Thursday, September 10, 2009

Visit the UK; while it is still there ...

Well, this is what it is.
This week, the Office of National Statistics published a list of the most popular boys' names in Britain: Jack, Oliver, Thomas, Harry, Joshua, Alfie, Charlie, Daniel.

They reflect a cultural tradition as old as the nation's history, and would provoke approving nods from Jack the Ripper, Oliver Cromwell, Thomas Becket and Harry Hotspur.

There is just one small problem: the list is deceitful. In reality, the third most popular choice for boy children born last year in England and Wales was not Thomas, but Mohammed.
Their immigration problem is very different than ours. Much different.

Juan is just a Latin Catholic, mostly. Like my family, in a generation - if the Diversity Bullies will let him - he and his will just be an American. Even for most Muslim Americans, this isn't an issue either. The children of Afghan and Iranian immigrants that I grew up with are about as standard issue Americans as they come.

In the UK, it doesn't seem to be working out that way. Mohammed in Manchester whose mother is came from Pakistan at 16 to marry his father 10 years older than her - and at 25 he is about to marry his 17 year old 1st cousin from Lahore .... no - his kids are not going to have a pint with cod and mushy peas before building a bonfire on Guy Fawkes day. That isn't theory either - I've spent some time in London the last few years. Paddington Bear's neighbors wear hijabs more than you see in Tunis.

Last time I was in Scotland, I read in the Edinburgh paper a quasi-brag about this problem where the Scots said, "over 90% of these immigrants are in England, so we don't have the same problem."

You think the Scots have a thing against the English - you can only imagine what they think of and Englishman named Mohammed.
Britain, two generations hence, threatens to become a mere camp site for 77 million people of many races, for whom this represents a mere place to sleep, eat and make money. To avert this, we must address a series of related challenges.

First the next British government must effectively limit immigration. Thereafter, we should follow the French in outlawing the most conspicuous manifestations of cultural separateness, notably the face veil in schools, in law courts and other publicly administered institutions, and at airport security.

Most important, we must rediscover a belief in ourselves, a sense not so much of British nationality as of British community, which others can see the merits of sharing. Parts of this country - its middle-class islands - are still wonderful places to inhabit. They are still definably old Britain.

Others, above all the inner cities, seem lost to civilisation. Everyone outside them, and especially our politicians, have abandoned them to unemployed families, feral children, unchecked crime and huge immigrant communities which may live in this country, but are tragically not of it.

Unless we can reclaim these huge areas, and their inhabitants, we shall become a divided society, no longer recognisably British, of which a host of young Mohammeds and Muhammeds will be the symbols.
You get what you vote for.

Like the Brits say; over to you.

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