I got this message from the internet campaigning organisation Avaaz yesterday. I haven’t donated, but I’m putting this up because it describes the horrific persecution of gay and trans people in Uganda and in case anybody else may wish to donate. I’m very much aware that gay people in the west haven’t had it easy, but this is Nazi-level persecution.
‘Dear Avaaz members,
I write from Uganda, where a vicious ‘anti-gay’ law is about to be signed — and we’re being hunted like animals.
Days ago, neighbours castrated a transgender person with a kitchen knife. We couldn’t go to the police as we’d be arrested — and had to search for a friendly doctor, as most wouldn’t help us.
We’re being fired from work, rejected by family, evicted, beaten, raped… and worse.
I’m appealing for your support. Please.
This could be our last call for help. When this law is signed, everything we do, including sending this email and raising funds, will become illegal. But right now, there’s still a narrow window when LGBTQ+ groups can receive support — and your donation could help save lives.
You’d fund safe houses where people can hide, along with emergency medical care, legal support, and trauma counselling. We urgently need more safe houses, as we constantly have to run when angry mobs arrive.
We’re being flooded with frantic calls for help, but without more funds we can only help a tiny fraction of people. I’m heartbroken, and don’t know where else to turn.
And it’s all because of who and how we love. In the face of unimaginable cruelty and violence, please stand up for our right to Love. Donate what you can now:
The new law will effectively make it impossible to exist as a LGBTQ+ person in Uganda.
I could get a life sentence for kissing my partner, and be executed for repeated homosexual ‘offences’. Renting to gay people will become illegal — and I could serve 20 years in jail just for sending this email.
They call us “ungodly” filth, but we aren’t the ones inflicting unimaginable cruelty on already vulnerable people. I know girls who’ve been raped by family members to ‘cure’ their ‘lesbian disease’.
That’s why safe houses are so critically important— providing a place of sanctuary in a country burning with hatred. With your help, we could:
Fund dozens of new safe houses and emergency shelters across the country;
Provide emergency health care and legal support for those who’ve been arrested — and meals for people in jail;
Help fund the development of a new legal case to challenge the law in court; and
Power emergency response campaigns, like this one, to defend communities facing discrimination, assault, and war around the world.
Every penny raised will support LGBTQ+ people in Uganda, and power Avaaz’s emergency response work around the world. By donating, you won’t just be helping in Uganda — you’ll be ensuring this crucial capacity is maintained for others like me, facing unimaginable terror.
Gay, straight, lesbian, transgender — we all just want to live and love in peace. I don’t know when that day will come, but it is not today, and our fight for love must go on. Wherever you are in the world, please stand with us. Donate what you can now:
I’ve been part of the Avaaz community for years. I’ve seen the difference it makes when we come together fast for those in need. Now it’s my community being attacked — me and my people need this movement’s help.
With hope and the deepest of gratitude,
Frank and the whole team at Avaaz
Note: If and when the ‘anti-gay’ law passes, the consequences for an email like this could be deadly — in many ways, they already are. For that reason, we aren’t using Frank’s photo, or their name.
PS. This might be your first donation to our movement ever. But what a first donation! Did you know that Avaaz relies entirely on small donations from members like you? That’s why we’re fully independent, nimble and effective. Join the over 1 million people who’ve donated to make Avaaz a real force for good in the world.
I gather that she’s been in today’s Guardian, where she’s written a piece about the death of Tina Turner. Turner was one of the greatest soul singers, even appearing as Auntie Entity, the ruler of Bartertown, in the film Mad Max 3, for which she also sang and performed a theme song. Shola’s piece lamented the fact that the singer had died before Blacks had received their proper compensation for their historic enslavement by White Europeans and Americans. She’s an intensely controversial figure. Some people feel that she is anti-British and I believe there was 38 Degrees petition launched by someone to stop the TV companies using her as a guest on their shows when debating racism and related topics. I feel that the issues of Black compensation for slavery raises questions about such compensation that crosses racial and national boundaries and which may affect Shola herself. Slavery was practised for millennia across the globe. Black Africans were enslaved by other African nations, as well as Muslim Arabs and Turks, as well as Indians, Persians and Afghans. Odiously, slavery still persists in Africa and the global south, and has been revived in Islamist-held Libya and Uganda. At the same time, Europeans were held in bondage as serfs until into the 19th century in parts of Europe, and were also enslaved by the invading Turks and pirates from Morocco, Algiers and Tunisia. This rises the issue that if compensations is to be paid to enslaved Blacks, then the same principle should mean that the victims of these forms of slavery should also receive compensation from those, who historically enslaved them.
I’ve therefore sent her this message via the message box on her website. I’ll let you know if I get an answer
‘Dear Shola,
I was struck by your article in today’s Guardian about the death of the great soul singer, Tina Turner, and lamenting the fact that she died before Black people had received reparations for slavery. The question of slavery reparations raises issues extending beyond western Blacks, including the complicity of African aristocracies, the enslavement of Blacks by other nations, including Islam and India, as well as indigenous White European forms of bondage and their enslavement by the Barbary pirates and the Turkish empire. As the granddaughter of an African prince, I would be particularly interested in your perspectives on these issues.
Regarding indigenous African complicity in the slave trade, I’ve doubtless no need to tell you about how generally Black Africans were captured and enslaved by other Black African peoples, who then sold them on to White Europeans and Americans. The most notorious slaving states were included Dahomey, Benin and Whydah in west Africa, while on the east coast the slaving peoples included the Yao, Marganja and the Swahili, who enslaved their victims for sale to the Sultan of Muscat to work the clove plantations on Zanzibar. They were also purchased by merchants from India, and then exported to that country, as well as Iran, Afghanistan and further east to countries like Sumatra. It has therefore been said that reparations should consist of Black Africans compensating western Blacks. Additionally, Black Africans were also enslaved by other Muslim Arabs in north Africa and then the Turkish empire. What is now South Sudan was a particular source of Black slaves and one of the causes of the Mahdi’s rebellion was outrage at the banning of slavery by the British. This raises the issue of whether Turkey, Oman, India and other north African and Asian states should also compensate the Black community for their depredations on them.
The complicity of the indigenous African chiefs in the slave trade has become an issue recently in Ghana and Nigeria. I understand that the slavery museum in Liverpool was praised by campaigners and activists from these nations for including this aspect of the slave trade. I would very much like to know your views on this matter. Forgive me if I have got this wrong, but I understand you are of the Igbo people. These also held slaves. I would also like to know if you could tell me a bit more about this, and how this may have affected your family’s history. Your grandfather was, after all, a chief, and this raises the awkward question of whether your family owned slaves. If they did, how were they manumitted and did your family give them reparations for their enslavement?
There is also the question of the enslavement of Whites both under conditions of domestic servitude and by the Muslim powers of the Turkish empire and Morocco, Algeria and Tunisia. Serfdom in England died out in the 16th and 17th centuries, but it continued in European countries into the 18th and 19th centuries. Prussia only liberated its serfs in 1825 and the Russian serfs were only freed in 1860. Serfdom is considered a form of slavery under international law, as I understand. If Blacks are to be granted compensation for their enslavement, then as a general principle the descendants of White European serfs should also be compensated for their ancestors’ servitude.
In Britain, a from of serfdom continued in the Scottish and Northumbrian mining industries. Miners were bondsmen, whose contracts bound them to the mining companies and who were metal identity collars to prevent them running away exactly like slaves. I would be grateful if you would tell me whether their descendants should also receive compensation for their forefathers’ virtual enslavement.
Over a million White Europeans and Americans, mostly from southern European countries such as France, Spain and Italy, were enslave by the Barbary pirates. This only came to an end with the French conquest and occupation of Alegria. If people are to be compensated for their ancestors’ enslavement, then presumably America and Europe should also receive compensation from these nations for this. The Turkish conquest of the Balkans in the 14th century by Mehmet II resulted in the depression of the indigenous White Christian population into serfdom as well as the imposition of slavery. When Hungary was conquered, the Turks levied a tribute of a tenth of the country’s population as slaves. When one of the Greek islands revolted in the 1820s, it was put down with dreadful cruelty and the enslavement of 20,000 Greeks. Do you feel that the descendants of these enslaved Balkan Whites should also receive compensation from their former Turkish overlords?
There is also the fact that after Britain abolished the slave trade, she paid compensation to the former African slaving nations for their losses as part of a general scheme to persuade them to adopt a trade in ‘legitimate’ products. This was believed to benefit both Britain and the African nations themselves. How do you feel about the payment of such compensation? Do you feel that it is unfair, and that these nations should pay it back to us, or that they should pay it to the descendants of the people they enslaved?
Finally, slavery still persists today in parts of Africa and has even revived. The Islamist terror groups that have seized control of half of the former Libya have opened slave markets dealing in the desperate migrants from further south, who have made their way to the country in the attempt to find sanctuary in Europe. At the same time, slave markets have also opened in Uganda. Slavery is very much alive around the world today. I would be greatly interested in your perspectives on this issue, which is affecting people of colour in the global south. How do you feel it should be tackled? Are you working with anti-slavery organisations, such as Anti-Slavery International and the various organisations by former African slaves to combat this? If not, I would be very grateful if you could tell me why not, when you are obviously motivated by a human outrage at the plight of the historic victims of western slavery.
I hope you will be able to provide me with answers to these questions, and very much look forward to receiving your reply.
I got this message earlier this afternoon from the pro-democracy organisation, Open Britain, commenting on Sunak’s inability to sack Braverman despite her breach of the codes governing ministerial conduct. In their view, and I think it’s the correct one, this is because Braverman’s part of the hard line, anti-European ERG, who now appear to be the major force pulling the strings in the Tories. This is another indication of the parlous state of our democracy, as no-one should be above the law.
I found one detail particularly interesting, because I hadn’t heard about it anywhere else. Perhaps it has been reported, but I simply missed it. It’s that Braverman founded a charity with members of the Rwandan government who were part of Rwandan immigration scheme. This is, in my view, utterly corrupt, and demonstrates more clearly than the speeding fine fiasco why she shouldn’t be in government. Here’s Open Britain’s message
‘Dear David,
No matter the circumstances, it seems that Rishi Sunak is completely unable to hold his ministers to even the most basic standard of conduct. It speaks not only to the ERG’s stranglehold on the Conservative party, but Britain’s ever-lowering bar for standards in public life under this government.
Remember, Braverman’s tenure didn’t start on a high note. Sunak reappointed her just six days after her resignation as Home Secretary under Liz Truss, which she tendered for committing a serious national security breach in violation of the Ministerial Code. Despite the public outcry at the time and Sunak’s laughable commitment to “integrity, professionalism and accountability”, the PM ultimately succumbed to the power of the Brexit lobby.
Today, we’ve learned of two new Ministerial Code violations by the Home Secretary. Firstly, three days ago, Braverman was alleged to have used her position to change the punishment for a speeding violation. And now a further accusation has emerged that Braverman failed to disclose her co-founding a charity linked to members of the Rwandan government, including several key officials involved in her Rwanda immigration scheme. So far, Number 10 has refused to announce an investigation into either matter.
How exactly did Suella Braverman become politically untouchable? For her, standards that would apply to any other job in the world seem to be completely absent. Even as a communications officer at Open Britain (an important role, but not one quite as consequential as Home Secretary), I wouldn’t be allowed to perform to such an abysmally low standard. I’d have personally resigned in disgrace long ago.
There is one disturbingly simple answer. Braverman is part of the ERG clique, a secretive and “militant” wing of the Tory party which has exerted immense power over government policy and operations. Sunak, in a futile attempt to unite various splinter groups within his party, has no choice but to put up with her or face the full wrath of this “party within a party”. Sunak, like the rest of us, is hostage to the insanity of these swivel-eyed loons.
But there is a deeper explanation. As our democratic institutions crumble, our rights fade away, and our political debates descend into the realm of petty grievance, the standards we once expected of those in public life simply slip away. Nothing illustrates our steady slide towards authoritarianism than the way government has become more about pledging fealty to Brexit fundamentalism than to honouring a commitment to deliver proper democracy or effective governance. Braverman stays because she is loyal to the cause, not because she serves the people or institutions of Britain. It’s the mark of a nation in steep decline.
It’s time to re-assess. Who are we as a country? What are our values? What do we, as a nation, actually believe in? Right now, the great ship of state is just chugging along to nowhere in particular, with the worst among us steering us closer and closer to the abyss.
Proper democracy means taking back the reins. It means giving real people a real say in what Britain is and what Britain will be in the future. It means having politicians who are happy to be held to account by the public, not focussed on covering the backs of those who climbed the same greasy pole they did. In a proper democracy, no one is untouchable.
I’m proud to be fighting for a system like that. Sometimes it seems like an insurmountable task, but we’re not resting until it’s done.
How much further can the IEA go in its desire to end government interference? From what I’ve just come across on YouTube, all the way to Rothbard and anarcho-capitalism. I came across a video this afternoon from IEA London in which they interview someone about this form of anarcho-individualism.
The IEA are a hard right, Thatcherite bunch who’ve been advocating extreme free market economics since the 1970s. They believe in complete privatisation, including that of the NHS and the reduction of the welfare state, if not its complete abolition. Usually people who hold this ideology call themselves Libertarians or, more recently, Classical Liberals. They’re fans of von Hayek and Milton Friedman and believe that by going back to the complete laissez-faire capitalism of the early 19th century business will become more efficient and people freer and more prosperous. Which is why Friedman used to go on trips to Chile to see how his ideas were working out under that notorious advocate for personal freedom, General Pinochet. Because people wouldn’t democratically vote for the destruction of the welfare state, and so this could only be done by a dictator. The American Libertarians also weren’t averse to collaborating with real fascists and Nazis. One issue of their wretched magazine in the ’70s contained a number of articles by them and real anti-Semites denying the Holocaust. It was part of their campaign to discredit F.D. Roosevelt and his legacy. Roosevelt’s New Deal created the American welfare state. He was also the president that brought American into World War II. World War II is regarded as a just war. In order to discredit Roosevelt and thus the American welfare state, they wanted to destroy the notion of the battle against Nazism as a noble conflict. And so the goose-steppers were given their free hand to publish their malign nonsense in their pages. Then, when Reagan was elected in 1980s, they got a president who believed what they did, and so didn’t need the Nazis anymore. That infamous episode in their history was quietly forgotten.
And now the IEA are going from minarchism – the belief in a minimal state – to outright anarchism. Anarcho-capitalism wants the abolition of the state and its replacement by corporations. This includes police and the courts. The police would be replaced by private security guards, while the courts would also operate as private corporations. This, of course, causes problems. In a society without the state to enforce justice, why would any criminal submit themselves to the judgement of private courts with no power to enforce their decisions? They argue that competition by the courts to give the fairest decisions would result in criminals submitting to the same courts in the understand that they, and the other criminals, would all receive fair and just treatment and so order would be preserved. Which is real, wishful thinking.
Ordinary, Thatcherite free-market economics don’t work. Privatisation has not increased investment in the utilities, but left them in a worse mess. The gradual erosion of the welfare state has just increased poverty, not made people more entrepreneurial and self-reliant. Nor has led to a revival of charity in quite the manner Thatcher expected, although I’d guess that she, like Jacob Reet Snob, would point to food banks as a sign of its success. Liz Truss’ and her cabinet were all true-blue followers of Tufton Street free market ideas, with very many of them members of various right-wing think tanks, including the IEA. The result was that she nearly destroyed the British economy and had to be given the heave-ho. Despite this, she still thinks she was right. A week or so ago she was giving a talk in America in which she blamed her defenestration on ‘left-wing activists’. This is the rest of the Tory party she’s talking about. As Frankie Howerd used to say, ‘Oh, she’s off again. Oh, don’t mock. It’s rude to mock the afflicted.’ But it seems that ordinary libertarianism isn’t enough for some in the IEA, and that some of them have an interest in privatising the state itself.
If this was ever put into practice, it would result in a dystopia straight from 90s era science fiction, like the decaying Detroit of Paul Verhoeven’s Robocop but without the cyborg policeman to fight crime and bring down the corporate bad guys.
David Lammy was on LBC Radio yesterday, and gave an answer to an interview question that left many listeners stunned. Kernow Damo has put up a piece about it on his vlog, as has Maximilien Robespierre, the smooth-voiced Irish vlogger. The Met’s heavy-handed policing of the Coronation and its arrest of 62 anti-monarchy protesters, simply for protesting, has raised questions about both the Met’s conduct and the Tory legislation allowing them to clamp down so hard on peaceful protesters. People are concerned about the draconian laws curbing protests and strikes. Lammy was asked if Labour intended to repeal this legislation. ‘No,’ he said, ‘because otherwise we’d spend all our time just repealing Tory legislation.’ This left Robespierre thoroughly gobsmacked. Because people are voting Labour in the hope that they’ll revrerse the Tory legislation allowing the water companies to dump raw sewage into our waterways and seas, stop the running down of the NHS, the impoverishment our great, hard–pressed and underappreciated working people. Now Lammy says that Labour doesn’t intend to do any of that. Robespierre raises the obvious point that this is a strange attitude for a party whose electoral line is that people should vote for them because they aren’t the Conservatives.
But I think this attitude is part and parcel of Starmer’s return to Blairism. Blair was a Thatcherite, who went further in the privatisation of the NHS and reforming – read: cutting back even further – the welfare state than the Tories themselves. One of the criticisms of Blair’s and Brown’s governments was that New Labour really didn’t differ at all from the Conservatives. They just promoted themselves on being able to implement the same wretched policies better and more efficiently. And in the case of the ‘welfare to work’ legislation, in which benefit claimants only got their welfare cheque if they did mandatory voluntary work for grasping, exploitative charities like Tomorrow’s People or the big supermarkets, Blair spun a profoundly reactionary policy introduced by Reagan’s Republicans in America and mooted by Thatcher over here as somehow left-wing and radical. It was all part of Blair’s New Deal, a modern version of Roosevelt’s make-work schemes during the Depression. The result of New Labour’s shameless emulation of the Tories was that an increasingly large part of the electorate stopped voting. They felt that it didn’t matter who you voted for, because they were all the same. Corbyn offered some escape from this electoral trap by promoting socialist policies. Hence the screams from the establishment both inside and outside the party that he was a Commie, Trotskyite anti-Semite. Because you can’t have someone offering the proles something that will actually benefit them.
And now it seems it’s back to business as usual under Starmer.
And the return to Blairism is already having the effect it previously had on the electorate. The Tories took a hammering at the local elections, and has naturally been held as an historic win by Stalin. Except that it was more a comment on how the electorate was fed up with the Tories than an overwhelming victory for Labour. According to some experts, by this measure Labour will be 28 seats short of a majority at the next general election. I seem also to recall polls that indicated that while people liked Labour, they didn’t like Starmer and didn’t think he was anywhere near as good a leader as whoever was the Tory prime minister at the time. And it’s obvious to see why. Starmer is deeply treacherous and untrustworthy, ditching nearly every pledge and promise he declared he believed in. He has done everything he could to purge the left with the usual smears of anti-Semitism. But his personal performance against the Tories has been dismal. For a long time he offered no alternative policies. His tactics seemed to be to wait for the Tories’ own failures and duplicity to catch up with them and then hope that the proles would vote Labour as the only alternative. This seems to have worked to a certain extent, but it also shows that the same tactics is failing to energise any enthusiasm for a Labour government. In fact, it’s put many people off.
Not that this necessarily bothers Starmer. As we’ve seen from the various coups and plots against Jeremy Corbyn, the Labour right would prefer to destroy Labour than accept any return to socialism.
I’ve said before that I’m a monarchist, but I am also aware that some the protesters against the monarchy have very good reasons for doing so. One of these is the immense cost of the Coronation when three million Brits have to use food banks to stave off hunger. The mellifluous voiced Irish vlogger, Maximilien Robespierre, put up a very pointed video about this the other day, commenting on a clip from the news in which Joanna Lumley commented on the monarchy’s generosity. The guest’s going to the event had the cars valeted and refuelled free. Robespierre commented that the monarchy wasn’t paying for this, but the British taxpayer. It wasn’t done free of charge, but the cost was being placed on the British taxpayer at a time when very many ordinary Brits are finding it extremely hard to make ends meet.
Rather more troubling is the allegation, which I’ve heard has been made by the Labour MP Clive Lewis, that our sovereign lord Charles III exempted himself from something like 120 different laws in order to rake in a cool £2 billion. If that’s true, then it’s just greed as well as using his personal position as head of state to unfairly enrich himself. When ordinary people do this, like politicians and government officials, it’s called corruption and ends up with an investigation from the rozzers. And it’s also an affront given the three million or so ordinary Brits, who are now forced to use food banks and the rising levels of real poverty in general in the United Kingdom.
People have been criticising Charles for years. Some of this has been general attacks on the monarchy, but some of has been about his personal profiteering. One documentary – I think it might have been ‘Charles: The Man Who Shouldn’t Be King’ – pointed out that normal jars of honey are below a pound in price. Unlike the honey Charles is producing from his estates in Cornwall, which is over £4. Other issues are that he doesn’t observe the same distance the Queen did between the monarchy and politics. There was an article in the Independent or the Groan years ago about the numerous letters he wrote to various authorities calling for the return of grammar schools. Some of Charles’ causes have made him genuinely popular. One of these was his attack on modern architecture, which he derided as ‘monstrous carbuncles’. This enraged various elite architects, but captured the mood of many ordinary people sick of grey, concrete monstrosities. After he made his stinging remarks, some wag wrote on the hoardings surrounding a building site in Bristol ‘another monstrous carbuncle – way hey, right on Charlie!’ But this attitude is dangerous, as not everyone shares his opinions. There have been a number of posts from various right-wing types who believe in the various conspiracy theories about the World Economic Forum and the Green Movement expressing their paranoid fears about Charles’ sympathies and connections to them. Charles is almost certainly correct in his support for Green issues, but it does mean that there is a section of right-wing opinion now alienated and distrustful of the monarchy.
I don’t think there are very many of them at the moment. A far more serious issue is the king’s profiteering. If he continues to do this as poverty in Britain grows, then more people will justifiably become anti-monarchists.
This is going to be controversial, but I think this video is important as it exposes the biases and distortions in the official reportage of the Pakistani grooming gangs and the fear of being accused of racism that allowed them to get away with their crimes for decades. I’m very much aware that the New Culture Forum is part of the free market fanatics, the IEA and that GB News is a Conservative media outlet pushing the culture war issues because the Tories don’t really have anything else to use to boost their image. But this is a very, very real issue, and the ingrained refusal to investigate and prosecute these men because of their religion and ethnicity has led to the horrific abuse of 1,500 + extremely vulnerable girls in Rotherham alone. And it also demonstrates how this scandal has its deeper roots in the refusal to tolerate anything that contradicted the multicultural dogma that states that ethnic minorities and immigrants somehow automatically adopt British culture and values when they immigrate to this country. These men didn’t, and the interviewees state that this was partly due to the nature of chain migration itself and the backward culture of the region from which most of the groomers came – the Mirpur region of Pakistan.
The video is part of a new series, ‘Deprogrammed’, being launched by the NCF, Presumably the title means that its against the supposed falsehoods with which we’ve been programmed like robots by the lamestream media. The video features Harrison Pitt, a writer for the European Conservative, interviewing Evan Rigg, a Canadian freelance journalist, and Charlie Peter, a presenter on GB News who produced a documentary on the Pakistani grooming gangs. It begins with Sajid Javid’s 2018 investigation of the gangs. Despite expectations, this turned into a whitewash as the Tories were sensitive about race in the wake of the Windrush scandal. It therefore concluded that the majority of abusers and gang members were White men. The report was originally withheld from publication and it took an internet petition with 180,000 signatures to get it released. In fact, the report on which Javid’s report was based contradicted its findings. It stated that the collection of statistics for ethnicity had been so poor, it was impossible to say which race the majority of offenders was composed of. What evidence there is stated that White men constituted 30 per cent of offenders, and Asians 28 per cent. This was despite Whites constituting 85 per cent of the British population and Asians 8 per cent. By these statistics, Asians are massively overrepresented as groomers and abusers.
Peter’s stated that one effect of his documentary was that it had helped changed the law. The news about the gangs in Rotherham had first been broken a decade ago by Andrew Norfolk, after which more reports from other towns flowed in. However, these reports were mealy-mouthed and heavily censored. More documentation on the ethnic composition of the gangs is needed, along with the imprisonment of their members. Many of those convicted served only light sentences and returned to the same areas in which their victims were living afterwards because of a reluctance to send offenders to Britain’s overstretched and crowded prisons. He supported the launch of Cruella’s National Crime Agency taskforce because local authorities and police forces and had been too mired in political corruption. The problem was that these organisations prioritised community cohesion and multiculturalism over the safety of women and girls. The girls were further regarded by politicians and the media as belonging to the underclass, wild girls whose unsafe lifestyle brought their abuse on themselves. There was the further problem in that it had gone on for decades, but the people who initially talked about it were far right. In fact, they were often ordinary, decent people who were branded far right because they talked about this taboo topic. When patriotic, decent, socially conservative members of the left spoke about it, they were bullied and harassed. Anne Crier was ignored when she spoke out in 2003. Jack Straw was pilloried for complaining about it, and Sarah Champion was similarly removed from Labour’s front bench for the same reason. Peters therefore considered Braverman very brave for taking on the rape gangs. He was struck by her comments that the truth wasn’t racist as something that needed to be said to defend a government policy.
The abused girls were targeted because they were White. This was a result of mass migration, which had produced a very insular and clannish community. The immigrants involved came from the very backward Mirpur and Kashmir regions of Pakistan. It was chain migration operating through first cousin marriage. This prevented these communities from establishing links with the wider community and entrenched the traditional gender power structures that gave men immense power and control over women. It also meant that these abusers were extremely difficult to catch because family members did not want to inform on each other. This occurred at the same time the social solidarity of the wider community was declining due to the economic devastation of local industries and a process of social atomisation. Sexual behaviour became more licentious during the ’90s and Noughties, when it became acceptable to go out of an evening for casual sex. But this was also contrasted with the moral conservatism and judgmental attitudes of the tabloid papers.
The emergence of the Pakistani rape gangs flew in the face of the classical liberal doctrine that held that relentless waves of unwanted migrants would not lead to the destruction of social bonds, and especially the left-wing mantra that ‘diversity is strength’. Peters here contrasts the state of three of the countries with the highest rates of diversity – Liberia, Congo and Papua New Guinea, with very homogenous societies like Denmark, Japan and South Korea. Nevertheless, the assumption is that the more Britain becomes diverse, it can still function like Denmark and the other two nations. It’s assumed new immigrants will assimilate, but assimilation only goes so far. The Canadian journalist remarked that although he comes from a very similar nation, he will never be British. How will people from very different cultures like Liberia do so? Will it be their children or grandchildren who become British? Some migration is needed for countries to remain dynamic. The problem in Rotherham was that it was too much, too quickly and unwanted. And as the new immigrants could join the electorate after a few years, this resulted in the creation of a new electorate without the consent of the old one.
He then discusses the noxious activities and careers of some of those involved in the gangs and the suppression of action against them. One of these ratbags was Maruf Hussein, Rotherham’s Community Cohesion Officer, who refused to accept the reports that 1,500 + girls were being molested. The gangs were also assisted by White female converts to Islam, such as Shifra Ali. Ali set up a bogus taxi hotline which was supposed to supply taxis to take the girls to school. She died in 2009, unfortunately, before she could face justice. After Hussein resigned, he rebranded himself as an anti-racism activist. It has also been alleged that Hussein also launched a failed accusation of racism against a Labour colleague on the council for expressing concerns about the grooming gangs. He was then found working for NHS England as a diversity and inclusion officer. on £49,000 p.a. It is a disgrace that the doctrine of diversity hasn’t been harmed and even been strengthened by it, because it showed how such monstrous crimes could be ignored through censorship and lies. Once again the 2020 report is mentioned for its conclusion that the majority of abusers were White men. It showed that the ‘blob’, the right-wing name for the obstructive civil service and the diversity industry could spin the gangs as a White problem. This is despite the fact that there were 19 trials in which the gangs were composed only of Pakistani men. And while the police may not collect statistics on ethnicity, the names are included in the trial records. Further studies have also shown that Pakistani men dominate this issue. But the blob, Sayeeda Warsi, the Guardian and parts of the government will accuse you of racism if you talk about this.
The conversation then goes back to 2015 and comparison with the way the continental countries such as Germany were able to combat the Syrian rapists in Cologne and other cities. The interviewees make the point that Syria isn’t the same as Mirpur and Kashmir. England also has a particular nervousness when it comes to migration and accusations of racism. Peters then goes back to 1870 and Gladstone’s violent denunciation of the Turks’ atrocities in eastern Europe. His comments, if made now, would result in his being thrown out of every political party except, perhaps, Reform and the SDP. And there is the problem of the ethnic composition of constituencies affecting what their politicians are prepared to say about particular issues. Would Gladstone have made his comments, if his constituency had included a large Turkish population? He mentions the comments Tracey Brabin, the mayor of West Yorkshire, made three weeks ago on the Daily Politics. Brabin dismissed Cruella’s comments about the grooming gangs as ‘dog whistles. This is two years after a teacher in Batley was forced into hiding for showing cartoons of Mohammed in class as part of a lesson on free speech. It’s also just a few weeks after the controversy when an autistic boy scuffed a Quran, and his mother was dragged before the local mosque to beg its congregants’ forgiveness in what is described as a ‘Maoist struggle session’. Present at this kangaroo court was a police inspector urging restraint. Peters saw parallels here with the grooming gangs, especially as Maruf Hussain had also spoken to the police. If Brabin cannot tell the truth about these problems, what else will she cover up?
The video ends with a discussion of what ordinary people can do. They state that there are good resources out there about what people can do if they feel their children are being abused. The NSPCC is one, although they have reservations about them because of the charity’s statement that different communities should not be singled out. They are particularly impressed with Maggie Oliver and her campaign and organisation against the gangs.
Peters is questioned about the response by the working class to the documentary. Did they regard him as a hero? Peters replied by stating that he was only a documentary film-maker and not a hero. The real heroes were the survivors of the abuse, who put their lives at risk to talk to him. He was immensely grateful to them. It was easier talking to them and editing their accounts than talking to politicians as there was no waffle. As for Braverman’s proposed actions, the proof would be in the pudding. He would be very impressed if the offenders were imprisoned and deported. The survivors were cautiously optimistic, and Peters said he would be there to hold the government to account if it failed them.
More proof of the Tories’ complete indifference to ordinary’s people’s suffering. The Trussel Trust, which runs the majority of Britain’s food banks, reported yesterday that there had been a steep rise in the number of people using them. They reported that last year they had served 1.3 million emergency food parcels. This is an absolutely disgrace in a country as rich as Britain. They recommended that benefits should be pegged to keep pace with the price of food.
Brilliant idea!
The response from the Tories was predictable, however. You got a statement saying that they were determined to eradicate poverty or something, and that they had raised benefits already by 10 per cent. My guess is that however much they raised it, it’s still below the rate of the inflation, so that food is still unaffordable for some people. Also, it doesn’t address the issue of the vicious and sadistic sanctions system, nor the poverty wages being paid by some businesses which means that many of those claiming benefits are actually working people.
The Beeb on their breakfast news this morning put up a series of graphs showing wages compared with the rate of inflation. The railway workers average wages were above, but those for teachers and nurses were below. Well below. If teachers’ wages had kept pace with inflation, they’d be on £44,000 by now.
But wage rises in line with inflation is too much for the Bank of England and the Spectator.
Yesterday an article from the Spectacularlyboring appeared stating that the Bank of England was right to demand that wages be kept low. This comes from very well paid Tory journalists repeating the ideas of exceptionally well paid Bank of England executives. I think the attitude is that if wages are raised, this will increase inflation.
Except that it’s not ordinary wages driving inflation. Robert Reich has said that it’s driven by profits, and although he was referring to America I dare say it applies over here.
What we need is a return to a prices and wages policy, but as this went out with Maggie Thatcher, it would be admitting that part of Thatcherism is a massive failure. And once that’s admitted, the rest is vulnerable too. And we can’t have the masses questioning the absolute truth of Thatcherite economic orthodoxy.
It’s long past time that Thatcherism fell. And the Trussell Trust is right:
A few days ago I posted a piece about a Pakistani TV programme, which featured a panel of violently intolerant religious fanatics ranting about what they feared was a wave of unbelief and blasphemy threatening the country of the pure. Well, that’s one explanation I’ve seen for the country’s name: ‘paki’ – ‘pure’, ‘stan’ country. I’ve also seen another explanation that claimed the ‘Paki’ element is an acronym made up with the country’s various provinces. These men claimed to have seen a report by the Federal Intelligence Agency and the branch of the country’s judiciary or law enforcement tasked with protecting the Pakistani people from blasphemy, that there were 400,000 internet accounts put up by blasphemers. They then went on to complain that despite these numbers, only 119 people had been arrested and of these only 11 were executed. Later on in the programme they claimed that the blasphemous internet accounts had started with only four people, who had been arrested and executed, but the number had mushroomed. This was accompanied with histrionic demonstrations of grief and outrage. One of them wished he had died before he had seen this day. Another wondered if they shouldn’t react to this news by burning down the towns. I hope that’s just hyperbole, otherwise it’s going to kill an awful lot of people and increase any disaffection with Islam. An elderly mullah was seen crying in a corner of the studio. They also went to describe the dreadful acts the blasphemers were committing, claiming that it was all part of a conspiracy to bring down the country and that the blasphemous internet sites were using women to lure men onto them to commit these outrages. I’m not going to describe them, as they are very shocking, far more extreme than the Danish cartoons that provoked such outrage across the Islamic world when they were published.
The ex-Muslims atheists on the net believed that the stories of these blasphemous acts were genuine, and were an expression of real, bitter hatred by alienated young Pakistanis against the country’s dominant religion. But the acts they described are so grotesque, I wondered if they weren’t made up. Years ago I read an account of the furore over the Danish cartoons on one of the Islamophobic sites. After the cartoons had been published in a Danish provincial paper, the Jyllands Aftenposten or whatever it was, a group of five imams went on a tour of the Muslim world to show them to the masses. However, it seems that one of the cartoons they showed had not been published by the paper.
I’ve been told that in that part of the world there’s a culture of embroidering the truth in disputes. It was a problem for the British authorities during the Raj, as both sides would start inventing details to reinforce their side of the argument until it was impossible to tell who was actually in the right. I don’t doubt that there are internet sites in Pakistani posting blasphemous material, but I wonder if the supposed acts they contained weren’t, in actual fact, the products of the nasty, lurid imaginations of those complaining about them.
The ex-Muslims themselves wondered about how many of the 400,000 blasphemers were really non-Muslims. Islam in Pakistan is composed of different sects – Sunni, Shia, Barelvi, Deobandi and so on, some of whose doctrines are seen as blasphemy by the others. So some of what was being denounced as blasphemous by the various fanatics could simply be honestly held beliefs by pious Muslims, who themselves see them as true and respectful expressions and formulations of their religion. Some of the ex-Muslims therefore suggested that the number of real blasphemous internet accounts was therefore half the official number, 200,000. But even if 400,000 is the real figure of atheists attacking Islam on the Pakistani net, it’s a trivial number compared to the country’s population. I think Pakistan has a population of c. 250 million. Which means that the proportion of people posting this material is less than 1/500 millionth of the population. In other words, a vanishingly small number. To outsiders like myself, when put like this the issue seems hardly worth bothering with. But not to these guys, who lined up in the studio to sing a song about how they would cut the heads off the blasphemers and burn them by day and night.
The same week Pakistani television broadcast this fiasco, Muslims in Britain had been celebrating Eid with the Big Iftar, in which they shared their religious meal with their non-Muslim neighbours. The One Show also covered on Muslim, who had dedicated himself to doing good deeds during Ramadan, and had assembled a team of Muslims and non-Muslims to help him. All of which was obviously far more constructive than the Pakistani programme’s demands for mass death. As for its wretched song, I can remember when one of the great Pakistani Sufi musicians came to Britain with his band back around 1991. He performed in Bradford, I think, and the Beeb televised the concert late one evening. I watched some of it, as I was then trying to do a postgraduate degree in British Islam. What came across from the little I saw was the sheer joy of the musicians and the audience. Joy in their religion, joy in the music. No hate at all. Round about the same time there was a documentary about Islam, Living Islam, which attempted to give a positive view of the religion. When it came to Pakistani politics, the presenter admitted that yes, politically the Pakistani electorate did demand more Islam. When the politicians attempted to give it to them, however, they were much less enthusiastic. Looking back, this is a mistakenly optimistic view. But then, despite the continuing controversy over the Satanic Verses, in some ways the ’90s were far more optimistic when it came to race and religion than today. To many people, both Black and White, racism was declining as conditions for Blacks and minorities improved. Another piece of optimism that has vanished in recent years.
Some of the posts I’ve seen about it made the point that the country has bigger issues to worry about than blasphemy. The country is supposedly deteriorating economically, socially and politically. But I wonder if that wasn’t the point. It looks like a diversion, to get ordinary Pakistanis to look away from the country’s real, material problems. Just like the Conservative MP Lee Anderson wants his party to fight on the culture war issues, because Rishi Sunak’s material policies about the economy are terrible and indefensible.
Even so, the programme is still chilling for the hatred it was trying to stir up. Accusations of blasphemy have resulted in rioting, murder and assassination in Pakistan. In one particular insane case, a schoolgirl allegedly murdered her teacher. The teacher herself hadn’t actually blasphemed. The child merely dreamed that she had, and so attacked and killed her. In my previous post about this I worried that this could set off a wave of mass persecution. So were the ex-Muslims, one of whom urged people to post about this and add hashtags copying in the American embassy and British High Commission as it looked like this could lead to serious human rights violations. And there’s the additional problem that this fanaticism could easily spread over here. The rioting between Hindus and Muslims that erupted a few months ago was supposed to have been caused by radical preachers from India and Pakistan.
We really need preachers now to emphasise peace against all the bigots anywhere in the world trying to divide us with hatred.
‘It’s outrageous: Elon Musk paid a tax rate of about 3% while a rice trader in Uganda paid 40%. Inequality is literally killing us — and it’s time for leaders to take action. President Biden has just announced a plan to tax billionaires — and G20 leaders could take it global! Add your name to the call for the mega-rich to pay what they owe. Once it’s massive, we’ll deliver our voices to leaders ahead of the G20 summit.
n the past few years, the richest 1% of the world have acquired nearly twice as much money as the bottom 99%.
While Elon Musk paid a true tax rate of about 3% for years, a rice trader in Uganda paid 40%. She makes US$80 each month — and Musk is worth US$180 BILLION.
There is one clear way to help address this gap — we must Tax the Rich. And now is our chance. US President Biden just called for a historic tax on billionaires, and with enough public pressure, he could champion the idea at an upcoming meeting of world leaders.
A wealth tax of up to 5% on the ultra-rich could raise enough money to lift 2 billion people out of poverty! Let’s gather one million voices demanding G20 governments tax the rich now — add your name, and Avaaz will deliver our call ahead of the summit, where world leaders can’t miss it!
There’s a major flaw at the heart of tax systems around the world — they tax our income but not the whole wealth of the mega-millionaires and billionaires (their investments, stocks, yachts!!). But a wealth tax would force billionaires to pay what they really owe.
In 2021, 137 countries agreed to a new global corporate tax that was unthinkable even a few years ago — but much more is needed, and a billionaire wealth tax is the next step.
Spain recently adopted a wealth tax to help people with lower incomes, and President Biden just proposed to tax the wealth of the richest Americans! Now all our governments need to get behind taxing the rich — and a global movement like Avaaz can help make this happen.
G20 countries could agree to this game-changing solution at an upcoming summit — if they see massive public support for it. Add your name to this growing call, and the Avaaz team will make sure key leaders at the G20 summit hear us.
We will never stop fighting for the world that most humans aspire to, even if it means daring to face the most powerful. Together, we have challenged the biggest pharmaceutical and tech companies and braved Monsanto. Now we can overcome the influence of the ultra-rich.
With hope and determination,
Laura, Nell, Antonia, Luis, Alice, Lily, Muriel, Marta, Mélanie, Lilian, Ana Paula and the entire Avaaz team
*We use the term “true tax rate” as coined and calculated by ProPublica (2021) to refer to how much is paid in taxes annually in comparison to the estimated growth in wealth during that year. Elon Musk’s true tax rate, based on IRS leaked data, was 3.27% on average between 2014 and 2018.
I’ve signed it, because I think it’s so obvious that such a massively low tax rate for the super-rich is grossly unfair, especially as increasing it just a small amount could so much to life billions of out poverty. If you share my opinions, please feel free to sign it as well.
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