As a child of the late 60s I grew up in a calm Irish societal structure until the divisions and horrors of ‘The Troubles’ appeared on my young and impressionable radar. This was my first experience of hatred and a sense of ‘the other’ – of a foreign power, an ideal, a shadow, which exercised force over the society of which I was a part. Until that moment of awareness, everything was calm. But once exposed to the realities of ‘the other’ one changes forever.
One is not so much forced to take sides. It is expected. It’s simply following the status quo. And that, as we have come to see, causes nothing but trouble. I began to hate protestants and unionists and colonial Brits for what they were doing in the North of Ireland. I learned the history of occupation, or land grabs and gerrymandering, of social inequality, or civil protest and violent repression. I watched as the evening news told of executions, kneecappings, car bombs and funerals of fallen Republican volunteers. Don’t get me started on the Hunger Strikes and Thatcher...
At the age of 19 I moved to the UK in search of work, understanding the irony of searching for a future in the arms of the oppressor. In London I was met with a brave new world – one of mixed cultures, accents, and lifestyles. It felt okay to be different. And I was treated as different, being Irish. But then so were the Indians, the Jamaicans, the Nigerians, and others I worked with. We were all different, and that was okay, because we still had something other than our humanity in common – we had a western outlook, albeit forged in the colonial fire that is British history. We had that much in common, and a mutual understanding of the rule of common law. We shared (for the most part) similar religious backgrounds – mostly Christian, but with some Janes, Hindus and Sikhs thrown in for good measure. But religion didn’t seem to matter as we had a collective understanding of how we saw the world and how we wanted to live our lives. Family, work, God. We had that much in common.
In the 2000s things changed quickly and time flew faster than a young man can comprehend. With the forever wars of the US causing mass displacement and eventual migration, and a sympathetic society wanting to help their fellow man, we saw a rapid and large influx of migrants from countries that did not suffer under the yoke of the colonial masters that we had known. These were people from wildly diverse cultures with different views on family, law, equality and, of course, on religion – something which played an integral part in these new and insular communities.
The term insular is intentional. Integration was neither encouraged by government nor supported. We began to see cultural divisions cracking the pale veneer of British society. The same was happening all over the Western world. But one had to be careful how you spoke about these new citizens. If you didn’t like this influx of foreigners, you were deemed a fascist or right-winger.
In those days, to be anti-immigration was to be working class or lower. Immigration didn’t affect the middle and upper classes.
‘Their taking our jobs and council houses’ was the working class refrain.
Entire council estates of English working-class people were broken up by this influx of immigrants. Families who had lived in the same location for generations were moved on to new developments further out of the towns and cities, losing touch with their family, friends and shared community.
We had a few things going on here at the same time. Immigrants with distinct cultural backgrounds, languages, religions, and understanding were displacing established and more homogenous communities, and they were failing to integrate (or be actively integrated) into British society. Halal butcher shops sprang up, mosques appeared, women wearing the burqa were increasingly seen on the streets, walking behind their husbands, and local imams began to encourage the practice of Sharia Law in the community. It was as if there was a country within a country, and local laws, customers and practices no longer mattered.
Fast-forward to the mid-2000s and you had radical Islamist imams preaching jihad and separatism across the United Kingdom. We had come to a place where, in our openness to accept the poor and hungry, the people searching for a better future were now not becoming a part of our society but were actively trying to dismantle it from within.
Of course, this does not reflect the intention of every Muslim immigrant. But the sentiments and undercurrents across Muslim communities were strong as the world watched what western military powers were doing in the Middle East. You could be forgiven for understanding the anger these communities felt. But when anger turns to acts of violence, things start to disintegrate quickly. And with the increase in illegal migration from 2015 onwards migrants and refugees from war zones were added to these failing communities adding further fuel to the fire.
In the last 10 years it has become increasingly obvious that many newly arrived immigrants have no understanding (or it would appear interest) in becoming a part of the society to which they fled. They arrived in an already divided country. Whether they like it or not, their chances of integrating had become increasingly slim, if at all existant.
To this you can add the braying voices of Nigel Farage, Douglas Murray, Jordan Peterson, Tommy Robinson and more. Outspoken, populists leaning toward the right, reflecting the once established Christian ethos, giving a voice to the common working-class Brits that once made up most of the population.
But before we go further down the rabbit hole, remember that the problem isn’t religion per se. The problem is a lack of willingness and opportunity to integrate and be accepted. A true clash of cultures emerged, and not for the first time.
Of course, religion and culture are intertwined. This is why Islam and Christianity have been at war for centuries. Since the time of the Crusades, east and west have viewed each other with suspicion and distrust and still do to this day. One must wonder then, why immigrants from Muslim nations would wish to settle in Western, Christian nations? It's a good question that deserves some thought.
Most immigrants would call themselves economic migrants. They are looking for a better life – not a different life. They like their culture, religion, and traditions, and they want to honour their forebears by keeping them alive. You cannot argue with that desire. But oil and water do not mix. The issue lies not with immigration, but with the need for emigration in the first instance. No one in their right mind wants to leave their native land to live in a wildly different culture unless they need to. Of course, you will always get some intrepid migrants who actively seek to leave their cultural heritage behind and experience others – but this is not the rule, it is the exception.
So wherein lies the crux of the issue? It lies in the Middle East. In the countries that have been bled dry of resources, bombed back into the Stone Age, and left in rubble – all in the name of spreading democracy and acquiring cheap oil and gas. Foreign involvement in the Middle East should stop. Immigration from the Middle East to Europe should be based on the economic needs and talent shortfalls of our Western nations.
Put simply, you can’t expect to demolish someone’s home and then expect them to simply sleep on the ground. A prosperous and culturally and politically stable rich Middle East will attract most migrants back home. After all, who in their right mind would want to live in a council house in Luton?
We need to have a public debate on culture clash and cultural dilution, before it is too late.
What’s your take on this?
