests (not our interests) in a manner difficult to stop as long as we maintain the fiction that our immigrants are all ‘just like us’ and therefore should have exactly the same rights.

Secondly, burgeoning immigrant communities with strong loyalties to themselves and weak loyalties to everyone else will have a very obvious interest in attempting to redirect the common assets of their host nations in the direction of their own extended communities. These common assets include financial assets, which they will attempt to appropriate through disproportionate welfare payments and foreign aid, and more importantly, social capital, which they will try to allocate to their relatives and countrymen by gaining them access to the host country itself, thereby degrading total stocks of said capital. Relevant pressure groups will do everything they can to loosen immigration laws in their favour, and governments more concerned about winning votes and avoiding accusations of racism than fulfilling their responsibilities to their electorates will rush to oblige them.

Thirdly and finally, the very presence of immigrants will tend to strongly inhibit frank discussion of the costs and benefits of mass immigration. I will refrain from explaining this rather obvious point in detail, only noting here that, firstly, large sections of the host society will not consider it proper to discuss such things, and that secondly, immigrants and their fellow travellers will attempt, often with much success, to have such discussions labelled racist at best, criminal at worst.

These three dynamics taken together constitute the reasons why mass immigration will tend to become uncontrollable, and why allowing it comes to be an act of deranged altruism as defined above. Note that they are equally observable in such disparate cases as Muslim immigration to Europe and Hispanic immigration into the US.

Conclusion

Mass immigration has a powerful tendency to degrade key socioeconomic indicators such as GDP per capita and crime rates. Furthermore, it has come to be viewed by many in the host countries as fundamentally altruistic in nature. As such, this degradation is very often not accepted as an argument against it, as self interest is not the key motivating factor underlying it in the first place.

This altruism inherent in mass immigration is the type I call deranged altruism, the chief characteristic of which is that it inflicts incalculable and uncontrollable damage on the host society, damage that will unfold unpredictably over a period of time extending decades, perhaps centuries past the initial decisions. The dynamics that lead to this rolling and deepening damage are easily understood and are visible with minor variations throughout the entire Western world. Mass immigration is therefore something which will inevitably lead to a marked divergence of formal and informal identity as described earlier, as vast numbers of people in the host society simply reject the newcomers in question. It is to this subject that I now turn.

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Section 3 — Formal-Informal Identity Divergence

National IdentityI have argued that mass immigration has, with remarkable consistency, forced a divergence between formal and informal identities in European and European offshoot societies. It might now be instructive to consider whether or not these divergences can be categorized, and what sorts of conclusions might be drawn from these categorizations. All observations below are made in the context of a reasonably homogenous host society taking in large numbers of mass immigrants as described above. They are therefore not applicable to, for example, relations between the white and black populations of the US, which both came into existence as a result of an entirely different set of dynamics.

1) Demographic Stability

Probably the most obvious question to ask of a divergence between formal and informal identity is whether or not the size of population excluded from informal identity is increasing or decreasing as a fraction of the whole. Most countries quite easily tolerate small minorities considered alien in some regard, and very few countries do not in fact possess such minorities. Even Japan has its Chinese and Korean communities.

2) Criminality

There is great variety in how productive and law-abiding minority groups are. Even minority groups to whom informal identity is denied can be held in high regard and viewed as a relatively benign presence rather than a problem or a threat. This will be especially true if they lack disproportionate criminality and play valuable roles in the local economy. Various parts of the global Chinese diaspora spring to mind as possible examples.

3) Escapability

Escapability simply refers to the ease with which people can separate themselves from those with whom they share formal identity but not informal identity. The most extreme form of separation is emigration, but only a relatively small fraction of people will be both willing and able to take this drastic step. More frequently, people will separate from undesirable neighbours by relocating within their own countries. But not all countries were created equal in this regard. A small, densely populated country is bound to provide less opportunities to those who would cluster with their own and insulate themselves from those regarded as other, all other things being equal. Large countries, on the other hand, may well continue to provide abundant opportunities of this sort for a long time, particularly to the white majority.

4) Degree of Ideological Organization

However unpleasant the presence in one’s country of those with whom one does not share informal identity, there is a qualitative difference between unorganized hostility stemming from the cultural incompatibility of such people and ideologically organized movements within their communities which pursue political objectives that the broader society might consider antithetical to its way of life. Political lobbying can result in new zero-sum legislation, sacrificing the interests of the host community in the interests of the new arrivals. Furthermore, such legislation will be binding upon all inhabitants of the country in question, reducing the degree of escapability as discussed earlier as an oppressive legal presence can be extended much further and faster than its physical equivalent.

Concrete Examples

Having considered the most obvious ways in which these divergences can differ from each other, I would like to consider some real-world situations to see how they might be categorized in the terms I have outlined above. I do not claim any expertise on any of the following examples, only enough familiarity to be able to plausibly consider how they might be categorized in each of the above four respects.

Hispanics in the US

1) Demographic Stability — Hispanic immigration into the US, legal or illegal, is taking place at a terrific rate, with federal attempts to enforce immigration law feeble and insincere. Nor is the flow of immigrants likely to stop due to internal dynamics in the source nation, as Mexico is a poor, underdeveloped country with severe crime and corruption problems and a population of over 100 million people. Fertility amongst Hispanic immigrants in the country is significantly higher than in either the white or black population. Demographic stability is therefore essentially non-existent.
2) Criminality — The Hispanic population of the US is disproportionately responsible for personal and property crime, at least in comparison with the white majority. Gang activity appears to be a particular problem in heavily Hispanic parts of the country. Additionally, crimes such as drunk-driving and driving without a licence or insurance seem to be very common, imposing a steady toll in terms of the economic, human, and social capital costs.
3) Escapability — Clumps of Hispanic immigrants are apparently to be found in increasing numbers in surprising parts of the country, far from California and the South-West, and far from those states which were historically part of Mexico. On net balance though, the escapability of Hispanic immigration into the US is still relatively high, partly due to the sheer size and variety of America.
4) Ideological Organization — The degree of ideological organization on the part of the Hispanic population in the US is high. Civil rights organizations and lobby groups apply pressure on various levels of government to obtain preferential treatment, concessions that should not be due illegal immigrants, revisions of immigration law in line with their interests, and ever-growing formal recognition of their language. They successfully work to have their opponents branded racists, white supremacists, or worse, all the time advancing positions predicated on a race-based tribalism themselves.

Outlook — Rain clouds approaching fast. America’s vast size will provide an outlet for those keen to move away from Hispanicization for some time to come, but in all other regards, mass Hispanic immigration into the US constitutes a perfect storm of formal-informal identity divergence. The only saving grace is that, ideologically speaking, the Hispanic population appears to be only indirectly hostile to the interests of existing Americans. It wants what they have, but does not seek to put its boot on their neck. Yet.

Chinese in the UK

1) Demographic Stability — The Chinese population of the UK has originated mainly from the ex-British colony of Hong Kong. It is relatively small in size, and does not reproduce at a rate significantly greater than the population as a whole as far as I am aware. Recent illegal immigration from mainland China is reshaping the nature of the ethnic Chinese community here, but has not yet introduced major qualitative change in any regard.
2) Criminality — Though one occasionally hears about Chinese involvement in organized crime, the Chinese population of the UK is underrepresented in our prison system. One simply does not hear about Chinese people committing any significant amount of personal or property crime, either anecdotally or in the mass media. The crime most commonly committed by the Chinese in the UK is probably the crime of being in the UK without the required documentation. This is not trivial, but hardly existential.
3) Escapability — The low numbers of Chinese in the country make them relatively easy to escape, should one be so peculiar as to feel the need. The spread of that British institution known as the ‘Chinese chippy’ beyond our main urban centres notwithstanding, the Chinese are essentially found only in the cities, their numbers hugely outstripped by those of other immigrants.
4) Ideological Organization — There is no discernible ideological organization at all among the Chinese in the UK. There are no Chinese lobby groups. There are no Chinese celebrities. There are no Chinese politicians. There are no Chinese newsreaders. There are no Chinese footballers. Further, there are no Chinese people complaining about any of this. The insularity and apolitical nature for which the global Chinese diaspora is famed are alive and well in Britain. This is not to suggest that none of them assimilate, but there is a very definite sense of separateness to the Chinese as a whole.

Outlook — Blue skies, with a spot of cumulus on the horizon. The Chinese community of the UK is a professionally and educationally over-performing ethnic minority which places no explicit demands of any type on the host society, and no disproportionate implicit demands in the form of criminality or welfare dependence. Illegal Chinese immigration into the UK and other associated crime could become a problem if left unchecked, especially given its origins in a newly resurgent mainland China as opposed to the traditional source of Hong Kong. However, this would hardly appear to be a key issue for those concerned about the social cohesion of the UK as a whole. What formal-informal identity divergence exists with respect to the Chinese is largely benign.

Muslims in the Netherlands

1) Demographic Stability — Though Muslims in the Netherlands come from a range of national backgrounds, their rate of growth as a fraction of the entire population can be summarized as extremely rapid, due to both endogenous and exogenous factors. Family reunion laws have been tightened in recent years, which has reduced the rate of inflow of Muslim immigrants by approximately half. However, there are no reasons to believe that this positive change can stabilize the situation, especially given the rate at which native Dutch seem to be leaving the country. Indeed, there is no reason why the growing Muslim minority might not be able to overturn these restrictions in time, and little doubt that it would like to.
2) Criminality — Muslims are massively overrepresented in the Dutch prison system, apparently making up approximately 40% of the prison population despite only constituting 6% of the population.
3) Escapability — The Netherlands is a small and densely populated country. Nearly half the population lives in the Randstad, a conurbation in the west of the country consisting of the four largest cities in the Netherlands. It is difficult to say anything with precision here due to my lack of familiarity with the country, but it is surely fair to suggest that the escapability of undesirable immigrants must be orders of magnitude lower than in the US. This could be partly responsible for the fact that the Netherlands seems to be reaching some sort of breaking point with respect to Islam more quickly than France, despite the fractional Muslim population of the latter being 50% again as high. Arguably, a low escapability is an advantage for a host society, forcing a showdown while time is still on its side.
4) Ideological Organization — Muslims in the Netherlands are unified, however loosely, by a totalitarian and intrinsically seditious political ideology called Islam. As in all Western European countries, there will exist an alphabet soup of Islamic lobby groups, pressure groups, and political organizations pursuing, more or less explicitly, the goals of this ideology. These goals are the subjugation of all that is not Islam to Islam, as laid down in the foundational documents of this insanely and uniquely dangerous belief system. The swirling internal hostility to the kuffar inculcated in Muslims by Islam will be channelled more or less adroitly by different organizations at different times, but it will be there as long as Muslims continue to take their religion seriously. In this regard, it is qualitatively different to the hostility borne towards America by Mexican immigrants.

Outlook — Eye of the hurricane. The type, scale, and rapidity of the divergence between formal and informal identity in the Netherlands make a cataclysm inevitable sometime fairly soon. It is simply not conceivable that a situation of the sort that currently obtains there can remain stable for long.

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Section 4 — On Mass Expulsions

The Mushroom CloudAs some readers may recall, in ‘Surrender, Genocide, or What?’ I advocated the mass expulsion of at least some significant fraction of the Muslim community of the UK. I will return to this in the next and final section of this essay, but would like to pre-emptively address certain concerns that people may have in this regard, as it will likely prove to be the case that some will object to this idea. Some of this disagreement will come from those who do not share my assessment of Islam and the threat it poses to the very viability of the UK. These people will, I hope, see sense in due course. Here I propose only to address the likely objections of some of those who are in broad agreement with my extremely pessimistic opinions of Islam, but uncertain that mass expulsions are the way to proceed.

Objection No. 1 — Mass Expulsions are Categorically Wrong

I can only say in response to this that I cannot see why it should be so, and that there are other and far greater evils that can easily be identified and must be prevented. For prosperous, free, peaceful countries to countenance even for a second the idea that they should risk being destroyed from within by a hostile ideological force that has extirpated entire civilizations, simply to avoid inflicting inconvenience or harm upon the adherents of that ideology, is insane, and insanely immoral. Given that Muslim immigration is a recent enough phenomenon that a significant fraction of European Muslims were not even born in Europe, I simply do not accept that mass expulsions are morally beyond the pale.

Objection No. 2 — We Must Exhaust All Other Options First

It is certainly true that mass expulsions are not a measure that should be adopted lightly. But the window of opportunity for successfully integrating Muslim immigrants into UK society has surely passed, if it ever existed at all. Should they so choose, Muslims coming to live in the UK can spend virtually their entire lives without coming into contact with non-Muslims or wider British society. Furthermore, even those Muslims who wish to break free from the oppressive norms of their religion will find it increasingly difficult to do so as it spreads its physical presence and psychological reach ever further. The facts that a) no European country has succeeded in integrating its Muslim population and that b) the problems caused by these populations are in direct proportion to their sizes suggest that there is no solution to the problem of Islam short of destroying it or quarantining it. All other options are very rapidly being exhausted.

Worse, the idea that we must exhaust all other options before expelling Muslims is not only weak in and of itself, it is psychologically dangerous. For how is one to decide whether ‘all other options’ have been exhausted? Where does prudence turn into an inability to acknowledge the sheer scale of the catastrophe that Muslim immigration into the West constitutes? Anyone arguing that we must try to solve the problem without resorting to mass expulsions should create a list of what the other options are and how, precisely, we would decide when each one had been tried. Anything less could not be considered a serious response to what we face.

Objection No. 3 — How Do We Decide Whom to Deport?

Over time, I am fairly confident that we will see a growing appreciation in the UK of the necessity of deporting some significant number of Muslims if we are to solve the existential threat that Islam poses here. But how would we decide exactly who to expel? Even those most sceptical about Islam and the blessings it has supposedly bestowed upon us are likely to acknowledge that there are a great many people in the UK who are only nominally Muslims and who pose no threat. And what about those who come from Muslim backgrounds (through one or both parents) but have never been to a mosque in their life and have never even thought of themselves as being Muslim at all? Some would undoubtedly be ruthless enough to deport anybody with any sort of link to the Islamic world, sending people ‘back’ to countries they may never have visited, and whose languages they may not even speak. However, I do not consider myself to be one of them. Leaving to one side the slightly surreal quality of a discussion of something politically inconceivable at present, let us consider how, under ideal circumstances, one might decide whom to deport and whom to give leave to remain.

Analytically speaking, there is nothing particularly novel about this situation. We have the stark choice of expelling them or allowing them to remain. We also acknowledge, if we are not the completely ruthless type described above, that some should be expelled and some should not, but that we suffer from at least a partial informational deficit with regard to their true feelings and allegiances. Therefore, we are forced to accept that some people who should be expelled will remain, and that some who should be allowed to remain will be expelled. As such, there are four possible outcomes in the case of any given individual: deserved expulsion (correct positive), undeserved expulsion (false positive), deserved leave to remain (correct negative), and undeserved leave to remain (false negative). Tightening the conditions that must be satisfied for one to remain will reduce the number of false negatives while increasing the number of false positives. Relaxing the conditions will have the opposite effect. Setting these conditions is therefore a function of deciding whether to err on the side of having more false positives or on the side of having more false negatives.

Identical situations obtain with regard to the design of decision-making systems as disparate as legal systems and smoke alarms. In the former, false positives are regarded as by far the worse of the two false decisions, hence the burden of proof rests on the prosecution. In the latter, false negatives are justifiably regarded as being the decision to avoid, thus the aggravating yet necessary sensitivity of such alarms. One can invent more accurate decision-making techniques, be they better polygraphs or more discerning particulate matter detectors, but they will always be faced with this fundamental trade-off between the different ways of being wrong.

So it would be with deciding which Muslims to expel. One would decide on one’s objectives, then tighten or relax the criteria to achieve them given the inevitable constraints of time, personnel, and financial resources. Devising the criteria would be relatively easy once the objectives had been decided upon.

Objection No. 4 — We Will Inflict Too Much Harm Upon Ourselves

Mass expulsions of Muslims to their countries of origin in a UK context are, as I argued in ‘Surrender, Genocide, or What?’, activities that would require the resources and organizational capabilities of the apparatus of state. It could be argued that giving the state this much power would be dangerous, and I am inclined to agree. Though I have been accused of advocating a totalitarian form of government in the UK to solve our Muslim problem, my general political stance actually tends towards the free-market libertarian. I have very little regard for government as an institution. I regard it as a necessary evil which should be ruthlessly confined to essential duties only.

However, in the face of Islam, it is hard to see that temporarily increasing the power of government would be the worst of all evils. It has happened before, most obviously in wartime, without resulting in a permanent descent into authoritarianism or worse. It would surely be a grave error to underestimate the deep roots that democracy and consensual government have in the UK, allowing our Islamic cancer to metastasize without limits because we feared ourselves more than the enemy. There is most certainly a discussion to be had here. We need to abandon our taboos and start talking.

Objection No. 5 — We Will ‘Lose’ If We Deport Them

In the ridiculous age we live in, it has become all too common to complain that parties to a conflict somehow ‘lose’ if they step over some ethical boundary, real or imagined. They can prevail in any obvious sense, physical or territorial, but in a deeper and presumably more cosmic sense, they lose anyway.

Thus, the Israelis have already ‘lost’ in their conflict with the Palestinians due to the brutality with which they have supposedly pursued this conflict. Does this mean that the Palestinians have won? Why no, not at all. Only that the Israelis have ‘lost.’ Similarly, if we in the UK were to introduce draconian policies of expulsion with respect to Muslims, we would have ‘lost’ too. Not lost in the sense that our territory had been occupied or our country destroyed as a polity, nor in the sense that we would have been reduced to slavery or penury. No, we would have lost cosmically. Similarly, some would no doubt claim that the Americans ‘lost’ the Pacific War when they dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima, though one rather doubts that the Japanese would have arrived at the same conclusion. Others might argue that both we the British and the Americans ‘lost’ World War II when we reduced Dresden to ashes, so morally corrupt did this act make us. Or that the Mongols ‘lost’ when they took over most of Eurasia due to their unfortunate habit of exterminating hundreds of thousands of civilians when resistance had been offered to their advance.

I am not here comparing the wartime acts of the Allies to those of the Mongols. Nor am I suggesting that morality does not or should not exist in war. I am simply suggesting that real defeat is too serious an affair to be confused with the post-modern version that some would have us believe awaits us should we display any degree of ruthlessness at all with respect to Islam. Given the remarkable evil that Islam is and the blundering complacency with which we have so far treated it, it will surely be some time before we are in danger of ‘losing’ any moral battles with it, mass expulsions or no.

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Section 5 — Islam

The MuezzinThe notion that a mass expulsion of Muslims from the UK was the only way to save it from their vicious, obscurantist, and totalitarian ideology was something tagged onto the end of my essay ‘Surrender, Genocide, or What?’ so as to make it clear that I was not advocating genocide. It only partially succeeded in this regard. But, more importantly, it was a stand-alone position, not obviously supported by any line of argument. Here I attempt to fill in the gaps.

It will not come as a surprise to anyone who has ever read any of my other essays that my concerns about Islam prompt me to write this essay in the first place. The analysis of the divergence between formal and formal identity with respect to Islam in the Netherlands detailed above could be applied with only minor variations to many European countries (Sweden, Belgium, France), and others to which it could not yet be applied are surely not that far behind in this regard (Germany, the UK, Spain). Given that Muslim immigration into European countries is qualitatively similar in key regards that are too painfully familiar to be spelled out yet again here, what general conclusions can we draw about how to respond to it?

In this essay, I have so far argued the following points:

1) That questions of informal identity are definitional in nature, and will be determined on the basis of bottom-up, instinctive criteria.
2) That informal identity exists in parallel with formal identity, and that the two will not necessarily overlap.
3) That mass immigration as seen in post-War Europe has an almost irresistible tendency to force a divergence in formal and informal identity.
4) That this divergence can be characterized in certain key regards, and that Muslim immigration must be so characterized as being of the catastrophic type.

I hereby claim that Muslims cannot be British, that Britishness, whatever it may be, is simply not compatible with being a Muslim. As a definitional claim pertaining to informal identity, this claim is neither moral nor immoral in its own right. However, I suggested earlier that definitional claims could have moral implications, and the claim that Muslims cannot be British most certainly does have moral implications. Given the nature of the formal-informal identity divergence Islam has brought about, to wit, its obvious demographic instability, its breathtaking criminality, its rapidly declining escapability, and its ideological organization and hostility, the inevitable conclusion is that the only acceptable response to Islam in the UK is to expel as many of its adherents as we may deem necessary.

When I say that this conclusion is inevitable, I mean a number of things. Firstly, I mean that, in my opinion, those who are serious about defending their country from Islam will eventually conclude that this is how to do it. Secondly, I mean that I have no moral qualms about it, believing that it would be morally justifiable and proportionate to the threat Islam poses. Thirdly, I mean that, barring the emergence of factors qualitatively different to those I have foreseen, it will eventually be ordered and implemented by brutal and ruthless men of the sort who fight and win wars, assuming these people can act in time.

As spelled out in some detail in ‘Surrender, Genocide, or What?’, there are good reasons to believe that European countries have either passed or will soon pass a point of no return with respect to Islam, beyond which the possibility of resolving the Muslim problem in even a semi-peaceable fashion fast approaches zero. So be it. Our situation must be analyzed as clearly as possible, appropriate measures formulated, and, eventually, contingency plans implemented as necessary. A time will come when the unthinkable becomes inevitable, and opportunities for action present themselves.

100 comments:

Conservative Swede said...

El Ingles,

Regarding your first part: identity. In Sweden the "informal" identity was cancelled in the '90s, i.e. the nation of Sweden was officially dissolved. Since then there is only the formal identity. So a Third World tourist, who just received his passport, mentioned in a news paper (e.g. regarding a crime) is since then no longer referred to as a "Swedish citizen", but just simply a "Swede" (there is no longer any other way to be a Swede).

However, the interesting thing with language is, how do they refer to people as me in the news papers? Well, I'm a Swede "of Swedish background". Seems cyclic doesn't it? But that thing about "Swedish background" is a reference to the "informal" identity. So there is still this other way of being a Swede, and not even the most PC apparachnik could live without having a way to referring to it.

tutti frutti Britain

All fruitcakes?

Conservative Swede said...

This whole thing with the discrepancy between formal and informal identity--the way in which our current ruling elites have handed out passports with no basis for it whatsoever--made me realize already six years ago that there is no way of reforming ourselves out of the current situation; only a revolution is possible. Our rule of law has been sold out by this drunken sailor distribution of passports. And since the rule of law is based on continuity, there is no other way to revoke these unsubstantive and unrighteous passports, with less than a discontinuity. And it's not imaginable that the current trend continues. The fall of the current regime is in the footprint of this policy. All nations will have to be reconstituted.

This is just one out of several reasons for why revolutions are unavoidable, but a sufficient one.

laine said...

Deranged altruism - what a brilliant concept with such explanatory power.

Unfortunately, in the decision-making sphere we have no such clear-sighted language, merely euphemism and other bafflegab to hide the increasingly frightening facts.

Shouts of "racism or bigotry" are still sufficient to shut down any discussion of the facts as white westerners now fear to be called racist more than they fear their own cultural or racial extermination.

That is not going to change if the heat under our lobster pot continues to be turned up slowly. It's only if the enemy can't contain himself and kills enough westerners with one dramatic blow (guesstimate it would take hundreds of thousands dead as 3000 was shrugged off so we're talking poison gas or nuclear) to convince enough people they have a moral right to fight back, first pushing the masochistic and defeatist Left to the side.

One_of_the_last_few_Patriots_left said...

"The only saving grace is that, ideologically speaking, the Hispanic population appears to be only indirectly hostile to the interests of existing Americans. It wants what they have, but does not seek to put its boot on their neck...."

I fear, El Ingles, that you underestimate the outright hatred many Mexicans have for the United States. Of course, you will never see that in the mainstream media, but do a google search for the map of "New Aztlan" ( and thank God for the internet. )

"Yet." ...No, not yet...but SOON.

Steve said...

Great essay, El Ingles. You touched all the bases regarding the threats to the West. I was just wondering though, do you see any threat(s) for Canada, seeing as how our Elites have so much in common with their traitorous European buddies across the pond?

Thankfully our third-world immigration is limited to the larger cities like Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver (Which surprise, surprise, have high crime rates and are economically useless and stagnant).

Fjordman said...

A great essay, Ingles. Keep up the good work!

babs said...

I take issue with the first part of your essay and your argument that black people cannot be English. Formally, of course they can be English. You argue that informally they cannot. On what basis?
To use your analogy, did a scientist come out of the lab with test tubes fizzing and declare that only this genetic make up qualifies one for informal Englishness?
This site has long advocated for cultural assimilation through adoption of the indigenous population's cultural norms in order to include any ethnicity into a western country's society.
It is, as you state, the divergence from the informal identity of the native cultural norms that would make a person, or a group in the case of Islam, incompatible with informal identity. Not their skin color or other ethnic physical traits.
As you state, this isn't an argument based on the morality of including non white, non Christian individuals or groups into the "informal identity" group, but rather a clinical observation of how "English" or how "non English" an individual or group of individuals' behavior might be.
Your argument opens an entire Pandora's box of how far back one's ancestors need to go in order to validate someone's "Englishness." I reject that notion and find your reliance on a superficial difference to be weak.

El said...

babs,

please quote me the exact sentence where i say that black people cannot be english. if you can't find it, try reading the whole thing again and consider the possibility that i am using black people in the uk to probe some general ideas about identity, that i then apply to islam.

the essay is not about black people.

the essay is not about black people.

the essay is not about black people.

el ingles

El said...

@swede:

as i have defined it, informal identity cannot be abolished. what has happened in sweden is that an unusually insane (and that's saying a lot) government has issued formal identity at such a rate as to make the divergence completely undeniable. this would be in contrast to the UK, where everything has taken much longer and we are therefore better placed to lie to ourselves about what's going on.

back in sweden, knowing full well that this situation is unsustainable, they are trying to convince people to ditch their informal identity altogether, and trying to assert the primacy of formal identity. but formal identity is a piece of paper, so they cannot win. and as you well know, the cracks are starting to show over there.

but i agree with you about the revolution. can i come and watch?

Baron Bodissey said...

Babs --

El Ingles' whole point is that "Englishness" can't be ordered or commanded by any person or central authority. "Englishness" is determined by the people who consider themselves English and have an intuitive understanding of who fits in the definition of English and who doesn't.

If the general consensus among English people is that black people are not English, then they're not English. It doesn't matter if this is good or bad, right or wrong -- it just is.

You and a million other people might decide that the Gulf Stream is a bad thing, that it is wrong for so much seawater flow across the North Atlantic to the coast of Norway, but that won't divert its course by a centimeter.

El said...

@Steve,

canada sounds like it's in very bad trouble, to be honest. i pay less attention to it for lack of information and that old habit of thinking of the US first when i think of north america. but i would like to know more about what's happening north of the border there.

El said...

thank you baron. you gots mah back, homey.

Afonso Henriques said...

Hey! Bife! That is, Inglês!
You do not finish... can coloured people be English?
Can coloured people be English? Of course not!

Can Irish people be English? Of course not! Can "continental" Europeans be English? Of course not!

But one thing distinguishes Europeans from the coloured peoples... Usually, the children of non English Europeans can became English over certain conditions...

Can certain Americans and Australians for instance be English?
Well... that I can't answer. Someone like Baron would be more abilitated to answer this.

----------------------------------

I found this a very good article. Thank you for that El Inglês.

Concerning your other main point, about mass expulsions I have this to say:

I have to say that I, like you, do not think of muslims as the exception, it is more like Jews, North East Asians and some few Indians.
And as I do not think of muslims as the exception, I would not treat them different from other "ethnicities".

We don't have to grant Nationality to ethnic minorities. They can be non National Citizens. That would give us more power to expell individuals and to stop immigration. For mass expulsions to happen, we would had to be in a total new level, a level of pre war, and it is naive to think that "Jamaicans" - or whoever they represent - would not be compelled to join the muslim side. Wasn't the first "ethnic" riots in Great Brittain that of Caribean Blacks?

I would expell all non European males between 13 and 60 years old. I would then support the "ethnic" women who wanted to live the country, paying them a given quantity of money (GQM). For those under 13, I would let go those whose parents wanted them to go and I would also give a GQM for each "youth". Concerning the eldery... I would let them die wherever they want, try to grant them the more dignity possible, however, this ones are supposed to be financially independent by now. The "youths" were to be deported once they had reached majority, after having access to some education.

That I think, would be somewhat Human.

babs said...

"The essay is not about black people."

Well, certainly the first few paragraphs ARE about black people.

"Do we detect some similar logical fallacy in the claim that black people (however defined) cannot be English? I do not see that we do, for if logic had anything to say on the subject, it would surely have said it by now. A hundred years ago, virtually every English person would have rejected the potential Englishness of black people; today, a majority accept it. But this is clearly not a movement towards or away from more logical thought processes. Rejecting the notion that black people can be English is not illogical."

"One can observe black people in England, but not Englishness in black people.” Rejecting the notion that black people can be English is not flawed on empirical grounds, as empirical evidence cannot be brought to bear on the question one way or the other."

I disagree. If one accepts the premise that “informal Englishness" can be measured by the adherence to the cultural norms of the indigenous population, which I do, then one CAN observe "Englishness" in black people. And, we can observe it on an empirical level.

If a white, well educated Canadian were to immigrate to the U.K. and gain citizenship, adopt all indigenous cultural norms, contribute a high productivity to the society and breed offspring; by your definition would the offspring be “informally” English? I think your answer would be yes...

What if the same scenario took place but the couple was black? Is your answer then no?

"A hundred years ago, virtually every English person would have rejected the potential Englishness of black people; today, a majority accept it."

Would you like to turn the clock back? Because 100 years ago the entire race was pulling themselves out of slavery in the U.S. and black men couldn't vote. Today, we have a half black man running for the most powerful job on the face of the earth. If this same man were formally English, would you reject his claim of being informally English? It is nonsense and, I hope your readers recognize that society has evolved for the good in this respect.

BTW, I do not support this man in his bid however; I recognize his right in terms of being a citizen of this country and “informally American” to stake this claim. The fact that he is half black has absolutely nothing to do with my disagreement with him. He is no less an American than I am no matter how much I disagree with his political views.

I find this line of reasoning dangerous. If your readers want to drill this argument down to the color of someone's skin, as you did in your opening paragraphs, then we are bound to lose the argument because that argument is just not tenable in today's world; not the world of 100 years ago. We need every able body that subscribes to the cultural norms of the west to join together. To that end, I find your opening comments, using black people as a starting point, to be regrettable.

I have commented at this site many times. I agree with the bulk of what is said at this site. How do you know I am not black?

“for if logic had anything to say on the subject, it would surely have said it by now.”

I think “logic” HAS had something to say on the subject and, I thought this site said it quite well. That is, we are not racists, we are a band of individuals of all stripes that want to maintain the cultural norms of western society. Now, it seems that your essay wants to divide people up on the basis of their external realities, not on their devotion to western cultural norms. This would be a very sad development if I actually thought the majority of your readers believed it…

“This site has long advocated for cultural assimilation through adoption of the indigenous population's cultural norms in order to include any ethnicity into a western country's society.

I now wonder if I have been misreading the site. If so, it is a dark day…

The Gulf Stream is a straw man and I am surprised by your reply Baron.

I agree with the bulk of the essay. I just simply will not buy into the idea that a human, with a superficial difference, cannot be considered part of a core society. I will not do that.

Armance said...

"I would expell all non European males between 13 and 60 years old."

Glad to see a moderate over here (salutes to the teenage enthusiasm!). Personally, I would expel all non-Europeans period. Even I, proven that I am not an European regarding my ancestors, I would expel myself from Europe.

El said...

oh dear. no matter how carefully one writes, one simply cannot avoid being misunderstood by the over-emotional. babs, i will try again to explain this to you.

what i am claiming is that Englishness is the summed attitudes of the English towards it, no more or less than that. if every English person accepts that black people can be English, then they can. if every English person rejects them, then they cannot be English. this is what i mean when i say that any identity claim is definitional.

you have your own ideas on whether black people can be English. you seek to justify them, but in fact, this justification is beside the point. the mere fact that you DO believe they can be English means that, in terms of the 1/50,000,000 part of Englishness that you would be free to decide (assuming you were in fact English), they have a tick in their box. informal identity is determined by adding up all the ticks and all the crosses and seeing which way the numbers lean. that is all. you are trying to privilege your own ideas. i am simply making the observation that, when it comes to informal identity, no one's opinion is privileged, however 'objective' they may think their arguments are. informal and formal identities can peel apart and are peeling apart.

i will finish by responding directly to some of your claims.

you: Well, certainly the first few paragraphs ARE about black people.

me: i picked black people as being unrelated to the fundamental problem of islam. i wanted to establish the principle in an islam-free context so that people could see the raw point. the essay is not about black people, any more than it is about elephants or parasols.

you: I disagree. If one accepts the premise that “informal Englishness" can be measured by the adherence to the cultural norms of the indigenous population, which I do, then one CAN observe "Englishness" in black people. And, we can observe it on an empirical level.

me: IF one accepts this premise, one will indeed tend towards a certain notion of identity. IF one does not accept it, one will not tend towards that notion of identity. once you have set your criteria, you may be able to decide who matches them empirically, as you describe. but they cannnot be SET empirically in the first place, hence the impossibility of them being meaningfully empirical. if i decide that anyone between the heights of 5'11" and 6'1" is English, i can empirically determine who is English, but only on the basis of a completely arbitrary set of assumptions about who qualifies. there is no escape from this. you refuse to see this because of your attachment to you own view, which you attach some objective validity to. it has none. it can only be more or less widely accepted. that is all.

you:
If a white, well educated Canadian were to immigrate to the U.K. and gain citizenship, adopt all indigenous cultural norms, contribute a high productivity to the society and breed offspring; by your definition would the offspring be “informally” English? I think your answer would be yes...

What if the same scenario took place but the couple was black? Is your answer then no?

me: i expressed no opinion on such a subject one way or the other in the essay, which is not about race. the very mention of black people in England has pushed your brain off along a track i am not interested in exploring at present. i do have opinions on this topic, but they are complex, and irrelevant to the problem that Islam is.

you: Would you like to turn the clock back? Because 100 years ago the entire race was pulling themselves out of slavery in the U.S. and black men couldn't vote. Today, we have a half black man running for the most powerful job on the face of the earth. If this same man were formally English, would you reject his claim of being informally English? It is nonsense and, I hope your readers recognize that society has evolved for the good in this respect.

me: this has nothing to do with the content of my essay.

you: I find this line of reasoning dangerous. If your readers want to drill this argument down to the color of someone's skin, as you did in your opening paragraphs, then we are bound to lose the argument because that argument is just not tenable in today's world; not the world of 100 years ago. We need every able body that subscribes to the cultural norms of the west to join together. To that end, I find your opening comments, using black people as a starting point, to be regrettable.

me: regret away. i have not argued for or against any notion of identity, cultural or racial, in America, the UK, or anywhere else. i have simply argued that such claims are definitional in nature, and will evolve as they evolve. neither your definitions or mine are privileged. definitionally speaking, might always makes right. no doubt you will now think i am advocating exterminating black people.

you: I have commented at this site many times. I agree with the bulk of what is said at this site. How do you know I am not black?

me: i am not interested in whether or not you are black. why on earth would i be? how do you know i'm not black? it would be perfectly compatible with everything i wrote.

you: I think “logic” HAS had something to say on the subject and, I thought this site said it quite well. That is, we are not racists, we are a band of individuals of all stripes that want to maintain the cultural norms of western society.

me: neither of these claims has anything to do with logic. do you know what logic is?

you: Now, it seems that your essay wants to divide people up on the basis of their external realities, not on their devotion to western cultural norms.

me: it SEEMS that way to you because you cannot understand what i am saying. but i forgive you for that. it is not a straightforward essay, to be sure.

you: I now wonder if I have been misreading the site.

me: i would not be at all surprised if you had. perhaps you should slow down and drink some water while you do it. dehydration is a terrible block to concentration.

you: I just simply will not buy into the idea that a human, with a superficial difference, cannot be considered part of a core society. I will not do that.

me: but you are perfectly entitled not to. as i argued at some length, there is no logical, empirical, or moral reason why you should not. your claim that superficial differences cannot exclude people is a definitional claim, and therefore correct insofar and only insofar as it is accepted by others in your community.

babs said...

"Englishness is whatever English people say it is and that one cannot meaningfully appeal against their decision, any more than one can appeal against the current meaning of the word elephant. It is interesting to note (and this touches on the question of whether denying the potential Englishness of black people can be considered immoral) that there is very little, if anything, in definitional claims that could be considered volitional in nature."

Wow! So, the "English" are claiming that black people are not English???

And, this is based on what poll? Link me baby...

You, I would assume have "empirical evidence" for this statement?

I would love to see it. If not, this is just a premise (that you thought the readers of this blog would be willing to swallow in order to seguey into your Islamic argument.)

Did you actually think you would start out on a "neutral" ethnicity in order to support your real argument (which I actually agree with) by villifying people of dark skin color?

And, BTW, who is actually "black?" Are natives from the country of India "black?" How about Barak Obama? Is he "black" or, only half "black?" Does it matter in your argument?

Conservative Swede said...

El Ingles,

as i have defined it, informal identity cannot be abolished

Forget about it. Obviously you haven't seen Woody Allen's Bananas, the scene where the successful guerrilla leader addresses the people and announces his new edicts:

"From this day on, the official language of San Marcos will be Swedish. Silence! In addition to that, all citizens will be required to change their underwear every half-hour. Underwear will be worn on the outside so we can check. Furthermore, all children under 16 years old are now 16 years old." (link)

Anything can be declared, anything can be redefined. Such is the nature of politics. In totalitarian regimes it's commonplace.

Anything can be redefined. Muhammad defined a raped woman as the guilty one. Muhammad defined it as a fair punishment to be stoned to death for adultery. If the sentenced one manage to escape during the execution, he/she is free to go. This is why women are buried down all the way up to the neck. This is all declared as moral and fair. And if the woman escapes anyway, I read about such a case, and a guy came up and killed her anyway, while the crowd was cheering. This is declared as the height of morality.

Anything can be declared, anything can be redefined. So don't come tell me that the informal identity cannot be abolished. The nation of Sweden was literally dissolved by the parliament in the mid-90s.

Conservative Swede said...

Armance,

Glad to see a moderate over here (salutes to the teenage enthusiasm!). Personally, I would expel all non-Europeans period. Even I, proven that I am not an European regarding my ancestors, I would expel myself from Europe.

As you can hear yourself this is nuts.

And Afonso's Bananas edict--"I would expell all non European males between 13 and 60 years old"--should be taken for exactly what it is: a Bananas edict (and the master of this trade is Diamed).

Moderate, my posteria!

Conservative Swede said...

Babs,

Could you become a Chinese? Do you seriously believe that you could become Chinese? Would the Chinese see you in that way, and more importantly: would you yourself ever be able to see yourself as Chinese?

El said...

swede:

if you were correct, you could not exist and would not be writing on this site. you would simply have accepted the new definition and would be content with it.

your formal identity has indeed been rewritten. but your informal identity in sweden is the sum total of what swedes think it is. you are still confusing formal and informal identity. only when swedes genuinely believe that the hordes of invaders are as swedish as them will informal identity have changed to the degree you claim. and however bad the situation may be, you are certainly not there yet.

you are playing devil's advocate because you are (understandably) despondent over the idiocy of your government and country. but you know that informal identity cannot ACTUALLY be abolished. do swedes really believe that their newly imported criminal hordes are as swedish as them? nonsense!

PS by the way, do you get the impression that diamed has moved on to greener pastures?

Armance said...

As you can hear yourself this is nuts.

And Afonso's Bananas edict--"I would expell all non European males between 13 and 60 years old"--should be taken for exactly what it is: a Bananas edict (and the master of this trade is Diamed).


What is so nuts about expelling non-Europeans (with the condition that the circumstances are favorable for it)? Bananas or not-Bananas - you can see who is an European and who is not.

Baron Bodissey said...

Babs --

Unfortunately, I think you misunderstand what El Inglés is saying here.

Once again, he is engaging in descriptive as opposed to normative writing.

“Informal identity” is how he describes what is commonly accepted as English identity by the majority of English people. This identity cannot in itself be legislated or decreed; it grows out of the common culture in a particular place the same way a pumpkin grows on a pumpkin vine. As he stresses, this is a definitional issue, and has meaning the same way that the word “pumpkin” has meaning: a commonly accepted understanding of the word’s definition.

This process is neither moral nor immoral, it is simply an observed sociolinguistic phenomenon. Racism or its lack, like other moral stances, takes place on an individual personal level, not at the level of word definitions within the common tongue.

The fact that more English people today accept black people as “English” than did a hundred years ago is a good thing, for those of us who see racist thinking as wrong. But it does not in fact make them English, unless — and this is the important part — a substantial majority of English people consider them to be English.

If this last condition is not met, neither you nor I nor El Inglés nor an edict from Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II can make them English. Only the collective attitudes of millions of people as they evolve over time can change the situation, and this process may take decades, if not centuries.

So your dismay at what’s being said here does not change the facts on the ground, and it is the facts on the ground which are being observed and described.

It’s important to distinguish between how things are and the way we would like them to be. We will always strive to move them in the direction of what they should be, but before we can do that it’s crucial to understand the way that they are.

The glacial shift of public attitudes towards immigrants in the UK is not happening fast enough to avert the coming catastrophe.

A lucid and realistic evaluation of what is likely to happen in the near future: that’s what we’re trying to do here.

Conservative Swede said...

El Ingles,

but you know that informal identity cannot ACTUALLY be abolished

Of course I know that. This was the whole point of my second paragraph in my first comment.

It's when you claim that the informal identity cannot be abolished that I have shown you wrong, and that indeed it was in Sweden in the mid-90s.

However, regarding whether the informal identity can be "ACTUALLY abolished" -- of course it can't, only severely suffocated.

babs said...

"i have not argued for or against any notion of identity, cultural or racial, in America, the UK, or anywhere else."

Haven't you??? You started out by arguing about the "non Englishness" of blacks. You know what; I find it rather telling that you need to resort to the "emotionalism" card... You offer no data to support your claims, or even your premise. You just vomit it out there.

Ah yes, blacks can't be "informally English." Because you claim it so based on nothing other than the color of their skin... No data, nothing. Just your very intellectual word for it and someone refuting a soccer player based on his skin color... I defy you to point to any public opinion that would support this premise.

I am pretty sure I know what logic is. One of the things it is is fungible based on the premise. I am attacking your premise. You have nothing to support it.

me: i picked black people as being unrelated to the fundamental problem of islam. i wanted to establish the principle in an islam-free context so that people could see the raw point. the essay is not about black people, any more than it is about elephants or parasols.

you: I disagree. If one accepts the premise that “informal Englishness" can be measured by the adherence to the cultural norms of the indigenous population, which I do, then one CAN observe "Englishness" in black people. And, we can observe it on an empirical level.

me: IF one accepts this premise, one will indeed tend towards a certain notion of identity. IF one does not accept it, one will not tend towards that notion of identity. once you have set your criteria, you may be able to decide who matches them empirically, as you describe. but they cannnot be SET empirically in the first place, hence the impossibility of them being meaningfully empirical.

Well, your argument indicates that we in the west wish to drill ourselves down to a very small group. It also pre supposes that there are a significant number of “English” that reject blacks at all costs as just not being “English.” Again, no data to back that supposition up. As I said previously, we will lose the argument if we try to press that point of view. Now, maybe you are willing to lose this argument on which western civilization rests but, I am not.

You: IF one does not accept it, one will not tend towards that notion of identity.

Your premise is nonsense. So, one cannot measure the adherence to cultural norms on an empirical basis? I can't believe you would even say that... Especially, when you try to make a point of the "non Englishness" and non acceptance of western cultural norms of the followers of Islam which goes to follow their divergence from western cultural norms. Your sentence is rubbish.

You might be willing to write 2,000 words on the subject on a regular basis because it makes you feel good. You are willing to sit at your keyboard and think to yourself,” what neutral group can I vilify" to make my premise before I drill my main point home. My point is you do us all a disservice with your dangerous analogies.
I call you on the "emotional" card for your stance.

me: IF one accepts this premise, one will indeed tend towards a certain notion of identity. IF one does not accept it, one will not tend towards that notion of identity. once you have set your criteria, you may be able to decide who matches them empirically, as you describe. but they cannot be SET empirically in the first place, hence the impossibility of them being meaningfully empirical.

Of course they can be set empirically. Who does or does not deviate from the cultural norms? One can easily set this data empirically based on public records of incarceration, drop out rates, honor killings and matters of community agitation. Of course empirical data is available as this site records it and passes it on to their readers on a regular basis.
Well, if you do not accept the premise I set forth then, you are a very different person than I am. You wish to disavow all the "empirical evidence" that this site has reported for years on end? Possibly, in your very shallow world, this evidence does not garner much meaning?

What is it that you expect to happen in Europe? If one cannot accept the inclusion of persons of all stripes into the idea of western cultural norms during the year of 2008, then you are doomed to failure.

I have long thought that GOV and its readers accepted the premise I outlined. If I am wrong then, I have a very poor reading comprehension. I guess that is a possibility. In any event, I would never wish to side with your premise. It is a recipe for suicide.

Good luck with that.

babs said...

So your dismay at what’s being said here does not change the facts on the ground, and it is the facts on the ground which are being observed and described.


Back it up with facts. I do not believe that a majority of U.K. citizens believe that "blacks" are not "informally English" just because you say so.

My dismay stems from launching an article about the problem with the assimilation of Islamic followers being equated with blacks.

This site is above that kind of hyperbole. And, in fact, it is counter productive. I resent it.
At least, until this article, I thought it was...

No matter how much I might agree with the bulk of the essay, I really have to take exception to the first few paragraphs of the article. They are rubbish.

Hit me with some links and I will back down.

Conservative Swede said...

Armance,

What is so nuts about expelling non-Europeans

I didn't say so. It was the policy suggested by you and Afonso, to expel all non-Europeans, and the way it was formulated, that was nuts.

Of course Europe is for Europeans, period. And of course there will be need for deportations beyond the Muslims. But your approach is alarmingly square and lacks any sort of fingerspitzgefühlen. Square and over-ideologized short formulas of abstract, categorical (and yes universalist) statements are so easy to produce. But to argue against lack of fingerspitzgefühlen is indeed a very tedious work. Here is a short bullet list of points I would make:

* not inevitable
* not (yet) at war with us
* this is not a return to how it was
* over-ideologized
* like children make rules when playing games

El said...

@swede:

OK, our difference is a semantic one. you argue that it can abolished by fiat, but not in actuality. i choose to describe that as an inability to abolish it all. we are in agreement, i think.

@babs:

you: I have a very poor reading comprehension.

at last you have said something i can agree with.

not only did you not understand the essay, you did not understand, indeed did not try to understand, the remedial class i so kindly set up for you in the comments. you have quite literally not grasped what is being said, and your replies have become increasingly incoherent and angry. i am afraid i shall have to ignore you henceforth.

Diamed said...

No, I see no reason to move on. As you can see at least two other posters here believe race is the central demarcation of whether you are english or not. They at least have the courage to say what they really think. Blood is what forms a family, a community, and a nation not a proposition or ideology. Your idea that nationality can be defined to be whatever anyone wants it to be is very post-modern, but Horace has an answer for you:

"You can throw nature out with a pitchfork, but it always comes back again."

People are only altruistic to those related to them, altruism to people unrelated to you is an evolutionary dead end (their survival and offspring do not contribute to your genes proliferating whereas all the resources you spent on them cannot go towards proliferating your genes, the end result is your extinction with nothing left behind and no legacy) So even if temporarily you can suspend human nature and get people to act altruistically, those same people will all die off leaving only the selfish to inherit the earth with the correct survival-oriented genes. The civil war is simply delayed another 50 years while people wait for all the 'englightened moral ones' to kill themselves off and get out of the way. If people have no interest in the welfare of their co-nationals, as evolution decrees people must feel, obviously strife, squabbling, and eventual civil war will break out as the two exploit and abuse each other. Inviting two unrelated groups in who have no evolutionary stake in the welfare of the other group to the same country is a recipe for genocide. You may as well invite hyenas to integrate with the lion herd or sharks and dolphins to swim around together.

Whatever the basis of your reasoning, your conclusions are not far off. The hispanics and muslims must go. That's really all that matters, and in that, you're bang on. I find it humorous that you used 'demographic instability' as a euphemism for genocide. The UN clearly defined genocide as any displacement of the native people or laws used to depress the native people's birth rates, or targets and destroys a particular people's way of life and character. If whites were moving into Africa and breeding like crazy, taking huge taxes from the natives, demanding special affirmative action, and opening the borders further and further for more white immigration so that in 30 years whites would be the majority of said african nation, you can be sure the UN and the MSM would be screaming genocide at the top of their lungs. Why allow double standards to continue, why not just call it what it is? Mass immigration is genocide.

the doctor said...

El Ingles , What a truly masterful essay that get to the heart of the issues that plague the U.K.
The Scots seem to have mastered what it takes to be Scottish , likewise the Welsh and Irish grasp their identity . What makes it so difficult for the English to do the same ?

El said...

hi diamed,

glad to have you back. not sure about your politics, but i'm happy to debate with you and the other three people still left over there in your ideal state. let me know if you run out of custard. :)

bear in mind that when i say the only meaningful definitions of group boundaries are those that seem intuitively correct to members of those groups, i am saying something that is not necessarily incompatible with your claim that blood is what forms a family, a community, and a nation. whether ties other than those of race are indeed as effective as race in creating productive, resilient, durable communities is an empirical question, and i think the accumulated historical and rapidly accumulating scientific evidence suggests that your own position is closer to the truth than the whole 'propositional nation' riff, which will look a lot weaker when you lose your white majority in 2042. as you are no doubt aware.

demographic instability is not a euphemism for anything. an unwelcome, disproportionally criminal and economically unproductive minority can be tolerated, with however much grumbling, if it is numerically stable. consider it akin to a limp, something that is painful and annoying, but not a serious threat to the viability of the organism that bears it.

islam is no such thing. if numerically stable at current levels, muslims would represent a limp, albeit a particularly nasty and dangerous one. demographically unstable, they represent a cancer spreading from one part of the body to another. the damage they do is not containable, physically, psychologically, economically, or in any other regard. hence the conclusion of my latest essay. you must confess, diamed, that it is not the conclusion of someone scared to state his mind.

babs said...

the remedial class i so kindly set up for you in the comments. you have quite literally not grasped what is being said, and your replies have become increasingly incoherent and angry. i am afraid i shall have to ignore you henceforth.


Well, I guess I have been schooled...
All I can say to you is that I totally disagree with your premise about blacks in western society and, if you continue down this line of reasoning, however much I might agree with your primary point, you will lose. Never mind that you have failed to supply one single data point for your premise... Funny that...

Now, you might wish to insult me and that is certainly your perogative however, your point of view is your own and all the yeah hoos on this site who chime in "yeah, let's expell everyone of a non european heritage" only makes this site a right wing wack-o forum...
Your inability to conceed a single point is very telling, especially now that you have debased yourself to sarcasm.

So, you "schooled me" on what you believe to be true. You never supplied one piece of data to back up what you said.

Who schooled who, pal?

I am actually amazed that this site has sunk so low.

Conservative Swede said...

El Ingles,

OK, our difference is a semantic one. you argue that it can abolished by fiat, but not in actuality. i choose to describe that as an inability to abolish it all.

This is much more than a semantic difference. And given enough time what has been officially abolished will become effectively abolished. America is the prime example here.

I assume Babs is American and that this is why she's so disconnected from the obvious, self-evident reality. She asks for evidence for what every European knows deep inside: who's a Brit, who's a Swede, etc.

In America their original informal identity became abolished as a result of their civil war. America stopped being a white nation, and became a black and white nation, and from then on a nation of ideas for all races. This has since long become internalized among the vast majority of the Americans, so indeed their historical informal identity has been actually and effectively abolished. "Augmented" the apologists would say. But this is also exactly what is happening in Sweden, Great Britain, etc., now. Our identity is becoming "augmented".

Give it enough time, and without a proper reversal, and by the end of this century the Swedish identity (informal and otherwise) will have been actually abolished. The same holds true for the rest of Western Europe.

Theoden said...

Thank you for this great essay. I thoroughly enjoyed it as well as your previous essays on this site. I have nothing to add at the moment as I basically agree with it -- I just wanted to write a comment as an encouragement to do more thinking and writing in the future. I believe this type of bold but realistic thinking is very much needed, as opposed to the wishful thinking that is unfortunately common.

babs said...

In America their original informal identity became abolished as a result of their civil war.

Get a life Swede...
Western society WILL NOT SURVIVE without the contribution of every stripe to our shared cultural norms...
If you don't understand that then I feel sorry for you.

You confuse external groups coming to your shores and imposing their cultural norms with others that come to all our shores ready and very willing to adopt our culture. This is what the battle is about.
Until you and every other yah hoo on this site gets with that program, we will go down. It is simply a matter of arithmatic...

Anonymous said...

Greetings:

I think some of what El Ingles refers to as "Englishness" is an interior, emotional state of affiliation.

Senator Obama is currently demanding that no one question his patriotism, again, an interior, emotional state; and yet, there does not seem to be any objectively verifiable evidence of his patriotism other than his fixation on higher public office.

Stanley Renshon on the Center for Immigration Studies web site has several papers concerning "dual citizenship" which address the psychological implications of the watering down of citizenship and nationality which some of you may find interesting.

El said...

@swede:

well, again, we agree more than we disagree. you make some fascinating points about america, but they do not refute my central claim. as i have noted, notions of informal identity can change over time, just as the meanings of words can and do change over time. informal identity in america has indeed been significantly corrupted in addition to formal identity itself. this is indisputable. but we should not assume that the process is linear. i strongly predict and expect a snapback in the next few decades that will rip america to pieces, more or less quickly. after all, it is only whites who have abandoned, or tried to abandon, their tribalism. blacks and hispanics have it by the bucketload, and it will surely evoke an equal and opposite response from whites eventually.

sweden actually has one huge advantage in this regard, that the change is so quick and violent that no one has had time to acclimatize to it. there is no way that informal identity in sweden can readjust quickly enough to avoid a bang, and no reason why it should.

@babs:

babs, i gave you a chance here, but now you're going to have to have it both barrels.

1) i accept, and always have accepted, that black people can be english. this is the reality of the country i grew up in. it has never occurred to me that black people might not be 'eligible' for englishness.

2) i never suggested, implicitly or explicitly, that they could not. you have hallucinated this claim into existence.

3) i never suggested that a majority of english people rejected the possibility of black people being english. at a guess, i would say that 80% or more of the english population does accept this possibility. those who would claim that blacks simply cannot be english make up a small fraction of the english population. i do not personally know anyone who claims this.

4) i mention this only because you keep insisting on 'data' to back up my 'premise', the premise in question presumably being the claim that blacks are overwhelmingly rejected by the english. given that i have not made this claim or ever thought that it was true, i hope you can now understand why i have not been forthcoming with the 'data' in question.

for the last time, my only point in the first section of the essay was that identity claims are not logical, empirical or moral claims, but definitional claims. as such, they cannot be considered correct or incorrect in an absolute sense, only more or less widely accepted.

i was trying to avoid saying that i can accept blacks as english to keep afonso on edge, bless him. now you have ruined my fun and his sweet agitation through your lack of reading skills.

in all seriousness, i will ask you to take off your anti-racist hat, read that section of the essay again, and see if you can find the point where i claim that blacks cannot be english. cut and paste the paragraph into a comment here as proof. can you do that, babs?

coz if u can't, u sho' nuff bin skooled, girl.

Dymphna said...

Babs--

This is not about "proofs" via links. That can't be done.

As the Baron said, this post is descriptive rather than normative. El ingles is describing what he thinks he sees in the make-up of the UK, but he is not saying that what he sees is how matters should be.

Was his choice of black vs., say, Pakistani a trigger for you? IOW, would you feel less vehemently opposed to his argument if he used Pakistanis because of your own history of identification with the suffering of blacks in the US? As soon as I read “black” in the rough draft of el ingle’s post, I knew it would trigger someone because of the frisson it caused for me. Had I thought it through, I might have suggested that he change his terms in order to be heard. I knew some people would experience that same feeling I had and it would turn them off.

Race issues will always be with us, as will issues of gender identity -- though *there's* an area that grows more "fungible" every semester. If you ask black people in this country if they feel they are as American as whites, be prepared to have your hair singed.

Michelle Obama is a good example of this kind of thinking, and she represents a broad spectrum of grievance-grounded black politics in this country. According to her and those like her, if you are white you can never be a victim of racism. Even if you die at the hands of an angry black man yelling "kill Whitey" you're still not in that category because only black people can be victims of racism. The first time I heard this proclaimed by a workshop leader, I got up and left. Their conversation was closed.

Ever been on an American college campus and noticed the conscious self-segregation of the black students? Their great grandparents would be ashamed of them, but that’s not how they see it.

BTW, Obama's father would deeply resent your representation of his son as "half black" since his father did not see himself as black.

Mr. Obama was part Arab and in Kenya that is a crucial distinction in the social/racial pecking order. Therefore he identified with his Arab heritage, not his black side. Had he not done so, he could not have climbed in the civil service ranks in Kenya. They would not have been so open to a black man.

Obama plays the race card by letting that pass. Just how many people in this country are going to identify with a man whose racial identity is mostly white and Arab?

Also notice the metaphor you chose to point out something here in the post and comments that you didn’t like: you said it was “dark”. Do you realize how racist that makes you in some people's eyes? Of course, that doesn't matter to you because you know you're not racist.

But this is a definitional argument, Babs, and when someone else is applying the labels you don’t get the choice of refusing them. You could claim you are not racist for using the word "dark" to refer to something bad, but your use of this word would be prima facie evidence of your racism. You are trapped, hoist by your own petard, and all your words of denial would not permit your escape.

No one escapes racism, any more that a person can escape genderism. Do you notice whether or not the person you’re talking to is a man or a woman? Do you ever observe yourself noticing that fact? Do you ever judge someone as pretty or handsome? Same thing as racism. How about young or old?

Babs, you are not permitted to notice differences. Period. Judgments are simply not allowed. People are not good or bad – unless we’re talking about the tolerant vs. the intolerant. Guess who the good guys are?

This reminds me: my son is taking a short graduate teaching assistance course in preparation for being a TA. They have a variety of professors who rotate through, speaking about their particular area of expertise. One of them cautioned the grad students that the words “husband” and “wife” were to be avoided so as not to offend gay people in any of the classes. As my son said in his evaluation, none of the gays he knew would care and, furthermore, should these words be an issue for an individual student, he would expect the person to mention it in class or bring it up for discussion with him later.

Unfortunately, by choosing to pose a definitional argument in your terms there is nothing anyone can say to dissuade you. In that respect, your stance is no different than those who would accuse you of dark motives.

Please, can we leave the racism track that is derailing this thread?

babs said...

You know what... I'm done playing with you. I quoted enough stuff out of your original article to prove my point. Let everyone that reads this site exercise their reading comprehension and make a decision...

Blacks cannot be English, or some such... I am done with cutting and pasting your statements, done it before.

If somehow, my reading comprehension fails to understand the subtle meaning of that statement than I would guess the vast majority of readers here do also. They just want to "misunderstand" your meaning because it gives them license to pile on to "let's deport everyone!"

You will lose this argument in the long run and that makes me rather sad on two levels; first, that I thought GOV was above this kind of race mongering and 2nd because we will all go down with this kind of thinking.

So, believe what you will; that I am an ignoramous or whatever it is that gets you through the night, you WILL LOSE THIS ARGUMENT and, it will be to everyone's disadvantage.

I so wish you hadn't started your essay with a blast to black people... It is still my belief that you thought they were a neutral ethnicity that you could beat up on in order to seguey into your larger point on Islam...
I will say again, for probably the third time, that I agree with the bulk of your argument. I do think however, that you are setting us up for failure; witness the insane comments your article has generated to date.

Conservative Swede said...

El Ingles,

well, again, we agree more than we disagree.

Well I never said we disagree. This is more like a Platonic dialog, where every contribution, by its inner logic, leads on to the next clarification. All in all, heightening the awareness of both of us through dialog.

In dialog contrary positions are taken at any given time. It's like ping-pong. We have to be on opposing sides of the table to make the game work. This does not imply disagreement. Mostly people agree to play ping-pong. And you play it beautifully. You have a wonderful hand with the English language at times too (and your unfair advantage herein is noted).

Afonso Henriques said...

"Wow! So, the "English" are claiming that black people are not English???
And, this is based on what poll? Link me baby..."

Babs, I think you are not familiarised enough with the sense of identity of the peoples in Europe. It's very different from America, why? Well, mainly because the vast majority of Nations in Europe are Nation-States. I'll try to adress to this difference between "Nationalist" Europe and "Contractual" America:

I saw a program months ago in which a white American that was vehemently against illegal Mexican immigration went for some weeks to live with an illegal Mexican family. The American was after all of Cuban descent and claimed that he was against immigration from Mexico because it was illegal, because if those same Mexicans were legal, there was no problem at all.

We can conclude that that man did not opposed immigration, he opposed the "illegaty" of it. So, if the United States were to open the border and proclaim that everyone who passed the border was to be conceded American Nationality, that man would, logically, loose its reason to oppose immigration.

In Europe Jews and Gypsies were never considered "real" Germans, English, etc. They were all considered foreigners, ones more civilised than others, but nonetheless foreigners.

In Europe, almost everybody recognises the Nationality of "ethnic minorities". That is only a paper (formal identity) but, virtually nobody (excluding the one World one men types) really considers those "ethnic minorities" as real Germans or English or whatever... It's an hypocrisy but it is true. And that is the informal identity El Ingles was talking about.

You see, the "real" Americans are the Indians... because both white, Asian and black americans are not immigrants but colonists. Because they do not return to their lands, they are in fact colonising the lands that once belonged to the indians.

I really don't have such link but I can post another that if you like I can post:

There is a Portuguese town in the South of the country close to the border, it has been Portuguese since ever but, Napoleon (yes, the French guy) conquered it and gave it to the French controled Spanish government, Napoleon was never able to controle Portugal, allied with England since the 1300s.
After the Congress of Vienna in 1815, the Spaniards guaranteed to all Europe (and signed the papers) they would give us Olivença, the town. We're in 2008 and Olivença still is under Spanish controle. Today it is mostly inhabited by a mix of Portuguese and non Castillan-Spaniards who speak mainly Castillan (Spanish).

A Reporter of the telegraph asks to a Spanish of the near by villages if differences pressist between their village's people and the people of Olivença. He answers:

"We are not like the people of Olivença, we are true Spaniards, not half breeds."

The State of Spain consists of Nations such as Catalonia which are as related to the central Spanish state/people as Portugal. The Catalans only envy what we have in the centre of Lisbon: The Plaza of the Restauration of the Nation. Spain is not a Nation, it is an Empire. España, Spain in Spanish, derives from the Latin Hispania (España<-Espana<-Hispana<-Hispania) the Latin denomination of the whole Iberian Peninsula, so the Portuguese people are thus "true Spaniards" (Yes and true Hispanics, instead of the Mexicans but that's another matter)

Now imagine concerning Africans or any other people in the world. Unfortunatley, we are getting into a point where other Europeans are considered "Nationals" if they master the local language fair enough.

El said...

alright babs, let's leave it at that. at least you agreed with most of it.

Anonymous said...

babs: depriving an indigenous people of the right to name themselves is considered a crime according to the United Nations Declaration of the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. Native English people have the right to define themselves and so do Native Swedes, and all native Europeans for that matter. The rules aren't different just because European people are white (although many of our enemies would like to make that hypocritical distinction.) My family has lived in North America since 1642, but I don't call myself Shawnee, Cherokee or Sioux.

babs said...

Dymphna - You have to be kidding me regarding my expression "it will be a dark day." Just in case you haven't followed the weather... A "dark day" is one that threatens rain. It has absolutely nothing to do with race. A "dark day" is one in which the sun doesn't shine and all must hunker down and prepare for a possible weather calamity.
I am sick and tired of everyone placing exceptional thought on terms that used to mean just what they ment. So, phooey on your analogy. By "dark day" I mean just that. And, BTW, we are experiencing a "dark day" here today. It will rain shortly...

Please, don't go there...

Conservative Swede said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
El said...

@swede:

you play a nice bit of ping-pong yourself, and your english doesn't seem to hold you up too much.

by the way, a point i held back from making in the essay but which is still important is that, even if informal identity does expand quickly enough to keep up with the expansion of formal identity, that doesn't solve the problem. if swedes convince themselves that their muslim invaders are true swedes and welcome them with open arms, does it solve the problem? Of course not, it will only accelerate the influx and therefore the collapse.

In the US case, the corruption and expansion of informal identity itself is a disaster. It reduces opposition to the parallel corruption and expansion of formal identity, whilst doing nothing to address the impending crash of tribalities that must occur when some crunch point is reached. in parts of LA, it sounds like this is happening already between blacks and hispanics.

america, we hardly knew you!

Skalman said...

Babs:

I´m sorry having to say this but it seems tom me, also a swede, of swedish origin, that you have simply missed the point of El Ingles essay.

Even though I´m not (obviously because being swedish)having english as my native language, I get the point and understand the underlying meaning of the essay.

The point is that you can replace the word "black", to which you seem to have hooked up, with any ethnic or externally different group of people. The outcome of such a replacement would still be the same.

For exaample it is said here in Sweden(among regular citizens, not among the moral elites)that anyone is swedish that considers himself swedish and are considered to be swedish by his fellow citizens.

I guess that explains pretty much of what El Ingles is trying to say and is also discussed as an informal identity.

I´ll give you an example from my real life. I have a colleague at work who´s of polish origin. She´s very nice, speaks swedish to a near perfect degree and is in almost every aspect acting as a swede. Do I consider her swedish? No, absolutely not. Does she consider herself swedish? Absolutely not. Is she swedish? Formally ,yes. Informally no.

That does not necessarily mean that I dislike her nor does it mean that I want her expelled or in any other way want to demean her her (well earned)right to live within swedish boundaries. Quite the contrary. I highly appreciate her as both woman, colleague and swedish citizen. Poland has in her and a few other poles I know lost valuable human resources.

So, babs, please refrain from picking on El Ingels and others. Free yourself from your self-imposed hookup on the word "black" and take it for exactly what El Ingles says it is: an example free from Islam that is used in order to explain the underlying meaning of his ideas(though perhaps somewhat ill chosen, just like chosing the word "jew", because of it´s historical connection to "racism").

Baron Bodissey said...

Sorry, CS -- but that was inflammatory and off-topic, not to mention likely to cause me more trouble than it's worth.

Please, no further gasoline on this fire.

El said...

@skalman:

you have understood perfectly. thank you for trying to explain that to babs.

Conservative Swede said...

Baron,

In essence it was innocent, a nursery rhyme. But you decide the policy, and I won't object.

Afonso Henriques said...

Conservative Swede and Armance and whoever wants to go against me. I wrote this:

"Concerning your other main point, about mass expulsions I have this to say:"
"I have to say that I, like you, do not think of muslims as the exception, it is more like Jews, North East Asians..."
"We don't have to grant Nationality to ethnic minorities. They can be non National Citizens. That would give us more power to expell individuals and to stop immigration. FOR MASS EXPULSIONS TO HAPPEN, WE WOULD HAD TO BE IN A TOTAL NEW LEVEL, A LEVEL OF PRE WAR, AND IT IS NAIVE TO THINK THAT "JAMAICANS" - OR WHOEVER THEY REPRESENT - WOULD NOT BE COMPELLED TO JOIN THE MUSLIM SIDE. Wasn't the first "ethnic" riots in Great Brittain that of Caribean Blacks?"

"I would expell all non European males between 13 and 60 years old."

---------------------------------

Is this not clear enough? I start to say that MASS EXPULSIONS WILL only BE MORALLY CORRECT if we are TO PREVENT A WAR, that is, to prevent what happened in Yugoslavia, IF THE TENSIONS GET TOO HIGH we don't have to make the same errors as the Croats and Serbs (though we will most likely do it). Imagine that when the tensions got right before the total war point, Serbs and Croats would accord in dividing Yugoslavia (and Bosnia) and expell all the muslims to Turkey or Albania or wherever!

Then I go on, stating that YOU DON'T NEED TO EXPELL AN ENTIRE POPULATION, YOU CAN EXPELL ONLY THE ONES WHO WILL FIGHT OR REPRODUCE THEMSELVES, that is, males from their early teens untill when they start getting too old. The ages I shooted were randomly of course.

Can you understand that I was refering to one of those so-called Multicultural Wars? Do you really think that in case such a war brokes in France, the (nominally?) "Christian" Congolese will fight on the French side? Do you really think that the Hispanics in France will...

That's why I mentioned all non-European males, because for me islamics are not the exception, neither am I blinded by anti-muslim hatred. So in a war that has many "provocateurs", why will I only expell the muslims?

The muslims differ from other "ethnics" due to two or three things I admire:
a) They are proud of their History and Civilisation
b) They have created a Civilisation that has been for years the only one to compete with Europe; That gives them the moral and Traditional high ground to lead this "rebellion against the West" as I saw written the other day
c)Whether you want it or not, the islamic world has produced and has been effective, in such a way that we can count four living great or "superior" Civilisation of the mankind: European, North-East-Asian; Hindu and Islamic. The islamic being in my opinion the third or fouth and the legitime heir of the ancient Semitic Civilisations, like Babylon for instance.

I even leave a space so that women, children and the eldery can opt to live here or there. I even offer money to women and children... I think I am being pretty humane and altruistic. Perhaps you people should study the XX century History of Africa and what happened to the European multiculturalists then... or you can open your eyes to South Africa and even Zimbabwe. Yesterday, for instance, a Portuguese was executed in Johanesburg, I wonder how many Dutch and English descendents are executed per week. I am proposing a way to avoid such scenaria and I am branded a monster?

Come on...

Avery Bullard said...

Wow! So, the "English" are claiming that black people are not English???

And, this is based on what poll? Link me baby...


Blacks who were born and raised in England almost all prefer 'British' to 'English'. They apparently see Britishness as more inclusive than Englishness.

The important question is why do blacks feel that way? I'm guessing it is because: a) they themselves identify the word 'English' with a specific ethnic nation which they cannot ever be; and/or b)they sense that the English do not consider blacks to be fellow English.

Baron Bodissey said...

CS -- Yes, I know what it is, and you are quite right. But things also become more than what they used to be, and this particular one will inflame people. I wish it weren't so, but it is.

It's the same reason that Agatha Christie had to re-title her book for its American edition.

We're long past the point where we can deal rationally with certain words, phrases, and facts. An entire industry of grievance has grown up around being offended by such things.

IMHO it's better not to derail the discussion any further than it has already gone.

Afonso Henriques said...

Baron,
"The fact that more English people today accept black people as “English” than did a hundred years ago is a good thing, for those of us who see racist thinking as wrong."

Is just me, or are you saying that if English people do not accept black people as "informally" English, that is racism, and a bad thing?
If it is true, then is not this essay of El Ingles a declaration of racism against muslims?
Or is it not, because muslims are not a race but a cultural term? Are blacks depossessed of culture?

I think that even in the United States, where the blacks are less "autentic", we can surely speak of an African American culture: Louis Armstrong and Malcom X are too great examples (and no, MLK had virtually only European derived ideas).

This was really confusing, Baron?

--------------------------------

Babs, I am not picking on you nor nothing of the sort but I would like to hear (read) your defenition of "The West".
Thanks

Anonymous said...

A year or so ago there was a controversy in England because Bangladeshi Muslim immigrants wanted to dig up two and three hundred year old graves in a London cemetary to "make room" for their own dead. I am sure the Americans here are familiar with the strict Federal regulations we have on suspected Indian burial sites. Basically you can't disturb them or build on them for any reason. It struck me when I read that article about the London cemetary, that the indigenes of England -- and perhaps of all Europe -- will someday be needing a similar law.

Dymphna said...

Babs--

Your refusal to see that someone could accuse you of racism for using the word "dark" to define something bad makes me inutterably sad. You truly do not get it, and nothing I could say will change your mind.

Peter Drucker pointed out that communication is always the act of the recipientm not the person speaking. This conflict is a good illustration of his idea

If someone of color decides that your use of the word "dark" is racist, it does.not.matter. what you meant when you said it. The only thing that matters is what the person who hears you thinks you mean.

In grievance politics, intentions do not count. They have no place. Thus you can be fired for using the word "niggardly" in reference to someone being poorly paid. That happened in Washington, D.C. a few years back. The man lost his job. There was a huge brouhaha over it, but I don't know if he was ever re-instated.

Now there's a link for you...if I weren't so fatigued I'd go find it.

So, no, I'm not kidding you, Babs. In the rough and tumble world of Amercian politics -- local or national -- you would be at risk for using the word "dark" to describe something bad.

The same holds true in non-profit groups, too. I ought to know:among many other things, my favorite was being taken to task for using the word "uppity"...that's racist, too, in case you didn't know. And here I always thought it was just a Florida cracker word for women who put on airs. Live and learn.

Racism and sexism in this country have reached and passed the point of the absurd. You are at risk for being accused of either or both at any time in the work place. In both of them, you are guilty until proven innocent; there is no such thing as the Constitution in such situations.

I am glad you seem to have escaped such situations. Believe me, they are crazy-making.

I give up on further communication with you re this point.I don't have the energy for it. Besides, sometimes things just can't be resolved despite good intentions on both sides.

Vaya con Dios.

Conservative Swede said...

Der Engländer,

you play a nice bit of ping-pong yourself, and your english doesn't seem to hold you up too much.

Thanks. To be more precise though it was your English manners rather than your handling of your language as such that I admired. And that's something I surely cannot emulate.

Which leads us back to Babs' issue. Do we see any black people displaying English manners. No, I have never seen one. I think that no matter how many generations they stay in England they will never be able to adapt or emulate it. Avery Bullard's comment becomes interesting in this light: the blacks know they can never be English, so they call themselves British.

Anonymous said...

Once again: it is considered a crime of genocide by the United Nations to deprive an indigenous people of the right to name themselves. (Not that I consider the UN an authoritative source, but on this point, I agree with them.) This includes the right to exclude others from that naming, if the indigenous so chose, otherwise the right of naming is meaningless. Native Europeans have this moral right, and it cannot be taken from them. Any attempts to deprive them of their right to name themselves is rightly called genocide. Americans do not understand this because we tend to see all white majority nations in the same light. But Europeans are the indigenous peoples of their continent and have been for thousands of years. They are under no obligation to acquiesce to their own cultural genocide in order to conform to an American notion of what constitutes "racism."

Conservative Swede said...

Baron,

We're long past the point where we can deal rationally with certain words, phrases, and facts.

You are right of course. It's a pity though, since in my little mind it was a masterly piece of humour in the timing and context it was posted. But I realize that this sort of things might have made it worse from your moderation point of view.

Conservative Swede said...

Fine Afonso,

I read it again. Your suggestion was speculative but not nuts.

Conservative Swede said...

Queen,

You make a very good argument here. You have an excellent eye for cutting through the staggering double standards of this world.

This includes the right to exclude others from that naming, if the indigenous so chose, otherwise the right of naming is meaningless. Native Europeans have this moral right, and it cannot be taken from them. Any attempts to deprive them of their right to name themselves is rightly called genocide.

I hope one day that America will be ungenocided too.

Afonso Henriques said...

El Ingles,

"i was trying to avoid saying that i can accept blacks as english to keep afonso on edge, bless him. now you have ruined my fun and his sweet agitation through your lack of reading skills."

I will not change my opinion. If you recognise blacks as "English" then you must consider the Irish your brother. I continue to think the same way, and I also think that there's nothing racist about it. But I could be a son-of-beach and ask you what relation do you have with blacks... but of course, I will not do it.

As Conservative Swede said, every European knows who is a Swede, an English, a Portuguese, just go to my link about Olivença.

It's funny to discover after this centuries that we, darkies, we, that mixed with the inferior blacks and Native Americans in our colonies, we that have even absorbed North African blood due to their 8 centuries presence in here are the ones who are racist.

Funny, real funny... maybe that is that Latin frontality...

-------------------------------

Racism is not deny Englishness to blacks; Racism is what happens in Brazil, Mexico, etc. Those are the most racist States in the world.
Racist is to vote in Obama because he's black, that's more racist than to vote in McCain due to not wanting a member of a minority in the most powerfull position in our country; Racism is to reduce blacks to skin colour and say that Zinedine Zidane is white... As I said to Natalie, who's white? Why are Greeks white don't matter how dark they are but Turks, even if blonde and blue eyed, are always brown.
Does not this concept, white, have already Civilisational meanings?

Racism is to act towards one person in a way, simply due to its race. Usualy, there are another factors...

Damn it!

Baron Bodissey said...

Afonso--

Is just me, or are you saying that if English people do not accept black people as "informally" English, that is racism, and a bad thing?

It’s you.

Addressing this issue with you (or anyone else) is a monkey trap, and I’m not putting my hand into that jar. I know what would happen if I were to do it, and I’m not going to condemn myself to sit in the center of a flame war from now until the crack of doom.

Re-read what I said. My formulation contained an implied conditional clause. It’s a pity that English no longer has a recognizable subjunctive mood, because then my meaning would have been clearer.

Afonso Henriques said...

Baron, I made this trap exclusively for you to fall in it. I actually thought that you would not answer it. But though this trap was directed towards you, it was even more directed for some spectators to see.

Conservative Swede said...

Hey Afonso, make a trap for me!

I want to step into a monkey trap exclusively set up for me.

Joanne said...

The english are racially/genetically white, just like blacks are racially/genetically black. Whites and blacks can be english or british citizens; they can choose their allegiance to England or their another country of their origin.

Would a black Ethiopian who is a British citizen be part of a British military expedition against Ethiopia or would this challenge who they hold allegiance to? It is important to note who make up the military in say England - how many black english are in the military opposed to how many white english are enlisted? In the World Wars, there were people of German ancestry who fought on the side of Canada, America, etc. against their German brothers, so I think a black citizen will never be english in the racial sense, but as far as allegiance, they can make their own choice of allegiance. How many black english make the choice to put their lives where their mouths are? Personally, I would not partake in an attack against my own brethren, and thankfully, this has never come to pass.

El said...

it's like i always say to my friends on my eighth pint down the local pub: nobody puts bodissey in the monkey trap.

not nobody. not nohow.

babs said...

Hey CS - Your disgusting little poem made my point exactly. I wish the Baron hadn't deleted it...

Conservative Swede said...

Babs,

How did it make your point? I'd love to hear. (Did you notice that it was about you?)

Afonso Henriques said...

Conservative Swede,

You win. Though I still think that "plan" was not nuts and more humane than the expell all the muslims! and the lets pretend everything is fine untill whole Europe look like Bosnia! I think it was pretty balanced. You insist it is nuts but failed to present your "arguments", allright. I understood, mensage recieved. Again: you win man... txs ft dscrtn

Conservative Swede said...

Afonso,

Is this the monkey trap I asked for?

Anonymous said...

Swede, we foundational Americans are a different people than you indigenes of Europa, and we will have a different argument against mass Third Worldization. To be more clear, our whole identity is tied up with being number one, number one, number one! And this applies to many non-Western-origin Americans too. I have been on forums where Navajo Indians have complained bitterly of Mexican illegal immigrants turning Arizona into a "Third World country." They like their First World living standards as much as anyone else, and so do many American blacks.

Once 90 percent homogenous, supremely self-confident China starts kicking our asses in more serious ways than just Olympic gold medals, we will start understanding that "diversity" is not a strength, and the open borders project will end -- if we are still capable of ending it by that time. Let's hope China pulls a boner as serious as that of General Tojo in 1941, and does it soon. That would scare the pants off of even hardcore, multi-culti race-baiters like Jesse Jackson, as they would soon realize that their white guilt gravy train would be non-existant under the Pax Sinoiana.

Anonymous said...

Babs, you didn't answer of my points. I will ask you directly: do you think that indigenous European peoples are obligated to submit to the erasure of their centuries-old ethnic identities, including the nullification of their very names, simply to satisfy American notions of what constitutes "racism"?

Afonso Henriques said...

Kind of, the next time, I'll put more venom on it right?

babs said...

Queen - Did you actually read anything I wrote???

“This site has long advocated for cultural assimilation through adoption of the indigenous population's cultural norms in order to include any ethnicity into a western country's society.

Does that sound to you like I condone:

"the erasure of their centuries-old ethnic identities, including the nullification of their very names, simply to satisfy American notions of what constitutes "racism"?


Put the wine glass down and present a reasonable argument...

El said...

no afonso, a monkey trap is a jar full of peanuts attached to a rope that the monkey reaches into. taking a handful of peanuts, it has to clench its fist, which it cannot now withdraw from the jar. however, it will not let go of the peanuts! so it is trapped. it has nothing to do with poison.

Anonymous said...

I think you are the one who should put down the wine glass, babs. If anyone can call themselves "English" -- then there is no such animal. To argue otherwise is illogical and absurd. I can't be a Cherokee even though I have a small amount of indigenous ancestry like most foundational Americans. The UN Declaration of the Rights of Indigenous Peoples is quite clear -- depriving native peoples of the right to call themselves by their own historical names, is cultural genocide. By insisting that anyone can be called English no matter their ethnic make-up, you support cultural genocide of the English and of all native Europeans.

babs said...

I'm out of here. Clearly the discussion has devolved to its lowest level.
Sorry Queen, beat someone else up.

Conservative Swede said...

Queen,

We think alike.

Let's hope China pulls a boner as serious as that of General Tojo in 1941, and does it soon.

Actually, it can be done much easier than that. Who do you think will be the first to put a man on Mars? It's not more difficult to put a man on Mars today than it was to put a man on the moon some 40 years ago. Why did the Americans put a man on the moon? To show they are number one in the world. And this is why no man has been put on the moon since 1972(!). The will and the drive for it hasn't existed.

China will pick up this thread and show they are number one in the world. The will start research programs for colonizing Mars, and by this time they will have dropped their one-child policy and become seriously expansionistic.

I don't necessarily believe in this sort of stuff myself, but it will impress people and leave them in awe. And America will know that she's no longer number one. And since, as you said, your identity has been tied to that, that becomes the start for a long journey of soul searching for you.

And if China hasn't gotten there by 2042, the fact that you will no longer be number one in your own country (whites will be a minority), will transform your perception of your identity.

Anonymous said...

babs, I see nothing "low level" about my arguments. You obviously have none in reply, which is why you are bailing without even attempting to refute me. No respect.

Afonso Henriques said...

Ok, now this is getting really odd. That is what I call in not so good Portuguese, o momento do akward.

Ok Inglês, thank you for the info. Now I am wondering if there are second meanings in that... First I taught that it was a polite and discrete way to shut me up.

Now trying to getting away with it. Have you seen the news on Iraq? That thirteen years old girl with explosives on her? I think you Baron could make a post on that hã?

Anonymous said...

swede, as Lawrence Auster said (he is not completely nuts, you know), those non-Westerners who love the West and appreciate the benefits it brings, will sympathize with us even if we reject multi-cult and "diversity". Indians and blacks fought with us long before the current Civil Rights hysteria, because they perceived some value in it, for their own reasons. Not all of course, but some.

Afonso Henriques said...

"And America will know that she's no longer number one."

Doesn't she knows that already?
What is she doing? Sleeping?

I only hope Russia will have the same... love for us Europeans America did in the 50s and 60s untill that Irish guy came to office. As I saw someone saying:

It's time for Moscow to start its Radio Free Europe project... I already know the sounds of the Cyrilic letters... I also know how to say da nyet and kurva... Moskva and Russie...

Now seriously, the desintegration of America will be sad and mooving but what will happen in Europe bloody and destructive. Ok, now I heard Cristiano Ronaldo saying he wants to be a father... now I can hear everything...

Afonso Henriques said...

"Saw someone saying"

See what you people do to me? Bye!

Conservative Swede said...

Afonso,

Sure put venom in my monkey trap. But don't forget the nuts. Speaking of which, you saw that I withdrew my "nuts" remark further back? It was only Armance who reached the level of monkey trap bait. I still consider your comment seriously unwise, though.

In a situation of war or in the tension of its build-up, many things can happen. Surely there will be internments, deportations and worse. And involving more than Muslims. But I think we should take it one step at a time. I disliked your "plan".

Conservative Swede said...

Queen,

those non-Westerners who love the West and appreciate the benefits it brings, will sympathize with us even if we reject multi-cult and "diversity". Indians and blacks fought with us long before the current Civil Rights hysteria

Sure, and I embrace them warmly as our allies. But this does not hinder that there's a need for restoring our language so that we can speak properly about who is who.

America made a historical mistake of great magnitude when you made your former African slaves citizens. And since then you have tyrannically pushed this mistake as an insane ideal upon the rest of the West (better known as multiculturalism). I do not care how you sort this thing out yourselves, as long as it's no longer pushed upon us. And here you and I obviously agree.

And there you have yet another issue I have with democracy. How it does not take the concept of citizenship seriously at all. Democracy is not a political system, but a recipe for tearing down any existing polity.

PS. No "tyrannically" is not an exaggeration here. And it concerns genocide.

Anonymous said...

Afonso: cruel, but true. We are no longer number one. However, it wasn't the "Irish guy" in the White House who destroyed our nation's homogenous strength. That was his idiot brother, Teddy.

Anonymous said...

Excellent essay as usual, El Ingles. Quite long, but worth the read.

Afonso, I think you'll appreciate this: I'm taking Russian at my university this semester.

improvementmethod said...

I think the blacks will side with islam when the time comes. They hate white people and the west.

X said...

Some do, some don't. Unlike the muslims they aren't bound by religion and tradition to follow one path over another.

ANTI-ISLAMIST said...

I have taken the liberty to translate the following from the well known immigration critical Swedish blog 'BlåGulaFrågor' by Jan Milld
- - - - -
RECENTLY ARRIVED SWEDES
If you are a SWEDISH CITIZEN, then you are a SWEDE!
"Period", as it is usually expressed in editorials.
• Even if you just came to Sweden.
• Even if you do not speak Swedish.
• Even if you keep your previous citizenship.
• Even if you reside in your past and original home country.

Suppose for example that a number of Swedes went to Somalia, After a few years in the country they obtain Somali citizenship. They do not speak somali, they need an interpreter to make themselves understood. In addition they have kept their Swedish citizenship. Their contact with Sweden and what is Swedish they keep both through frequent trips home, by looking at the Swedish Satellit TV Transmissions and by spending time with each other.
Any contact with the Somali society, they have not.
Are they then to be regarded as "Africans of Swedish origin"?
Would the Somalis in general, regard them as Somalis?
Of course not! The absurdity is evident already here.

But it does not stop at this.
Another concept that is used in Swedish media is "Newly Arrived Swedes".
The first time I saw the use of this new-speak term was 2001.
Since then, the concept has recurred often in Swedish media.
Should you for a moment believe what the journalists write, the questions arises:
from which areas do these Swedes come?
-- Are the original Swedes from Dagö (big island outside Estonia with partly once Swedish population)?
-- From Svenskbyn (Swedish settlement) in Ukraine?
-- From Oberá (Swedish settlement) in Argentina?
No, clearly they have no roots in Sweden, are not linked to Sweden, does not speak Swedish, have no Swedish citizenship. Nevertheless, they should be regarded as "Swedes"!
The question then arises: when do they become Swedes?
Apparently, even before they have received Swedish citizenship.
Apparently, even before they have received a residence permit in Sweden.
Are they Swedes in the moment they pass any Swedish border?
Or is the metamorphosis already taking place the moment they take the decision to migrate to Sweden?

"There is no "us or them", the Politically Correct are preaching.
I have interpreted this as if the existence of indigenious Swedes is not admitted.
Have I in that case misunderstood the whole thing?
Does the Politically Correct Establishment on the contrary mean that all people on Earth are in fact Swedes?
-----
http://www.algonet.se/~milld/msni/1108.html

Afonso Henriques said...

Natalie,

Good for you! Of course I do. And that new fashion of learning Japanese and Chinese bah... I think we four languages are needed:

English, of course.
Then German and Russian.
In third place, French, but always decresing.

And then a good knowledge of Latin, that I unfortunatley lack. It will be easier for you to understand French if you know Latin first. And I doubt the latinity of the French! I mean, of course the French language is latin but, then, so it is Romanian... I doubt it because the bulk of latin languges in South West Europe (like, Portuguese, Spanish, Catalan, Italian) are very inteligible, especially if you are learned enough (and Latin would facilitate ir greatly) but French cames out of this "pure Latinity".

So then, if you have a good knowledge of Latin you can opt to learn Italian or Portuguese and Spanish and, then, the other two would come much more easily.
Regards.

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Conservative Swede, now I understand that you wanted me to prove you that my "plan" was not "nuts".
My English is not that good, really. Now, you are incentivating me to go study one more year of English...

Félicie said...

"We have moved from the dull, uninspiring, vanilla Britain of the past, to a new, exciting, tutti frutti Britain, one pregnant with potential."

I have recently finished a novel by a celebrated Black British writer (if you ask me, she is overpraised, and her writing is crap). I couldn't help but be struck by the sheer physical distaste for the white race (the physical phenotype) that the book was exuding. White British people were described as "chinless, browless potato faces" with doughy ears and gray, blotchy skin. It was really disturbing to read this but also good to get an honest view of how black people feel about white people on the emotional level of pure instinct. Needless to say, we will never see a similar physical description of a black person by a white writer. But it is instructive to know how deeply seated racism against whites is among the black people.

Félicie said...

P.S. I hate the expression "white bread" when referring to someone who is boring and bland. I think it is racist. I also hate the "blonde" jokes. White people can be really self-hating sometime.

El said...

hi felicie,

what was the book?

Félicie said...

It was "About Beauty" by Zadie Smith. If you remember, she became very fashionable and hip after her first book, "White Teeth" was published.

Félicie said...

Some thoughts on expulsion (sorry if this has been suggested and I missed it).

The first thing, seems to me, is to identify the ringleaders. Maybe the police already knows who they are. Otherwise one could introduce some minor restriction that would be certain to cause local protests but will not be big enough to provoke a full blown revolution. Then one needs to observe which individuals start agitating for grass roots action. These are the ones that should be deported in the first place. When the crowd doesn't have a leader, it is easier to deal with. The Islamic movement needs to be swiftly decapitated before the leaders have a chance to start a civil war and cause a lot of violence.

laine said...

It's even easier than that to identify the ringleaders. Just round up every Saudi funded imam in every mosque and send them packing back to their masters.

syntec said...

No, I'm sorry, the notion that one can reduce established facts to zero because of the human need to apply a linguistic term of differentiation, is a non-starter.

This is like suggesting that early homo sapien grunts and gestures acting as emotional indicators and object identifiers instead of highly evolved vocabulary and sentence formation, were just as valid.

Black people cannot be English since their genetic makeup does not belong to the founding peoples of England.

Can black people be called Chinese or Japanese? Of course not! Again, because of the obvious racial differences.

Can an indigneous white person lay claim to being Nigerian or Kenyan? No, due to racial differences again.

Genetic inheritance trumps all. Civically conferred nationality is not rooted in genetics, therefore, is not genuine, but merely artifical.

Mixed-race people are neither one nationality or another, but are, in fact, half of each. In truth, mixed-race people are different races in their own rights and are entitled to their own separate living spaces.

syntec said...

America has not been irrefutably established as the ancestral homeland of European White peoples to date. However, Britain, France, Germany Holland, Sweden and Norway, for example, ARE.

Nonwhites cannot be classified as any of these nationalities since their genetics and origins thus roots, lie elsewhere.

In other words, their origins lie in non-white ancestral homelands, not in European White ones.

It does not make any difference whether non-whites embrace White culture and/or whether they abandon their own in the process, their racial origins and cultures are the proof that their ancestral lands are not White ancestral homelands.

Civic citizenship conferred upon non-related races does not confer nationality. Nor does being born in a White homeland either. Civic status merely states that a non-white or other non-racially related person, has been granted paper citizenship by a current administration which by the same token, can also be removed by another.