Our towns, cities and communities have been under the spotlight over the last week or so. Images of violence, hatred and anger have seeped into our living rooms as the nation appeared to be descending into an anarchic meltdown.
Forget the stats, it doesn’t matter that the numbers were in the high hundreds / low thousands among a population of 67 million.
This was a representative slice of the British public who were out on the streets for a variety of reasons, which ranged from absurd ignorance to deeply felt, genuine concern.
Freedom of thought, speech and protest means that you will have to endure the sights and sounds of people you profoundly disagree with. That’s the point of liberal democracy. If you only want to hear the words of folks that you agree with, you’re no democrat.
Drawing the lines has been the unenviable task of politicians, publishers, police and the justice system since god was a boy. British society has flexed from rigid conformism to outright ‘anything goes’ throughout our history.
We have enjoyed times of great national unity (Blitz spirit of the early 1940s, the beautiful summer of love in 1967 and the equally beautiful Olympic summer of 2012).
We have also known times of splintered disunity (we’ll leave the civil war of the 1640s out of this, but the rioting season of 1981 and the Brexit traumas are recent enough for reference).
Immigration is the hottest political potato of the last 30 years. The main parties have steered clear of discussion, as both Labour and Conservative been active in swelling the numbers whilst claiming to be in favour of reduction. Campaign with firmness, govern with open doors.
The impact of mass population growth (as cited by Nigel Farage et al) is true. Housing, health, transport and all public services are put under intolerable strain as the investment in them does not match the increased demand.
Whose fault is that? Not the immigrant. Whatever spin you may like to put on it. The culpable governing class, with rich friends, international investors to keep sweet and shackling low wages to maintain have created this lowest common denominator economy.
So if you can’t get a place to rent or buy, can’t see a dentist, lose out on the 8.00 doctor’s surgery lottery every day – don’t blame the immigrants. They are – by and large – the ones who come to make a better life for themselves, want to work hard, get a stake in their adopted country and build a better life for their children to inherit.
Are there bad ones? Oh yes. There are people coming into our country who mean us harm, do not ascribe to our values and will take advantage of our liberal laws to exploit what they see as our weaknesses and get away with it. They are violent, full of hatred and have no place in our society, making the lives of others miserable through modern slavery, medieval beliefs and spit the poison of extremist bile.
But even these acknowledged truths do not give us the full picture. We cannot view the experience on our own country (and indeed France, Germany, Italy and other stretched European nations) in isolation.
I was a teenage supporter of Band Aid/ Live Aid. We changed the world – a little bit. By advocating love and support in an age of apparent self-centred greed (oh the 80s!) we stood up and were counted in our millions.
How little we knew in our innocence that the conspiracy of European tariffs would continue decades beyond, to keep Africa on its knees and dependent on handouts, rather than enabling her to trade her way out of poverty.
Having worked happily with dictators in the Middle East for decades, we took umbrage firstly with Saddam Hussein, then the Taliban, then Mubarak in Egypt and Gaddafi in Libya. The million-dollar military hardware we sold them for years couldn’t compete with billion dollar hardware we dropped on them. Absolute, glorious chaos across the region.
And now we condemn the refugees and asylum seekers that come from those countries which we destroyed, for having the cheek to ask for a chance to rebuild their lives here. A simplified version I grant you, but you get the point.
So who gets hurt in this brave new world? The ordinary folks, of course. The Brits who can’t get a decent paying job, a foot on the housing ladder, public services of any kind. The immigrants, who want to get ahead but face suspicion, hostility and blame for things they have no control over.
Who gets ahead? The same ruling class who pits us against each other. And they continue to make it happen. The riots, the violence, the orchestrated division and hatred that ensure that there is no collective realisation of where the fault lies. The ignorant foot soldiers stir the pot on their behalf and the decent-minded folk turn out in opposition. Divide and rule in the oldest fashion of humanity.
Who do I blame? Those ones who get rich on the minimum wage earning masses, who simultaneously avoid paying their taxes that could substantially fund the creaking public services. Those who remotely stoke the fires of conflict to divert attention from the obscene inequalities in our nation.
The protests will fade. We’ll get back to football, bingo, and of course Strictly starts soon. All will calm down. And hopefully in calmer waters, those threads that bind us together will strengthen again.
We will never achieve equality. I’m sorry if that sounds pessimistic, but the nature of a capitalist society means that there will always be winners and losers, haves and have-nots.
But we can hope that most British of values – fairness – will have a resonant renaissance, as we look to heal the wounds of this summer of discontent.
Your servant
MC
Mark Cundy 