'Britons fear race violence': draw your own conclusions - 7 comments

It's hard to know quite what to draw from this BBC/Mori poll. For one thing, I can't find any detailed breakdown of the statistics. Perhaps they aren't broken down at all, which would be a tremendous weakness.

The most obvious flaw is the conflation of race, nationality, and immigration. A backlash against immigrants presumably involves opposing nationalities, though it need not - generational and cultural factors also play a part, not to mention economic differentials. Racial differences might play a part too, but a lot of water has flown under the bridge since the assumption held that racist violence was the preserve of predominantly white working-class communities against immigrants from the Caribbean or Indian subcontinent. Such racism still exists, but hardly has anything to do with current patterns of immigration.

Another problem is the assumption, presumably stemming from an odd faith in Enoch Powell's ability to foretell the future, of a contrast between the 'shaky peace' of today, and some kind of future bloodbath. Yet violence between gangs that define themselves on racial, ethnic, or nationalist grounds is hardly unknown, even if it's usually restricted to already violent areas. The absence of the large-scale riots of years past is hardly proof that tension and hostility has been reduced, just perhaps of social atomisation - the groups themselves are smaller.

Racism, nationalism, and hostility to outsiders, are common to all human societies, and the greatest limitation on the development and progress of humanity, but I doubt there's been any serious diminution of these impulses in centuries, with the exception of some large cosmopolitan cities (researchers in this field who are professional enough not to write pieces off the tops of their heads are welcome to comment on this point). Disappointingly, internationalism is a truly tiny movement in the world, and I suspect that socialism in practice has had a thoroughly negative effect, certainly when compared with free markets.

It's nearly two years since I posted this, but the section I quoted from bowblog still sounds to me like the best strategy for maintaining social harmony without surrendering to bigots (my emphasis):

Our effort, in the wealthy world, (where, let's face it, immigrants are going to continue to arrive in large numbers if we're to remain wealthy) must go into improving the capacity of our reception communities [...], boosting the resilience of the bottom social tier, taking working class grievances seriously and easing the pressures produced by ineluctable change. The goal must be to build social solidarity, to neutralise the embitterment and disconnection that feeds the fascists.