One of the more
absurd images to emerge over the past week was the one of the topless
guy liberating a tray of sausage rolls from a Greggs shop during the riots
in Hull. Whilst we cannot be completely sure that it wasn’t a carefully-planned
intention to arm himself with sausage rolls to wave in the face of Muslims whose
religion does not permit the consumption of pork, rather in the manner of
pointing kryptonite at Superman, it seems much more probable that he was just
feeling a little peckish. And we have no conclusive evidence to suggest that he’d
know the difference between a pork sausage roll and a vegan one anyway.
Some politicians –
and not just those of the political right – have suggested that stopping the
riots depends at least in part on dealing with the so-called ‘legitimate
concerns’ of the protesters about immigration. I don’t really understand what
those ‘legitimate concerns’ might be, but I struggle even more to comprehend the
link between a concern about immigration and a daring raid on purveyors of
sausage rolls (delicious though they may be). It’s true that some services in
the UK are under pressure – such as housing, education, social care and health.
But the last two of those would be under even more pressure if it were not for staff
who have come from elsewhere in the world to work in those sectors. And in more
general terms, those pressures are more to do with underfunding by successive
governments – a policy which Labour apparently intends to continue – than with
such increase in demand as results from migration. Deliberately creating a
shortage and then finding a convenient group to scapegoat is a divide-and-rule
tactic which is as old as the hills.
It's also more than
a little strange that an allegedly non-racist concern about total numbers
manifests itself in the form of direct and violent action against the adherents
of one particular religion. Even if the original rumour about the religion and
background of the alleged assailant in Southport had been true, the leap to
blaming, and then seeking to punish, all adherents of that religion surely owes
more to prejudice than to logic. If I recall correctly, Marx once said
something along the lines of: ‘anger in the multitude is enough – just give me
six in the country who understand’. It’s not something which applies only to
the political ‘left’. Those out on the streets attacking immigrants don’t need
to have a worked-though political philosophy; they don’t need to be fascists
themselves. They merely need to express their anger, whipped up by those who
would use that anger for their own ends. And even some of those doing the fomenting
don’t need any sort of ideology to underpin their actions. If the UK were to
descend into fascism, it wouldn’t be the likes of ‘Tommy Robinson’ who would
end up as dictator, it would be one or other of those who offer ‘solutions’ to
the ‘problems’ which they themselves have blown up in the minds of the many.
Locking up the pawns who are ‘merely’ angry might be a necessary step in the
short term, but it’s dealing with the symptom. The ones we should really beware
of are those whose ‘solutions’ involve authoritarian rule and restrictions of
freedom.
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