Amidst the tragedy-porn of the Anders Breivik trial (which seems to have died down now in the UK, but which must make opening a newspaper unbearable in Norway), I wonder if anyone else has noticed the dog that didn't bark. When Breivik explained the reasoning behind his slaughter of 70-odd people, he did not say that it was because the Norwegian government was being swamped by an influx of black people. He said it was an influx of Muslims. A small point perhaps. But I wonder whether it is indicative of the way the debate has moved on across Europe since the days of Enoch Powell's "Rivers of Blood" speech.
Powell was wrong, but it's important to understand why. He was wrong because he thought race and culture were the same thing. He thought that the white majority would never accept the black minority as their neighbours and that strife would ensue. What he failed to understand was that black Afro-Caribbean immigrants came largely from the same Christian or post-Christian cultural background, and that when white children went to school with black children, then drank, partied and slept with them, it would quickly become apparent that colour was only skin deep. The UK is not a colour blind country, but nevertheless I once heard a black girl of Nigerian extraction on the radio say she had never experienced racism here. That anyone could sincerely say such a thing is astonishing.
What then of the Muslim immigration that Breivik hated and feared? Islam is a cultural phenomenon which has very different ideas about the way men and women should behave to each other, some of which I admire but some of which are out of the Stone Age, some of which are against the law in the UK and none of which are readily compatible with the culture of the (black and white) majority. British drunkenness and licentiousness are unattractive, but they are preferable to forced marriages and honour killings.
We have already had Anders Breiviks aplenty in the UK, of whom the 7/7 bombers were merely the only ones to succeed. Just as Breivik allowed his hatred to overcome basic feelings of empathy towards his fellow human beings, the bombers thought it was OK to kill people because they didn't like British foreign policy. Since their explosions also killed some of their fellow Muslims, let's hope that God was in a generous mood when they knocked on heaven's door.
Whether immigration is a good thing per se is a topic for another day. During the Blair/Brown governments well over half the new jobs created went to people born outside the UK, most of whom were white Christians from Eastern Europe. Islamic immigration in the UK will work if Muslim women decide that the role traditionally allotted to them by their culture is not good enough and that they want more. Until that happens a pause for breath might be in order, lest we import anyone else who doesn't like British foreign policy.
PS On the day I wrote this post, four men from Luton were charged with terrorist offences relating to a bomb plot. The next day another seven men were arrested in Coventry and Cardiff as part of an investigation into smuggling drugs to finance terrorism operations. Breiviks aplenty here, it seems.
