Not too many moons ago I had the misfortune to pick up a daily newspaper in a fit of mild boredom, despite the fact that I knew it would have long-lasting consequences for my mental health. It was of the type that serves a particular ideology, and its insidious messages have a terrifying tenacity. Every time I open its pages I am beset with the fear that a disabled, vegetarian, right-wing Polish Muslim extremist is going to steal my car, run over the Queen, siphon off the petrol to thoroughly incinerate a swan (and with it the morals of England), before selling the rest to the Russians. This fear jostles for space with the urgent panic that a black lesbian is going to get into Oxford, take all my taxes in the process, lead a revolution with all the lazy lefties, make the whole country go on strike and then set up a curry factory in my conservatory. And that’s after I’ve finished hating all the single mothers popping out babies merely to claim benefits and eat crisps. And get obese. And cost the NHS millions in liposuction operations for themselves and their fat kids.
This newspaper claims to represent the views of a ‘silent majority’, and act in the name of free speech. Recently, a columnist had a bit of beef (oh, the wit) with Kelloggs. In fact he vented his spleen quite exhaustively in an acerbic little piece about Kelloggs’ decision to add a Halal logo to boxes, letting its customers know that they can safely eat the contents within. Well. What fresh hell? He made it quite clear that he hopes the presence of Muslims in England is a temporary measure, something to be endured under extreme sufferance. He exhorted his readers (acolytes) to boycott all of Kelloggs’ cereals to make a stand against this decision, and then, if the need for processed wheat grew too strong, to write to Kelloggs asking the company to produce two types of boxes, one with the Halal logo on it, and one with a little cross “because this is still a Christian country”. I say, why stop there? Why not just go the whole hog (there I go again) and divide supermarkets down the middle, with separate doors, one emblazoned ‘Saracens’ and the other ‘Crusaders’? There, people will finally be able to shop in peace. Except for me. I will be stood in the war-torn cereal aisle, stained with the blood of earlier battles, anxiously dreading the day that porridge oats are banned to those without blue eyes.
Racism; it really is quite boring. The story never changes. It can be charted quite clearly in the annals of popular opinion (dependent upon which newspapers you read). I remember a time when to be Jewish in England was quite the social faux pas. The idea that a Jewish magnate could own a factory and employ a number of white Christians was somewhat of an embarrassment. And then the Nazis came to power and we got so outraged that another country was trying to take the mantle of imperialism from us, that we immediately decided we hated the Germans and the Jews were all right, really. This lasted long enough for us to develop an ingrained mistrust of any Teuton. We also were not fond of the Italians at this stage, but then we got all wound up about the Japanese, so we quickly liked the Italians again. Then, taking our lead from the States, the Soviets started getting under our skin and so any kind of person with Slavic looks became a bit of a no-no, (cold eyes). Then Windrush got our backs up a bit, and thanks to Powell we had some excellent of Rivers of Blood imagery to support our discrimination. What next? I suppose we all dealt with the fact that maybe, just maybe, a black family may move into town and probably wasn’t going to do any harm. Then we got all excited about being ‘multi-cultural’, and we started being ok with having an Indian doctor – as long as they weren’t Islamic. Hindus were really quite all right, because they were all cute and hippy and didn’t talk like the Old Testament, like the Muslims did. And then 9/11 happened, and all of a sudden all this vague mistrust of Muslims was cemented by America’s reaction and the subsequent press reportage.
The post-9/11 stage is when we realise that the Pakistani family who live near Asda looked a bit threatening last week and so we chuck in some race riots just for the giggle of it; this is perfectly justified though, because the Pakistani taxi drivers don’t even know the right way to your house because they have sat-nav. And maybe whilst we’re still coping with the Muslim debacle, a Polish bloke moves in next door to someone who you used to go to school with. There may be a slight chance that they got their council house kitchen painted a day before your old school chum, so suddenly the Poles are the problem! Thank goodness! They must be the reason why you can’t get a job. It has nothing to do with the government or the bankers or the fact that capitalism sowed its own seeds of destruction before it even existed.
Those familiar with George Orwell’s prophetic 1984 may liken all of the UK’s complicated hatred and counter-hatred to the Party’s oligarchical leadership of Oceania, in which Oceania was constantly at war with Eurasia and allied with Eastasia, unless they were at war with Eastasia and allied with Eurasia. And every time the Party’s allegiance changed, so the newspapers and history books were edited to suit the current political climate. This perpetual war existed mainly to justify the poverty in which the middle-class Outer Party and lower-class Proles lived. It was a lot harder to actively blame the ruling elite for their poor leadership and much easier to simply accept an ever-changing enemy as scapegoat. At this stage, a cacophony of alarm bells should be ringing.
As a mild suggestion to the many readers of right-wing dailies, why not simply Just Say No? Instead of allowing a bitter columnist to dictate to you the terms of your hatred, I implore you to look beyond religion and skin colour and class to see the machinations of a society that treats you as a mere puppet. Someone put your emotions on strings long ago, and you’re dancing to their tune.
Leah Ellis
Image: adapted from secretlondon123′s photo on Flickr
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