Whenever someone starts a discussion with the words, “I'm not a racist but …” you can be pretty certain that he is about to say something which he really believes is going to be or may perceived to be, racist. And the conclusion most arrived at, although it may not be the general thrust of his argument, is "…there are just too many of them…"and by that he means immigrants.
But there arises an interesting slant which does deserve some serious consideration in view of the recent upheavals engendered by not so recent newspaper cartoons depicting Muslims with a variety of head wear.
In Britain we have a disturbing degree of street-level, opportunity lawlessness; muggings, burglaries, car crime, gratuitous violence which is something many of us have just come to accept, and which we have to bear in mind when we plan night, evening and, more frequently, day commuting.
The more of it we encounter, either directly or vicariously, the more we realize that amongst these young thugs is a fair proportion of immigrant stock, and that the sheer number of incidents, many carried out in and around the "rat runs" of sink estates, make it very difficult for the police to deal with.
We are also endowed with a growing number of Eastern Europeans who seem busily occupied with people smuggling, running teams of prostitutes, organizing major credit-card scams and fraud and by all accounts, they seem damn good at it. Catching these people isn't easy because many have "thin" (or no) personal files; on paper they just do not exist. Incidentally, neither of these problems will be resolved by the introduction of identity cards.
To tread in the daily press about the huge sums of money doled out to the immigrant population, and of the child benefit sent to e.g., Poland is a red rag to a bull whenever the topic of immigration arises. And make no mistake, there is a growing groundswell of discontent about this, far greater and more menacing that any government minister will admit to.
On the other hand, there are considerably more citizens of immigrants stock who display high standards of behaviour, study hard at school (when not suffering verbal and physical abuse at the hands of a minority) and go on to do extremely well in their chosen and legal careers. In fact, they are doing so well that the odds are that we could not perform as a major economy without them.
If they have any flaws at all, one is that they tend to be temperamentally unstable, easily excitable.
However, imagine if you can just what a pickle we would be in if this law-abiding element decided, in view perhaps of some apparently illogical mental process, that ultimately their loyalties lay elsewhere other than in the well being of the UK economy? Let's consider an example; on the basis that it takes only a word to sway a mob (but reasoned argument to turn an individual) if the Iran business got a little bit messy or some new and unpleasant incident involving Iraq were unearthed, and a monumental clash of cultures were exploited by a few disaffected, mischievous community leaders, who might preach (for example) a withdrawal of labour.
With a little imagination, one can conjure up all sorts of problems. Without wanting to be too alarmist, in the time it takes for a kettle to boil, the entire London underground system could be shut down; the NHS would cease to function; the civil service machinery would shudder to a halt, and that's for starters. Things could become extremely difficult for those, of whatever ilk, who wanted to carry on as normal. At a stroke, the country would just stop working. Worse, the police and other agencies would also be inoperative, and not just because of labor problems, so the street thugs and those who incline towards the more sophisticated (but no less unpleasant) crimes on the grand scale would have a heyday.
Or how about mobs inflamed to the point of lunacy roaming the streets of our cities carrying placards calling for beheading, throat-cuttings and leaving in their wakes a trail of destruction? It's not impossible, is it?
Let our imagination wander, but not too far; certain elements of society will not be very pleased. The most volatile of the population, almost certainly not of immigrant stock, might decide to react and that is when the real problems will begin, with things becoming unpleasant.
There could also be, and this would be a longer term but equally damaging strategy, a decided bias in favor of one's own when it comes to making decisions about planning, housing and other local and centrally granted benefits.
In a nutshell, our country, its economy, its very fabric of society, is vulnerable to being held to ransom, and it's a fair bet that our leaders know just how vulnerable the country is to what in essence, is the whim of the few.
On some of these issues, our hands are tied by Brussels; we can't just turn people back at the borders; we can't just export all illegal immigrants or those who break our laws, but instead we shovel millions of pounds into the pockets of Human Rights lawyers and it's a fair bet that we are the only ones who play by the rules; does anybody but the British government believe that any member of the EU will really place Community interests above national interests?
And is there anything we can do to avoid the not-so-far-fetched scenario described above, engendered as it would be by a clash of cultures? "Fraid not, because we are already too far down the road to turn back now. Moreover, all of us know that racism, that two-way evil, is alive and will always be with us and it is no good anybody denying it. What we have to do is pray for a miracle. As the man says, “….I"m not a racist but…”
