A nation at unease with itself

 

Subject: A nation at unease with itself.



Are we losing our ability to feel our identity in being a nation. To align ourselves with others on the street or on the bus and only feel secure in the isolation of our car, and draw a blind around what is happening in the rest of our country.
Armistice day was a day of solemn reflection, a day to remember the dead of past wars. The march to support Palestine in the conflict with Israel runs counter to remembering the fallen of past conflicts, other than its significance to the fallen in Gaza and in Israel.
Conflict is a human reaction to something we don’t agree with and  can’t be resolved by conversation, it spills over through frustration into violence and it was violence the police feared as peaceful Palestinian supporting protesters might come into contact with peaceful Israeli supporting protesters. In actual fact the violence came from the far right anti immigrant group who seem to contain the deranged thugs who travel the country during the football season to have fights in the car park against the local football clubs thugs each fancying violence to the actual game. It seems a remnant of the masculine need to protect oneself and the family before the creation of a police force was formed to do the job for us. Pity the Bobby who has to confront these drug fuelled yobs but I have a sneaky feeling that amongst the police there are their equivalents, guys who get a kick out of being in a violent rumpus knowing, (until recently) that you had the weight of public opinion behind you. Today with media claims of racist bias and the revelation of the rogue cop who ranks with the most depraved the police have to deal with the force has become tarnished but never the less  are still the best answer we have of keeping the zealots apart and away from us.
In a twisted way we have pursued the assumption that, give and take, we are all the same deep down, consumerist working hard to make a better life for ourselves but what if the innate culture we have discarded, of church and society is the very substance of the belief system that sustains so many of those who arrived here to settle. Little or no attempt was made to assimilate these people who arrived, in fact they were encouraged into ghettos by their own need to be surrounded by what was familiar, their language and religion.  
As we become more secular, more independent they have drawn substance from their creed and colour, it’s become a badge of recognition just as we demoted much of our own recognition system seeking to placate to the call of multiculturalism. It might have been a worthy cause but it never asked the question “ would they want us “. We are not a happy sight for a conservative muslim. Our women are to often scantily dressed and highly promiscuous and their need to consume so much alcohol on a night out goes against all the teachings of the Prophet, teachings they value and place so much store on for much of their lives. Our own religious persuasion  if there is any has led us to set aside religion for the earthy belief in the goodness of our neighbour and the statesmanship of our political leaders but unfortunately, on both counts we have failed to secure a solid foundation on which to base a strong  psychological home. We are emotionally cast like chaff in the wind to the vicissitudes of events and their reporting on social media.
And so, upset with our leaders and their apparent deaf eared approach to the concerns of the poor who feel they are never listened to, the state of this disintegration of trust, in what we might call if we dare the indigo is the largest cohort of our population has led to the formation of outliers such the English Defence League (EDL), an unsavoury bunch but who at least call for a halt to the things which alienate so many people, unbridled multiculturalism through unrelenting immigration. Labour in its attempt to gain the middle ground has deliberately left behind the concerns of ‘white van man’ and the social fabric of places such as Dagenham & Redbridge. The labour Westminster politician no longer represent the people of Bradford or Rochdale and instead rely on the glib obfuscation. of Keir Starmer or the soft shoe shuffle of Yvette Cooper to explain their avoidance on issues which members of the old Labour Party would certainly have addressed.