A British leftist suggests Muslims be deported

A reader writes:

Martin Amis is a British novelist, son of Kingsley, and has spent much of his life on the left. He’s very well known in the UK (not sure about the U.S.). He was interviewed by Ginny Dougary in the London Times in September, 2006. The key passage (from the VFR perspective) occurs about three quarters of the way through the piece:

“What can we do to raise the price of them doing this? There’s a definite urge—don’t you have it?—to say, ‘The Muslim community will have to suffer until it gets its house in order.’ What sort of suffering? Not letting them travel. Deportation—further down the road. Curtailing of freedoms. Strip-searching people who look like they’re from the Middle East or from Pakistan … Discriminatory stuff, until it hurts the whole community and they start getting tough with their children. They hate us for letting our children have sex and take drugs—well, they’ve got to stop their children killing people. It’s a huge dereliction on their part. I suppose they justify it on the grounds that they have suffered from state terrorism in the past, but I don’t think that’s wholly irrational. It’s their own past they’re pissed off about; their great decline. It’s also masculinity, isn’t it?” [it is possible that “irrational” is a typo for “rational” here]

I think this may be the first time a major UK public figure has seriously suggested deportation since Enoch Powell proposed it in his “Rivers of Blood” speech nearly 40 years ago. I’m astonished that it hasn’t gotten more attention in the UK. Presumably his long association with the left gives him immunity. The same remarks made by a (biographically) more conservative figure would surely have led to a visit from the police.

Mark Steyn quotes the relevant passage here, and comments thus:

“When Amis père starts airily expounding on South African blacks, he’s just trying to bait some bleeding-heart dinner guest: he’s given no thought to South Africa and he has no great interest in blacks over there, or whites. When Amis fils starts mulling deportation and travel restrictions for Muslims, it’s because he’s given an awful lot of thought to them these last five years. He means it. Which in turn means according to taste, he’s either far more politically credible than his dad or far nuttier.”

LA replies:

Notice, however, that while Amis did mention deportation—though as only a possibility further down the road—among other tough things that ought to be done to Muslims, he did not mention stopping their further immigration into Britain. So he thinks Muslims are such a problem in Britain that he feels comfortable with calling for them to be preventing from traveling inside Britain, to be strip seached and so on, but not with saying that maybe, just maybe, they should not be allowed to come to Britain in the first place.

This is analogous to those American conservatives who unleash their frustrations by talking about using nuclear weapons to kill millions of Muslims, but who never dream of calling for the end of Muslim immigration. It’s a profound glitch in the modern Western mind. Punish the Muslims, strip-search them, humiliate them, take away their rights, prevent them from traveling, nuke a half-billion of them—but NEVER THINK of simply closing the doors to their further immigration hither. Open borders, diversity, one-world, these are constitutive assumptions of the modern Western mind, and can never be transgressed or even be made an object of critical awareness.

However, Amis is different in mentioning deportation. And you are right. This is the first instance I can think of in which a British commentator has broached this idea. (Outside Nick Griffin of course.)

Also, I have no idea what Steyn’s comment means and I doubt that he does either.

Jeff in England writes:

This “glitch” in the Western mind is unbelievable and has to be connected with the incredibly deep subconscious white guilt syndrome present in so many of us. The need by the West to call the Islamic enemy “radical Islam” was the start of a massive denial process which we are paying for bigtime. How many times do we need to repeat this. The lack of logic among so many “clever” thinkers is astonishing no matter how many times I’ve come across it. Let ‘em in en masse and then deport a few (after 10 years of legal appeals!)??? Where’s the LOGIC?

DW writing from England has noticed discussions about the black crime issue that run amazingly in parallel with what I just said about the Islam issue. British leftists are willing to consider the most horrendous treatment of black youth and black criminals, treatment that would truly turn Britain into a police state, but they are not willing to consider undoing the tragic mistake of bringing blacks into Britain in the first place. DW writes:

“This is analogous to those American conservatives who unleash their frustrations by talking about using nuclear weapons to kill millions of Muslims, but who never dream of calling for the end of Muslim immigration. It’s a profound glitch in the modern Western mind. Punish the Muslims, strip-search them, humiliate them, take away their rights, prevent them from travelling, nuke a half-billion of them—but NEVER THINK of simply closing the doors to their further immigration hither. Open borders, diversity, one-world, these are constitutive assumptions of the modern Western mind, and can never be transgressed or even be made an object of critical awareness. “

On a related point: London has recently had a spate of gangland shootings, with teenagers being shot in their beds or in full view in crowded public places. The perpetrators are all black West Indians; not that you would be able to tell from the media of course. It would be racist. You really and actually have to dig through the reports to find any mention of this being a uniquely black phenomenon, the only clue you get is the police code name for the initiative that investigates this gun crime: Operation Trident, which was set up solely to deal with black gun crime.

There is a section of the BBC News 24 website called “Have Your Own Say.” Which is self-explanatory. The “Have Your Own Say” section has got to be one of the most moderated comment boards on the Internet. The comments that are most in alignment with the BBC leftist ideology are creamed off and quoted in other articles as evidence of what “The People” are thinking. Racist Sexist and Homophobic comments are deleted (naturally), while others, are totally permitted …

Regarding the gang violence: On the “Have Your Own Say” section I saw barbaric demands for—the death penalty, long sentences and life means life sentences, conscription and penal legions, psychiatric assault, trying minors as adults, martial law, public corporal punishment, forced abortion for single mothers, and SAS death squads.

Some of those things you might agree with, other suggestions, such as forced psychiatric assault, forced abortion, penal legions and death-squads you (hopefully) find pretty awful indeed.

Here’s the comment I submitted which wasn’t even printed:

“This is the harvest of sorrow that immigration has brought to the Un-United-Kingdom. Having flooded the country with millions of (Labour voting) third-world immigrants we are now behaving like a Third World country: just consider all the vengeful and fearful demands for corporal punishment, humiliation (naming and shaming), the death penalty and martial law. This is not because of family breakdown, all of Britain has that, this is a black problem. The only civilised and humane solution: Mass expulsion.”

And compared to the sadistic public flogging suggestions, expulsion, while severe, is quite humane.

So why was my comment deleted? I think it’s because it contradicts the unspoken assumption of the ubiquitous leftist outlook that the mind is a blank-slate. Tabula Rasa—I believe it’s called. If someone does something bad, it’s not because they wanted to, it’s simply because they do not know their real interests or have been taught the wrong ideas, in which case they need to be re-educated, by the most brutal means you can think of, which is all acceptable because apparently you are doing your victim a favour …

“Radical Islam” is another case in point. Because the leftist assumes that all people are basically good and peaceful, and everybody can coexist in the same countries without stepping on each others toes, anger must be a temporary aberration from the normal state of affairs, hence “Radical Islam,” “Islamofascism,” “Islamism.” And seeing that Muslims are a (supposedly) powerless minority, and therefore unable to be aggressive, any anger must be caused by the West.

Jeff in England writes;

DW writes that mass expulsion is the solution to the Muslim problem, the black crime problem etc. This is an example of wasted e-mag space and that option isn’t and will not be on the agenda of any western society.

Immigration restriction is possible, selected deportations of Muslims are possible but mass removal of any group is beyond a fantasy. Let’s get real and stop trying to impress each other with totally unrealistic solutions.

It’s time to come up with workable solutions which the mainstream will be attracted to.

DW writes:

I’m sorry about that expulsion suggestion, I should have qualified it as “Mass expulsion would be comparatively civilised compared to these other suggestions”—with exasperated sarcasm. In case anybody is wondering, I’m not convinced by this whole Muslim hysteria. You can no more “confront the terrorists in your midst” than you can know what your neighbour is doing in their bathtub (e.g. making explosives) two doors down. My earlier comment gave completely the wrong impression and I would like to clear it up.

Steward W. writes:

Note in the comment from DW, he states “…I saw barbaric demands for—the death penalty, long sentences and life means life sentences…psychiatric assault, trying minors as adults, martial law…” It is interesting that these items that DW refers to as “barbaric” have either happened in the U.S. (i.e. martial law), or are commonplace fixtures of our judicial system. These legal remedies to criminal behavior have developed in the U.S., by and large, as a result of the same problem that Britain is now experiencing.

I’ve noticed that people in Britain have often excoriated American society as barbaric, reactionary, and brutal, when it is clear that they have absolutely no understanding of the social issues that we have lived with for hundreds of years as a racially non-homogeneous state.

Perhaps now, slowly, the blinders will begin to come off.

LA replies:

Excellent observation.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at March 05, 2007 08:15 PM | Send