I’ve rambled on a little more than intended and once again I’m not editing or checking my post (I won’t make a habit of this. Honestly) so I apologise for the numerous grammatical problems and nonsensical sentences which I’m sure litter the text.
There’s something reassuring about living in a valley where some members of the populace have decided to embark on an anti-Muslim march. Of course, I’m redefining ‘reassuring’ to mean ‘nauseating’. This goose-stepping aggregation will be making their way from one end of the valley to t’other at the end of February, abusing people as they go. And in all honesty, there’s nothing even remotely surprising about it. There has always been a racist element in the valleys [1]. Several years ago, my family was on the receiving end of racist abuse due to the fact that my stepfather just happened to be a Pakistani muslim and the muslim card was only played after 9-11. Before the terrorist attacks, the abuse was centered firmly on his nationality.
The confusing thing about the proposed march from our local, intellectually crippled fascists, is that the Facebook page specifically targets ‘musslims’. With this in mind, I have to question their reasoning [2]. My home valley is predominantly caucasian and apparently largely Christian. To clarify this statement, allow me to whip some stats from the 2001 census [3]:
Ethnicity: White – 98.8%; largest minority ethnic – negligable (the Chinese hold a Welsh rank of 0.2%).
Religion: Christian – 64.9%; no religion – 25.3%; Muslim – 0.2% (slightly more than Hindu, Sikh, Jewish and Buddhist which all came in with 0.1% [4])
Though these figures are from 2001, we do not experience a great deal of population turnover so it’s highly unlikely that there has been much change. Which begs a number of questions, none of which the Facebook attendees (125 at last count. Which should translate into around 5 actual attendees. Hopefully) will be asking themselves. A look at the wall posts for that particular event are illunimatory to say the least. ‘Nails in sticks’ are mentioned, as are ‘steel toe caps’ and the desire to support local businesses, not ‘forgin’ ones. I wonder whether the poster of that last comment shops at Tesco and Asda. But I digress. Given the ethnic and religious composition of this valley, what do they hope to gain? Apart from spreading a message of hate and intolerance, what’s the point? There’s not a bustling muslim community to terrorise and I daresay that anyone who would support the BNP already does so (and more shame on them).
They should drop the facade of relgious indignation. They don’t hate muslims any more or less than they hate anyone from Southern Asia or the Middle East [5]. I’ll go out on a limb and say that they weren’t overly affected by 9-11, if at all, and their Christian sensibilities are so buried/hidden/ignored/absent that they haven’t been whipped into a frenzy of righteous fury by the actions of muslims anywhere in the world. But of course it’s not that complicated; these people are deeply and inherently racist. I, like all right-thinking people, will always question their rationale and motivation because I actually have a sense of morality, equality and all that good stuff.
Fortunately, the fascists are in the minority, and then some. And I take some solace from the fact that the Facebook group members list is bereft of faces or names I recognise. If this march does occur, I sincerely hope it disgusts all it encounters.
“Racism is a refuge for the ignorant. It seeks to divide and to destroy. It is the enemy of freedom, and deserves to be met head-on and stamped out. “
Pierre Berton
[1] Exemplified by my father telling me that he didn’t trust ‘them’ because he was ‘racialist’. We had a strained relationship before that and a non-existent one afterwards. Straw, camel, etc.
[2] Not that their reasoning is otherwise sound of course.
[3] http://www.statistics.gov.uk/census2001/profiles/00PF-A.asp
[4] No mention of Jedi. Curious.
[5] There don’t seem to be quite the same hang-ups about East and Southeastern Asia.
