Deborah Husbands
Stephen Bunbury
Dibyesh Anand
By Mark Gullick
02/12/2024
If February’s Black History Month seems to have come around again very quickly, that is because it never really goes away. In fact, if it appears about to become year-round. The black caucus behind the organization’s U.K. chapter is attempting to make that the case officially. Why stop the carnival?
BHM falls in October in the U.K., but by the time Brits get to celebrate once again, it may already be permanent.
The argument for permanent Black History was recently made in an article by three academics from the University of Westminster, Deborah Husbands [Tweet her], Stephen Bunbury, and Dibyesh Anand [Tweet him].
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Deborah Husbands |
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The title is also the tagline for the BHM site: Celebrate Black History Year and tackle racial equality all year long. Apparently, what is proposed is not a single Black History Year, then back to monthly as usual, but Black History forever. The piece is worth reading as a superb example of the sheer power of this craze, one to which no politician or commentator may object.
One month is not sufficient for the study of Black History, the piece argues, because:
[C]ramming a deluge of talks and cultural activities into a single month creates a false sense of engagement… [which] constrained the celebration of Black people’s achievements without sufficiently recognizing the injustices they were experiencing.
BHM is already a sort of trade fair for race hustlers. Presumably there are grants to go after and publicity to garner. So why not make it the ideology that never closes?
The problem with Black History is that it requires two versions of history itself. The first is the real thing, from which the black caucus require examples of slavery and oppression, some of which are historically documented, some of which are confected or exaggerated. The second version of history is largely fabricated, and makes claims about the black presence in Britain which do not tally historically with any evidence. There is also the question of black inventors, the list of which is debatable.
But an amalgam of the two histories has been forming for the last few years, and has received a boost since George Floyd died.
Significantly, the BHM site and its literature is strangely quiet on the subject of white people. Usually, you would expect a BHM website to bang the familiar drum about white supremacy, unconscious racism, white privilege, and the usual cut-out ideological shapes. But there is scarcely any anti-White rhetoric — and there may be reason for this.
In October last year, Australia held a referendum known as the “Australian Indigenous Voice,” or simply “Voice,” vote. On the ballot was a simple choice between allowing Australian Aborigines to have their own constitution within that of Australia, including the ability to put through legislation, and to veto any proposal. The referendum went 60/40% in favor of no. But what allowed the vote even to take place is that Aborigines have a verifiable history: they really were in Australia first.
But blacks in Britain have no comparable history. Perhaps the idea is that they can fly in a black-enriched version of Britain’s past and force a similar vote in the U.K.
The black caucus has already forced so many ideas on the elites that this is not beyond possibility.
The myth of integration is a supporting pillar of the U.K. immigration industry. The British are told that new arrivals should be welcomed, and even celebrated, as they will soon “integrate” and cheerfully adopt something called “British values.” The result, of course, is asymmetrical multiculturalism, in which immigrants are encouraged to ghettoize, and also to celebrate their native culture in a way the indigenous British are not. But there is integration in Britain, if you recognize who is being made to integrate with whom. Language gives a clue.
Rather than immigrants being expected to learn English (there is no statutory requirement), the indigenous British might feel they are the ones in the classroom. London’s famous underground train system is teaching those locals who are not Muslim (a steadily decreasing number) the names of their local stations in the languages slowly replacing English in certain parts of the capital.
In the North of England, an increasingly Muslim enclave, a councilor supplied a translator for a political ad, who rendered the short speech into Urdu.
Soon, we will have an equivalent of the American experience; “Press 1 for Spanish…”
Language aside, and apart from the paradoxical success of integrating many economic migrants into the U.K.’s generous welfare system, we might consider another cultural practice we understand and share, for better or for worse: marriage.
Different faiths may have different rituals for a wedding, but some things travel between cultures. The central idea of betrothal, for example, the resplendently dressed central pair, the role of children in the respective services. And, of course, the fight at the reception.
While British tiffs after the service may end in bloodshed, it is always minor. But the incoming culture does things differently, and wedding killings are big in Pakistan, as a simple search shows. Fights at British receptions don’t yet involve “three Kalashnikovs, two shotguns, one rifle, and five pistols” as this wedding did in Kohat, Pakistan [Five killed in wedding party clash in Kohat, Dawn, November 9, 2020].
Now, wedding killings may be about to become established in the U.K. At the end of last year, a Muslim wedding between members of the British Pakistani community became fractious when the bride’s family suddenly objected to the match.
The ensuing chaos spilled onto the street, where Chris Marriott, a 46-year-old white man, happened to be out walking with his family. Seeing an injured woman on the ground, Mr. Marriott was attempting to use his paramedic training to assist her when he was hit by a car driven at 50 mph by a relative of the bride. He was killed, leaving a wife and family [Inside the wedding feud…, by Matthew Lodge et al., Daily Mail, December 29, 2023].
The Daily Mail and the Daily Telegraph — traditionally seen by the Left as Britain’s most right-wing papers — both mentioned in passing the Muslim connection. But GB News, touted as the right-of-center antidote to the BBC, made no mention of Islam in a nine-minute segment on the murder.
The weak phrase describing Mr. Marriott as “in the wrong place at the wrong time” was inevitably wheeled out. But if you don’t die of natural causes, then wherever and whenever you die is the wrong place at the wrong time. The problem is that Britain is increasingly becoming the wrong place all the time.
A young man named Harry Pitman discovered this on New Year’s Eve, although it would be the last discovery he would ever make.
Harry was stabbed to death while attending a fireworks display on London’s Primrose Hill [Arrest after boy dies in New Year’s Eve stabbing, by Jess Warren, BBC, January 1, 2024]. The ethnicity of the attackers still has not been released, which is all you need to know. You would not assume this gateway to the famous Hampstead Heath, with its rich residents and expensive properties, would be the wrong place, but it was for Harry, and this was the wrong time.
From the 1960s to the turn of the century, any Londoner could tell you to avoid certain areas if you wanted to stay out of serious and violent trouble, and those areas tended to correspond to ethnic concentration. This century, this certainty no longer holds. It is now possible to be stabbed to death in an area with some of the highest property value in Britain.
Finally, another cultural import from Pakistan is in the news: “acid attacks” are increasingly used on the streets as weapon of choice. The last day of January saw such an attack in Clapham, south London, with women and children involved as victims, as well as passers-by once again [Clapham chemical attack — latest: Police launch Thames search for suspect Abdul Ezedi near Chelsea Bridge, by Jane Dalton and Athena Stavrou, The Independent, February 10, 2024. As with the wedding killings noted above, acid attacks are very popular in Pakistan.
Just as Germany was the European Union’s (EU) testing-ground for mass immigration in 2015, and the Netherlands was singled out as a dry run for the EU’s attack on the farming industry two years ago, so too Ireland has become the laboratory for a redistribution of accommodation. Ireland has around 13,500 homeless people, but they will not be receiving the housing currently being lavished on imported aliens.
Housing and immigration are leading concerns for the Irish, and the two are obviously linked. The concerns of ordinary people, however, that increased immigration obviously means less available housing, do not match the concerns of the globalists monitoring Ireland:
The cost-of-living crisis, an ‘unprecedented’ housing crisis and major increases in immigration over the past year could lead to ‘worsening public attitudes’ towards migrants and refugees in Ireland, a global think tank has said.
Housing crisis could sharpen public attitude to immigration,,,, by Shauna Bowers, Irish Times, January 23, 2023
The concern of the ODI [Overseas Development Institute] is not for the homeless Irish, but that their attitude to the new and newly homed Irish might not be up the required standard. Rather than the people of a nation with a serious infrastructure crisis, the Irish are seen as potential racists to be monitored.
Similarly, the Irish government flipped the script after the Dublin “rioting,” accusing those taking part of belonging, inevitably, to the “far Right,” a creature found in Ireland about as often as leprechauns.
Pro-immigration politicians criticizing the unruly, however, didn’t all go as far as one County Limerick counselor [Fianna Fáil councillor slammed for ‘shoot rioters in the head’ remark, by Ian Begley, Extra.ie, December 12, 2023]. The gentleman’s name is Abul Kalam Azad Talukder, perhaps indicating cultural confusion.
Ireland’s people are famously proud of their island nation (north/south divisions aside), and civic tensions are gradually rising. Demonstrations at a local level are now commonplace [Anti-migrant protest mounted at historic Cork City property, by Eoin English, Irish Examiner, January 22, 2024]. And the temperature has literally risen as some dissidents take more violent measures [Galway hotel fire…, by John Fallon, Irish Times, December 17, 2023].
The Irish do have a tradition of rebellion against their rulers, who they wished to repel then as undoubtedly now, although this tended to be the British Crown. The Irish Rebellion of 1798 was inspired by the French and American Revolutionary wars, that of 1803 was a plain insurrection, and the famous Easter Uprising of 1916 yet another attempt to escape the British Empire.
But now, the enemy is no longer the British, nor is it the immigrants as such, but a powerful group of unelected “Eurocrats” aided by the Irish government.
Mark Gullick has a PhD in philosophy. Originally from London, he has relocated to Costa Rica. He has also written for TakiMag, New English Review, Counter Currents (including a monthly UNION JACKAL column on general political and cultural topics, Standpoint and The Brazen Head.
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