The English, and the English middle classes in particular, are well known for their habit of saying one thing and meaning something else entirely. Racism is concealed behind a veneer of niceties and politeness, with prejudice being the hate that dares not speak its name. The liberal elites and sauvignon quaffing professionals who go out of their way to be broadminded and understanding on sexual diversity, race, religion and multiculturalism, would still be privately aghast at the idea of their son or daughter coming out, or marrying into another race, or embracing Islam. They would never say so, rather with British stoicism they would smile and carry on. Yet there is a perceptible change in the air, which since the riots is being driven by fear and a sense that our inner city populations are not the multicultural urban nirvanas that they were once thought to be, that they are in fact, an overflowing melting pot that’s been simmering for too long and is now getting ready to explode.
The first signs of this coming explosion were August’s riots, but these should be seen not as the actual explosion but rather as the first salvo in what will effectively be a violent realigning and redrawing of English society as future outbreaks of rioting destroy and undermine the social order on which our current way of life is structured. A structure which is being eaten away and weakened by the cancerous effects of being force-fed a relentless diet of multicultural diversity for thirty or more years and is now facing the prospect of being physically attacked as well. In such a fragile state its survival is not guaranteed, and it will need to fight hard to maintain the current status quo between the state and the people, or risk losing and seeing the country slide into anarchistic barbarism or becoming some form of quasi Weimaresque democracy which constantly teeters on the brink of collapse and paving the way for a period of political or military authoritarianism.
The middle classes know this not because there is an obvious sign but because there are little warning indications everywhere, in the papers, on the street, on the news, on the Net, in school, in colleges, in work, in the shops, and from the people they talk too. Everyday there are little things and big things all flashing red and those warning signs are all saying that the pot is getting ready to blow.
The journalist Graham Archer writing in the Daily Telegraph this week announced that he was leaving the inner city London borough of Hackney due, in a perfect example of middle class double speak, to a lack of empathy among the ‘separate communities’ and more importantly because of the ‘repellent antisocial behaviour that marks out too many bus journeys’, and specifically he says, ‘we’re leaving because of the summer riots’. He denied that this was about race and went on to castigate and cite the ‘tram lady’, Emma West, whose mouthy and slurred tirade at the world in general and non English whites in particular has made her a hate figure worldwide, seen her children taken into care and extraordinarily imprisoned without trial until January 3rd 2012 ensuring that she spends Christmas in prison. Such is the fate of anyone who dares to get ‘mouthy’ about race or who, in a very non middle class way, speaks their mind honestly. Better for her that she had thought what she meant and spoken what she didn’t.
Yet Emma West is also a spark, and the state’s brutal overreaction to what were in effect the drunken ramblings of a solitary woman on a tram has ensured that that spark rather than being extinguished will, like so many others, continue to burn. The police are adding their sparks as well by further talking up the doom-laden ante and demanding everything from tear gas, water cannon and new blinding laser lights to deal with future urban disorder. Those with a vested interested in portraying the riots as the cries of an underclass struggling for justice against a wicked, austerity driven world, have given future rioters the veneer of political respectability by reclassifying the rioters as protesters and in the background the silent majority says one thing, thinks another, dreams of relocating, and carries on.
Yes people are carrying on, but are increasingly nervous, as all the while the red lights keep flashing. Unemployment is rising, crime is rising, production and manufacturing are falling, banks could go bust, Europe is imploding, interest rates will rise soon as and as they rise so will mortgage repayments, and credit, once the driving force behind our reinvented ‘never-had-it-so-good’ culture, is now too in short supply. Nothing, in fact, is as it was, and nothing seemingly, is as it seems. There is a sense as well, that on top of all this the government and the natural cohesion of the people that has held the country together is falling apart. That we are, in fact, nolonger one people and one nation. Indeed, thanks to the wonders of multiculturalism we are now many peoples and many beliefs who have little in common and even more differences.
This frightens the middle classes whose world order is now under real threat. What for them is the purpose of all that cultural diversity and the tolerating and defending of multiple faiths and religious rights if the environment in which they live could be torn apart by the very people they have been supporting? They could, of course, run away to the suburbs or the countryside and relocate like the Daily Telegraph’s Graham Archer thereby escaping the ‘repellent antisocial behaviour’ that is so rampant on the streets of our inner cities, and many, many will.
They may also stay put and continue lying to themselves and each other and pretend that everything is fine and that there is nothing to worry about, or they can heed the warning signs for what they are and take a leaf out of Emma West’s book and say what they mean for once. For multiculturalism has failed totally and rather than relocating and running away the middle classes and the establishment they support needs to say enough is enough and bring an end to this ghastly social experiment before it destroys the country. The time for staying calm and carrying on is over, now is the time for speaking the truth.
© Nigel Wingrove 2011
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