Bank Holiday Monday, North London, and the adolescent boy suddenly emerged
from the shop doorway, a mobile-clutching friend beside him. “Excuse me,” he
said, “But do you know the way to the Tinseltown café, please?” I showed him
where to go, and he thanked me. If he had a gun, a knife, a cosh, a lack of
respect for authority or gang membership, he kept them well hidden. Was this
polite boy too, I asked myself on the way to Tesco, typical of modern
society? Or are violence and abuse the only things that count? They’re
certainly more exciting.
Two days earlier we were preparing to drive to my nephew’s wedding in Sussex
when a magazine called The Salisbury Review dropped through my letter-box.
Started up by the conservative philosopher, Roger Scruton and named after
the Victorian PM rather than the cathedral city, TSR describes itself as an
organ of thought, hoping to demonstrate that conservative opinion is
“varied, fertile and catholic”.
The articles, specially chosen from the last few years of the magazine’s
history, seemed to me to be neither varied nor catholic, and I had doubts
about their fertility. But they certainly did represent a strand of thinking
that I recognised from many letters, e-mails and Today’s Papers slots on the
radio.
There was “Labour’s war against our cultural heritage” in one piece, “the
assault on our traditional culture” in another. The superior and
specifically English nature of the idea of the countryside, as stewarded by
“the landowning class” was simultaneously praised and – since it is passing
– lamented. Also regretted was the abandonment of the “idea of a common
life” the rise of “unbridled individualism”, and in one purple Scruton
passage, “social decay: the decline in religious observance and local
customs; the rise of crime and violence; the pornocratic culture of the mass
media, the desecration of love and marriage . . .”. At this moment of
exploding spleen, my spellchecker had an problem with Scruton’s invented
word “pornocratic” and insisted on inserting “pancreatic”.
There was too much education nowadays, all of it in pseudo-subjects, the law
was encouraging social ills not combating them, it was becoming impossible
to describe gay men as “perverts”, and no one these days appeared to
understand why women priests were a bad idea. Und, as the Germans wearily
put it, so weiter.
The theme, as you may have gathered, was the many ills of modernity; change
was to be regretted. But if one alteration was worst of all, to judge by its
recurrence, it was the dilution of identity and the destruction of tradition
caused by immigration. The late Sir Alfred Sherman, writing in 2005, argues:
“Mass immigration underlies some of our problems; the tap must be turned
off: the flow of Muslims into countries like ours must be stopped.”
A poet called Raymond Tong avers that the optimum population for England is
about 27 million and that, had there been an English parliament then, the
English would have recognised long ago that the country was full. The
Anglo-Saxons, suggests Scruton, have been robbed, or have robbed themselves,
of their country.
There is no catholicity here, because everything must be getting worse. The
Germans have a word for this approach: Zweckpessimismus, or “calculated
pessimism”. Zweckpessimismus is the political “project” that informs the Daily
Mail and most forms of right-wing populism. It waxes at times when all you
hear or read about is gangs, murders and feral youth. The old ways are
changing, the new ways are worse. What we need is someone strong to say:
“Enough is enough!”.
The magazine tossed aside, we set off for the wedding. My nephew is my
sister’s oldest son, and the product of an inner-city comprehensive, a
campus university and of a mixed partnership between an Englishwoman and a
Greek Cypriot. He was getting married to a half-English, half-Namibian
woman. My brother-in-law sang a Greek wedding song. The bride’s Namibian
uncle, living in America, brought greetings from two continents and a motto
in one of the Ovambo languages. My sister read a poem.
Next week, in a way almost designed to provoke the Zweck-pessimists, the
Commission for Racial Equality will hold an online conference entitled Mixedness
and Mixing about the fastest-growing and youngest ethnic group in the United
Kingdom – those of mixed race.
According to the 2001 National Census, the numbers of mixed-race Britons grew
by 75 per cent during the 1990s; the evidence is that this trend has
continued, and half of them seemed to be at the wedding: coffee-coloured
kids with interesting hair were everywhere.
After the secular service their young parents – state-educated,
victim-acculturated, dumbed-down and identity-blurred – applauded the Greek
song and the Ovambo motto with the enthusiasm for life that that generation
seems to possess in such abundance. The motto, translated into English,
concerned the advantages of people moving from their home villages and
families, because in so doing they created a wider, bigger family. It was
anti-pessimismus.
Isn’t that also a way of looking at things? I am not trying to argue that gun
crime is something we should ignore or that migration is free of problems,
or that life isn’t hard for some or frightening for others. Just as there
are many reasons to be hopeful, I also am made fearful by violent computer
games and swearing kids. But I hold the magazine in one mind’s eye, and the
marriage in the other, and am more convinced that the world we are building
is represented by the latter.
So I want politicians who are not seduced by Zweckpessimismus. It worried me
when the Shadow Home Secretary, David Davis, seemed to suggest over the
weekend that firearm crime was in part the product of the Human Rights Act,
as though a gun-toting gang member had somehow started off on the slippery
slope of “rights” and fetched up thinking it was OK to shoot someone. This
just isn’t true, Mr Davis. You’d be more honest if you admitted that you
didn’t know why some people behaved so badly, and more honest still if you
admitted that it really doesn’t happen very often. All parties, but
particularly the Tories, should remind themselves of why it is so boring to
be told about a polite boy in the doorway.
I myself am the product of a mixed-race marriage, Mum is Colombian, Dad is British. It is a very happy marriage, and I'm glad to be brought up bilingually and biculturally. However, as David Goodhart pointed out a few years ago, there is such a thing as too much diversity. It undermines solidarity and community, and above all a shared identity. In much of London, aswell as parts of the Midlands cities, I seem to hear every language except (British) English being spoken. On the whole, ethnically homogeneous societies (Nordic countries, parts of the Far East) tend to be more peaceful and cohesive than ethnically diverse ones (us, the USA, most of Latin America etc.) precisely because people have a sense of unity, responsibility and solidarity with one another when they share things like history, ethnicity, culture and language. Shame David and other left-wingers don't seem to get this.
Nicholas Jones, swansea, wales
I don't always agree with Mr A. but this time I think he's got it right. The world as depicted by the media is one of constant violence, child abuse, kidnapping and murder; this does not bear any relation to the lives most of us lead. The vast majority of people whom one meets as one goes about one's day are polite and courteous, even friendly. The climate of fear that is all too prevalent in the UK (and in this comment column) is irrational and risks robbing us of the joie-de-vivre that we should rightly feel, simply because we are lucky enough to be alive. Bring on the cynical responses!
Dave C, Belfast,
Inter-marriage is a major component of social integration and creation and evolution of shared cultural values. Unfortunate then that muslims, particularly those of Pakistani origin, are the group most against inter-marriage in the UK.
Ted, Salisbury, Wiltshire
Yes yes, we know Mr A is 'media liberal' and so concurs with the BBC and Home Secretary when faced with inconvenient truths helpful to the common sense tradition
Yaya, Dalston, UK
I met a very polite youngster walking on the way home yesterday. He asked me if I had a cigarette, and not only did he say 'please' but he also refrained from hurling abuse at me when I said I didn't smoke and was unable to offer him a cigarette.
He looked about 10 or 11-years-old.
Robert, Manchester,
Emily W from Cambs - I take it your post is a joke? It had me in stitches!
alex p, manchester, uk
David, do the Germans also have the word "Zweckoptimismus"? I just wondered.
Ken Leyland, Liverpool, U.K.
David, I am inclined to agree with you as I mostly do but I am not convinced that we need to have one or t'other as you seem to suggest. Yes, broadly life is much better than in my memory but there are some bad things that need fixing. Your colleague Anatole got close but backed off again this morning. We need a solution to the problems of drugs and gun crime and we do need to find ways to be in control off immigration even if we do not intended to control it in any way that offends against the human rights act which we should defend to the last. More intelligent means of "punishment or more effective disincentives would in no way detract from progress to a better more liberal and tolerant society in which a polite young man is seen as nothing unusual and a most welcome addition to our society. I for one have little faith in our criminal justice system, our prison and probation service or for that matter a police force that is the last bastion of trades union power.
Michael Taylor, Delhi, india
The use of anecdote, preferably personal, appears to be a common method of attempting to refute well thought out commentary. Unfortunately, in our infantile culture, most people are glad to be swayed by the anedote, thereby saving themselves the effort of gaining a deeper undertanding of the point in question.
Carwyn, Risley,
"I also am made fearful by violent computer games".
Nice to see computer games being demonised as usual.
Sorry to disappoint you but the vast majority of people that play 'violent' computer games manage not to display any kind of violent or aggressive behaviour towards other people.
As a matter of fact, research shows that most gamers are around my age (mid-twenties) not gun-toting knife wielding teens.
If you don't like violent games then don't buy them and leave the rest of us, who happen to like them, alone.
Robin, London, UK
Its always amusing to read some of the comments, especially those who have had great pleasures thrust at them by friends. " Read the morning newspaper with coffee, sitting in the patio bathed in sunshine, then with friends we had an excellent lunch with bottles of fine wine,and at a very reasonable price of £55 each. The afternoon was spent lazing on the river bank and then home for dinner. What an excellent day !"
That's how many people see life in Britain today, a super car, a super house, with a super wife, and a mistress on the side of course, what a wonderful thing it is to be an Englishman.
All the problems people people say they have are nothing really, anyway,half of the stories are made up by those newspaper jounalists just to sell papers. All these young people stabbing and shooting each other, well its no different now than it was in the 60's and 70's , its just that people are moaning more. Sadly the country isn't going to the dogs, it already has,for many people.
Phil de Buquet, Newport, England
German also has the word Zweckoptimismus. People with this cast of mind can be as tedious as their opposite numbers.
Martin Litchfield, Wimborne,
So Aaronovitch is lucky enough to go to a wedding composed of personable people and concludes that 'Britain is not going to the dogs.'
He should get out more!
Some places see the influx of strangers without any of the colour.
Dennis Wills, Portsmouth, UK
Hey Dave, (or should that be Bananaman ?) a couple of weeks ago you wrote an article, saying that if a kid that drops litter in the street he is tomorrows potential violent offender. Then, a couple of weeks later, an 11 year gets gunned down, and because you recently had a pleasent experience, things aren't so bad after all.
You'll understand if I'm a little confused.
tosh, Manchester, UK
You are right in many important respects David, although you fall into a trap of assuming that mixed race marriage is something novel in this country. It is not - colour difference is the more recent feature of mixed race marriage to which you refer I think. I'm not sure what that tells us really. We have long had a reputation for being a pretty tolerant society by and large. Anyway, that aside, of course the level of gun crime - though clearly on the rise - is very small and so far limited to a number of geographic areas. And yes David Davis should confess that he knows no more about the reasons than anybody else. The media is culpable in the promulgation of Zweckpessimismus just as much as right wing think tanks. But we cannot overlook the sheer horror of what is happening and try to find ways to deal with it. For evil to prosper it only requires good people to do nothing - roughly speaking.
Tim, Kingston,
Ah you can always rely on Comrade Aaronovitch to 'spin' the mood.
Simon B, Surrey, UK
What you describe is integration and at its best. It is however the exception rather than the rule in this day and age. I think also, that what David Davis was trying to say was that the Human Rights Act has caused intense reluctance on the part of government and Law enforcement to get to grips with the lawless state we have drifted in to. The HRA is a well meaning piece of legislation, however its uses were never envisaged by the legislators at the time. The shootings on our streets are not something we can gloss over and ignore. We have to do something now. This may create a better climate for integration in our society.
Brian, London, UK
I take David Aaronovitch hasn't been set upon and left trembling in a welter of his own blood and urine recently.
Lawrence, Liverpool, England
"pornocratic" isn't an invented word, David. It means "government by or at the behest of prostitutes", and refers specifically to the papacy in the tenth century, where for several decades the Vatican was dominated by the machinations of a woman of easy virtue named Marozia. I don't think this is quite what Scruton had in mind, however.
Adrian Colhoun, Cambridge,
From what the other commentators have said it would appear that Zweckpessimismus is hard to shake off - or perhaps rubbishing the world around us just provides more pleasure than soberely assessing it. I've just come back from Manchester Pride where a solidarity built on diversity was forged seamlessly on that reborn city's streets. One guy there(coincidentally mixed race) went to extraordinary efforts to return my mobile phone. Perhaps he was a metropolitan liberal- but surely that just reinforces the quality of those values as opposed to the mean spirited conservatism often voiced in these pages. I have friends from all over the world in this country - attracted by its fast paced vibrancy and liberal accepting culture. We have created a golden age in Britain - light years away from our drab post war past. Lets celebrate what we now boast -rather than continually bemoan what we still lack.
David Brownbill, London, UK
Few would doubt that there are positive examples of adolescent boys or inter-racial success, to lay such weight on these examples is pedantic with the author merely playing directly into the hands of the nationalists.
I live in east London, and have been approached by the BNP more times than I can remember, and what shocks me every single time is their complete fixation not on abstract examples - like the one above - or even patronising and over-simplified slogans, ala Lib/Lab/Con, but on simple and unquestionable fact: white flight from east London into Essex is a demographic phenomena that cannot be attributed to neo-Marxist economic excuses; the deliberate nurturing and promotion of foreign (indeed, alien) cultures over our native anglo-celtic culture by successive governments has many synonyms: oppression, tyrannical, totalitarian; simple, logical, Classical reasoning put forward by Libertarians like Enoch Powell has been shunned by a philistine anti-intellectual media.
Lee, London,
Zweckpessimismus! Of course! Comrades, do you know who is responsible for this? Do you know the enemy who has come in the night and overthrown our windmill? SNOWBALL!
Lee, London, England
Decent people are unbothered by the frizz in the hair and the colour of the skin of those standing next to us in the tube or walking behind us on our streets, never mind the poems they read in weddings.
But coddling--in the form of
1 non-existent discipline at home
2 virtual-outlawing of discipline in schools
3 discipline from fellow-community members prosecuted as vigilantism
4 discipline in prison decried as a 'violation of human rights'
5 endless ASBOs
6 laughably-lenient sentences
7 detention centres and prisons requiring no adherence to spartan regimen and failing to provide remedial education or skills training,
7 early releases to ease overcrowding
--in fact breeds indifference.
Thus when a dozen teens do not fear the consequences of wielding knives for mobile phones, firing guns to settle petty grudges, or tossing bricks to express amusement at father-and-son neighbours playing cricket, a hundred other polite ones within the same community are no consolation.
H K Livingston, New York/London,
At my son's wedding, six years ago, we had every EU country except France represented. There was a considerable number from behind what used to be the Iron Curtain. My daughter-in-law is Japanese so there was a large contingent from her country. And we all seemed to get on well. My daughter has an overtly gay male friend - an extremely pleasant chap - who mixes in with us without problem. This, in my experience, is fairly normal in this day and age in England. It's great. The TSR's point of view is wrong and of no consequence.
Derek Smith, Brighton, UK
David, Well done, I could not agree with you more. If we go on brooding on swearing and violent youngsters, we will make such a phenomenon a trend. Not a thing to be feared but to be expected. When will some of us writers stop this obsession with violence? I am with you all the way on this topic.
Hasan A., Reading, United Kingdom
David Aaronovitch did not abandon the communist mentality when he abandoned the communist party (in name at least). He writes dishonest propaganda as a means to what he imagines is a pious end: 'Alle Menschen werden Brüder!' Iraq is one good example of where his kind of Pollyanna-ismus leads; Zimbabwe is another.
Lesley Davies, Manchester,
There are many terribly pessimistic people here. Have any of you talked to a 15 year old recently? I don't live in a city but people don't change that much across the world. Most (85%?) people my age are perfectly decent people.
Ben, 15,
well, well David, you got that one wrong! I am not a TSR reader although Srcuton used to be my teacher. I am an immigrant though, from Ethiopia. The kids where I live in North London are terrible. They litter the streets, they are always screaming in buses and blocking your way, jumping queues and so on. I was picked on by a gang of youths repeatedly, and I am a fit man who can probabaly handle five of them at once. I can't imagine how terrifying these thugs must be to older people. So, to me your article suggests that you are either extremely naive or you must live an insulated life.
john, london, uk
hi very good sports pages but oone thing missing,pleae could we have an A B C list of all the runners at the races. this would be so helpful. hope you can meet this request.
barry meek, coventry,
I'm afraid that Mr Aaronovitch shows the same fatuous optimism that we have come to expect from his articles. Living in his safe, metropolitan, liberal bubble he does not find himself confined to his house after dark for fear of the gangs that control the streets around his home. He does not get mugged three times in as many months, his children are not being terrorized by rival gangs in the local school where survival not actual learning is the most important thing in their lives. His car is not vandalised every other night. His call for help from the police when someone attempts a break in is not answered only sometime in the following three days with a crime number but little else. If he taught in an inner-city comprehensive he would be lucky not to be told five times in one week to 'f' off by pupils that he had had the temerity to reprimand. In short, Mr Aaronovitch, you just don't get it.
Anthony Back, Wellington, Telford, England
Finding anyone well-mannered in the UK is certainly worthy of an article. Congratulations on your find.
James, Bath, Uk
David Aaronovitch is welcome to his cheeful cosmopolitanism but many folk realize that what our society needs to rediscover is some sort of template to provide a means of judging ideas and afford a framework for behaviour, private and public. I wish his nephew and wife all the very best as they begin their married life together; I wonder exactly what they had in mind as they exchanged vows in that secular service. (Perhaps vows are 'out' now). A happy wedding with Greek songs and Namibian mottos is a great thing but something more is needed for an enduring marriage.
Trevor Nicholls, New Rochelle, New York, U.S.A.
David Aaronovitch has spent his whole life, along with a the gaggle of intellectually stunted polytechnic marxists who meretriciously describe themselves as New Labour, trying to destroy the structure, values and inheritance of this country. Now he and they have succeeded. Remarkably, the heaven on earth they assumed would automatically result hasn't happened. Still, never mind. They have managed to build themselves a very comfortable gravy train from which they distantly survey the cultural carnage they have caused, shrug and turn their attention to another laudatory article celebrating their achievements.
James, Norwich, UK
As a teacher in London secondary school, I naturally come into contact with the kind of young people described in Steve's post; however they are hugely outnumbered by nice, polite children. Of course you don't hear about these kids who are generous, funny and well meaning because they are busy keeping their heads down and plodding on with the unpleasant business of being an adolescent. At school and everywhere else it is only the exceptional ones, the really bad ones who are noticed. If these are multiplying it is only because the media and everyone else has told them that this is how they are expected to behave. Let's see more articles like this, celebrating our (mostly) wonderful young people and that might give kids something to aim towards; some encouragement that good behaviour is noticed and appreciated.
Ruth Stacey, London,
Sounds idyllic David - very humane and, I would imagine, very, very, non-culturally-preferential middle-class. Most encouraging. The polite boy in the doorway is not, however, a trend. Whether we like it or not history suggests that cultures collide when numbers grow. The cheerful solitary Hindu shopkeeper can, and often is, a source of indiginous joy. The totally Hindu street is not. But maybe I'm wrong, maybe the future is coffe-coloured and infused with ethnic poetry. Let's see.
Brian Thomas, Cardiff,
Maybe David Aaronovitch has a point about the way in which some people may have over-reacted to the recent spate of gun crimes and anti-social behaviour, but he is fundamentally WRONG to suggest that violent crime and anti-scoial behaviour is somehow isolated and infrequent.
Since the recent spate of crimes I have asked friends and family about their experience of anti-social behaviour and without exception it has touched ALL of their lives. Much of it was fairly low level (being shouted at and sworn at by groups of youths), but that doesn't make it any more acceptable. One person I spoke to who had recently moved off a large council estate said how nice it was to now be living somewhere she and her children felt safe.
Maybe Mr Aaronovitch leads too sheltered a life to understand the daily hassle and intimidation that many of his less privelleged fellow citizens experience. Any YES, it wasn't like this fifty years ago... ask the OAP's!
Andrew Brown, derby, UK
What an excellent viewpoint! I thought a pessimist was an optimist with experience.
SmileyTim, St Leon sur L'Isle, France
mike, a "gut wrenching tradgedy......" [sic] indeed. every time the last blair apologist alive today writes, the history of the world as we know it is re-written. our experiences and perceptions are and have been wrong. descartes was correct to doubt the external world.
hammersteen, cov,
It is so gratifying to learn that the distinguished Labour columnist David Aaronovitch is in reality a Greek banana.
R. Marriott, Kidderminster, England
At least Roger Scruton is putting forward arguments for what he believes. You appear to be saying this is how things are - you had better get used to it. It is good because it is.
A great experiment is taking place. You may be right in suggesting it is all for the better but the evidence so far is mixed. Multiculturalism is dead - what next ?
There are areas of this country in which the indigenous culture has been all but eradicated. I regret this, if you don't.
Anthony, London,
Cultural diversity is so on the increase now as to be all but mainstream.
It seems pointless to resist change of such magnitude from attitudes of a generation ago when global conditions clearly seem to have trended to such evolutionary outcome.
The difficulty may be to identify the separate causes of degradation of society structure detrimental to an ordered and contented life and this article makes clear that negativity to some change may be irrelevant from that perspective.
Objectivity in this regard is so easily destroyed by prejudice that solutions may need to be copied from integrated societies where civilised coexistence thrives.
dr venables preller, Warminster, UK
Oh No! These soft wet liberal types who keep telling us how wonderful our new progressive lives are - they live in what exactly? Well we know don't we. Fancy apartments with 24 hour security.
Outside it is a different world with millions of foreigners with the most loathsome habits, an underclass like something out of an extreme version of Mad Max and grotesque police who resemble fat puppets clanking with weird gear and yes, it is true that all they can do is collar the middle aged and middle class.
Time to leave the sunk ship I think. You can wallow in the filth and violence and pretend it does not exist. Unfortunately it is not these progressives who get shot and beaten to death.
Emily W, Cambs, UK
I fail to see the relevance of David's having been invited to a wedding to the question of whether or not violent crime is a growing problem in this country. Neither does meeting one polite youngster in North London settle the question of whether all the others are or are not thugs.
I have joy in his multi-cultural good cheer, but the statistics - not Zweckpessimismus - suggests that the problem is growing.
Ben Kotzee, Watford, Herts,
I couldn't agree more about how tedious it is to hear from people who never see the good in anything. But I suspect that what is really going on here is that, rather than acknowledge that there is something in some of what they say, you have gone for a personal attack instead. So, now that you've played the man, can we see you play the ball? What do you have to say about how this country should tackle this summer's rise in violent crime?
Redcliffe, London,
How nice. It's just a pity that most people, by definition, do not live in your safe middle-class world.
They inhabit a multi-cultural world. The wedding you describe has a veneer of different cultures but it was very Anglo-Saxon. The skin-colours may have varied but the attitudes (culture) were disticntcly Anglo-Saxon. That is not so in Bradford, parts of Birmingham, whole swathes of London, etc - places you do not live or probably visit.
Eddie Reader, birmingham, uk
So, let's get this straight, David. You say that some things are getting worse, while other things are getting better. It's an interesting idea, but I would like to add that, per contra, some things are staying the same. Then again, some things are getting better (or worse) but only slightly, whereas other things are getting worse in some ways but better in others.......is there any point in all this?
Frank Upton, Solihull,
Once again, a bracing gust of rationality from David A.
Having spent a blissful Bank Holiday weekend in the enchanting Horniman Museum garden,walking through Hyde Park and along the South Bank in the midst of crowds of people in varying states of contentment, from quiet to ebullient...I was reminded, as I am just about every day in London, that although the challenges of social dysfunction are serious, there is more to hearten than frighten us about the state of the nation.
Howard Schuman, London, UK
Although I agree with many points in your article, I object to your association of those concerned with over-population with being bigots. Controlled immigration is a good thing but it is clearly uncontrolled (or if so by half-wits) when one sees the current statistics and future projections.
From the lack of land on which to build new houses to our overcrowded roads, many of the issues people complain about on a daily basis are clearly linked to overpopulation. This is a fact. And clearly, if the world as a whole had the same population as the UK we'd have run out of food, land, and resources a long time ago.
We regularly hear economists espousing the virtues of population growth but are we supposed to continue concreting-over our planet in such a pursuit until there's nothing left? Where would it end? When is enough? And how many more wars over limited resources (e.g. middle-eastern oil) will we have to have? Diversity is a good thing but it should not be a end in itself. Wake-up
Rob, Paris, France
The Stop Islamisation Of Islamisation Of Europe (SIOE) demo outside the EU Parliament in Brussels on 11th September would have been a multi-racial, multi-faith, diverse event.
Hindus, Sikhs, Christians, Buddhists, secularists and atheists would have marched together with different political parties from, what journalists like to call, 'left' and 'right' although the rest of us know that life is far more complicated than that.
However, the Brussels Mayor Freddy Thilemans banned the demo. His reasons for doing so change on a daily basis, seemingly, but we suspect it would have been difficult to justify a single section of the Brussels community throwing bottles at people from a range of communities and countries.
So much for soothing Euro-platitudes about "diversity"
An appeal today is expected to overturn the ban, but thousands will show up in Brussels on 11th September anyway to defend Western values, especially free speech.
SIOE England
Stephen Gash, Carlisle, England
The climate of fear in Britain today is simply groundless. Bad things happen, certainly, but much, *much* more rarely than in most countries. The question that should be asked, is who benefits from this culture of terror? The people that benefit are the people who desire more and more power, concentrated into fewer and fewer hands. If a government can convince sections of the press to play into this, by demonising children, or Muslims, or just a few short years back, the Irish, then they can easily convince the people to give them more powers that the most assuredly do not need.
huw Bowen, Warwick, UK
You've met a polite teenager and you've been to a really nice wedding, ergo all is for the best in the best of all possible worlds and we can forget about a few kids getting shot in faraway estates of which we know little. Get a grip, Dave, you can do better than this.
Alan, Berlin, Germany
Zweckpessimismus isn't the sole preserve of the Right. Over the last few years how many times have I read commentaries by the Left describing this country as a fascist or quasi fascist state - and heard Labour Party members in the House of Commons and House of Lords warning that the extension of the period in which individuals can be detained without charge is but a step away from a Satlinist state, massive represssion and the imprisonment of millions in the gulags.
Hysteria and hype is part and parcel of this country and it's practiced by all and sundry - from politicians through to journalists on both sides of the political fence.
And if our view of the future tends to be coloured by recent events my experience of life in central London last week included random acts of violence, public defecation and an overwhelming feeling of alienation from all around me as I sat in an underground carriage apparently the only one who spoke English
H, London,
Can you give me the name of this polite boy, I'd like to meet him.
See, we don't have any where I am. Maybe I should ask the young boys who were shouting in the street from 2 till 4.30am on Sunday night before robbing and intimidating the milkman and then throwing the bottles down the road. Yeah, maybe they know him. He might have been with them on Friday night when they did much the same at 2.30am before they started fighting and the police had to come and move them on.
Yeah, maybe they know him...........I'll ask.
Steve, London,
We live in an increasingly fractured society not least because of the growing gap between rich and poor;not all immigrant groups are equally successful either.There are parts of Britain which are pleasant to live in and no doubt David Aaronovitch lives in one of them.Other people aren't as fortunate and live in areas which are riddled with gangs,drug-dealing,knife and gun crime.I fully realise David Aaronovitch wishes to believe that all is well in New Labour Britain but(as with the Iraq war) he will find less and less people sharing his optimism.
Dave Robins, West Drayton,
gut wrenching tradgedy......
being a UK citizen living abroad, I just started working for a UK firm over the last 18 months. Business requires me to visit the UK every 2 months or so... and it seems that during every visit either a police person or innocent bypasser or shopkeeper gets murdered - by knife, gun etc... During my last trip it was the turn of an unsuspecting child of 11 in Liverpool.
"Land of hope and glory" used to be strong in emotion as the notes blasted out bringing tears to patriotic souls of the island. Times bygone.
I will not be moving back to the UK. My own sons, aged 11 and 16 will not be wearing Kevlar uniforms to schools full of weapons.
Too bad for the patriotic spirit...The UK is no longer a safe place to bring up kids. Verbal violence is predominant, TV is culture for the mediocre, binge drinking is the norm, road rage is common place.
Too bad for the patriotic spirit.... At least the football is something to look forward to.... from a distance...
Mike Walmsley, Allauch, France
I'm going to a similar wedding this weekend, David - my son's.
People of mixed race will be there together with people who have lived and intermarried in the same neck of the woods for generations. There will be heterosexual people and gay people, devout Catholics and atheists, people with right-wing opinions and people on the political left. But we will all be united in wishing every happiness to the couple. You're right, one sometimes feels inclined to Zweckpessimismus, but occasions like this do serve to give a truer perspective.
J.Fletcher, Canterbury , UK