They Will Come For You - 5 comments

Via Pub Philosopher, a distinctly unsavoury attempt by 'our own' Diane Abbott MP (her name is misspelled in their article, though more on this later) to spread the fear of racism - and fear and mistrust of the police - among black Britons.

Familiar themes are covered; you've seen it all before, but here we go just once more time:

For one thing, the billions that Blair is spending on his wars in Afghanistan and Iraq could have been better spent on schools and hospitals here at home.

How can it be that Blair has a billion pounds to spend on sending troops to Afghanistan, chasing around looking for Osama Bin Laden (who is probably in a hotel room in New York watching it all on CNN), when there is no money to provide decent facilities for the youth in Hackney?

Frankly, I'm disgusted at that - at the very least, it's unworthy of an MP.

Now, how does Diane make the jump from media condemnation (much of it justified, leaving aside the tabloid accounts) of violence-inciting Islamic protests to conjure up the spectre of orchestrated racism against black people? Simply and shamelessly:

What this media coverage plays on is fear of the outsider and the "foreigner" and, above all, the oldest racial stereotype in the book: the idea that non-white men are violent.

In other words, from one of her own hang-ups - no more, no less.

And I have no doubt that some of the "anti-terrorist" legislation that Tony Blair is trying to push through parliament, including 90-day detention without trial and arbitrary house arrest, will end up being used on black and Asian people generally.

So beware of Tony Blair and his "war on terror". If they come for the young Muslim man next door in the morning; they will come for you in the afternoon.

I don't doubt that Muslims are disproportionally suspected of being involved in terrorism (and I mean disproportionately to the actual involvement of Muslims in terrorism, not disproportionately to other groups in society), but I certainly don't believe that any group is suspected generally, seemingly on the whim of the authorities, as Diane would have us believe. No reason whatsoever is given as to why black people might be victimised - and not defended by the rest of society - let alone people hailing from India, Uzbekistan, Vietnam, or Japan, whom Diane also seems to believe she has a right to speak for.

I guess it's possible that The Voice are doing the old Viz trick: "Diane Abbot is an unemployed agitator from West Norwood and in no way connected to Diane Abbott, the MP of unimpeachable integrity and moral character". It's mysterious, though: there seem to be plenty of Google hits for both variations of the name, seemingly both referring to the same person, so I'll continue to work on the basis that this nastiness was perpatrated by one of our own MPs, hard as it is to believe.