Islam and Popular Culture

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America, BBC, BNP, Britain First, Civilisation, Counter-Jihad, Defend the modern world, Demographics of Europe, EDL, English Defence League, Europe, Facebook, Islam, Islamism, Jim Jefferies, Jim Jefferies DVD, jim jefferies Islam, Jim Jefferies tour, Multiculturalism, Muslims, Race and ethnicity in the United States Census, Rihanna Muslim, Taylor Muslim, Taylor Swift, Twitter, United States

Having nothing better to do last night, I sat down with a friend to watch a DVD performance by the brash, Hicksian comedian Jim Jefferies. The show was called ‘Contraband’.

About half way through, as seems to be obligatory in modern comedy, the Australian performed a routine critiquing the religious, beginning (naturally) with Christianity, moving onto Judaism and then, to my great surprise, Islam.

And he didn’t ‘tackle’ Islam in the playful, tip-toeing style of Dara O’ Briain, Frankie Boyle or Ricky Gervais, but with a dirty-mouthed fearlessness usually only employed against Biblical ideas.

Commenting on a recent scandal involving blasphemy against Mohammad (there have been so many, I honestly don’t know which one this was), Jefferies informed any Muslims in the crowd that his microphone stand was the literal incarnation of Mohammad and that it was ‘fucking gay!’.

I was taken aback, not because I have never encountered this sort of thing before (the internet is filled with anti-Islam comedy), but because Jim Jefferies is not a ‘right-wing’ race-baiter, and nor is he a reviled ‘working man’s comedian’ of the Jim Davidson or Bernard Manning variety. He is a respected liberal who campaigns against race-discrimination and in favour of gun control (born in Australia, Jefferies now lives in Los Angeles), and yet here he was, giving an equal allotment of hatred to a variety of anti-liberal targets. I surely don’t need to remark as to how rare that is.

Jefferies is said to have form on this. I am told that his Islamophobic gestures from ‘Contraband’ are repeated in his other performances (most of them are available on YouTube). We must hope that this bravery has sufficiently cleared the way for others to follow in his footsteps. As an American observer commented in the wake of the Charlie Hebdo attacks – “blasphemy (against Islam) must become so commonplace that it bores people” rather than shocks them.

Of course, it is inevitable that popular culture and Islam will collide at certain points and in regard to certain subjects. While no-one is going to risk being murdered in the defence of bacon, a celebrity or two might be tempted out of PC-world by issues like Muslim homophobia, sexism, and the prohibition of music.

Indeed, that last element is potentially the richest Islamophobic vein of all. Surely nothing is so fundamentally beloved by and interwoven with the spirit of the Western world as music. It is an art the West (and the West alone) has perfected and through which the highest forms of Western expression have been communicated. It consoles our deepest miseries, undergirds our joys and sustains us through all the voids in-between. Naturally then, music artists are revered with an intensity superior to that aroused by the practitioners of any other art-form.

I sometimes wonder what would happen if Taylor Swift – a woman currently worshipped like a Nordic Goddess – fell victim to a Muslim bullet for being ‘Haram’ (which, like all musicians, she undoubtedly is). I’m pretty sure the backlash (among the public, if not the government) would be palpably more severe than followed 9/11, 7/7 or Charlie Hebdo. At a stroke, the youngest billion of the world population would be transformed into dead-eyed, anti-Muslim zombies, horny for violent relief. Such is the terrifying power of sex, groupthink and idolatry.

Popular culture has, by definition, immeasurably greater political influence than the exotic fancies of the intelligentsia. Very few people pay any attention to books or newspapers. The majority of people live in a state of cheerful stupidity, a kind of apolitical daze. What would happen if they were shocked out of it? The mind boggles.

D, LDN.

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The British National Party: An Obituary.

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Adam Walker, America 911, anti-Semitism, BBC, BNP, BNP EDL, BNP party, BNP policies, BNP UK PArty, BNP vote collapse, Britain First, Defend the modern world, Demographics, English Defence League, Islamisation of London, National Front, Race and ethnicity in the United States Census, United States

The vote share of the BNP has collapsed. At this month’s general election, the Party polled 97% fewer votes than it did 5 years prior.

This is excellent news and for many reasons. First and foremost among them is the fact that the BNP and its ideologues are wholly destructive to the cause of British resistance to Islam.

While the noises made by the party seem superficially in our favour, they are made with such a lack of grace, intelligence and literacy that they play as Mozart in the ears of our Leftist opponents.

It is all very well to say ‘Ban the Burka’, ‘no to Sharia’ or ‘support freedom of speech’. But when these common sense attitudes are espoused by people who – in other contexts – claim that Jews (who else) are secretly lobbying for the destruction of the white race via forcible miscegenation, they are liable to fall flat.

I will admit to visiting the BNP website far more often than I should. But over time, this has left me in no doubt that these thugs are doing incalculable damage to our cause and ultimately to our chances of cultural self-preservation. The demise of the organisation (and the eventual defection of its electorate to more moderate and sensible parties like LibertyGB) is a victory for all of us.

D, LDN.

Dysgenics: A Beginner’s Guide.

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Do you ever lament that old songs seem to have more meaning than those produced today? Do you ever regard the success of books like the Da Vinci Code and the Hunger Games with sadness, comparing their lack of depth and nuance against the qualities of Brave New World, Sons and Lovers, and other bestsellers of yesteryear? Have you ever complained that the media in general is ‘dumbing down’ and that politics is becoming a reality TV competition?

What you may be describing are the effects of a phenomenon called ‘Dysgenics’, the process by which the human population (and thereby the culture) of a given area grows less intelligent with every new generation (needless to add, it is the opposite of Eugenics, a proposed system of discriminatory breeding intended to raise the general level of intelligence).

Out of all the burning scientific and sociological issues of our day, this is probably the most controversial, the one that people are really not supposed to talk about. This is because everyone is affected by dysgenics. It is not a process limited to a certain people, culture or nation. No-one can afford to laugh at it, shrug it off or deny it.

*I must emphasise before continuing that this is not an issue of ‘class’. Just because someone hasn’t gone to university doesn’t mean they are stupid. As a corollary, just because someone has been to university (even Oxford or Cambridge) doesn’t necessarily imply a superlative level of intelligence. In the latter case, people may just be privileged or have had superior or over-dedicated schooling.

When we talk about a new class of stupid people, we are talking about those who are incapable of philosophy and conviction, who shun the political and the cerebral in favour of the popular and facile, who cannot read and write, who are senselessly criminal and randomly aggressive, who have no sexual restraint and who fail to properly raise children.

These people, found in all classes and proliferating furiously up and down the United Kingdom, are something quite novel in British history. Of course, there has always been an idiot class, feckless and wild, unable to become part of the working majority, but they have never been so numerous or culturally influential as they are today.

The underclass is now a sub-culture, a sub-nation, with quirks of dress, language and even cuisine.

As to how the dysgenic process works, opinion is divided. Some blame the welfare state and its habit of paying people more welfare when they have large families, thereby encouraging the most incapable to have more children in order to live off said benefits. Frankly, I don’t think this is common enough to account for what is happening. I think it more likely that the dysgenic process has accelerated due to a longstanding imbalance of fertility and intelligence. In short, the smart people (those with jobs, political opinions and bookshelves) have smaller families than those who chew their toenails. Over time, that imbalance can completely transform the character of a nation, even one with such an illustrious history as ours.

While this is tolerable enough for now, one has to think about the future and how the nation will cope as the ratio leans ever more toward the negative.

Something particularly threatened by this process, I believe, is human liberty. After all, what becomes of a society when people no longer understand politics enough to  partake in it? What kind of government will assemble itself in that situation, and what extra powers will it take on?

The voter turn-out for national elections is frighteningly low in the West, frequently clocking in at less than 50%, and sinking as low as 20% in local contests.

You can be sure that the elite secretly approves of this. The progeny of Eton don’t care if the rest of the country begins to moan and dribble. On the contrary, popular degeneration only serves to elevate them to an even greater standing.

Indeed, this is partly why the class system exists at all. It was and is designed to segregate people according to ability, never having them intermix or interbreed with one another.

In reality, the growth of illiteracy and criminality affects all classes equally. You will have met people so afflicted on many occasions, I’m sure, no matter where you live or what company you aspire to keep.

The last time I wrote about dysgenics on this blog, I was accused of being fascistic. I suppose that’s inevitable. Hitler has forever tarnished the discussion of genetics with the stamp of extremism. Be that as it may, this is an important conversation that must be held sooner or later.

D, LDN.

War Crimes in Rotherham.

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1400 victims, BNP, Civilisation, Counter-Jihad, Counterjihad, Cultural Marxism, Defend the modern world, English Defence League, Grooming gangs, Muslim paedophilia, Race and ethnicity in the United States Census

I sometimes wonder how those who believe in the liberal narrative regarding Islam (which holds it as an ‘unfairly maligned’ religion of peace) integrate mentally the events reported in the news.

How does a liberal protect his orthodoxy from the rational interpretation of ritual stonings, beheadings and terror attacks? And of what formidable substance does that firewall consist? Emotion? Stubbornness?

Well whatever it is, we will surely see it tested now.

Last week it was reported (I’m pleased to say on many front pages) that the number of girls raped by grooming gangs in the town of Rotherham may amount to more than 1400.

I’ll say that again.

Last week it was reported that the number of girls raped by grooming gangs in the town of Rotherham may amount to more than 1400 (one thousand four hundred).

In 2001, Rotherham had a population of less than 250,000 in its metropolitan district. 1400 as a percentage of 250,000 is 0.56. That’s more than one person for every two hundred. If you live in Rotherham or a nearby region, you will have almost certainly seen a victim in public. You may have spoken to one. Your strangely quiet daughter or granddaughter might be an unreported case. Perhaps needless to add, almost all the victims involved are White British (Anglo-Saxon, Irish, Welsh etc…), and all the men responsible pray towards Makkah.

What are we supposed to call these acts? There are too many cases to call this a ‘spree’, or even a ‘wave’. Not all the gangs involved are connected to each other, so we can’t really call it a conspiracy either.

It is much too immoral for ‘terrorism’. One could reasonably make excuses (as many did) for Islamic violence during the Iraq war. We had invaded a Muslim country, and proud Muslims wanted to strike us back. They had no moral right to, but I can understand their reasoning. That the Rotherham crimes occurred over a period of many years, in times of both hot war and cold peace, suggests that something more longstanding is at issue.

The truth is that we are in a state of cultural war with Islam, and these rapes, like those in Oxford, are simply war crimes.

The Muslims hold us all in aggressive contempt. Our women however are considered especially worthless given that they wear knee length skirts and allow their hair to billow godlessly about their shoulders. They clearly have no pride or spiritual awareness, and so to deflower them by force is perfectly halal.

The men involved will have felt no prompt of conscience as they forced down the defences of their victims. And if such a thing could be made worse, perhaps it is with the thought that the girls were not only raped, but raped hatefully.

In all the commentary on this subject over the past week, only one article (by Telegraph columnist Allison Pearson) has come close to capturing the purple fury of the public mood:

“Men of Pakistani heritage treated white girls like toilet paper.” she raged “They picked children up from schools and care homes and trafficked them across northern cities for other men to join in the fun. They doused a 15-year-old in petrol and threatened to set her alight should she dare to report them. They menaced entire families and made young girls watch as they raped other children… No just God would stand for what they did. “

Hard attention has now fallen and will likely remain on the Rotherham police. They certainly merit it. How difficult could it have been to pursue the leads to their logical conclusion? A stifling atmosphere of political correctness (aided and sponsored by a spineless government and an occupied press) certainly goes some way in explaining it.

Only we who jump such barriers can say clearly what the remedy is to all this. Get them out. Get all of them out and think no extra thought about it. I don’t want to breathe the same oxygen. That we might be called cruel for advocating this policy means nothing to me. To defeat a devil, you must find the devil in yourself.

I could attempt here a few hundred words of horror-poetry speculating what it was like for those poor, undefended children. I won’t be so disrespectful. I will only say that our elite has allowed for the innocent to be made sore, all that it might preserve ideological comfort for itself. There is surely no more contemptible crime than that.

D, LDN.

Ethno-Nationalism is a Mistake.

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American Liberty, Barack Obama, BBC, BNP, Christopher Caldwell, Counter-Jihad, Defend the modern world, Multiculturalism, Race and ethnicity in the United States Census, United States

As the election results in France, Hungary and Greece last week demonstrated, White Nationalism is a growing movement across the continent of Europe. The reasons for this are no great mystery. Everywhere on earth, in every available measure, White Power is declining.

The future leader of the world is expected to be China. The second in command meanwhile is predicted to be India (perhaps), and the third, a non-White majority United States. Europe by this time will be a fragmented, half-Islamised economic mess and Russia will have a fraction of its current population. Only Australia seems to offer the White race any hope for a dignified and homogenous future – and even this is based on wishful thinking (Australia is already 20% non-White).

To prevent any further decline in racial influence therefore, Ethno-Nationalism appears self-evidently fit for purpose. If Whites can band together and provide a common front against shared problems, perhaps some kind of stable future can still be manufactured.

I am an individualist. Ethno-nationalism is a collectivist concept, and so I reject it. Nevertheless, I don’t hate or seek to dehumanise those who find solace this way. It is totally understandable for a society undergoing decline to grasp at radical straws, and to endorse things which might not otherwise be in concert with its moral nature.

To argue against Ethno-Nationalism (and argue I shall), I find a simple exposure of its extent to be usually sufficient. Many White Nationalists are unaware that they are moderates in an extreme movement. That is, they do not appreciate the destructive nature of what they endorse.

Perhaps the most useful and coherent statement of ethno-nationalism to date is ‘The Passing of the Great Race’ by 20th century Eugenicist Madison Grant. This brief work was recently mentioned approvingly by Anders Breivik, and still enjoys a lofty position on the bookshelf of Nationalist elites. Adolf Hitler notably called it his ‘bible’.

Unlike White Nationalists of the contemporary mainstream, Grant did not accept the traditional division of races into four categories (Caucasoid, Negroid, Mongoloid and Amerindian) as sufficient for his purposes. The White European race itself, he claimed, was not one race but many, and his polemical energy was dedicated solely to the preservation of only one – the ‘highest type’ – the Nordic race. Below the Nordic, he described two other European sub-groups (found in all nations, and identifiable only by physical characteristics) called the ‘Alpine’ and ‘Mediterranean’.

The Mediterranean race is largely found in countries along that coastline, including those on the southern bank. The Mediterranean race therefore includes not only Portuguese, Spaniards and Greeks, but Syrians, Berbers and Cypriots. According to Grant, they are noted for their romantic, artistic and sentimental qualities.

The Nordic race meanwhile is scattered around the northern countries of Europe, and its members are especially easy to identify. Nordic people are long-skulled, sharp-nosed, with blue or green eyes. They are tall, strong, unromantic and suited to analytical and organisational activity.

Alpines meanwhile, perhaps the majority in European nations, are the residuum of ancient peoples, noted for their darker skin, roundness of skull, and (in Grant’s words) peasant character. Alpines, he writes, form a majority in Wales, large parts of England, and most of France.

Even though this is hateful nonsense with no basis in science, I know what Grant is getting at here, and so let’s look at some examples of these ‘races’. The first is an example of the Nordic type, for which I have chosen the late model Reeva Steenkamp.

For the Alpine, here is the Welsh television presenter Alex Jones.

And for the Mediterranean, here is an unnamed Greek woman from a tourist website.

These are all European people, yet their diversity is obvious. The liberal form of White Nationalism plays down these differences. The harder, more traditional Nazi type does not. Who is to say that these two different ideologies will play nice with each other indefinitely?

As in Western Europe, there has been a worrying renaissance of Nazi ideology in Russia and parts of the former Soviet Union. This is perhaps even better suited to the demonstration of my point.

Apart from Jews, Hitler, Himmler and Rosenberg hated the Slavic peoples more than any other. Hitler in particular believed their submission to Bolshevism (in his mind, dominated by Jews) was the natural consequence of a Slavic predisposition to obedience, itself the product of a long period of natural selection designed to produce the best ‘peasant type’. Whilst most Neo-Nazis have collectively agreed to forget this tenet of Nazi thought, many have not. In Germany, the far-right street movement Die Unsterblichen (the immortals) has repeatedly made anti-Slavic comments. The same organisation has also bemoaned the modern Greeks, describing them as a formerly great people degraded over the centuries by miscegenation with Negros.

Even in Britain, one sees the same madly divisive force at work. The British National Party’s old manifesto (now taken down from its website) called for the separation of British citizens into ‘folk-communities’, each defined by a biological peculiarity like ‘Anglo-Nordic’, ‘Scots-Irish’, and ‘Celtic-Germanic’.

The problem here is integral. Biological nationalism, whether or not it intends to unite, inevitably leads to disintegration. One cannot be half-dedicated to it. If one endorses a scientific idea at all, then one must go the full distance. That process will lead necessarily to the re-fragmentation of Europe, and would be a disaster at this point in history when unity is very much needed to defend from foreign invasions.

European fraternity is put at risk by Ethno-Nationalism. Inflexible Biological Nationalism, blind to political reality, leads ultimately to the dark ages. Perhaps not a new Islamic dark age, but a dark age nevertheless. We must oppose both regressions. Defend the modern world.

D, LDN.

Marine Le Pen: France’s Dilemma (and Ours).

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anti-Semitism, BNP, Christianity and Islam, Counter-Jihad, Counterjihad, Cultural Marxism, Defend the modern world, Demographics of Europe, France, Germany, Marine Le Pen, Multiculturalism, National Front, Pen, politics, Race and ethnicity in the United States Census, Semites, Sweden

Is Marine Le Pen ideologically distinct from her father?

This could develop to be the most important French political dilemma in all its modern history.

The consequences of guessing wrongly are too grim to comprehend. If the bet paid off, however, then the bounties would be difficult to overstate.

For some, the future success of Ms Le Pen is the most realistic trigger for a continent-wide shift to nativism and cultural salvation. Unlike the knuckle-dragging failures of the UK BNP, Germany’s NPD or Sweden’s ‘Democrats’, Le Front Nationale is witnessing a consistent rise in national popularity. During the past few weeks, the party even topped a mainstream voters poll; the first time a far-right party in France has done so in living memory.

So why the surge in confidence for a party long written-off as consisting of Holocaust-deniers, scientific racists and German-hating loons?

Immigration is a fairly obvious answer. But this is a problem for every European country, and only in France has the far-right made substantial gains.

The answer is surely Marine Le Pen herself.

A true novelty on l’extreme-droit, Le Pen’s public image has almost supplanted that of the party she represents. From a public relations standpoint, this couldn’t be better news. Instead of skinheads and anti-Semites, Le Front Nationale now conjures up the charms of an expressive, confident, beautiful woman. Indeed, the very fact Le Pen is female appears to change the tone of the party’s policies. The FN no longer seems like hard, violent fascism – but something softer, reasonable and more agreeable.

By-itself of course, this is an illusion. There is nothing reassuring about a woman leading a party, (unless you’re one of those young, masochistic conservatives sent wild by the idea of a fuhrer with great legs). All that matters is the manifesto, and whether the policies contained therein are worthwhile.

So let’s see.

The current manifesto of the FN emphasizes ‘culture’ and the preservation of ‘French Identity’. Strict controls on immigration are demanded, but the old talk of ‘humane repatriation of non-Europeans’ has been excised. Criminal migrants, Islamists and those perpetually unemployed would be deported. The economy would be heavily deglobalised.

There is much in this to like, and much to disagree with. I agree, for example, with the deportation of Islamists, a tougher line on criminals and the reintroduction of the death penalty.

FN Economic policy however is far more troublesome. ‘De-globalization’ and protectionism can be ruinous, and peaceable relations between the countries of Europe is something not to be gambled with.

As to the long-term prospects of Le Pen, we will have to wait for the municipal and EU Parliament elections next year, at which the party is hyped to make substantial gains.

Personally, I don’t think Le Pen will rise all the way to Elysee Palace, and this is probably for the best. Though she herself may be likable, we are more than entitled to be worried about those lower down the pecking order, for whom reality is a web of Zionist conspiracies, black helicopters and Yankee malevolence.

Still, that the FN’s success demonstrates a desire for change in France is to be welcomed. Let’s hope Le Pen is not the only one capable of seizing it.

D, LDN.

Not a Traitor, Just Wrong.

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BBC, BNP, Christianity, Christianity and Islam, Counter-Jihad, Counterjihad, Cultural Marxism, Defend the modern world, English Defence League, Guardian, Islam, Judeo-Christian, Multiculturalism, Muslim, Nick Griffin, No to Turkey in the EU, Pamela Geller, Race and ethnicity in the United States Census, Robinson, Tommy Robinson

It isn’t a crime to change your mind. A greater folly is to surround your political conviction with an invulnerable coat of armour, letting it stand unaffected by changing evidence or opposing argument.

Tommy Robinson has clearly changed his mind. He hasn’t recanted his past beliefs, but he has substantially moderated them to almost that effect. He no longer believes (so he says) in making Muslims ‘uncomfortable’, or in tarring fundamentalist believers with the same brush as ‘moderates’. Talking to the Guardian, he even went so far as to apologise to the Muslim community for any offence he has given these past few years as EDL leader.

Although this might be disappointing for some, we should try to respect it. I don’t believe, like Nick Griffin, that Robinson was ever a puppet, or that the EDL was a deliberate misdirection of patriotism, a ‘shady Zionist plot’, or a government funded psy-op. It always seemed to me a perfectly sincere enterprise with a clear manifesto and a brilliant organisational structure. It was also something which – in its heyday- did great things for our cause and our defence.

It won’t surprise you then to hear that I disagree wholly with Robinsons new outlook.

His entire conversion, for me, rests upon a flawed idea; namely, the idea that Islam can be moderated by the sentiment of nationality.

What Tommy is now asking of Muslims in effect, is that they become British first and Muslim second, or in other words, that they take the here-and-now as seriously as the hereafter.

But, as anyone who has read Qur’an knows, the Muslim faith hinges on a belief that this earthly life, with all its loyalties, bounties and appearances is merely a test and a prelude to a greater reality. The ‘Muslim’ (literally ‘one who submits’) treats this life as a preparation, a period of moral labour necessary to unlock the doors of death and dwell forever in paradise.

To be ‘British’ by contrast, is of no value whatsoever, or at least not relative to the promise of eternity.

With this in mind, the creation of a distinct ‘British Muslim’ identity seems unrealistic to me. The two loyalties would be locked in constant battle, and the fallout would be toxic.

It would be nice if Tommy’s optimism was proven correct. I’m not convinced it will be.

D, LDN.

Will There Ever be a Black President?

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African American, Anglo-Saxon, anti-Semitism, Barack Hussein Obama, Barack Obama, Black, Black people, BNP, Civilisation, Coffee, Cultural Marxism, Defend the modern world, History, Multiculturalism, President, Race and ethnicity in the United States Census, Syria, United States

Racial classification in America has long been envied for its complication and absurdity. With roots in slavery and the fierce self-love of Anglo-Saxon agrarians, the American meaning of ‘White’ quickly evolved into something very different from its European sense. Commonly-speaking, one is only ‘White’ in America if one is of 100% pure (non-Spanish speaking) European heritage.

For example, if an American is 9/10ths White and the remainder is Black, the 1/10th Black heritage metaphysically dissolves all other ancestry to produce simply an ‘African-American’. If one is a blue-eyed, blonde-haired Spaniard with roots in Spain’s new world colonies, one is not European any more but ‘Latin’. Meanwhile, an Indian-American from South-West Asia is an ‘Asian-American’ but Arabs from South-West Asia are White-Americans. Follow?

The reason I raise this is because of a complaint I (and most reasonable people) have with the description of Barack Obama as ‘the First Black President’. He isn’t, and the claim that he is offers a false conclusion to a very significant trend of US social development.

Barack Hussein Obama was born to a White mother. In the absence of his father, the half-White Obama was raised by the said White mother. He later attended a multiracial school to which Black people contributed the tiniest demographic, and went on to a prestigious University whose intake was mostly White. He then resurfaced out the other end as a Black man. How does this happen?

Why, given the time and effort his mother (and only his mother) invested in the upbringing of this man, is he identified entirely with the attributes of his absentee father? He’s not even ‘biracial’ in popular tradition, but simply and starkly ‘Black’. His mother, his childhood and hundreds of his ancestors are airbrushed completely from his typology.

Surely a more sensible definition of Obama’s ethnicity would have him not as a Black man with some White heritage, but the reverse. Obama is a White man with some Black heritage.

Obama has little to nothing in common with his sub-Saharan paternal line. Their superstition and poverty couldn’t be more at-odds with the President’s atheistic intelligence, good humour, linguistic skill and (occasional) diplomatic grace. On the other hand, Obama would be readily suited to his maternal ancestors. Should they manage to get over the unseasoned bigotries of appearance, Obama would find along his Irish line, many people similar in character to himself, stretching back many centuries.

The question of whether America is ready for a Black President is thus still an open question. My guess would be no. One can hardly recall the candidacy of Herman Cain for the Republican nominee without smiling, and there seems to be no other examples forthcoming.

There is nevertheless a very bright hope for a second non-White President, and that is the brilliant Dr. Condoleezza Rice. The former Secretary of State is a woman of great qualification and  – should she contest and win an election – would likely provide a far superior regime to that presently enthroned.

D, LDN.

Don’t be silly, Vladimir.

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America 911, Barack Obama, BBC, BNP, Britain, British comedy, Christianity and Islam, Christopher Caldwell, Civilisation, Coffee, David Cameron, England Pride, Europe, George Orwell, John Donne, No to Turkey in the EU, Putin, Russia, United States, Vladimir Putin

I have some respect for the Russian President Vladimir Putin. His leadership, though authoritarian and often cruel, has greatly improved the lot of ordinary Russians, among whom the President enjoys considerable affection and support. On Syria too, the President has taken a uniquely rational and firm position, much to the benefit of us all.

That being said, at this weeks G20 summit, Putin made a silly, offhand comment that has offended many in the UK. Talking to a reporter, the President is alleged to have described Britain as ‘a small island nobody listens to’.

Whatever motivated him to say it (almost certainly the Syrian debacle) and though it isn’t technically-speaking a slight on British culture, I must join with the Prime Minister in defending my little island from such a patronizing and ignorant assessment.

David Cameron’s rejoinder has so far met with mixed reviews. Shortly after Putin made the gaffe, our Prime Minister gave a bizarre speech intended to list the glories of British achievement, historic and current. Among the examples he chose were the Beatles and One Direction.

Can’t we do better?

The nation of Russia has roughly 143 million inhabitants and a land mass of 17,000,000 square kilometers. Britain has 60 million citizens and a land mass of 230,000 square kilometers. That is indeed a great difference in size, so hats off to Mr Putin for noticing this. The difference in cultural achievement however is equally large, but this time exactly inverted. Despite its size, Britain can make a claim to be the most inventive country the world has ever known.

The following list is an excerpt from an even larger list of British inventions compiled by the Radio Times:

Light Bulbs, Telephones, Steam Turbines, Electric motors, Cement, Fire Extinguishers, Photography, Chocolate Bars, Television, the Jet Engine, the Kettle, Hovercraft, Vacuum Cleaners, Stainless Steel, the Torpedo, Hypodermic syringes,  the World Wide Web, ATM machines, Carbon Fibre, the Programmable computer and the Military Tank.

Britain’s musical exports have included David Bowie, the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, the Clash, the Sex Pistols, Radiohead, Oasis, Blur, the Smiths, Joy Division, New Order, Pulp, Adele, Massive Attack, Coldplay, Muse, the Who and the Kinks.

British writers, past and present, include Shakespeare, Martin Amis, Phillip Pullman, Byron, Coleridge, Samuel Johnson, Keats,  EL James (sorry), JK Rowling, CS Lewis, De Quincey, John Donne, George Orwell, Thomas Carlyle, Aldous Huxley and Samuel Pepys.

It’s never a bad thing to pat one’s country on the back, especially in the midst of such a bleak political and economic landscape. Whatever else Britain may be, its people are of the profoundest creative quality and without them the world would be considerably poorer.

D, LDN.

In Defence of the ‘Backlash’.

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BBC, BNP, Christianity and Islam, Counter-Jihad, David Cameron, Defend the modern world, English Defence League, Help for Heroes, Islam, Lee Rigby, Multiculturalism, Woolwich

The word ‘backlash’ is a curious one to apply to the mood of English society following the events of last week. Nevertheless, the BBC, Daily Telegraph and numerous other media outlets invariably chose to label the atmosphere of disgust created by the slaying of Lee Rigby, an ‘Anti-Muslim backlash’, as if it were a change of heart, or an irrational misunderstanding.

The word ‘backlash’ is usually employed when talking about something that has previously been over-praised. The television series ‘The Office’ for example was praised so much and so often, that within weeks of the final episode being broadcast, pop-culture scribblers began to predict a ‘backlash’ against it. For me this isn’t what we’ve witnessed after Woolwich.

There has not been so much a backlash as a sequence of natural responses to evil by a morally healthy population.

The day before last, some hot-headed liberal emailed this blogger to accuse me of taking pleasure in the Woolwich tragedy. He charged me with being ‘excited and delighted’ by the event and the way it would bolster my ‘prejudiced worldview’…

He’s wrong about ‘delight’, but I won’t lie and say he is entirely wrong regarding ‘excitement’. Something within me was undeniably excited when news broke of the attack. It was the urge to take the battle to the enemy. I knew this particular atrocity would prove more socially explosive than the usual assaults on our transport infrastructure. The victim was a young, rosy-cheeked soldier wearing a ‘Help for Heroes’ sweater. His killer was a Qur’an-quoting thug showing zero remorse. How could people not be angered by something like that?

Still, I’m far from justifying everything that has occurred since then. According to the BBC, there have been arson attempts on Mosques, Death threats sent to Islamic community centres, and racist graffiti painted on the walls of multicultural enclaves. Most famously, a Muslim woman in Woolwich was rumoured to have had her Hijab ripped off by a passing youth.

I won’t defend the breaking of the law. But as to the people who commit these actions, they are not without legitimate grievance. Our elected leaders are plainly doing nothing to address the conditions which led to the murder. David Cameron spoke, ludicrously, of the attack as being a ‘betrayal of Islam’, and not, as a braver leader might have put it, an ‘application’ of the faith. With leaders like these, how are young people supposed to feel?

The exception to all this moping about has been – predictably – the English Defence League. Just hours after the murder occurred, EDL activists were in Woolwich, chanting and making themselves known. They were filling a void left by our police, our politicians and our media.

Lamentably, the same old classist rhetoric has come forth from those who should know better. Yes, yes, we know most EDL members are (gasp!) ‘working class’, and that consequently they sound different to the people who read the news. That doesn’t make them any less human, or any less English, or their patriotism any less valuable.

The poor are always more essential in times of conflict than the rich. It’s been that way in this country for centuries. Shakespeare wrote these lines in ‘Richard II’:

‘The pale-face’d moon looks bloody on the earth
And lean-look’d prophets whisper fearful change;
Rich men look sad and ruffians dance and leap,
The one in fear to lose what they enjoy,
The other to enjoy by rage and war.’

What was true in Shakespeare’s age is true in ours. The chattering classes in London want to deny that war is upon us because they fear the conditions of war; they fear ‘losing what they enjoy’. The ruffians by contrast, with nothing to play with but abstract ideals like Queen and country, are joyfully stepping up to the plate. Good for them, I say!

Soon, the dust will settle on this particular tragedy. Anger cannot last forever and grows weary like any other emotion. But from what I’ve seen during this ‘backlash’, the people of this country are louder, braver and more morally confident than ever before. We may not be there yet, but we are getting closer to the event which finally brings the country, young and old, into concert.

For now, let’s wish the EDL well. I hope they succeed in making clear to the Muslim community that England is not a faint or negotiable concept – and that once roused, its people do not fall quickly back to sleep.

D, LDN.