Terror! I am terror-fied! As a Londoner, I frequently hear post-ironic twenty-somethings making glib terrorism jokes on our fabulous public transport system we have down here. We’ve been all been hearing the odd “anti-terror” platitudes on Sky News. It’s a terror-fying time to be alive. I’m not a fan of terror. I loved Terminator 2 and I’m going to see Andy Nyman’s Ghost Stories on Friday night (no spoilers please!) but I don’t like actual terror, where I literally, not just figuratively, fear for my life. That hasn’t actually happened since the 7/7 bombings, one of which took place about 10 minutes from my office.
Funny then, that when I think of the word “terror” I, as a consumer of the information handed to me through the papers, automatically think of Muslims, and not Catholics or white supremacists or clowns*.
So when this article: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/nottinghamshire/8609000.stm
was brought to my attention by Upon Nothing’s excellent blog: http://angrymob.uponnothing.co.uk/home/70-newspaper-lies/1080-nhs-picking-on-poor-white-christia ns I was flabbergasted. Twenty fully grown men using the medium of terror by attacking a couple on a train for the threat of terrorism is a pretty pisspoor reaction to the lies, lies, and fucking lies espoused by our pisspoor excuse for a printed news service. In case any of you are rubbish at maths, they were outnumbered 10-1. I’m going to go out on a limb here and assume that the couple in question weren’t Jet** and Chun Li (how fucking awesome would that be if they were though. And if Chun Li existed) so it’s not even a fair fight. Why was this not front page news a la “PROOF OF BROKEN BRITAIN: Gang of TWENTY FERALS attack couple on train”?
Being in my early 20’s, I don’t really remember the threat of the IRA in London, but I certainly can’t find any news stories of people attacking Catholics over the threat of terrorism back then (aside from Northern Ireland and the RoI, where I’ve been, and where certain individuals wear their racism with pride, nobody likes them). How are Muslims different from Catholics? Oh yeah, most Catholics are white. Forgive me for laying into the point, but I’m fucking sick of fucking racism and how we hear all the fucking time about how the indigenous population is losing out time and time again to immigrants and second generation immigrants and indigenous non-whites. You know what? We make up less than 10% of the population. If I were to believe everything in the papers, I’d be rather happy with how things are working out. We’re not even trying and yet we allegedly fare better than the rest of the people in the UK.
Or does Britain get a bit of a kick out of being scared? Kind of like “La Maladie Anglaise” but on a grand scale?
*Why are clowns always white?
**When I was about 18, I worked in a dodgy nightclub in Croydon. There was a legend going round that a few months previously (it’s always a few months previously, and the staff turnover rate was that high that nobody bothered to check the facts!), two of the burly bouncers on the door had refused entry to a small Asian man. When the man protested, as his girlfriend was already inside the club, the bouncers escorted him to a nearby alleyway with the intention of teaching him a lesson for his impudence. Unbeknownst to them, the small man happened to be ex-Chinese military and put them both in hospital! Apparently it was awesome.
I’d like to quickly point out that my intention is not to say that all white indigenous people are racist. Some of my best friends are white. And I happen to be pretty indigenous. I just threw an outdoor cheese and crackers housewarming party ffs. And by “crackers” I mean actual crackers that you traditionally put cheese on. Naysayers.
I’m also not condoning violence perpetrated by Asians against white people. The reason I found the above anecdote amusing was because it was about two big guys picking on one little guy only to get beaten up by him. Perhaps it takes the fun out of an anecdote when you explain your motivation but I’d just like to make that clear.
Peace out!
Big badaboom.
I hate trains because of the way you’re just left at the mercy of your fellow passengers. I’ve witnessed a similar incident in the past that was racially motivated. Luckily it wasn’t twenty people laying into two people.
However, it was 5 or 6 men saying disgustingly racist things to a muslim girl who was sitting on her own. It was obvious it had been happening since before the train got to my station because there was a tense feeling in the carriage and yet everyone else averted their eyes and making it not their problem which is easy to do. So I went and sat next to her
There’s no excuse for the sort of behaviour in that article.