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I realise it is only April, so there is ample time for someone else to win the much vaunted Samizdata prize of 'oddest remark of the year', but this has to be a real contender:

However, Prof Rowthorn said the most likely victims were British-born school-leavers who had never had a job, having failed to find the kind of casual work they might have walked into a few years ago. The claim will fuel a political row over the prospects for a generation referred to as "Neets" (not in education, employment or training).

The professor said: "We are looking at the most vulnerable, least skilled and in some ways least motivated members of the local workforce. The problem that eastern European migrants pose is that they are good workers."

So the fact good workers are arriving in the UK is a 'problem' and that employers have them to hire rather than having to try and coax an honest day's work out of the least unmotivated native born lumpen is... a bad thing for people in Britain overall? Hmmm.

Also as the total number of job has been rising steadily for quite some time, it is hard to hide the fact the children of the British 'welfare' state are simply acting as the state has conditioned them to act. Of course the irony is that the people in some part replacing them are high initiative individuals arriving from former communist countries in search of better opportunities. And such people filling jobs grows the economy, so again the advantages overall take wilful blindness not to see.

Locals who cannot compete with Eastern European need to ask themselves why that is. My guess is that they are not really trying to compete very hard because after all, they can always just sign on for the dole. I find it hard to be sympathetic when a person's poverty is simply a function of a lack of motivation.

Of course one is not suppose to say things like that. My bad.

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Rob Johnston has produced a very interesting essay on the true soulmates of Green Politics in Britain

• Forbid the purchase of corner shops by migrants
• Stop people from inner cities moving to the countryside to protect traditional lifestyles
• Grant British citizenship only to children born here
• Boycott food grown by black farmers and subsidise crops grown by whites
• Restrict tourism and immigration from outside Europe
• Prohibit embryo research
• Stop lorry movements on the Lord’s Day
• Require State approval for national sports teams to compete overseas
• Disconnect Britain from the European electricity grid
• Establish a "new order" between nations to resolve the world economic crisis

These are the policies of one of Britain’s most influential political parties: a party that has steadily increased its vote over the last decade; a party that appeals overwhelmingly to whites; and a party that shares significant objectives with neo-fascists and religious fundamentalists.

Perhaps - the BNP? Despite its attempts to appear modern and inclusive and the soothing talk in its 2005 General Election Manifesto, of "genuine ethnic and cultural diversity" [1].

Or UKIP? It harbours some pretty backward-looking individuals - but would they stop Britain buying electricity from France if necessary?

Or, maybe, the Conservatives? Could that be a list of recommendations from one of Dave’s lesser-known policy groups - chaired by the ghost of Enoch Powell - quietly shredded to avoid "re-contaminating the Brand"?

Actually, affiliates of the progressive consensus may be surprised to learn that all the reactionary policies in the first paragraph are from the Green Party’s Manifesto for a Sustainable Society (MfSS) or were adopted at the party’s Autumn Conference in Liverpool over the weekend of September 13-16, 2007 [2].

Of course, the Green Party will protest against the accusation of reactionary politics. However, in an article critical of the G8 leaders in June, George Monbiot, (capo di tutti capi of the green movement) advised readers to judge politicians for "what they do, not what they say".

For example, as well as supporting ethnic and cultural diversity, the BNP says it accepts:

"... the right of law-abiding minorities, in our country because they or their ancestors came here legally, to remain here and to enjoy the full protection of the law against any form of harassment or hostility..." [3]

But, use Monbiot's argument, disregard the rhetoric and look at what the rest of the BNP manifesto promises would actually do and it remains a party of racist and neo-fascist ideology - internationally isolationist and domestically reactionary.

The trouble for Greens is that their manifesto pledges would result in many of the same outcomes as the BNP programme.

You will not find the words "Boycott food grown by black farmers and subsidise crops grown by whites", in the Green Party’s manifesto, but consider Monbiot’s advice about the effects of these policies:

"The Green Party recognises that subsidies are sometimes necessary to protect local, regional and national economies and the environment, and we will support them in these instances" [4].

"Controls such as tariff barriers and quotas should be gradually introduced on a national and/or regional bloc level, with the aim of allowing localities and countries to produce as much of their food, goods and services as they can themselves. Anything that cannot be provided nationally should be obtained from neighbouring countries, with long distance trade the very last resort" [5].

The paradox of arguing for Fair Trade while refusing to buy African vegetables because of "food miles" has been noted many times, but it is a paradox the Green Party simply ignores. According to the Guardian, Britain has two black farmers [6], so any policy to subsidise domestic produce and erect barriers to outsiders will, ipso facto, support white farmers and disadvantage black farmers. Even if supplies are "obtained from neighbouring countries", white European farmers benefit at the expense of poor farmers in Africa and the developing world.

On agricultural policy in general, Greens will agree with the following sentiments:

"Britain's farming industry will be encouraged to produce a much greater part of the nation's need in food products. Priority will be switched from quantity to quality, as we move from competing in a global economy to maximum self-sufficiency for Britain, sustainable agriculture, decreased reliance on petro-chemical products and more organic production" [7].

However, those promises come from the BNP 2005 General Election Manifesto - in a section indistinguishable from the Green Party manifesto:

"To be able to fulfil all our basic food needs locally. To grow as many other products as we can to meet our basic needs (e.g. for textiles, fuel, paper) on a local or regional basis. To enable all communities to have access to land which can be used for growing for basic needs. To ensure that all growing systems use only natural, renewable inputs and that all organic waste outputs are able to be recycled back into the soil or water system" [8].

Perhaps this is why, according to the BNP:

"We are the only true 'Green Party' in Britain as only the BNP intends to end mass immigration into Britain and thereby remove at a stroke the need for an extra 4 million homes in the green belts of the South East and elsewhere, which are required to house the influx of 5 million immigrants expected to enter the country under present trends over the next twenty years" [9].

Greens agree with the BNP about migration and the green belt. They promise to: minimise the environmental degradation caused by migration; not allow increased net migration; and end the pressure on the Green Belt by reducing population and stopping growth-oriented development [10]. Reduction in non-white tourism and immigration would be an inevitable consequence of government restrictions on air travel. Few refugees from Iraq, Darfur, Zimbabwe manage to get all the way to Britain without a large carbon footprint, neither can tourists from beyond Europe.

How about the accusation that the Green Party would:

"Stop people from inner cities moving to the countryside to protect traditional lifestyles and prevent crime; forbid the purchase of corner shops by migrants."

Here, are the relevant resolutions from the MfSS:

"Communities and regions should have the right to restrict inward migration when one or more of the following conditions are satisfied: [11]
a) The ecology of the recipient area would be significantly adversely affected by in-comers to the detriment of the wider community (eg. National Parks, Antarctica).
b) The recipient area is owned or controlled by indigenous peoples (eg Australian aboriginal people) whose traditional lifestyle would be adversely affected by in-comers.
c) The prospective migrants have, on average, equal or greater economic power than the residents of the recipient area and they or their families were not forced to leave the area in the recent past."

"Regions or communities must have the right to reject specific individuals on grounds of public safety" [12].

The examples (breathtakingly disingenuous) assert that they intend simply to stop Richard Branson driving a new main line through Stonehenge, Rupert Murdoch building a printing press on top of Uluru or Caesar’s Palace opening a casino at the South Pole.

Surely the Greens, of all people, know that Britain has hardly any desolate tundra and few Australian aboriginal communities. In practice, these policies would give the "indigenous" white folk of a quaint rural hamlet the right to rebuff a Leicester Bangladeshi purchaser for its corner shop because she has "greater economic power" than the villagers – whose "traditional lifestyle" would be "adversely affected" by her ethnicity and religion. They could also keep her out "on ground of public safety" because her inner city Muslim children are more likely to be criminals than their own offspring.

Not surprisingly, the BNP agrees with the Greens about the "right of all peoples to self-determination and that must include the indigenous peoples of these islands" [13]... Alas, not every small community is Ambridgely-correct – thrilled to embrace a half-Irish gay couple, a Vicar with a Hindu girlfriend and a mixed-race child, and an African husband for the daughter of the Lord of the Manor with the same enthusiasm it has for organic ciabatta and carbon trading.

In the 1980s, when the Thatcher government restricted immigration to Britain to those with at least one grandparent born here, it was accused of constructive racism. Thatcher claimed her measures were not racist – any discrimination against nonwhites was just an incidental consequence of the need to maintain what is now called "community cohesion". Green Party policy would go even further down the road of constructive racism than Mrs Thatcher, refusing citizenship to children born overseas even if their parents hold British passports [14].

The Macpherson Report into the murder of Stephen Lawrence identified "unwitting racism" in the police that can arise from well intentioned words or actions that arise out of uncritical self-understanding born out of an inflexible ethos of the "traditional" way of doing things:

"It persists because of the failure of the organisation openly and adequately to recognise and address its existence and causes by policy, example and leadership. Without recognition and action to eliminate such racism it can prevail as part of the ethos or culture of the organisation" [15].

By its uncritical acceptance of "traditional" ways of doing things - from the "spiritual link between ourselves and nature" [16] in agriculture, to anti-globalisation, to making the home "an important centre of economic activity" [17] - the Green Party allies itself with some of the most reactionary contemporary political forces in the land. And the "traditional" way of doing things is usually a reactionary approach to modern social issues.

Green Party agreement with Christian fundamentalists on at least two issues requires no textual analysis: MfSS policy number EU523 would ban lorry movements on Sunday throughout Europe and H329 calls for an immediate ban on embryo manipulation and cloning for any research, therapeutic or reproductive purposes [18].

Policies EU532 and 533 would scrap all connection of electricity grids throughout Europe - partly because interconnectivity allows nuclear generated power to creep along the wires [19].

For national sports teams, CMS871 would require politicians to determine "whether it is appropriate for the team to take part in competition against a country with whom normal friendly, respectful, or diplomatic relations are not possible” [20].

It is frequent for parties on the extreme fringes to share an analysis of contemporary politics - and Greens and BNP certainly share a lot of analysis. From the BNP 2005 Manifesto [21]:

"For most of human history, the existence of such ethnic and cultural diversity among humanity was so obvious and apparently unchallengeably natural that the political theorists and philosophers of past generations simply took it for granted. Only in the last few decades has this been changed forever by the advent of mass passenger travel, the insatiable desire of the globalised capitalist economy for cheap labour, and the worldwide reach of US consumerist culture through film and television."

"That poison is in large measure the blind economic force of global capitalism, with its insistence on the unrestricted flow of goods, capital and labour to wherever in the world they will make the maximum short-term profit ... It is not about 'love' and 'tolerance', it is about profit."

"Formidably powerful and publicly unaccountable transnational companies are becoming ever more footloose, their strength and mobility facilitated both by technological advances, and by the progressive withdrawal of investment controls by governments and by multilateral institutions such as WTO. TNCs are now increasingly able to exploit differences in social and environmental standards between countries in order to maximise profits" [22]. "The rush towards globalisation is neither inevitable nor desirable. It is leading to the sharp reduction in powers of local and indigenous communities, states, and even nations, to control their futures, as economic power is transferred to global institutions. A worldwide homogenization of diverse, local, and indigenous cultures, social and economic forms, as well as values and living patterns increasingly reflect the new global monoculture" [23].

To solve these "problems" the Green Party calls for an international "new order" to address a "global economic … cris[i]s" [24]. That language requires a very special kind of historical ignorance. Can no one in the Green Party have noticed that the last ideology to emphasise the spiritual oneness of man and nature ("blood and soil") and used the phrase "new order" was the fascism of the mid-20th century? A fascism represented in contemporary politics by the BNP. Similar analyses may be common for parties on opposite wings of politics, but it is not so common to posit the same solutions.

No doubt, when the Green Party adopted its manifesto there was no deliberate intention to implement a reactionary and racist strategy. But the Green Party is overwhelmingly white: of more than three dozen individuals listed as speakers and discussion leaders at its Autumn Conference only one was obviously a member of a visible ethnic minority (VEMs to those in the know) [25]. Even the discussion on issues affecting women from ethnic minority communities was led by a white woman and just 2% of Green Party candidates in the 2006 local elections were VEMs [26]. Perhaps the absence of minority members in Green Party counsels results in the same sort of "canteen culture" that affects the police, making it oblivious to the right-wing, pseudo racist nature of its plans for Britain.

The lessons of the Macpherson Report’s "institutional racism" could be expanded to include "institutional reactionaryism" and should be learnt not only by the state apparatus and large companies, but also by the Green Party - which declares its desire for a fair and just society.

References:
1.BNP 2005 General Election Manifesto: Rebuilding British Democracy (BNP 2005) pg 3 http://www.bnp.org.uk/candidates2005/manifesto/manifesto2005.pdf
2.Green Party Autumn Conference 2007: http://www.greenparty.org.uk/files/conference/2007/Final_Agenda_Autumn07.pdf
3.BNP 2005: pg 21
4.Green Party Manifesto for a Sustainable Society (GP MfSS): EU413 http://policy.greenparty.org.uk/mfss/
5.Ibid: EU443
6.The Guardian Monday June 26, 2006 “Meet Britain's other black farmer” http://www.guardian.co.uk/country/article/0,,1805973,00.html
7.BNP 2005: pg47
8.GP MfSS: AG500, AG501, AG502, AG503
9.BNP 2005: pg 48
10.GP MfSS: MG200, MG400, CY561
11.Ibid: MG204
12.Ibid: MG207
13.BNP 2005: pg 3
14.GP MfSS: NY515
15.Rachel Morris, Cardiff Law School: Summary of Macpherson Report: http://www.law.cf.ac.uk/tlru/Lawrence.pdf
16.GP MfSS: AG100
17.Ibid: EC403
18.Ibid: EU523, H329
19.Ibid: EU532, EU533
20.Ibid: CMS871
21.BNP 2005: pg 18-19
22.GP MfSS: EC902
23.Ibid: EC903
24.Ibid: EC900
25.Green Party Autumn Conference 2007 Timetable. http://www.greenparty.org.uk/files/conference/2007/Liverpool_timetable_full.pdf
26.Green Party Candidates for May 4th 2006 http://www.greenparty.org.uk/files/election/2WebverLE06cand.htm

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Patrick Crozier has views on the saga of footballer Al Bangura

Many of you will be vaguely aware of the Bangura affair. Al Bangura is the Watford footballer who is about to be deported to Sierra Leone, where, according to him, he is likely to be killed. For extra colour there is some stuff about a voodoo cult and the bizarre ruling that his being a professional footballer with excellent prospects do not count because Sierra Leone is not one of the top 75 football teams in the world. Go figure.

I should point out that I am a half-hearted Watford fan but this does not affect what I am about to say. I would say the same if the guy played for L*t*n. All it means is that I am slightly more familiar with the case.

I have no idea if what Bangura says is true. Frankly, it could be a pack of lies for all I care. Given the stakes involved: the best job in the world or exile to some African shithole, it would hardly be surprising if he were telling the odd porkie. But it does not matter. The way I see it the guy has every right to be here. Not because he is fleeing persecution, not because he is a good footballer, not because he pays his taxes or 'enriches' British culture...

But because he is a human being.

I think everybody should be able to live everywhere, subject, of course, to the usual libertarian provisos about property rights.

My guess is that sense and political manipulation of the judiciary will prevail. This has the potential to become a real cause celebre - you can just imagine the stink if he gets sent back to Sierra Leone and does indeed wind up dead - and because of that I do not think it will happen. Or if he does get deported he will soon find a job somewhere else. I hear LA Galaxy are looking to strengthen their midfield.

But it makes me think about all those who are not professional footballers - the ordinary joes who just want to make better lives for themselves or to escape the hope-crushing Kafka-with-machetes world that is so common in Africa. They have to face the more ordinarily-Kafkaesque world of the immigration system without the support of football clubs and their umpteen thousand supporters. For them the difference between prosperity and poverty hangs on a civil servant's whim. The more honest must be tortured by debates over when to tell the truth and when to lie like crazy. It must be agony.

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Over on The First Post, Richard Ehrman has written an article called Immigration: Britain’s wake-up call that gives us a splendid example of how the left and right generally share 'meta-context' (the unspoken axioms that we take for granted when we discuss something):

The new population projections are shocking [...] Over the next 25 years, the Office of National Statistics expects the British population to rise to 71million, from 60m today. After that, it is on course to hit 75m by mid-century. [...] And because we are not producing enough children to replace ourselves, most of this dramatic growth will be due to immigration. [...] Population projections have proved wildly out in the past, so this latest version should be taken with a pinch of salt. But it should serve as a wake-up call, too.

If we are going to rely on immigrants to pay our pensions and do the jobs we don't want to do, we are also going to have to build an awful lot of new houses, roads, schools and hospitals to accommodate them.

The fact the population is growing in Britain is shocking, apparently. Okay, yet for some reason I am not shocked. However why is this something we should regard as a "wake up call"? Personally I am hearing something more like a dinner bell being rung. Richard Ehrman is associated with Politeia, an allegedly market-friendly think tank, so why should 'we', by which I very strongly suspect he means 'we-as-taxpayers', be building houses, roads, schools and hospitals for anyone? In less benighted times the arrival of more people would have been referred to as a 'growing market' (i.e. a good thing) rather than an impending liability which needs a "wake-up call" to alert us to a problem.

Let me quote something very germane that was uttered yesterday at the Libertarian Alliance conference in London, by Shane Frith of Progressive Vision on more or less the same subject:

"The claim that immigration puts strain on 'vital public services' is a myth. The reality is that immigration only puts 'pressure' on the inefficient state sector such as state schools and NHS hospitals. Vital public services provided by the private sector welcome the additional customers. In the vital field of food supply, you don't hear Tesco complaining that they hadn't planned on the increased business - we face no food shortages. Neither does Vodafone struggle with the technical demands of providing mobile phones to all these immigrants. Immigration merely highlights the existing failure of the inefficient, unreformed state sector."

Quite! If indeed much of Central Europe is decamping from their homelands and heading for this Sceptred Isle, what an excellent time to abolish the decrepit socialist legacy systems (which are rather like running 1980's era computers in 2007 and then wondering why things do not work) that have inexplicably survived into the Twenty First century. Time to replace them with adaptive market driven approaches that are neither distorted nor crowded out by an idiotic and fantastically inefficient state run medical system, preposterous public sector housing and ever more dumbed down state schools. None of these things, not one, is logically something the state should have anything to do with. As I have argued before, perhaps the changing demographic realities may force exactly the sort of changes that should have been introduced decades ago.

And if that is true, it is yet another reason to thank the latest wave of immigrants. Guys, you might actually save us from ourselves.

Vitajte v Londyne!

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He could have taken his article to this conclusion but perhaps he thought the baggage that would come with it would distract from his intended points. In order for my 'friendly amendment' to make sense, it is important to understand what "multiculturalism" really means. Multiculturalism is not a recent ideology. Only the name is new. Most of you are far more familiar with it as "separate but equal". Wikipedia says:

Multiculturalism is an ideology advocating that society should consist of, or at least allow and include, distinct cultural and religious groups, with equal status.

Separate but equal ... segregationism. Multiculturalism as an ideology is diametrically opposed to integration and assimilation. Some have noted a difference in the formation of terrorists in America as compared with Europe but without necessarily attributing it to America's still comparatively high cultural emphasis and expectation of newcomers to assimilate.

The absence of significant terrorist attacks or even advanced terrorist plots in the United States since Sept. 11 is good news that cannot entirely be explained by increased intelligence or heightened security. It suggests America’s Muslim population may be less susceptible than Europe’s Muslim population, if not entirely immune, to jihadist ideology. In fact, countervailing voices may exist within the American Muslim community.

So what does this have to do with Richard Miniter?

He wrote an excellent article published in The American Legion Magazine reviewing several researcher's findings on what traits terrorists have in common.

Miniter says [my underscore]:

Terrorism is an extension of politics by deadly means. Its goals are inherently political, not economic. The chief aim of most significant terrorist campaigns – from the Tamil Tigers in Sri Lanka to al-Qaeda – is to force a government to yield sovereign control to the terror group over some slice of territory. ... These are not economic goals, but political ones.

I emphasized that point because wherever control is extended, whether in the banlieues of France, by withdrawal of troops from other regions by Spain, or communities anywhere in the first world where policing is stymied and made ineffective by a cultural barrier, terrorists have achieved their goal and are ready to extend their ambitions.

In his review of the studies, Miniter makes a list of three phases in the making of a terrorist.

Alienation. Sageman’s sample reveals that 80 percent are in some way totally excluded from the society in which they live. They are foreign students who do not fit in, or they are immigrants to Europe who do not assimilate. Seventy percent of the terrorists in Sageman’s sample joined a terror group when they were living outside their home countries.

This is where multiculturalism excels. By preventing pressures for, and benefits of assimilation, multiculturalism creates and entrenches precisely the metrocosms where terrorism best germinates. Healthy societies embrace newcomers. While sometimes sloppy or crude, this social embrace is always far better in the long run than encapsulating aliens in a cocoon of 'respect'. This misguided segregation and self censorship is the surest way to leave people from other cultures feeling alien and unwelcome.

Personal bonds. Eighty-eight percent of terrorists in the Sageman study are related by blood, marriage or friendship to other terrorists. Sixty percent worship at one of 10 mosques worldwide or attended one of two now-closed schools in Indonesia. "You’re talking about a very select, small group of people," Sageman concludes.

Like this one, perhaps? Once a mindset of terrorism has caught flame, it needs protection and encouragement to develop. It benefits from cultural isolation with highly constrained outside contact and networks independent of the host culture. There must be cultural barriers in place that confine bonding and loyalties to the like-minded. Terrorism cannot thrive in a diverse and interactive community where the structure of the society compels interaction with the larger community. We see this also in some communities in the US where it is considered preferable to shield a violent criminal than to 'snitch' to the outside police.

Group dynamics. Once a network of friendships evolves into a cell, certain group dynamics take over. Cell members feel they cannot betray their friends. The suicide bombers in Spain are a perfect example, Sageman writes. "Seven terrorists sharing an apartment and one saying, 'Tonight we’re all going to go, guys.' Individually, they probably would not have done it.

Once the mindset is established and the ambition is formed, it needs to grow, protected, so that it can finish its material and spiritual phase of preparation. It must be located in a place wherethe law and law enforcement is held at bay and, when it cannot be, is at least unable to recognize or understand the dynamics and significance of what little it does see. Terrorism comes from a social group that seals itself against outside discovery and investigation.

Multiculturalism allows each layer of protection to exist like a matryoshka doll. The inner most doll is the terrorist with each of the outer dolls representing another of the necessary shells protecting it. It is this final phase at which most of our interventions are occurring. It should be small consolation to us that we are catching terrorists only after they leave the protection of the many shells and begin taking position for their attack, when we are simultaneously harboring the incubation of a steady supply of them as a consequence of our multicultural policies.

We need to recognize Multiculturalism for what it is. "Separate but equal" in a politically correct wrapper.

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The other day I was watching the news and saw a story about a sudden influx of Romanian gypsy children into Slough (of all places). Several things struck me about the story.

Firstly, the children they interviewed were entirely candid about the reason they arrived in the UK: state welfare. They had come to Britain because they learned that all you have to do is turn up and you will be provided with free housing and food which is better than what they had in Romania.

They were entirely honest what their motives were. So I suppose unlike in Romania, they do not have to steal to support themselves, they are counting on the British state to do it for them. That said, several shopkeepers were also interviewed and they were aghast at the prospect of these new arrivals.

The second thing that really stuck me was the sheer idiocy of the spokesman that was quoted (I assume he was from Slough Council), who said "we are working to figure out how to reunite these children with their parents", or words to that effect... as if these parasites were washed up after a storm rather than having intentionally travelled from Romania to Slough. Quite rightly the reporter commented that there was no indication these children were likely to oblige as they were clearly very satisfied with what they were being given.

However my guess is that once they have established themselves, they will indeed be "reunited with their parents"... who will arrive in the UK to do exactly the same.

It is interesting to contrast this with the highly successful influx of Polish, Czech, Slovak, Hungarian and now Baltic immigrants into the UK over the last few years. High initiative, quickly integrating Eastern Europeans attracted by the more dynamic economy of Britain, have joined the work force and broader British society generally to the noticeable benefit of everyone... but in this case in Slough, the welfare system has attracted the worst kind of bare faced parasites from a predatory sub-culture. An interesting contrast and proof yet again that 'immigration' is not a problem, it is immigration-plus-welfare-handouts that causes the problems.

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Myself I do not think the state should be in the business of subsidising housing. But if it is in that business then I do not think it is tolerable for the state to pick and choose whom to subsidise on the basis of other than individual circumstance - not group belonging.

New Labour minister Margaret Hodge begs to differ. She writes in The Observer today:

We should look at policies where the legitimate sense of entitlement felt by the indigenous family overrides the legitimate need demonstrated by the new migrants. We must debate these difficult questions.

If you have an ounce of conscience or historical background the questions [sic] are not difficult at all. Someone's sense of entitlement does not trump someone else's need - by which she necessarily implies it should curtail the second person's legal rights - because the first person is 'indigenous'. We know where that leads.

I have often suggested that the New Labour programme is a 'soft' form of fascism. I wonder now whether I was rude enough.

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Mark Steyn is one of those writers on the "right" who, I suspect, are admired by the sort of folk who read this blog. He is very funny: some of his takedowns on movies and politics have got me laughing out loud. (P.J. O'Rourke remains the Emperor and tends to be less pessimistic and is more libertarian). I mostly supported Steyn's take on the case for overthrowing Saddam - although I get the impression that he has gone rather quiet due to the mess of the subsequent Coalition occupation of that tortured country. More recently, Steyn has pushed the following thesis: Europe is headed for an Islamist takeover because Those People are, to use the late Orianna Fallaci's charming expression, "breeding like rats", and that in 20 years' time, they'll be beheading criminals in Birmingham, forcing women to cover up on the Cote' D'Azur, and they'll be no more boozing in the Munich Oktoberfest. We are, as Private Frazer would say in Dad's Army, the old British sitcom, all doomed. No wonder a certain kind of American who tends to despise those "commie Europeans", is lapping it up.

Steyn bases his thesis on demography. It is both the core but also the main weakness of his book. The problem I have with all such predictions is that the variables have a nasty habit of changing. Even a small change in the birth rate can have a huge impact on the subsequent growth rate of a population set. It is a bit like the law of compound interest. Even a small increase in cost of borrowing money or the yield on a stock can, over 10 years, make a big difference to a mutual fund or the size of your mortgage. Population growth statistics and predictions are like that. Remember the doomongering population scientist Paul Ehrlich? He bet that, by around now, the world's population would have expanded so fast that we would be starving to death. As the late Julian L. Simon pointed out at the time, Ehrlich's prediction was hooey. Erhlich overlooked a rather universal trait: as people get richer and no longer have to rely on big families to support parents in their dotage, birth rates fall. It seems to happen pretty much everywhere, including in those countries with very different religious and cultural traditions.

This makes me wonder a bit about whether Steyn is over-egging the point. Demographics is clearly a vital issue, not least in explaining why European growth rates might remain sluggish in the decades ahead. But I cannot help but wonder that Steyn is making the sort of bold extrapolations on population that he would be the first to mock if it was, say, the latest prediction about global warming. Conservatives like Steyn are usually skeptics about Big Predictions, so it seems a bit odd that he has taken up the demographic prediction game with such enthusiasm.

I do not think Steyn is a racist, although in a rather overheated review of his latest book, Johann Hari comes close to making that charge, although even Hari admits that Steyn makes some important points about the follies of multiculturalism and agrees that there is a serious problem with Islamic fundamentalism. But I think Hari does make the important point of questioning whether Steyn has let his own pessimism get the better of him.

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It is of course too much to expect much rationality in the debate about immigration occurring on both sides of the Atlantic at the moment. I keep getting completely deranged e-mails from an outfit calling itself Conservative News NYC from across the puddle who are claiming that the USA and Mexico are in a de facto state of war due to the 'invasion' of the USA by illegal aliens. They also take the view that anyone who takes a more measured opinion on this is clearly a vile traitor. This is the same outfit who thinks any American who supports Israel is also a traitor, a word they rather like it seems, although of course they preface this with "but we're not anti-Semitic". No, of course not, perish the thought.

Now just because I think the fine fellows of Conservative News NYC are barking moonbats that does not mean all is well when it comes to immigration. There are indeed two groups in the USA (and one in the UK) who really are a problem. On both sides of the Atlantic we have an increasingly radicalised and non-integrating community of Muslims amongst whom support is very widespread for values completely antithetical to post-Enlightenment western civilisation.

Add to this in the United States the quite similar, at least in outlook if not action, ethnic fascists of La Raza, the one form of overt in-your-face racist fascism that seems to be quite acceptable for members of the American left to praise and with whom they are quite happy to share a stage (I guess being racist to white people is not really racism, eh Hilary?). At least one good thing about La Raza is that they are a lunatic fringe amongst Hispanics in the USA (much as Conservative News NYC are a radical lunatic fringe amongst US Conservatives). Of course the same could probably be said of Samizdata in many ways as we are hardly mainstream in many of the views we take, so it is not like I am against lunatic fringes per se.

Sadly the same cannot be said for much of the Muslim community who do indeed appear to share a wide range of views with the people we quite incorrectly call 'extremists'... I say incorrect because it appears they actually reflect increasingly mainstream Muslim opinion, particularly in the UK. They are not extremists, they are merely practising Muslims who actually believe what their religious texts tell them to believe. The problem is not extremism, it is Islam itself and anyone who actually takes it seriously.

One thing both of these groups have in common is that they must be relentlessly confronted and cannot be compromised with or appeased in any way whatsoever. It really is 'them or us'.

However...

Most immigration is actually a very good thing and has for the most part been a resounding success. In particular the current large wave of arrivals in the UK from Central and Eastern Europe has been a fantastic boon to this country, both economically and socially. Not only are we being inundated with highly motivated skilled people from Poland, Slovakia, Czech Republic and Hungary, these folks are rapidly assimilating and the overwhelming majority quickly find employment.

And that brings us to what makes some immigration good and some bad.

In short, if people come to another country in order to sponge off its welfare state, that is bad. If they come to fill skill shortages, take jobs others do not want and to benefit from a greater freedom to pursue opportunities, that is very, very good.

So welfare states attract the 'wrong' kind of immigrant (and frankly pander to the 'wrong' kind of indigenous people as well), whereas an employment and entrepreneurship friendly environment attracts the 'right' sort of immigrants. Quelle surprise!

A good indication of which of those are in the majority in any immigrant community is to see if they are asking for tax funded schools for their children in their own languages and for various other things provided by the state at taxpayer expense but exclusively for their own ethnic or religious community.

And by that test, yes, we really do have a problem with a significant portion of the Muslim communities in the West and to a (much) lesser extent, a few elements of the Hispanic community in the USA (and the politicians who pander to them). It makes no sense for supporters of immigration such as myself to pretend otherwise.

Yet overall, free for the baleful influence of government, immigration works just fine... like so many things in fact once you get the dead hand of the state out of the way.

(6)

... is they are all racists, apparently. The paradox inherent in such a declaration might not be lost on Trevor Phillips, were he not now one of the official arbiters of what is and is not forbidden thought and speech in Britain.

How extraordinarily coincidental that this line should emerge from a New Labour appointee just before the Home Secretary is due to announce that settlement of Bulgarians and Romanians here will still be controlled after they become EU citizens.

(7)

Much is made of bogus asylum seekers (with considerable justification) but in truth, the basic principle of countries in the west being a haven for those who are oppressed for reasons of their belief is a very righteous one indeed.

And that brings me to the case of 'Isaac Shrödinger', the pseudonymous Pakistan born ex-Muslim blogger who is currently seeking asylum in Canada. If ever there was something I would like to see more of in the west, it is ex-Muslims, apostates if you like, who are willing to talk about Islam and say it the way it is.

Read his article and perhaps do as I have done and drop your mouse heavily on his PayPal button to help with his legal expenses... it will give you some serious blogospherical karma points.

(62)

What I am about for argue for may strike long time readers of Samizdata as strange, given that I have written so many articles deploring racism, calling for open borders and taking various pro-immigration positions. None of my views on those things have changed one iota but clearly Britain and the western world generally has a problem with the Muslim communities in their midst. If Muslims really do share a broad consensus of opposition to free speech and the social liberalism that defines us, then Muslims are quite unlike any other community who have demonstrably integrated and assimilated over time, such as the Irish, Poles, Afro-Caribbeans, Sikhs, Hindus, Chinese, etc.. If Britain's Muslims wish to both be separate but also have a veto over how non-Muslims are permitted to discuss them, then they are a cohesive political and social problem. So how does a tolerant, cosmopolitan, pro-immigration, free market capitalist, social individualist ('libertarian' if you insist) react to the threat posed by an intolerant and even barbaric cultural-religious minority in the midst of his society? Here is where I put myself 'beyond the pale' with some people. The short answer is... discrimination.

I have long argued that intolerant Islamic values are a problem that needs to be opposed, not accommodated. However people in the Muslim community need to be opposed not for being Muslims but for refusing to integrate into British society. As so many ethnic groups have successfully (even if not always effortlessly) integrated and assimilated into tolerant British society, the problem is not mass immigration, the problem is Islam and the antithetical values it brings. In short, the problem is Muslim mass immigration and the refusal to reciprocate tolerance for tolerance.

However it is important to keep in mind that Islam is not a race or an ethnicity, it is a religion, and therefore it is a choice. As a result, when the BBC says that the police have arrested a group of "Asian men on suspicion of terrorist offenses", they are doing everyone a great dis-service by making a remark which is by any reasonable definition racist in the most literal sense. It does not matter that the people in question are 'Asian', what matters is that they are Muslim. Race and ethnicity is not the issue and to suggest otherwise is racist: the political consequences of a specific religion and its associated culture, that is the issue.

Social mechanisms are the natural defence against people who do not integrate. Inter-marriage and economic participation are the natural rewards for people who do. The evidence that Afro-Caribbean people are now well and truly 'British' is the high levels of inter-marriage. But although the state does not force individuals to marry others against their will, it does indeed force the owners of the means of production to rent houses to, and offer jobs to, un-assimilated people. In short, the law prevents discrimination on pretty much any basis. And I would argue that although blanket discrimination against a person on the grounds of their race or ethnicity is almost always a bad thing, discrimination on the basis of a person's beliefs can be a very good thing indeed. Few Guardian readers seem to have a problem 'discriminating' against racists.

If if a woman walks into my office in a burqua and asks for a job, clearly she has not assimilated and I frankly I would rather not hire her for that reason alone, which of course can get me in trouble with the authorities for 'discrimination'. Yet it is discrimination that is the natural pressure that entourages assimilation. Why should I have to associate with people I do not wish to? If I have the right to free association, surely that must include dis-association. For me to be willing to hire that woman she need do nothing more than take the damn burqua off and make me comfortable that she is not likely to be deeply alien to the rest of my employees. The carrot for assimilating (or at least accommodating) the host culture is economic participation and social harmony, the stick is discrimination and it is a stick the state does not allow people to use. As usual, the state is not your friend, unless you are a Muslim bigot of course.

That is a mistake. We do not need to restrict immigration to defend ourselves, we just need to make people who refuse to integrate a great deal less welcome. Islam and the intolerant social values it imposes are a choice, not a matter of genes, and if you cannot judge a person based on their choices, you cannot judge them for anything, which is preposterous. If most Muslims really do reject the core values that make Britain what it is then they cannot complain if increasing numbers of British people reject the core values of what makes Islam what it is and react accordingly. It is really quite simple to adopt the trappings of 'Britishness' and fit in. Jews do not have to stop being Jews to also be British, cannot Muslims also find a way? Perhaps not. But the consequences for not assimilating need to be significant. If Muslim separatists dislike the reception they get, the solution is both simple and quite inexpensive.

(33)

Anyone with the slightest knowledge of economics is aware what a scam a 'minimum wage' is. When an artificial bottom placed on hourly rates is raised ,there are only two rational responses an employer can make: fire anyone whose value is now less than their cost; or raise prices to cover the added cost of doing business.

The raising of prices following a minimum wage hike sends ripples through the economy, like those of a handful a pebbles tossed into a farm pond. At some point everything damps out and the steady state returns. No new value has been created by the higher wages so the end result is roughly enough inflation to wipe out the change.

This analysis misses a detail however. The economy does not respond instantaneously. There is a time lag during which recipients have more purchasing power. They will pay for it later of course: TANSTAAFL. But from the viewpoint of a politician if the gain can be timed to properly coincide with something of value to them, say an election, it is a win. The pain comes later and memories are shorter than the interval betwixt elections.

I realized this morning there is a way in which politicians can hide much of the pain indefinitely: illegal immigration. Think it through. Raise the minimum wage in an environment where there is cheap, willing labour, undocumented and outside the system. What is the rational employer response? Raise wages for legal employees and export the costs to the undocumented workers. Illegal immigrants are not voters so this is a win-win situation to both the ruling class and those who keep them there. The voters get a higher real wage and living standard because the inflationary cost has been shifted. The pain has been exported outside the political game.

Statist politicians cannot do anything about illegal immigration because if they stop it, the deferred inflation will cause prices to rise enough to erase the excess income of their constituents. Employers will have to either drop low end jobs or else raise prices to support them. Voters will not be happy and it is well known the wallet is a bigger determinate of election outcomes than just about anything else. So, QED, illegal immigration is now a structural requirement of the centralized Western bureaucratic state.

A second force drives the need for cheap labour: the demographic transition in modern societies leads to a lowering of birthrates and a consequent labour shortage. Some places, like Japan, are looking to solve this with robots: the real deal kind. Less closed societies are covering the short fall with immigration of both legal and illegal varieties.

There is simply no practical way out of the situation in the short run and politics is all about delaying pain in hopes it will either go away or happen after you are gone.

(107)

There's plenty of action going on in my last post on immigration. Much is being made in the comments about the distinction between legal and illegal immigration. As 'permanant expat' put it:

"Unrestricted" immigration, as practiced by most (Socialist) European governments is a BAD THING.....period. Anyone unable to understand that is living on another planet.
Illegal immigration is a TOTALLY UNACCEPTABLE THING.....period. Anyone who doesn't understand that lives far, far away in another galaxy....
Immigration is a "Death Star".....but there's no Luke Skywalker anywhere to be seen.

Out here on the planet Liberty, it strikes me that this distinction between legal and illegal immigration is spurious. Immigration should be discussed on its merits, and merit is NOT something that is dispensed by legislative agencies.

It always surprises me that many 'libertarians' who shout the loudest for the free trade in goods and services, are apparently willing to turn around and argue all for government intervention when it comes to the freedom of movement in people.

(88)

There are few topics in the world that get people heated up more then immigration, and in both Australia and the United States, societies that have been built by mass immigration, the topic is in the news.

In the United States, the question is based more on what to do about the millions of illegal immigrants that have consistently been keen to seek opportunity in that great country, and have taken the dubious path of avoiding the proper legal channels to do so. In ordinary times this would not have been such an issue. However, since 2001 the United States has become naturally very sensitive about who enters its borders. I am actually surprised that it has taken this long to surface.

The United States immigration question is particularly interesting. You might think that a society that has built itself on mass immigration would be in favour of more immigration, but this is not the case, and generally never has been the case. In general immigration is tolerated, rather then actively embraced by the general populace, but when times get tough, the political mood can turn quite quickly on newcomers. This was as true in the recession of 1819 as it is today.

This is because the costs of immigration are felt and paid for by individuals, but the benefits of immigration are diffuse and spread right across society. It is a shame that many defenders of the right of the free movement of people refuse to admit that there are costs to immigration. The worker who finds his wages undercut or loses his job entirely, or the victim of violence or the householder who finds his property values eroded is naturally going to feel distressed and angry at what he or she sees as the ‘cause’ of his or her loss. People find themselves surrounded by people of different appearance, religion, and cultural conditions, and worry about how the newcomers will assimilate.

These natural concerns of individuals become political fodder for political ratbags and racist hate mongers who wish to exploit individual discontents to promote their own grab bag of political statism and worse. In Europe this has become a particular problem because of the disconnect between mainstream politicians and ordinary voters caused by the ‘democratic deficit’.

Nevertheless the society that receives immigrants is usually much better off for having them. Immigrants are usually the best and the brightest of their societies, and the most driven. Having uprooted their lives to make a fresh start, they are open to new ways of doing things, and are thus an engine of innovation. In this era of ‘baby drought’ they boost the population and the dynamism of their new societies, and increase the purchasing power of their economies. However, because these effects are spread widely, few people identify their prosperity with immigrants.

In Europe, the situation is rather different, mostly because generous welfare provisions that are provided from the start tend to reduce the benefits and increase the costs to a host society of immigration. This situation used to apply in Australia, but a change in the law that made new migrants wait two years before being eligible for welfare has not only changed this dynamic, but taken a lot of the political heat out of the issue.

So it takes political leadership of high calibre to stand up for immigration despite the obvious merits of the cause. The freedom of the individual to choose the place of his or her residence is a precious one worth defending, but the sad fact is that in this day and age, standing up for freedom is not a cause that political leaders in the West are that happy to embrace.

(103)

Not content with bullying its own population, the British Government is now spending taxpayers' money to export the culture of fear. This from the website of Her Britannic Majesty's Embassy to Romania:

With approximately 100 illegal immigrants deported from Britain to Romania every month and 250 Romanian asylum seekers registered last year in the UK, the Home Office and the International Organisation of Migration (IOM) decided to launch this publicity campaign in March 2005.

The existence of the IOM 'Managing migration for the welfare of all' is unwelcome news to me.

[...] But how does a state achieve the balance between the need for control of its borders and the need to facilitate movement across its borders for legitimate purposes such as trade, tourism, family reunion and education?

...asks the IOM, seeking to explain its purpose, but begging the question. The assumption is that states will naturally ban travel and trade (which is what 'control their borders' means) and then decide what are 'legitimate purposes' for permitted movements. But this is a convenient doctrine invented by states in the 20th century, a generalization of the conditions of the Tsarist police-state and the petty, nationalist bureaucracies that emerged in the 19th.

Where - let alone why - I choose to live or travel is no business of states, unless I am doing injury to their citizens. By going from place to place I do accept that places are different legally as well as culturally and physically. If there were no differences there would be no point in travel. But the natural condition of borders is openness. They are just lines on a map.

(115)

Anthony Browne, writing the main feature article in this week's Spectator, says policymakers have underestimated, or quite possibly fibbed, about the scale of immigration into the United Kingdom from Eastern Europe. I do not want to get into all the cultural arguments that have been aired a lot here in recent months. Suffice to say that Browne makes some good, if slightly alarmist, points about the ability of a small crowded island like Britain to go on taking more and more people, never mind from often very different cultures.

He seems to make the mistake, however, when discussing the impact of immigration on wage rates, of what is known as the "lump of labour fallacy": the notion that there is a fixed amount of work to be performed in an economy. It seems a bit odd that Browne, who calls himself an economic liberal, should fall prey to this fallacy. After all, as surely the late economist Julian L. Simon pointed out, every additional person is not just another mouth to be fed, but another brain and pair of hands to create wealth.

(40)

My first posting on the Globalization Institute's blog is about the almost hidden but massive transfers of cash by migrants workers to their families in under-developed countries. The following quote comes from Time magazine:

Mass migration has produced a giant worldwide economy all its own, which has accelerated so fast during the past few years that the figures have astounded the experts. This year, remittances - the cash that migrants send home - is set to exceed $232 billion, nearly 60% higher than the number just four years ago, according to the World Bank, which tracks the figures. Of that, about $166.9 billion goes to poor countries, nearly double the amount in 2000. In many of those countries, the money from migrants has now overshot exports, and exceeds direct foreign aid from other governments. "The way these numbers have increased is mind-boggling," says Dilip Ratha, a senior economist for the World Bank and co-author of a new Bank report on remittances. Ratha says he was so struck by the figures that he rechecked his research several times, wondering if he might have miscalculated. Indeed, he believes the true figure for remittances this year is probably closer to $350 billion, since migrants are estimated to send one-third of their money using unofficial methods, including taking it home by hand.

There are two things I especially like about this growing trend. One is that unlike other forms of aid (including private giving by Westerners), the money tends to be better spent, because the donor is immediately related to the recipient. The second is I think unique to migrant workers. Normally there is a dependency trap: the money coming in is for a set term and will only be renewed if the recipient pleads continuing poverty. But migrant workers who leave their families behind have a strong incentive to watch out for improving economic conditions back home. As families achieve a tolerable standard of living they tend to reduce the amount of migration. The whole bureaucracy of aid is bypassed.

Thinking about it, perhaps giving a Christmas bonus of �100 to the office cleaner from Ghana or the Ukraine does more to make the world a better place than �200 given to an aid charity. We often hear about the benefits of cutting taxes, but here's a new one. For each pound in taxes saved by low-income migrant workers, up to 40p will be transferred to a family in the developing world. That's got to be a better return than the government makes of our money.

(35)

Joel Kotkin, in a fine article at the Wall Street Journal, draws out these telling facts on the European economy's lousy job-formation record in recent years:

Since the '70s, America has created 57 million new jobs, compared with just four million in Europe (with most of those jobs in government). In France and much of Western Europe, the economic system is weighted toward the already employed (the overwhelming majority native-born whites) and the growing mass of retirees. Those ensconced in state and corporate employment enjoy short weeks, early and well-funded retirement and first dibs on the public purse. So although the retirement of large numbers of workers should be opening up new job opportunities, unemployment among the young has been rising: In France, joblessness among workers in their 20s exceeds 20%, twice the overall national rate. In immigrant banlieues, where the population is much younger, average unemployment reaches 40%, and higher among the young.

Kotkin goes on to contrast the lack of entrepreneurial (good French word, ironically) vigour in countries like France with that in the United States. There are plenty of other statistics to back up his points, but you get the general idea.

As the French rioting has gone on, I remain to be completely convinced that we are seeing some sort of European "intifada", as a number of commenters on this blog and other blogs say. Islamist radicalism may not be the primary cause, though it is a contributing factor, no doubt. I do certainly see the frightening potential for radical Islamists to exploit the situation and turn it to their own ends. This may already be happening. But I think the primary problem has been a refusal of the EUropean political elites to realise that the Big Government, and a highly protected labour market is a recipe for disaster and alienation. Coupled with the slowing dynamic of a greying population, falling economic growth and so forth, you have a serious problem of a stagnant economy. For example, the article I cite goes on to point out that hundreds of thousands of young Europeans now work abroad, in the U.S. and in Britain, since the work opportunities are so much better. Left behind is an increasingly state-dominated workforce and a huge population of tax-eating bureaucrats and welfare recipients. Not a great foundation for social peace.

Magnus Linklater, meanwhile, points to a worrying trend in Britain of young thugs hurling stones, firing rockets and other projectiles at firefighters in the course of their work. There have been hundreds of these incidents, many of them hardly reported in the media. Only a few years ago, firefighters were heroes, widely praised by all. Now they are almost routinely attacked in the tougher parts of this country.

(105)

Mihir Bose has a very interesting and though provoking article in the Telegraph about why many of the lessons of the American 'melting pot' have little resonance or even relevance to Britain.

The difference is simple but profound: America can impose a coherent historical narrative on immigrants because the countries they come from had no previous involvement with America. Settlers are able and encouraged to discard their native histories and accept the American version.

But the vast majority of non-white immigrants to Britain have come from our former colonies, and bring not only their own cultures but also their own versions of our shared history. So, in trying to construct a single coherent narrative for this island, we are faced with trying to marry two historical streams: the "home" version and the "export" version.

I am not sure I agree with the entire thrust of the article but it certainly provides considerable food for thought. Certainly I have always found it curious how, at least in my experience, race relations in Britain have been (generally) far better compared to the USA (and I only speak from my personal observations) and with far less government intervention forcing that state of affairs to be the norm, at least until quite recently. Perhaps Mihir Bose's article contains some of the reasons underpinning that. That could be worth pondering.

(15)

Those of us who believe in an open immigration system acknowledge that this should not mean we let in those who support terrorism. So hurrah say I to this news:

"The Home Secretary has issued an order revoking Omar Bakri Mohamed's indefinite leave to remain and to exclude him from the UK on the grounds that his presence is not conducive to the public good," a Home Office spokesman said.

The wording "not conducive to the public good" comes from the Immigration Act 1971. The government says it needs new powers to deal with terrorism. The funny thing is that I cannot remember anyone talking about being able to exclude preachers of hate if they are "not conducive to the public good" before this last week. Could it be that the government does not actually know what powers it has?

(12)

Favouring open immigration into integrationist societies within the context of an eventual end to the welfare state and strengthening of civil society is a view widely shared in these parts. But I can also say will little fear of contradiction that not one of the regular writers for Samizdata would describe themselves as a multiculturalist.

The term did once have some appeal but in the end what it has come to mean is someone who thinks all (non-western) cultures are as desirable as each other. However I do not believe that all cultures are equally worthy and I doubt that in reality all too many other people really think that either is you dig deep enough. For all its many and varied flaws, the modern dynamic, secular and above all tolerant western civilisation of the early 21st Century is considerably superior to the alternatives. But of course even within the west, not all the societies that make up that great civilisation are as dynamic and successful as each other.

But what is a society? Definitions vary. In the crudest sence it is a group of people who interact with each other by simple virtue of their proximity (something the internet may change), and as a result follow broad (but often loose) cultural norms which have evolved to facilitate interaction and order. So by this very simple (prehaps even simplistic) definition is also pointless to pretend that having long term un-assimilated communities with certain key antithetical values within western societies is anything but a recipe for catastrophic strife.

The stunning and very under-reported race riot by Arabs and North Africans in France last month shows what happens when the state interferes for decades by subsidising parasitic behaviour based on identity politics and pretending that state fiats can either enforce or obviate the need for integration. When the French state bans chadors and all other religious symbols in French educational conscription centres (schools), it is not a case of France 'defending western culture' but rather admitting that civil society has so decayed under the weight of generations of politicization that natural social mechanisms no longer exist to integrate newcomers as effectively as once was the case. In the end nothing gets done in France without it being planned and implemented politically by the enarques in Paris and racial no-go areas are the result.

The solution in the end may be less government so that civil society can actually regenerate but in the short to medium term it is hard to see how the French political class, not a group known for frank introspection and honest analysis, can prevent France gradually sliding into ever more atavistic violence. Even Britain, which has far better race relations than France, learned in 2001 that playing identity politics and handing out other people's money based on ethnicity is a dangerous thing to do. But whereas in the USA the 1992 Los Angeles riots spurred some soul searching in th