Should Enoch Powell get a blue plaque ( in Wolverhamton)?

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Should Enoch Powell get a blue plaque ( in Wolverhamton)?

Poll ended at 22 Feb 2018, 7:25pm

Yes
18
56%
No
14
44%
Dont know
0
No votes
 
Total votes: 32

PH
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Re: Should Enoch Powell get a blue plaque ( in Wolverhamton)?

Post by PH »

thirdcrank wrote:Re: Leicester. Why are their so many "Asians" there?

Maybe it's because Leicester City Council placed adverts in the Ugandan press asking them not to come and they wanted to see what they might be missing.
thirdcrank
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Re: Should Enoch Powell get a blue plaque ( in Wolverhamton)?

Post by thirdcrank »

PH wrote: ... Maybe it's because Leicester City Council placed adverts in the Ugandan press asking them not to come and they wanted to see what they might be missing.


That went straight over my head. :?
Thornyone
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Re: Should Enoch Powell get a blue plaque ( in Wolverhamton)?

Post by Thornyone »

pwa wrote:If we could rewind and do it again, in a better way, it would have been easier if immigration of ethnically different groups had happened slower, so that the immigrants did not have large clusters of their own ethnic group to attach themselves to. Perhaps then they would have been more likely to live alongside the existing population and integration would have happened.

In my village there are people from a wide range of income groups. But I can't think of one none-white face. I am sure we would welcome anyone from any ethnic origin, but none have come yet.

I think that you have hit the nail on the head here. In fact if I cycle more than about five miles beyond the Leicester urban area I will frequently see no non-white people except maybe a local village store owner. Re integration, true integration in the long run probably implies intermarriage, which IME is pretty uncommon, and resistance to that is certainly not to be laid excusively or probably even primarily at the door of the “White Briton”. Just think arranged marriages.
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Re: Should Enoch Powell get a blue plaque ( in Wolverhamton)?

Post by Thornyone »

PH wrote:
thirdcrank wrote:Re: Leicester. Why are their so many "Asians" there?

Maybe it's because Leicester City Council placed adverts in the Ugandan press asking them not to come and they wanted to see what they might be missing.

In the first instance I think it was Leicester’s position as a leading centre in the textile industry, and then a growing population attracts more.
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Re: Should Enoch Powell get a blue plaque ( in Wolverhamton)?

Post by PH »

thirdcrank wrote:
PH wrote: ... Maybe it's because Leicester City Council placed adverts in the Ugandan press asking them not to come and they wanted to see what they might be missing.


That went straight over my head. :?

Maybe you needed to be local, it was controversial at the time, LCC did just that, took out adverts in the Ugandan press to discourage anyone from choosing Leicester.
Cyril Haearn
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Re: Should Enoch Powell get a blue plaque ( in Wolverhamton)?

Post by Cyril Haearn »

bovlomov wrote:
thirdcrank wrote: it's suggested there that he had an ambition to become Viceroy of India.

Isn't that the ambition of every small boy? I know it was mine, and the thought of it so consumed me that I forgot to go to university or take any of the steps required to attain such a post. What was his excuse?

Little girls in Wales wanted to rule in the colonies too, Julia Gillard lived her dream and became PM of Australia
I wanted to climb Chomolungma or win Milan-San Remo
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Re: Should Enoch Powell get a blue plaque ( in Wolverhamton)?

Post by bovlomov »

Cyril Haearn wrote:
bovlomov wrote:
thirdcrank wrote: it's suggested there that he had an ambition to become Viceroy of India.

Isn't that the ambition of every small boy? I know it was mine, and the thought of it so consumed me that I forgot to go to university or take any of the steps required to attain such a post. What was his excuse?

Little girls in Wales wanted to rule in the colonies too, Julia Gillard lived her dream and became PM of Australia
I wanted to climb Chomolungma or win Milan-San Remo

Which one of those did you succeed with?
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Re: Should Enoch Powell get a blue plaque ( in Wolverhamton)?

Post by bovlomov »

A general comment about immigration.

I acknowledge that in certain areas there has been a lack of integration, but in the context of all immigration to this country over the past 150 years, that is a minority.

Some self-identified 'native' British people have a fear that their culture is being diluted, but I think this is overstating things. It also betrays a distinct lack of confidence in the strength of our own culture.

For all that immigrants have changed our society, we have changed them more. Most second generation immigrants are far more British in their attitudes than they are foreign. This is something immigrant parents have to face as their children are growing up, whether they are Indian, Chinese, or Italian; Muslim, Catholic, Hindu or Jew: their children are growing up eurghhh! as British. It is often a source of conflict between the generations.

Both my father's parents were Italian. They spoke Italian at home. Yet my father was, from an early age, more English than Italian. I could say the same about scores of others I have met with a similar upbringing. The area he went to school is now close to 100% Bengali, and it is this community that has been accused of not integrating. Yet the younger generations slip easily between Bengali and London English. They owe more to London than to Bengal.

I'm not making any profound point. Just that I think our culture is more resilient than many believe.
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Re: Should Enoch Powell get a blue plaque ( in Wolverhamton)?

Post by Cyril Haearn »

bovlomov wrote:
Cyril Haearn wrote:
bovlomov wrote:Isn't that the ambition of every small boy? I know it was mine, and the thought of it so consumed me that I forgot to go to university or take any of the steps required to attain such a post. What was his excuse?

Little girls in Wales wanted to rule in the colonies too, Julia Gillard lived her dream and became PM of Australia
I wanted to climb Chomolungma or win Milan-San Remo

Which one of those did you succeed with?

Neither yet although the first would now be possible on a led tour €€€€ but it would endanger my health
One dream did come true mind, worked on a steam railway, see signature, +25 (mph)
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Re: Should Enoch Powell get a blue plaque ( in Wolverhamton)?

Post by Vorpal »

Thornyone wrote:
pwa wrote:If we could rewind and do it again, in a better way, it would have been easier if immigration of ethnically different groups had happened slower, so that the immigrants did not have large clusters of their own ethnic group to attach themselves to. Perhaps then they would have been more likely to live alongside the existing population and integration would have happened.

In my village there are people from a wide range of income groups. But I can't think of one none-white face. I am sure we would welcome anyone from any ethnic origin, but none have come yet.

I think that you have hit the nail on the head here. In fact if I cycle more than about five miles beyond the Leicester urban area I will frequently see no non-white people except maybe a local village store owner. Re integration, true integration in the long run probably implies intermarriage, which IME is pretty uncommon, and resistance to that is certainly not to be laid excusively or probably even primarily at the door of the “White Briton”. Just think arranged marriages.

There are many, many reasons for immigrants to want to live near people who come from the same or similar culture to their own.
-learning the language & culture takes a long time and can be mentally exhausting; reverting to something familiar is sometimes necessary for relief
-living near others making the same transition allows an immigrant to seek advice about the differences & coping with them
-without government funded childcare or early childhood education, immigrants need to rely on family or friends to look after children during working hours

Last, but not least, immigrants certainly encounter racism, and even physical attacks. The likelihood of that sort of thing is reduced when immigrants band together for mutual protection, and so that their kids are not a tiny minority in school. Requiring them to 'integrate' is just setting their kids up to be targets of bullies.

I have known a black person who lived in a rural village to be effectively driven out, not because she was subjected to overt racism, but because a minority of small minded people made snide little comments, or insinuated things about her relationship with a white man, about her mother who was a Jamaican immigrant. If I've ever met anyone who was well and truly integrated, it was her. Almost all of her friends were white Britons, her boyfriend was a white Briton, her neighbors were white Britons. She went occasionally to nightclubs with her (white British) girlfriends, and pubs for a meal out once a week with her boyfriend, occasionally down to the local football club, etc.

But people would say stuff. I once overheard someone 'joking' with her boyfriend, asking him if he 'couldn't get one in white'. I heard comments when neither of them was around. So, no surprise when she moved to a big town, where the population was more diverse.
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Re: Should Enoch Powell get a blue plaque ( in Wolverhamton)?

Post by Thornyone »

I think that you make a lot of points here which are valid up to a point but a lot of them also approach the subject, effectively, as if racism is a one-sided issue, essentially perpetrated by the native white population. There clearly was a good deal of unpleasant, overt racism encountered by Carribean immigrants, for example, as indeed there was “white on white” racism experienced by the Irish. But racism also can and does exist amongst “people of colour”.

I think that one of the biggest bars to integration is not colour or race as such, but religious and cultural traditions. (It is largely due to the fact that the UK is not a “religious country” in the way that so many of those countries from which non-European immigrants come are, that they are safe to settle here without interference).
Whilst I can see that a small immigrant population might feel vulnerable, I think that ceases to explain lack of integration once numbers in a city pass a certain point. You appear to suggest that most immigrants have arrived very recently. The fact is that in a city like Leicester the majority of the non-“White British” were born here. In my own road about 50% of households are now “Asian”, a mix of Sikhs and Muslims. There appear to be no mixed marriages, but clearly no-one feels threatened.

You may recall the awful explosion here when a shop and flat were destroyed recently. Two “Asian” youths and their mother were killed, along with the “white British” girlfriend of one of the youths. It is probably not insignificant that the “Asians” were Indian heritage Christians. Also killed was a Lithuanian woman, the Muslim convert wife of one of the three Iraqi Kurd men now facing prosecution in connection with the explosion. (Note that the Muslim man had not converted to the woman’s faith, assuming she was religious).
I think that it is simplistic to explain lack of integration nowadays simply in terms of indigenous on immigrant racism or the perceived threat of it.
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Re: Should Enoch Powell get a blue plaque ( in Wolverhamton)?

Post by Vorpal »

Thornyone wrote:I think that you make a lot of points here which are valid up to a point but a lot of them also approach the subject, effectively, as if racism is a one-sided issue, essentially perpetrated by the native white population. There clearly was a good deal of unpleasant, overt racism encountered by Carribean immigrants, as indeed there was “white on white” racism experienced by the Irish. But racism also can and does exist amongst “people of colour”.

I think that one of the biggest bars to integration is not colour or race as such, but religious and cultural traditions. (It is largely due to the fact that the UK is not a “religious country” in the way that so many of those countries from which non-European immigrants come are, that they are safe to settle here without interference).
Whilst I can see that a small immigrant population might feel vulnerable, I think that ceases to explain lack of integration once numbers in a city pass a certain point. The fact is that in a city like Leicester the majority of the non-“White British” were born here. In my own road about 50% of households are now “Asian”, a mix of Sikhs and Muslims. There appear to be no mixed marriages, but clearly no-one feels threatened.

You may recall the awful explosion here when a shop and flat were destroyed recently. Two “Asian” youths and their mother were killed, along with the “white British” girlfriend of one of the youths. It is probably not insignificant that the “Asians” were Indian heritage Christians. Also killed was a Lithuanian woman, the Muslim convert wife of one of the three Iraqui Kurd men now facing prosecution in connection with the explosion. (Note that the Muslim man had not converted to the woman’s faith, assuming she was religious).
I think that it is simplistic to explain lack of integration nowadays simply in terms of indigenous on immigrant racism.

It is simplistic to explain it that way; it is a very complex topic. And I don't deny that racism exists among all populations, but an immigrant, and particularly black or ethnic minority, is *far* more likely to be disadvantaged by the racism than a white Briton.

As for explaining where people live, well, it has as much to do with the affordability of housing than it does who lives where. If you cannot afford to live in a nice suburban neighborhood, but you can afford to rent an apartment in a neighborhood where you friends and family live, or in a rural village, where you don't know anyone, which will you pick?

As for the UK not being a religious country, the population may be largely secular, but Christianity is *everywhere*. It is taught in the schools, it is on forms, where people may be asked to give their 'Christian' name and surname. It is built into some very basic assumptions of society. The Queen is the head of the Church of England. How is that not a 'religious country'?

Would you want to send your children to a school where they would be taught that Mohammed was God's prophet? How do you think Muslims or Hindus feel, sending their children to schools where they learn to pray to the Christian God? Is that really without interference?
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Re: Should Enoch Powell get a blue plaque ( in Wolverhamton)?

Post by bovlomov »

This thread has been everything Powell's speech was not: a civil discussion about a complex issue, taking into account the views of various interested parties.

I still don't know whether he should get that plaque, but he shouldn't if it's only on the strength of those few hundred words.
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Re: Should Enoch Powell get a blue plaque ( in Wolverhamton)?

Post by Thornyone »

Vorpal wrote:As for explaining where people live, well, it has as much to do with the affordability of housing than it does who lives where. If you cannot afford to live in a nice suburban neighborhood, but you can afford to rent an apartment in a neighborhood where you friends and family live, or in a rural village, where you don't know anyone, which will you pick?

I wonder if you would mind giving me some broad indication of where you live, i.e. inner city London or a rural village in Somerset, for example. Certainly as far as Leicester is concerned, I can assure you that a very large percentage of the more expensive houses are “Asian” owned, including many of the properties in the “best” locations. Yes, many Asians also live in terraced housing (most of it owned by Asian landlords). The suggestion that the non-white ethnic majority is confined to the poor housing is simply not true here. Many whites live in ex-council housing. If you aren’t familiar with the city, I could conduct you on a bike ride and you could see for yourself (some nice cycling, BTW :) ).
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Re: Should Enoch Powell get a blue plaque ( in Wolverhamton)?

Post by jgurney »

bovlomov wrote:Some self-identified 'native' British people have a fear that their culture is being diluted,


They are right about that, but the main cause is American mass media, not any influence of immigrants.
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