Excessive Immigration

by Winston C Banks

  Birmingham City University in 2017 launched a Black Studies degree which aims not only to deconstruct whiteness and white institutions with roots in transatlantic slavery, and to focus on black history and current politics, but also to explicitly encourage radical political activism. The course is led by Kehinde Andrews, who has made numerous media appearances and writes in The Guardian calling for massive reparations for people of the African diaspora, and related black topics. Andrews has also complained about the dominance of European philosophers and other scholars (the perennially mocked ‘dead white men’) in the UK university curriculum, and asserts that the Enlightenment itself was racist. (Marks, 2017, has also argued that science too is racist.) Andrews and his colleagues call for academia to be ‘liberated’ from racism and agitates for many more black professors to be appointed. In 2011, it was found that 0.4% of professors were black (a total of 50, which in 2016 had risen to 85) and 3.7% were Asian (Shepherd, 2011). Yet if only 3% of the total UK population are black and only 13% are in total inclusively BAME, a fairly low percentage would be expected; and why would Asian academics do better than blacks if skin-colour prejudice was operating? And why would institutional racism exist in universities, which are so heavily PC and eager to demonstrate it?

  That the hijacking of a department of a publicly funded university for the purposes of political propaganda is allowed says much about modern Britain and its capitulation via white guilt to Cultural Marxism. We need to ‘democratise the knowledge that is taught’ in our ‘neocolonial economic order’, according to Andrews, which appears to mean focusing relentlessly on slavery, genocide, and colonialism. A comprehensive course on black studies would in fact include attention to the views of those blacks who do not share this overwhelmingly left-wing position. There is no way a politicised course focusing on ‘white capitalist’ themes, on the liberation of the white working class, or critiques of multiculturalism, would be similarly allowed and funded. Yet organisations like The Guardian, the London School of Economics, and the Runnymede Trust relentlessly encourage such initiatives (Alexander & Arday, 2015). University College London (UCL) now has a group of activists pushing the theme of Dismantling the Master’s House (http://www.dtmh.ucl.ac.uk/).

  Among non-white academic activists there is a growing worldwide subversive movement. Those identifying as representatives of the Global South (especially some South American and African academics) promote the view that modernity is characterised by slavery, colonialism, and racism, and their prolific jargon includes use of the terms coloniality, racial capitalism, anti-capitalism, de-Westernisation, epistemicide (Santos, 2014), cognitive justice, democratisation of knowledge (Hall, 2015), southern theory, and black reason (Mbembe, 2017). Eurocentricity has oppressed the Global South for centuries but is now in decline, as southerners reclaim their rightful heritage. It is now a familiar idea that Western science and reason are founded on unquestioned cultural chauvinism and the silencing of other knowledge systems. Unfortunately, this last assertion leads to opposition to the dominance of the so-called ‘Western canon’ and the argument that traditional healing, for example, is as valid as Western medicine. South Africa’s traditional healers, for example, believe in and call on the power of their ancestors, engage in animal sacrifice and speaking in tongues to effect cures, and we are asked to accept such claims, which are even backed by UNESCO. Many of us Westerners, however, believe that our knowledge base is superior and defend the worldwide gains of the Enlightenment (Pinker, 2018). It is one thing to leave people in other cultures to such practices — and to suffer when their unscientific cures fail to work — but quite another to agree to them being imported to the West, as they already are in Canada (Moodley, 2005; Salzman, 2017). It would also be extremely naïve of us to fail to realise that such literature is merely the thin edge of another wedge of the semi-covert international socialist movement.

  One area of academic psychology that is pertinent to our discussion but often made relatively little of is terror management theory (TMT). This rests on the idea that most human beings are extremely anxious when reminded of their mortality and will do almost anything to avoid facing the reality of their personal death, annihilation and meaninglessness. Since one of the major institutions supporting this denial is religion, we have been willing to believe in God, an afterlife and other miracle claims, and not only to believe in these but to defend them to the death. Threats from adherents from competing religions, from apostates within one’s own religion, or atheists, are likely to be met aggressively by some (Greenberg and Kosloff, 2008; and see ISIS, 2017). Such an explanation helps to put the actions of ISIS — which some call a death cult — into context. By showing supposed strict adherence to Allah and to Quranic instructions, being willing to die in the ‘knowledge’ that you will go to paradise as a martyr, and gladly beheading infidels, jihadis transcend the unconscious fear of death as well as reinforcing the fear of death in infidels. The belief that Allah demands that you reclaim the whole earth and enjoin everyone to surrender to Allah leads to a fearless death-defying battle against the infidel West. But TMT also applies to other beliefs, such as political allegiances and group loyalties, and can assist us in understanding interracial and intercultural conflicts. Although some of us can entertain ideas that challenge our most prized beliefs, most of us appear to have a threshold of tolerance beyond which we cannot go, arguably because we would then have to face life’s contingency and our own nothingness whether we are white or black.

  The pity of academia and its many decades of earnest social science research is that we are almost certainly no further forward in an understanding of or solutions to humankind’s pressing problems. Society seems to rely superstitiously on the academic world for objective evaluation which is not forthcoming. Academics take themselves very seriously and rarely admit to their limitations. We do not yet really know definitively about the realities of territorialism, optimal population, psychological tribalism, race, IQ, multiculturalism and racism. Racism is often treated as an attitude and action of voluntary hatred but it is little investigated as a possible cognitive error, or as belonging in the category of the psychopathological. (See, however, the Journal of Hate Studies for a range of scholarly views.) Many Jewish psychoanalysts have argued that anti-Semitism is a psychological sickness to be treated clinically (Simmel, 1946). Vast speculative tomes have been written on the authoritarian personality, the mass psychology of fascism, and human destructiveness. The Jewish psychologist Ervin Staub (2003), a child survivor of the Holocaust, spent decades researching the roots of racism, hate and violence in terms of good and evil, of ‘us and them differentiation’, bystanding, altruism and heroic helping, but has arguably had little impact.

  Urban anthropologists and sociologists using the concept of superdiversity acknowledge the complexities of immigration, for example the interplay of indigenous, old migrant and new migrant behaviours, but treat the subject as if it is not problematic and in a tacitly left-wing manner (e.g. Goodson & Grzymala-Kazlowska, 2017). We have an ongoing stalemate as regards genetic and cultural contributions to pertinent adversarial beliefs, dual-inheritance theory and other unproven ideas notwithstanding: we do not really know how genes and culture interrelate, nor what the timespan is for gene-culture changes to take effect.

  As part of its campaign to undermine Brexit, The Guardian included a dialogue between anti-Brexit politician Nick Clegg and Richard Thaler, 2017 Nobel Prize winner for economics (Lynskey, 2017). Both have families with immigrant backgrounds and both have had very privileged lives. Thaler’s specialism is decision-making in behavioural finance. In this dialogue which dismissively equates Brexit voters with Trump voters, Thaler says, ‘As someone who’s been coming to London for many years, I can tell you that immigrants have made London spectacularly better in every possible way’. Exactly which non-anecdotal measures he uses to determine this provocative and hyperbolic claim, I do not know. As someone who was born in London and has seen huge chang
es that are almost certainly not all for the best, I have to disagree with this eminent academic (and see Judah, 2016, for example). As we know, economists are not always correct in their predictions, and Nobel Prizes are not always awarded for the best reasons (consider Obama’s 2009 Peace Prize, and his support for the anti-Brexit campaign in 2016). Some Nobel Prize winners find their reputations trashed by SJWs (notoriously, James Watson and James Hunt); and the eleven judges who upheld the challenge against the Brexit process brought by Gina Miller and others in 2017 were not trusted as objective by Brexit voters. If it needs spelling out, experts are not above subjective and cultural bias; and not quite all, merely most, academics are anti-Brexit (Anonymous Academic, 2017; Scruton, 2017; Sked, 2017).

  We can see with hindsight that some legislation like the 1948 Nationality Act, which in effect threw Britain’s doors open to a potential 400 million colonial citizens, was ill-judged (Goodhart, 2014), only to be followed by another open invitation to 500 million EU citizens in 1992 with no associated contingency planning. Likewise, some government actions on immigration have been obviously mismanaged, but the study of history teaches little of actual practical usefulness for the future. The prolific social geography academic Danny Dorling is a well-known, Guardian-beloved British socialist whose works argue relentlessly for economic equality and project naïve optimism about managing a future world population of ten million (Dorling, 2013). Academic work such as Putnam’s (2007) is especially important for understanding social trust in densely multicultural societies, and yet the idea that trust declines between racially different communities and is at odds with the idea that increased ‘bridging’ activities bolster trust, is inconclusive. We can see that ancient monotheistic religions are built on pre-scientific, non-rational myths, and we go some way towards deconstructing them today. But we are less assured about how and when the human diaspora from Africa occurred about 50,000 to 100,000 years ago, how we have been evolving since then, and what that means for us. But in the meantime, the tribe of ‘academic multiculturalists’ (Goodhart, 2014) can spin myriad competing theories that have no relevance to ordinary people.

  12

  Games Social Justice Warriors Play

  Let me again try to be clear what I mean by SJWs, many of whom would probably style themselves as anything from decent liberals to anti-racists, freedom fighters and anarchists. There are people directly affected by instances of unfairness or perceived unfairness who naturally seek betterment and justice for themselves. There are those on the mild or intellectually lazy left who assume that noisy anti-racist protests are always necessarily correct. Then there are young people who reflexively oppose everything perceived to be authoritarian or traditional. I have (almost) given up trying to have a conversation with anyone young and left-wing. Recently I was talking to a young female student who passionately threw the words ‘racist’ and ‘privileged’ around. She foresees the inevitable end of the nation state, the end of borders, and of sexual and gender categories. Her emotion on these issues allows for no dialogue, no patient reasoning, since she knows she is right. Like many of her generation she stands with the LGBT rainbow flag, the EU flag, and the principles of free movement and multiculturalism; indeed she loves urban diversity. But even she is not a highly active SJW. People who not only observe or approve of the major social changes under discussion here but passionately, politically will them, who shut down speakers they dislike, trash their opponents’ careers, and censor and besmirch views they hate — these are the hardcore SJWs. These are the purveyors of Cultural Marxism on their long and semi-stealthy march through the institutions.

  The naïvety of ordinary British people, but especially of those on the left forever defending the cause of oppressed foreigners, is astounding. There are admittedly warm-hearted journalists, probably quite genuine, who can only regard all refugees and most immigrants credulously (e.g. Kingsley, 2017). The UK’s Cities of Sanctuary movement is also well intentioned but has a naïve position on refugees. Contrast UKIP’s infamous poster in the 2016 Brexit campaign, depicting hordes of brown-skinned immigrants, with the Chinese artist and political activist Ai Weiwei’s internationally exhibited and celebrated installation of thousands of life jackets that were discarded by Mediterranean migrants. Both are crudely emotionally manipulative but Weiwei’s is ‘art’, not leftist propaganda!

  Cultural Marxists are adept at manipulation. Favourite lines of SJWs include the following. The UK must do its full share in taking in refugees, especially children, and all other migrants in need. Are you going to let children drown in the Mediterranean? Nobody sets out on a perilous journey across continents unless they are desperate. The UK must compensate for its past slave trade and colonialism. Monoculturalism is a terrible culture. White privilege is a terrible thing that everyone white has to check. Acceptance of low achievement and low IQ among blacks (even if accuracy) would become a self-fulfilling prophecy, so we have to boost the self-esteem of blacks. Nationality and borders are mere social constructs. Where you were born is an accident of birth. The EU has preserved peace in Europe for over 70 years. Brexit is the most stupid, xenophobic, bigoted decision ever. We need immigrants to support our ageing population. Not to welcome immigrants is tantamount to Nazism. And so on, a well-known litany of uncritical guilt-inducing mantras. The militant PC/CM/SJW mob have an answer for everything, or at least a formula for propaganda, and this is in line with a twisted subaltern ideology (Horowitz, 2016).

  ‘What is actually a legal and logistical problem has been transformed into a kulturkampf by politicians who know that fomenting fears wins votes’, writes one Guardian contributor, whose book goes into detail on the alleged inhumanity of the West’s treatment of refugees (Polakow-Suransky, 2017). The article conflates right-wing with far-right, and warns Europe not to emulate the fascistic policies of Australia, which include offshoring refugees on the inhospitable island of Nauru. The mass refugee problem is not solved by adding to the pull factors, runs the Australian solution, but by making refuge decidedly temporary and uncomfortable. Polakow-Suransky’s argument and tone is wholly within the SJW mode of endless compassion for and accommodation of migrants, moral condemnation of all who object to mass immigration, and no practical solutions. It links with the artful rebuttal often made by SJWs to protests about excessive immigration — ‘how many are too many?’ — as if only a spuriously precise figure can satisfy objections. But some in the USA have been posing just this question, not only from the right but also from the political left (Cafaro, 2015). America has extensive experience of processing immigrants, including its famous Ellis Island and Angel Island, whose range of assessment criteria and services spanned practical, financial, health and eugenics considerations. Nazi Germany will be long remembered for brutally rounding up and transporting citizens deemed undesirable to concentration camps for industrial-scale executions and disposal. Refugee camps from Sangatte to the ‘Calais Jungle’ in France, and other makeshift shanty towns and tent cities around the world accommodating from between 10,000 to 100,000 testify to the nature of the problem and to degrees of compassion, partial solutions, inhumanity and genocide. Many SJWs would if they could roll out a welcoming red carpet to all with free housing and benefits provided.

  Some of these people are academics but many are dreamy young anarchists and anti-capitalists dedicated to oikophobia and the overthrow of Western civilisation; or sometimes just wanting to give the right a good kicking. The evidence suggests that somewhere between about 52% and up to 75% of the British public wants to reduce immigration (Migration Observatory, 2016), yet the consortium of we-know-best, PC and anti-racist SJWs dispute this, vilifying this large section of the public as xenophobes, and see it as their task to convert this view to the correct one, or seek to subvert majoritarian democratic wishes. One Labour adviser is famously said to have used the phrase that Labour wanted to ‘rub the Right’s nose in diversity’ in 1997 — 2010 by facilitating mass immigration which would help swing vo
tes towards Labour. Lord Peter Mandelson later confirmed this policy had operated and said that Labour even ‘sent out search parties’ for foreign workers (Shipman, 2013). Britain does indeed continue to deliberately recruit foreign workers such as nurses after failing to train enough in Britain. SJWs who embrace radical anti-establishment actions against capitalism and its right-wing defenders have nothing whatsoever with which to replace it, or nothing of a practical nature; they only have anti-establishment emotion, dogma and propaganda. They are not honest about their intentions, and often invent and hide behind ad hoc angry websites, protests and changeable names: Movement for Justice, Black Lives Matter, Hope Not Hate, Sans Papiers, Occupy, Stop Funding Hate, etc.