I think it was a very valuable exchange, in which we both expressed our very different views on the issue of multi-racial and multicultural Britain. I'm republishing our exchange here in the hope that we can continue our discussion and eventually come to a mutual understand.
Sunday, 4 August 2013
An Exchange of Views with Sunder Katwala
This is an exchange if views between Sunder Katwala (Director of British Future) and myself on the Telegraph website below the line of an article he authored (LINK to article).
I think it was a very valuable exchange, in which we both expressed our very different views on the issue of multi-racial and multicultural Britain. I'm republishing our exchange here in the hope that we can continue our discussion and eventually come to a mutual understand.
I think it was a very valuable exchange, in which we both expressed our very different views on the issue of multi-racial and multicultural Britain. I'm republishing our exchange here in the hope that we can continue our discussion and eventually come to a mutual understand.
Thursday, 30 May 2013
Email exchange with Hilary Benn on Whites Becoming Ethnic Minority in UK
From: Roger Hicks <rah@spaceship-earth.org>
Subject: On becoming an ethnic minority and the paradox of race does and doesn't matter
Date: 15 March 2013 07:51:00 GMT
To: hilary.benn.mp@parliament.uk
Dear Mr. Benn,
I've heard both you and your father talk in London (Redbridge) on different occasions in the past, but didn't get the opportunity to put the question I wanted to ask to you. Thus this email, which you might like to forward to your dad, as well, since I couldn't find his email address.
My question is simply this: how do you both FEEL about native Britons, like ourselves, having become an ethnic minority in our capital city, and being on course to become an ethnic minority in the country as a whole long before this present century has run its course?
I appreciate what a difficult question this is to give an honest answer
to, due to the massive ideological and psychological pressure, especially you, in your position, are under to dismiss such a question as only being of interest to bigots and "racists", and don't expect one from you. But I, who am neither a bigot nor a racist, do ask you to consider it in your own mind, and if you feel so inclined, to get in touch with me, so that we might discuss it privately at your convenience when you are in London.
The point is that no matter how much we may deny it, race and ethic origins ARE important; not in the way that genuine racists believe they are, but because central to any deep and meaningful sense of both personal and group identity, and with profound implications for national identity and politics.
In overreaction to the Holocaust and the criminally insane racial ideology with which the Nazis justified it, we went to the opposite extreme, denying the very existence of race, dismissing it as a "social contract", only of interest to evil racist, like the Nazis. Such an overreaction was understandable in the aftermath of the Holocaust (in the context of which "race" really was a social, or rather, ideological, construct), but it was quickly consolidated into an extreme ideology of its own and exploited to economic and power-political advantage. It has effectively taken the place, in our more secular times, of medieval church ideology, with its notion of "original sin", which the individual could only be saved from eternal damnation for by submitting to church and state authority. Now it is "racism" (= racial prejudice, i.e. the natural human inclination to identify with and favour members of one's own race or ethnic group) which the state is determined to save us from, in order to assert its authority and power over us . . .
I have produced this blog on The Paradox of Race Does and Doesn't Matter, if you fancy taking a look.
This is a very important issue, which we have to recognise and face up to as such if we are to deal with it in a rational and civilised fashion.
Best regards
Roger Hicks
*****************
From: "BENN, Hilary" <hilary.benn.mp@parliament.uk>
Subject: On becoming an ethnic minority and the paradox of race does and doesn't matter
Date: 15 April 2013 11:02:57 BST
From: "BENN, Hilary" <hilary.benn.mp@parliament.uk>
Subject: On becoming an ethnic minority and the paradox of race does and doesn't matter
Date: 15 April 2013 11:02:57 BST
Dear Mr. Hicks
Thank you for your email.
Being the son of an immigrant, but also being very British I think our great strength as a nation is our ability to overcome difference and live alongside each other.
I will pass on your best wishes to my father.
Kind regards
Hilary Benn MP
***********
From: Roger Hicks <rah@spaceship-earth.org>
Subject: On Native Britons becoming an ethnic minority
Date: 16 April 2013 07:44:06 BST
To: "BENN, Hilary" <hilary.benn.mp@parliament.uk>
From: Roger Hicks <rah@spaceship-earth.org>
Subject: On Native Britons becoming an ethnic minority
Date: 16 April 2013 07:44:06 BST
To: "BENN, Hilary" <hilary.benn.mp@parliament.uk>
Dear Mr Benn,
************
Thanks for responding to my email. Only, you didn't answer my question about how you FEEL about becoming an ethnic minority in your own country (already a reality in London and predicted to become a reality for the country as a whole within about 50 years).
You mention being the son of an immigrant, but not from the third world, I'll wager. Your mother was a European American returning to her ancestral homeland in Europe.
Please, don't do a Gordon Brown (as with Mrs Duffy) on me, i.e. dismiss me as a bigot for being concerned about mass immigration and becoming an ethnic minority in the country/continent where my ancestors have lived for 1000s of years. I'm sure that you would not dismiss a Native American or Aboriginal Australian with similar concerns about his people's future as a bigot - or would you?
You may find this issue, and me for bringing it up, tiresome, but be that as it may, it is a hugely important issue with profound implications, because a very large number of Native Britons and Europeans are not going to sit back and watch themselves become an ethnic minority on their own continent without putting up a fight - which might prove to be very costly.
There is still time for us to avert such conflict, but only if we recognise and face up to the issue, which you seem to want to dismiss as only being of interest to bigots and "racists". But there is nothing bigoted or racist about wanting to preserve the ethnic identity and majority of one's own people. Native Americans and Australians struggling to do this are not bigots or racists, and neither am I.
If we are to avoid bloody conflict, we must talk. This is why I'm writing to you. You have children, I presume, for whom, like most fathers, you want a peaceful and prosperous future. But if Parliament continues to show such contempt for the interests of Britain's native (white) population, the future looks very gloomy.
I want a peaceful solution to this issue, but not at the price of seeing native (white) Britons reduced to an ethnic minority in their ancestral homelands. If you and the political elite you are a member of continue to deny that there is an issue, even that there is a native British population with an interest in remaining this country's ethnic majority, you are the ones who will be responsible for the bloody conflicts it will eventually give rise to. Thus my appeal to you to address (start discussing) this issue now, while there is still time to avoid unnecessary conflict.
Best regards
Roger Hicks
P.S. It is not just about skin colour, but about the importance of race and ethnic origins for any deep and meaningful sense of both personal and group, i.e. national, identity.
I'm still awaiting a response - but not holding my breath.
Sunday, 26 May 2013
The Holocaust, an Expression of Racial Self-Hatred ?
We have all been brought up to believe that the Holocaust, the murder of 6 million Jews by the Nazis, was an expression of “racial hatred” born of racial prejudice. But in what way, shape or form do European Jews constitute a “different race” from other Europeans?
European Jews, I contend, are not a different race from other Europeans, anymore than Scandinavians are a different race from Italians. We all belong to the same race of closely related European peoples (most with some Middle Eastern blood in us). Sure, there are differences, but they are trivial and so mixed up that any attempt to divide Europeans into different races, as the Nazis did, is sheer madness. In addition, virtually all Europeans share a Judeo-Christian culture and history, which is what, rather than race, distinguished us from the neighbouring Muslim world.
In a European context, race really is a “social (or rather, ideological) construct”.
In view of the above, the Holocaust was not, I contend, a consequence of racial prejudice leading to racial hatred, but of racial self-contempt leading to racial self-hatred and self-destruction, massively realised in World War 1 and 2, and almost resulting in our nuclear self-annihilation during the Cold War.
Post-racial multicultural ideology, which denies, demonises and suppresses as “racist” the natural ethnic basis of genuine national identity, not coincidentally, is the exact but equally extreme opposite of Nazi racial ideology, the former seeing racial differences where they did not exist amongst Europeans, the latter refusing to see them where they clearly do exist, between human populations more or less isolated from each other for 10s of thousands of years prior to the modern era (e.g. between Europeans, Sub-Saharan Africans, East Asians and South Asians).
In its own extreme way, I contend, post-racial multicultural ideology, which now dominates Britain and other western democracies (as a secular replacement for church ideology**), is also an expression of European racial self-contempt, if not actual self-hatred. It has facilitated the madness of mass third world immigration into our already, natively and unsustainably, overpopulated country and subcontinent, has already reduced native (white) Britons to an ethnic minority in their own capital city, and will soon reduce us to an ethnic minority in the country at large.
Unable to agree on a definition of race or its significance, even where differences are most striking, and in fear of Nazi-style racial supremacism, academics decided to deny that race has any real existence or significance at all – except to evil “racists”. In the aftermath of the Holocaust, it was a welcome view that seemed to impart moral authority, which politicians, especially of the Left, quickly exploited and consolidated to their own power-political advantage. What they overlooked, and found politically advantageous to suppress in those who didn’t, was the profound importance of race and ethnic origins for any deep and meaningful sense of both personal and group, i.e. national, identity.
** Church ideology, with its notion of “original sin”, which only submission to church/state authority could save the individual from eternal damnation for, has been replaced by post-racial multicultural ideology, with its notion of “racism” (= racial prejudice = the natural human inclination to identify with members of one’s own tribe, i.e. race or ethnic group), which again only submission to state ideology and authority can save the individual from eternal damnation for. And now, just as in medieval times, anyone who refuses to submit to state ideology and authority is demonised and made a social pariah.
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