We are not supposed to know

 Subject: We are not supposed to know.

Listening to Chief Operating Officers of both Heathrow Airport and of the Hotel Industry (both incidentally women, the gender based glass ceiling has its holes) one was witness to a display of people defending the indefensible.

The reason for their appearance in front of one of the political committees in parliament was the problems experienced by passengers of delays of up to 6 hours from disembarking from the aircraft and walking  to freedom through the front door.

Slowly the government has woken up to the threat of the virus being carried in from outside the country by passengers and after many pleas to the effect that people are not having checks as they pass through the airport, a set of requirement are now in place.

If you enjoyed the “Carry On” farces which were popular in the 80s and 90s they were based on a comedy of errors, people doing stupid things. Well we now have another farce this time with life threatening consequences, enacted by the same set of comedy writers employed by Boris Johnson to script our passage through the pandemic.

First we had to lock down, or not to lock down, to close our schools, or not to close our schools, to inoculate our aged in the hospitals and the care homes or not to, to make available PPI or live in hope it wasn't needed or that maybe there would be enough.

Not really a "comedy of errors" but a "tragedy of errors" with a death rate then projected by our doughty Prime Minister at 20,000 but now reaching 125,000 and still  climbing.

It's almost an attitudinal thing with the British. Instead of saying at the outset what are the objectives and then putting in place the assets to meet that objective they start at the other end, "what is the least disruption we can get away with" and we must at any rate curtail any thought of a major spend until it's too late of course when due to circumstances which might have been avoided, we have to empty the bank.

These Executives, like the politicians in Westminster are coached to say as little as possible by using as many words as an interview allows, not answering direct questions and rather ploughing on with an agreed script is the preferred tactic which usually puts us all to sleep and no wiser. The Airport CEO spent most of the time defining how her system was designed to work whilst rigorously avoiding the sight of the queues which was the issue behind most of the questions. What sort of people can consistently deny reality as part of their job description, who can tell lies with a straight face and worse of all, keep a smile on it.

Maybe this new found disregard for the truth is part and parcel of the fakeness of our society today. Too much news, too much information disqualifies truth because truth is now commodified to suite the commodity and if that's to mislead people, so be it.

What worries me even more is that the people asking the questions seem complicit in the charade. There is little or no contradiction, no delving into the answer,  no palpable sense of disbelief. It seems to be a game. I'v asked my question, the answer seems irrelevant.

Where do we the public go for truth and reconciliation, where do we to find  answers. Perhaps that’s the answer, we are not supposed to know.

The reasons for being different

 

Subject: Reasons for being different.



Does racism describes an attitude, or a past grievances, a perceived indifference perhaps even intolerance and  why is speaking your mind, trying to explain,  even attempting to excuse these prejudice's so heinous.

Racism is about far more than skin colour. I would challenge anyone to say they don't have a prejudices or a dislike regarding some individual or group of individuals who project something you are not happy with.  Why is a certain types of prejudice off the scale whilst others merely acknowledge where you grew up and which local prejudice you imbibed, (being a Yorkshireman for instance).

The term "modern Britain" used these days is itself a qualification. By quoting 'modern' Britain it's implicit that there must have been a less modern Britain, a Britain populated by people with different ideas because the country they lived in was different. Using the term modern implies better as if anything modern is an improvement. The question then has to be asked, which was better, or more representative of the majority living here. Can we in fact differentiate the individual from the majority when in the 1950s the influx of people from countries with different ideological persuasions, different norms, different cultures changed the demographic landscape tremendously, especially in the cities and effectively forced upon us, much like an invasion. Those ideologies, norms, and cultures had to be assimilated into the existing ideologies, norms and culture to make society work and was this change agreed and condoned by the occupants of the housing estates in Bradford, Leeds or Manchester.  No. 

The wholesale importation of labour was an economic decision and when one mentions economics, inevitably there are winners and losers usually the the beneficiaries are not ordinary wage earning people but the established wealthy, the mill owners sitting behind in their high walled, gated properties secure from any ramifications of their actions. 

In those days there was apartheid, not of white on black but white on white, a class divide, which goes back much further than any racial divide. 

It's hard to imagine that people who lived here 'pre 1950' didn't resent the influx of largely black people from all over the world who were encouraged to come and bolster our low wage economy and poor conditions with even poorer wages and longer hours just so the inefficient, under invested mills could attempt to compete with highly modernised  firms in Taiwan. 

The indignation felt by people living here towards race was seeded in the economics of 1950, by the dislocation/relocation of local people who had their own established interpersonal relationships. There were no social platforms to air their unhappiness, in those days one was expected to count your blessings and get on with life, no matter what it threw at you. Imagine the sons and daughters of those people today, living now in a society where the children of those immigrants continually complain of there own social and economic condition. It's the other face of that economic/race card which was brought to these shores,  in innocence, by their parents, who themselves were impervious to the discomfort of the 'pre 1950' working class Brit'

Anger and hostility are not the natural ingredients of a balanced society, and for the 'pre 1950' British men  and women, the balance was broken then. The trust in our superiors, the Establishment, to support us was destroyed and we struggle, to this day to find any sense of empathy for the lot of the poor white man and women. There are no representative groups speaking out for them on the media like there are for BAM or LGBT, there is not much said compared to the daily outpouring for the disadvantaged and at risk female. The 'poor whites' are the forgotten part of the social jigsaw and whilst their problems remain unaddressed you will continue to have social unrest.

None of this is made any easier by the repeated demand for concessions by minority groups on matters not yet evaluated or understood. We are supposed to go along with change, some of it good, some of it bad, we see our way of life threatened by forces such as authoritative  religions and tribal affiliations, arranged marriages, sexual grooming, (specifically in the Muslim Pakistan  community) the subservience of women in a patriarchal society (just when we have been convinced of the need for female equality) and a religious observance which is so different to our own.  Historically we had thrown off the stifling hold of authoritarian Catholicism in favour of the Protestant Church and now we are being asked to confirm and accept amongst us a far more conservative and disciplinarian religion, a politically active religion which strongly condemns  us for our historical role overseas and what it sees as our moral degeneration at home which has created in a short space of time a strong ideological  hold over parts of our community here in the UK. This importation of tribal and religious exclusivity and a value system where people in a different caste have far less value goes against everything we thought Britain stood for. This is not a question of learning to get along with a family from Des Moines in Iowa who moved in next door and speak in American riddles or the Lithuanian couple across the road who appear to live on dumplings and potatoes,  no the society is changing under our feet, forcing us to understand the significance of the burka and the factional hatred between Sunni and Shia. It's reigniting the claims of Saladin over the Knights of the Round Table a step back into the conflicts of the  Middle Ages.  

Is it any wonder that white people gaze with disbelief at their television screens, seeing the sons and daughters of those immigrants rant and rave about the injustice they feel living here and asking, time and again for the majority to make more adjustments to accommodate an ever longer set of complaints. 

Inclusion and the acceptance of diversity seems these days a one way street with traffic flowing in one direction. In this 'Woke' society where commentary is guarded by social ideology and where another kind of bigotry is established, we see people falling on their sword for practicing free speech and 'non Woke' people repeatedly maligned  for disagreeing with fundamentalism, a fundamentalism which will allow no such criticism of its own practice.  

A social dichotomy

 

Subject: A social dichotomy

One of the thing which has struck me since the Megan and Harry interview is how much hurt there is out there. People ringing in to say how alike they feel about being a mixed race couple living in this country, the mental anguish of somehow being judged for marrying someone you love.

I know that phone-ins distort reality since they attract people who either have an axe to grind or people who are vulnerable for other reasons. It gives a platform not only to have a gripe but one in which they are stimulated to share their deepest fears. The internet has provided everyone with a platform, a soap box which when I was growing up only attracted the strong minded who had something to say. Mental issues were locked away in the Institution. “Out of sight out of mind” was the motto for many things, Children with ‘learning difficulties’ were deemed stupid, hypersensitive kids were naughty, and kids who looked different were shunned. 

In today’s world human complexity is acknowledged and  welcomed in so far as its a challenge, not an obstacle but with the freedom to know and speak out, it seems that everyone has something to point at, to explain a condition which for most of us we had never heard of, it’s as if we assume  everyone can be judged the same whilst still keen to point out, my child is different. Mothers parade their child's medical and mental history to describe any variation or anomaly, they quote chapter and verse derails of their Google research and parade this newly found knowledge to all who will listen. Medical science and the psychoanalytical assumptions made by a shrink continually churn out new definitions, new parameters to describe and encapsulate our children, it's as if the unpronounceable condition was a badge of honour.

The airwaves have also been alive with a great deal of caustic comment towards those who dared disagree with the Royal couples version of events, the latest and most high profile casualty has been Piers Morgan, the combative ITV morning show presenter who on suggesting that he didn't believe that Megan had sort help from the Palace regarding her mental condition was then attacked by another guest on his show, and in a fit of pique Morgan stormed out and resigned.

This highlights that tempers and feelings are running high. Piers Morgans comments made on the show immediately drew a stinging rebuke from 41.000 people who complained through Ofcoms complaints procedure. Who were these 41.000 and what segment of the population do they represent. Were they a collective like 'Me Too' the feminist group, or were they part of that increasingly vocal BME group (Black and Minority Ethnic), maybe the LGBT community, who knows we only count the numbers who protest not their bias's. This process of identifying yourself with a group is becoming common, except of course if you identify with a white group because then you become racist. 

The ramifications for driving new and deeper wedges into an already disintegrating society will only lead to Populist Parties seizing the opportunity to make race an issue to vote on. We are in danger of becoming unstable, creating ghettos in many of the towns and cities. Obsessed with issues which illustrate the inherent pressure of a multicultural society, becoming tokenised by group think, the them and us claims which mount daily on our media platforms. Any actions taken, no matter how well meaning, only underscores the dichotomy already at work in our society.

The interview

 

Subject: The interview.

We are collectively followers of the herd and although determined not to be drawn into the Oprah Winfrey circus of feigned emotion I found myself, having come downstairs looking for baking soda (the poor man's antidote for stomach acid) switching on the TV whilst the soda took action. Up popped Oprah and her guests Harry and Megan with the interview already under way. We have been inundated with promos for this program, after all it was a salacious "tell all" about the Royal Family and who doesn't like a bit of gossip, especially about 'them'.

One never tires at looking at Megan. Her beauty has captured acres of print, her poise and that thing Diana had, that wounded look of a fawn caught in the public headlights invigorates some sort of male protectiveness. She uses her beauty, as all beautiful women do to captivate and twirl us around by their enchanting looks. In the interview her heavily made up eyes seemed at times on the verge of tears as she demurely held the hand of her Prince.

I felt the Prince came out of this interview with his head held high as he tried to explain his dilemma. Trying to find acceptance for his new bride, who clearly he is besotted with, into a difficult family full of overblown self important egos and slavish protocol.

How many men and women have faced this problem when their partner is not accepted by family, or the partners family, for a whole host of reasons. The cross current of comments and comparisons are a savage backdrop to any marriage and can destroy the best. .

In the Royal family the bloodline used to be paramount and many brides were found from aristocratic families to support a political end without much love or affection. Take the case of Charles and Diana. She was brought in to perpetuate the bloodline since Charles true love, Camilla was married and  illegitimised her from producing children for the realm and of course in Megan's case there was the added issue of colour.

I'm sure his American bride, used to emancipation and speaking her mind found the royal pecking order very difficult to handle, especially since she rightly held strong views about so many issues. The equally strong but on the surface at lest, placid Kate, Duchess of Cambridge,  who's knowledge of the pits and troughs of ancestral hierarchy, made her a better fit in ‘The Firm’ than Megan and was continually used to reminded us (and the Royals) who fitted the role of princess best. The newspapers provoked controversy with never ending photo shoot comparisons and it must have been hard for an outlier, from God's own country, America, to stomach this pip squeak country, its snobbery of our upper classes and their toady assistants.  

I wrote when Harry and Meghan first become an item that history was repeating itself.

Mrs Simpson who courted and married King Edward the VIII, and who's influence forced the King to abdicate for the woman he loved was also a strong willed American who's views and social standing, (she was also a divorcee), were an anathema to the sense of personal duty and responsibility so exemplified in the Queen.

The Soap Opera which ensued on our screens last night was a script made, not in Heaven but in the bowels of Windsor Castle, in its arcane procedure and convention, not in a Mills and Boons novel, broadcast across the world for untold millions of dollars,  and a multiple platform for who knows what commodity.

I was never a fan of Megan ever since the interview with her sister who warned of her character before the wedding. The relationship with the father speaks volumes, of a rift developing when he refused to censure publicly the comments Samantha (her half sister) had made about her The break with her dad therefore is about his loyalty to his other child which Megan sees as being disloyal to her. Plucked from the pages of Mills and Boon this sort of sibling rivalry has gone on since creation itself but in a woman as gifted as she is, with wealth and fame (which just might feature in a Mills and Boon scenario), I'm both in awe and on my guard when a woman uses her good looks to manipulate the storyline in this way.

Words have many meanings

 

Subject: Words have many meanings

Words have meanings but do they also have a differences. When I look at a dictionary there are a number of alternative words which describe loosely the meaning of another word. As human beings we accumulate thousands of words, some of which are specifically picked up in situations far different to another persons situation and therefore, their definition is coloured by where, when, how and under what circumstance they first learnt the word.

If we were to isolate people in a sealed environment much like Orwell's 'Brave New World' then words would take the meaning the 'directors of that world' wished to project but we know that some words have other meanings even when spelt the same way. How then do we differentiate between meaning other than by taking the context of the sentence in which the word is used. 

If we search our minds for context and through that search we embellish the meaning by adding our own context we are accused of many things, racism, bias, religious presumption, cynicism and much more and is of course the basis of so much misunderstanding, since my prejudice is different to yours. Is there in fact 'one' meaning or is the one meaning only suitable for one person.

Deconstructionism is the argument that historically words and meaning change and that attempts to inflate meaning into a truth is pointless, that the multiplicities and contingencies of human experience necessarily bring knowledge down to the local and specific level and challenge the centralising tendency to claim 'absolute truth'.

So when we hear that Megan Markle had heard that there were reservations in the royal household about the colour of her babies skin, it clearly demanded people making the statement should be ostracised. There are few who would hold a defence of such a statement in 2021 given the power for a need for racial harmony in these islands, (if for no other reason than white skinned people in this country will become a minority by 2050 so we better start watch our Ps and Qs, otherwise we might be in for a good old stoning).  

Of course it goes deeper than that, what on earth can skin colour have to do with describing a person. Do people of colour differ in any way from people who have a white or a yellow skin, are they in anyway the lesser or perhaps, even more superior because of their skin colour. Skin colour does represent cultures and attitudes since the very fact that skin couloir differs is through marriage and genetic breeding and in some of those societies which are of a different colour there is also a difference attitude to many social aspects of life. The discipline and the importance a  parent places on education for instance causes a child growing up in that society to value differently education from a western white child who makes assumptions about his or her rights. So skin colour used to be an indicator of what type of society you grew up in and what type of values may have. It was a generalisation but in a rough way had some validity. 

Listening to the debate on The Big Question the other day I was struck by the clarity of thought and the clear determination to be heard by Muslim women on the panel as they sort a reason to re-admit Shamima  Begum into this country. They were articulate and presented a 'tour de force' against the white people who didn't want to let her back. Some people would say this was prejudice at play, Begum was one of them, she was a member of the sisterhood and given the prejudice they see in all aspects of living in this country it's no wonder they are well honed on the subject. For the white people in the audience the subject of racism, or in Begums case the potential for terrorism, was an interesting debating point but they don't live the subject everyday. 

So here we have 'deconstruction' kicking in. Local affairs dominate, local prejudice dominates and if I were living in Pakistan my views would rightfully be very different.

Growing up in a bubble of white exclusivity such as the Royals it's hardly surprising that the colour of the child's skin did pass through their mind. Like Pavlov's dog they were groomed by the society they live in. They are not heinous for thinking in this way and I wish some of the strongest critics of our society would spend a couple of years living, not in a 5 star Beijing hotel but in one of the far flung Chinese provinces to see what being a 'White Devil' is like, not to mention what being a Muslim in China is like.

Maybe the Chinese are onto something.  Re-educate everyone might be the answer but I'm sure it wasn't on the mind of those equally privileged young women, who's parents  left the claustrophobic hold of an Islamic state to bring them here so they could have a platform to air their views.