SOME time ago – I believe it was before the turn of the century – I took a nostalgic walk down the street in east London where I spent my earliest years. The bomb site on the corner which I passed on the way to primary school had been replaced by a memorial garden, but a little further on there was the house where I passed the first seven years of my life. After marvelling at how much smaller it was than memory painted it, I walked on to where the railway drew a line across the end of the road.
‘Good afternoon!’
The greeting came from a gentleman from the subcontinent who was attending to his lovingly cultivated front garden.
‘Good afternoon,’ I replied.
‘Nice weather!’ he said, in good British fashion; after which we engaged in a little conversation. I complimented him on his garden, and pointed out the house where I had lived so many years ago; he spoke of his happiness and pride in his new home, and his loyalty to ‘my Queen’. My heart warmed to him: he so clearly appreciated being a British citizen; he so clearly wanted to belong: and because he wanted to belong, he did belong.
If only the same could be said of everyone who has come into our country since then! How many of them actually wish to belong: to speak our language, to respect and award due priority to our culture and history? And how many of them look upon the UK merely as a place where they can continue their old way of life, marrying their own relations and following their own laws and customs in materially improved circumstances?
Sarah Pochin’s maiden speech in Parliament threw a spotlight on this question, when she asked for a debate on the burqa. The burqa and the niqab are, after all, garments which effectively proclaim to the long-standing native population: ‘We are not like you; we do not wish to belong.’
It’s true that other minorities also have their own unusual dress codes: so why does the sight of those all-encompassing black garments cause me so much offence and distress, when I can view the turbans and beards of our Sikh compatriots, say, or the kippah and side curls of Hasidic Jews, without concern? No doubt it’s because those communities don’t attempt to dictate to the rest of the population. They stick to their own ways of life unaggressively, without infiltrating government departments, and without using threats or inflicting actual bodily harm to force non-believers into deference towards their religion. An exception may have been made for Sikhs with respect to the wearing of motor-cycle helmets: but this has never caused widespread unease in the general population.
Sarah Pochin’s question deserves a full parliamentary debate precisely because the proliferation of the burqa and niqab does provoke such unease. This arises not from any ‘hatefulness’ towards people of a particular race or religion, but because these garments come heavily encumbered with an alien ideology which challenges fundamental assumptions of Western civilisation.
For a start, we like to see each other’s faces as a prerequisite for honest communication. The burqa and niqab inhibit communication. Even body language is swathed in ambiguity. Who, we wonder, is hiding beneath all that drapery? What are they thinking? What are they feeling? Is this even a woman?
Secondly, the rationale behind these garments is that a man cannot be expected to control his sexual impulses, and that any woman who presents herself in public without covering the whole of her sinfully provocative body is as a red rag to a bull. But how can a man who believes himself righteously incapable of self-control, and therefore entitled to rape any female whose ‘immodesty’ ignites his lust or his drive for power, be safely welcomed into a nation which claims to respect the worth and dignity of women?
The problem is not simply of cultural incompatibility, but of government policy. Many of the sexually incontinent men who lurk behind the veiled women are a product of sectarian enclaves which have been allowed to spring up in UK cities in the name of a multicultural society. The inmates of the ghettoes have never been required to adjust their behaviour to British norms. Frequently ignorant of the geographical and historical facts of their existence, they live out their lives in self-contained citadels, off-limits to the police, where no English is spoken, where the offspring of cousin-marriage are brought up with no allegiance to the country they inhabit, and where Sharia law prevails.
Even many superficially integrated immigrants seem to identify more with their country of origin than with their adopted nation: indeed, some of their words might qualify as racially aggravated hate speech, if their skin colour did not grant exemption from guilt. We have introduced into our country a Muslim sub-culture which is not backward in promoting its own sectarian interests above those of the rest of the population, and which successfully demands special laws and concessions from a compliant government; those demands grow more strident as its numbers increase. There are now four million Muslims in the UK, vastly outnumbering our million Hindus, half a million Sikhs and a mere quarter of a million Jews – many of the latter having fled the country where they had lived peaceably and undemandingly in the face of attacks from extreme Islamists.
Though a debate on the burqa was dismissed by Keir Starmer, Rupert Lowe succeeded in securing a debate on banning another contentious cultural practice, non-stun slaughter. Muslim MPs claim that the proposal is motivated by a desire to target their religion. However, the RSPCA backs a ban: ‘We oppose the slaughter of any animal,’ it says, ‘without first ensuring that it’s unable to feel pain or distress.’ Most British people would agree. Non-stun slaughter has increased in proportion with the growth of the Muslim population, and halal products are now finding their way into the general food supply, appearing unlabelled on supermarket shelves and in school meals. Despite these concerns, Sir Keir’s majority in the house will no doubt bend once again to the will of his Muslim voter base in our big cities.
Like most people with roots in London’s East End, I have Huguenot ancestors, who settled in Spitalfields in the second half of the 17th century. On arriving here they spoke French, worshipped at their own church, and married other émigrés; but by the middle of the 18th century, they were parishioners of Christchurch, Spitalfields, and the son of Jean, my great-grandfather times six, was named John, and married an English wife: in short, the family had been absorbed seamlessly into the native population. That is the pattern of successful immigration. It is not the one we are experiencing today.
The burqa should be banned. So should non-stun slaughter. So should cousin marriage. So should Sharia courts. Outlawing these practices would be a first step towards asserting the primacy of British culture.
Returning to the friendly man I chatted with briefly more than a quarter of a century ago: I had no idea what his religion was. He may well have been a Muslim. What was plain was that he was glad to be one of us: surely a basic qualification for anyone wishing to make their home in our country, whatever their origin or religion.
