Not only are the Brits handing their country over to Muslims, yobs, and “yutes,” they can’t even build a decent house

(Note: further down in this entry ILW says some stunning things about the attitudes of the British Indians toward the majority British culture.)

An Indian living in the West writes:

You often write about how Britain is dead. Actually, it is dead in more ways than one. If you ever lived in Britain you would realise it yourself. Leaving aside their spine giving away to liberalism, their other strengths such as engineering and general competence are also finished. They cannot build a damn thing properly—everything they make breaks down in no time and the quality is usually atrocious. Time was when the Brits built bridges in India in the 19th century that are still standing (even though they were only meant to last a couple of decades).

You should see the quality of the buildings they build now. The houses are of such atrocious quality that the only things that shock more than the shoddy construction are the prices they demand for them.

Contrast this with the Germans and what is interesting is that even in decline, the fundamental engineering excellence of the German worker has remained. Even today, the Germans excel at the things they build—it does not matter what they build whether it is a vacuum cleaner or a car or any other machine, everything is built so well that it simply has no equal. The quality surpasses anything that is out there and they have no equal.

So the British have had a decline in more ways than one. I actually believe that even as an economic power they are finished. The economy has been running on debt piled on more debt for the last decade (which Blair and Brown encouraged). The chickens will soon come home to roost and their so-called “miracle economy” will soon be toast. All you will have left is a population that drinks beer by the shiploads and spends all its waking hours watching football and indulging in celebrity gossip (or “celebs” as they call them). That’s Tony Blair’s modern Britain for you. The country is a joke.

LA replies:

Yes, the laxness, the contemptible foppishness, seems to affect every aspect of British life, at least from the view of an outsider. And what most appalls is the absence of any serious response to this decline. The writers who criticize Britain’s downward course themselves evince the foppish, evasive, liberal qualities that have brought Britain down. There is not one who stands outside contemporary, ultra-liberal Britain intellectually and says with confidence, “We’ve got the whole thing wrong—our basic ruling beliefs over the last 40 or 50 years are wrong. And here’s why they are wrong and here’s the way we ought to go instead.” Not a single one. Yet such a radical approach is the only thing that can save them.

I see no health in the public life of that Island. Yes, you see it in individuals who are not in a prominent position. But not in any prominent people.

- end of initial entry -

Philip M. writes from England:

I agree with much of what the gentleman says, I just hope he realises that if I were to indulge in such sweeping generalisations about his community as

“All you will have left is a population that drinks beer by the shiploads and spends all its waking hours watching football and indulging in celebrity gossip”

I would probably go to prison. None of the above describes my friends and family, thank you very much.

Seeing as most of the Indian community of which he is a part votes for the mainstream parties, I would like to ask him who he will be advising his friends and family to vote for, given that he believes my homeland is, by his own estimation, on the brink of destruction.

LA replies:

As ILW has explained before, he is not an immigrant in the West but resides temporarily in the West doing business.

Sage McLaughlin writes:

Your latest thread re Britain is precisely on point. You say that, “The writers who criticize Britain’s downward course themselves evince the foppish, evasive, liberal qualities that have brought Britain down.” Just so. I’m sorry to name names, but Peter Hitchens really shocked me today. His latest blog entry expresses more or less total indifference to the substantive question of whether women ought to be ordained as Anglican priests, his prime concern being that women priests are, as an iron-clad rule, very leftist. He says so much in the entry that is of value—such as that liberals are constantly picking fights with “traditionalists” in mainline churches, then blaming the other side for being divisive—but on the main substantive point at issue he is completely limp-wristed and intellectually disinterested. His own reaction to the ordination of women priests—as radical a departure from the mainline tradition as one can imagine—is, “Sure, why not. Far be it from me to argue over such minutiae.”

I see this over and over in the British right—a firm command of language that enables them to express outrage with uncommon elegance, coupled with a lazy skepticism on the substantive issues which underlie the object of their disgust. This is a problem on the right generally, and not just in Britain, but the British seem to take a kind of perverse pride in their contempt for substantive conviction on first principles.

Another example is Theodore Dalrymple, who is a master polemicist for the cultural right, and yet a man whose own yearning to believe in the transcendent is defeated, in the end, by a pointless, all-devouring British skepticism on the big questions. (He said in a recent radio interview that he would very much like to be religious and believe in God as more than a mere philosophical proposition but, sounding genuinely pained, he complained that he “just can’t.”) He loves those artifacts of culture that ask the big questions and explore the complexities of the human condition, but in the end is merely an aesthete—one whose own dogged agnosticism serves affirm the hopelessness of the entire Western cultural enterprise.

LA replies:

“I see this over and over in the British right—a firm command of language that enables them to express outrage with uncommon elegance, coupled with a lazy skepticism on the substantive issues which underlie the object of their disgust.”

That is extremely well put.

Philip M. replies to LA:

OK, sorry to your correspondent regarding the fact he is not an immigrant to the UK, but I imagine he must have mixed with the large Indian community whilst here, and must have some idea of their political leanings. We all know that Britain is in a terrible state—that must be even more obvious to an outsider. But in his experience do Indian immigrants feel the same way (I assume they do) and what, to the best of his knowledge, are they planning to do about it? This is much more of a mystery to me.

Peter A. writes:

Philip M. wrote: “I were to indulge in such sweeping generalisations about his community … I would probably go to prison. “

Is that literally true? Are there people in England who are in prison solely for having made a fact-supported un-PC observation?

If that’s the case, can it be said that England has political prisoners?

Indian living in the West replies to Philip M.:

Let us not run away from harsh truths whatever they are. As for my own homeland, all kinds of things are said about India, some accurate some not. I never shy away from anything. I do believe in freedom of political speech. So if something can be justifiably said about a country, let it be said. That’s my view. I’ve never believed that political speech ought to be limited on grounds that some find it “offensive”. Quoting Voltaire, I would protect Philip’s right to say what he wants about India even if I disagree with him completely. If as grown men we cannot deal with the truth, then we shouldn’t talk about it. We might as well build a polite society club in which all we do is pass compliments back and forth. I don’t think this was Philip’s point of view but unfortunately this is what society has become today. You really cannot say anything that goes anywhere near harsh truths lest the state arrest you for offending somebody.

I want to say this again that observing these things about the state of Britain gives me no pleasure. Unlike many Indians I’ve never harboured any deep seated ill feeling toward Britain because of the Empire or the past. We have to deal with the way things are in the present. And actually, the demise of a great civilized country should be a cause for concern to anyone who considers himself civilized. I certainly gain no pleasure from seeing what I see becoming of Britain. And actually much of what I’ve written is mild compared to what George MacDonald Fraser wrote a few years before his death. I have and will always have the greatest respect for Fraser who was a very gifted novelist in an era in which fiction has become unreadable.

Secondly, all of your readers should read this article (“Labour’s heartland is rotten to the core and dying of welfarism,” by Simon Heffer in the Telegraph). Note that the article is about East Glasgow which is still predominantly white. So while in America you see so much dissoluteness among Blacks and Hispanics, in Britain, the white underclass finds itself in almost the same mess.

Another interesting fact which is rarely mentioned in the British media is that outside London’s finance district, the Government accounts for more than half of all economic activity now. Think about this for a second. The country is rapidly descending into what we may call an economic welfare basket case. I actually find the situation alarming and find it unbelievable that not one major political party even talks about this. It is as if a whole nation has become addicted to welfare and is living off on debt or taxation of the productive minority. This situation is, I believe, completely unsustainable. Britain will face a very serious economic crisis before long. It is a matter of time.

LA writes:

I notice this reader’s comment following the Simon Heffer article:

The first thing we need to do is get out of the EU so that we can be masters of our own house again. This country’s problems are so deep-rooted and fundamental a British government needs massive freedom of action in order to even start to tackle them. NuLabour Lite and Cameroon won’t rock the boat in this respect. The only parties that will are UKIP and the BNP.

ILW continues:

British Indians will always vote Labour or will vote Tory when the Tories are led by fops like Cameron. A Conservative Party that represented traditional Britain would not get any Indian votes. I think this is a given. The situation in America is much the same I believe although I have not spent much time in the U.S.

From what I’ve seen, most “assimilated” Indians have a sizable chip on their shoulder. It is my firm belief that Indians trying to be “British,” even if they are born in Britain, is a fraud at some level. The same applies to all racial minorities in Britain.

Modern liberalism demands absolute equality which cannot be humanly achieved. Therefore, the state must be a perpetual tool of social engineering in which new injustices are discovered and then “fought.” This process continues till infinity because absolute equality is impossible. If I am a rich assimilated immigrant British Indian, I must still somehow be deprived of something somewhere because some upper class white thinks he is superior. Whether this is or isn’t true is largely irrelevant. What matters is that this “feeling” must be obliterated somehow. Modern liberalism demands this. There must, therefore, be more and more restrictions imposed on the majority and a greater number of “offences” punished because without it the liberal dream of absolute equality is not achieved.

The assimilated Indian immigrants in Britain generally do not suffer from the kinds of malaise that we see among Britain’s white underclass—that is to say extreme alcoholism or social breakdown. But I do believe this will afflict them too eventually. At the moment this has not happened because the family system remains resilient. But for how long?

However, the feeling of being victims of inequality remains among all British Indians I met and it will never go away. Secondly, whatever be the “culture” of assimilated British Indians, they cannot prevent the same things that infect the white majority from infecting them too. So the foppery that you see among the whites and which you find contemptible is also to be found among the well heeled and rich Indians. They feel “at home” with New Labour and with Cameron’s contemptible “Tory-lite” (or should that be “Blair-lite”?).

With Indians, unlike less successful racial minorities, the picture is, therefore, a little more complicated—there isn’t just out and out resentment. Among blacks or Pakistanis or Bangladeshis, what I encountered was just total resentment. They could never be convinced that they have not been discriminated against and deprived because if they weren’t why would they be poor? That’s how they look at it. So there really is no way around it. Immigrant politics, like female politics, is a weapon of the left. And nothing that the “right” does, short of thoroughly debasing itself, would ever change that. That, unfortunately, is the truth whether we like it or not.

LA replies to ILW:

You’ve never spoken of the attitudes of British Indians before. It’s stunning. It’s just further proof of the madness of the large scale immigration of people who are culturally/ethnically/racially/religiously different from the historic majority population of a country. They will never really assimilate, they will always be more or less resentful or “uncomfortable” and so perpetually attack the majority for its intolerance. Thus their presence can only serve to keep weakening and delegitimizing the majority culture, removing its self-belief and self-confidence.

ILW replies:

It is a nation wrecking project. This, I believe, is the goal of the progressives. And they will not rest until this is achieved.

Mad.

LA writes:

For newer readers who have not encountered ILW before, here are a few of his posts:

India and Pakistan: why the mass killings occurred

The anti-national liberalism at the core of Indian national identity

A brief summary of the origins and character of Pakistan

Kidist Paulos Asrat writes:

The commentary on Britain by the Indian living in the West comes at a moment when I was doing some internet reading on a recent movie called Brick Lane. It was adapted from a book by an “English-Indian.” It is about a neighborhood in East London, which has basically been turned over to the Bangladeshi (mostly Muslims).

I review, or more like I critique, the movie on my blog—which I call “We fit in—On our own terms.” I write that everything about the film is false. The “emancipation” of the Bangladeshi housewife, who has been transported to London via an arranged marriage. The “fitting in” of her children in the English society. Anyone observing the children of Indian immigrants in Canada will realize that their heart is anywhere but in Canada. There is no real assimilation, even with the educated, perfect-English-speaking lot. All they’re doing is building a sub-culture, very successfully. They have internet sites, cultural/dance competitions, and a desire to be Bollywood stars (forget Hollywood).

One other thing. As I was looking for reviews on the internet, I came across this BBC interview of the director. The strange androgyny of the interviewer and the director (both female) struck me. As well, their slightly accelerated speech, with short gasps for air, I found bizarre. They “sound” pretty good, but these small details somehow speaks of some kind of inner turmoil (or malaise?).

They’re also discussing very favorably a book and a film which I found (I’ve read the book and seen the film) to be completely inaccurate. The funny thing is that the many Bangladeshi from the real Brick Lane also found it inaccurate (too negative, they say). I say it was too positive.

I’ve found current “ethnic literature” in Europe and Canada, and the U.S. (a well-known Indian-American is Lumpa Lhahiri whose book has also been made into a very successful film) as a confused state between here and there. But they always end up choosing “there,” despite their vocal outcries to the contrary.

I don’t blame them actually. There are many beautiful things about India.

ILW is absolutely right, at least where Canada is concerned. I wonder how this will play out in the next generation? In countries with generations of Indians (Trinidad and Tobago comes to mind), they never lose their Indianness. Their saris, their food, their dances, their songs, their religions all prevail. They live in separate cultures in the same country.

Philip M. replies to ILW:

Many thanks for this illuminating answer. While I agree on the need for honesty, I cannot imagine any “British Indians” articulating so acutely the Indian experience in the UK, both because they would lack objectivity about their own position, and because they would not wish to give offence by saying what they really thought of this country.

An Indian work colleague was asking me a little while ago why I was a member of the BNP (and I might add that it is a sign of my respect for Indians that I would even dare risking such a conversation at work). After talking for a while about the perils of a multi-cultural society, drawing parallels with the Partition of India and my fears for the future, he told me that he had considered moving with his family to Malaysia. I could completely understand his desire to do this—there is a large Indian population there, so if Britain continues its downward descent, why wait until it corrupts and engulfs your own offspring, as ILW says it eventually will? Get your family to safety.

But it also left me feeling slightly irritated. Ethnic minorities demand to have “equal” treatment, and to be considered as “British” as their white counterparts. But if Britain were to be wrecked by multiculturalism and they moved to another country, what would they have lost? Only the home they had been living in for 30 years or so. I would have lost everything—my homeland, my people, my culture. Why should I consider them “equal” (I mean in relation to British identity) when I obviously have so much more to lose? I wish I could have found a way to put this point to my colleague without it sounding confrontational.

ILW’s point that Indians would only ever vote Labour or Tory illustrates why the left love immigration so much. It is the perfect device for creating non-Conservatives. Most of the immigrants who come to Britain will have conservative moral values, but will find themselves unable to vote for a genuine “conservative” party, as a conservative society would be one which did not include vast numbers of immigrants. They will have to vote for a liberal party in order to cement their own precarious presence. In “The Bonfire of the Vanities” the newly imprisoned Sherman McCoy finds himself feeling uncharacteristically sympathetic to the “rights” of his fellow inmates. He realises that just as a “liberal is someone who has never been mugged,” so “a conservative is someone who has never been arrested.” Feeling part of a threatened and insecure minority group is a powerful push to vote for a liberal party, and of course the greater the number the harder it becomes for a genuine right-wing party to be elected.

For what it is worth, I have always enjoyed the company of Indians at work and at university. They are unfailingly polite and family orientated, and I would hate to see their respectable and decent community dragged to the level of the white underclass. If ILW really believes this is possible, I hope he will advise his compatriots accordingly.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at July 16, 2008 12:48 PM | Send