On Facebook, there were the usual well-meant pages set up in honour of the young man. Absolutely fine. A great way to show respect. Of course, not all the comments attached to the thread were quite so pleasant: the perpetrators were told to fuck off back to their desert shit holes; revenge was promised and of course, Britain should be for white Anglo-Saxons only. Wow! And that was just the start. This is the result of the UK's immigration policy. Too many foreigners - they should all fuck off, etc, etc.
Its kind of ironic that as the evening progressed, the two individuals were revealed to be a pair of South Londoners. Black, but British born.
Which kind of negates the whole desert shit hole thing. Unless of course, they should have fucked off too because they're black. Then presumably so should my wife. And my two kids. I can stay. Unless of course you want to go back three generations and then I can fuck off back to Eastern Europe.
I'm not religious. I'm one of those people who thinks that Karl Marx's theory was probably right: religion is there to dictate to us and guilt-trip us into behaving in a certain way. I think you can be spiritual without being religious. I accept that some people find enormous comfort in religion and good luck to them. But please, do not impose your shit on me. Seriously, no! I must admit that I despise Islamic fundamentalism and I can relate to the argument that is often put across that these individuals hate everything about us, want their own laws and often want to kill us. Well you know what you can do then. And shut the door on your way out! But peeps, these are a tiny - but admittedly dangerous - minority. You simply cannot tar the whole of Islam with the same brush. Looking at those two yesterday, it seemed clear to me that they had been indoctrinated but were not quite bright enough to get the message straight: "You people will never be safe. Remove your government, they don't care about you …. So get rid of them. Tell them to bring our troops back so you can all live in peace”. YOU people, YOUR government, OUR troops. I think you'll agree, mixed messages all round. And lets be honest, there are plenty of non-Islamist groups who would whole-heartedly agree with those sentiments. And many are white and British.
What depresses me is that it felt as if this was just what a lot of people were waiting for. The moment that this awful crime was committed, the floodgates of hate opened. And of course out came the English Defence League to attack the mosques. And scream at anyone with a dark face.
It is difficult to argue against the view that there is currently insufficient control to stem immigration to the UK. Our NHS wasn't designed to pay for visitors with large families to enter the country for freebies. I don't think it is unreasonable to expect those who rule o'er us to know exactly who is in the country, where they are and what they're up to. And those who come over should contribute. Pay their way.
Assuming that those boxes are ticked, we should welcome diversity. I like living in a cosmopolitan country. Instead of blaming migrants for taking our housing, why not put the large numbers of empty properties in the UK to good use?
On a slightly different tack, I've been reading with interest about the long-standing disagreement between Sergio Garcia and Tiger Woods, culminating in a speech by Garcia in which he joked that during the US Open, he'd have Woods over for fried chicken every night. And guess what? America is up in arms! Garcia's a racist! From a country which practiced apartheid only 50 years ago. It was 1955 that Rosa Parks was arrested for refusing to give her seat up to a white woman (in a 'Blacks Only' section of a bus, don't you know). It was after Kennedy's time that matters improved. Except down South of course.
I really want Tiger Woods to break Jack Nicklaus' record for major titles. But lets be truthful: he is a morally bankrupt, ill-mannered, arrogant bastard who pushes the boundaries of fairness to win. That is why Garcia dislikes him. Woods has no right to take the moral high ground here. and America needs to wake up to itself.
* R.I.P Drummer Lee Rigby *
