Double Standards?

A recent Facebook posting by Gareth Williams (and others) in the UK lamented the fact that, while Muslims and Black people are allowed to set up and run their own exclusive societies, companies and religious fraternities, white people are not – and would be condemned as racists if they set up their own White equivalents. Here is a fraction from the long list posted:

     There are University courses for Black Students only.  There is a Muslim Council.  There are swimming pools for Asian women only.  There is a Black History month. There are scholarships for Black students only.  (In America, many campuses actually ban white students from common rooms where Black students find their company ‘stressful.’) There is a Dragon Day for the Chinese. A white woman could not enter Miss Black Britain nor could she enter for Miss Asia; but any colour may enter Miss UK.   “We fly our flag, we are racists. If we celebrate St George’s Day, we are racists. [Whereas] you can fly your flag and it's called diversity.  You celebrate your cultures and it’s called multiculturalism.”

     If this is not Black and Muslim apartheid, then what is it?  A cosmic blip caused by a solar storm? Prestidigitation on a massive scale?  Or perhaps an inversion of the old adage:  Two wrongs don’t make a right?

     If all this indicates the surface turbulence on today’s sea of racial disquiet, then here’s a glimpse into its silent depths. 

***

Apes Don’t Mix

     For many years anthropologists and naturalists allowed us to believe that apes of all kinds lived in peaceful vegetarian communities, at ease with each other and the rest of simian society.  There was always a quiet background implication that maybe we humans had something to learn from them:  Go veggie!  We’ll all live in love and peace.  It is only in very recent times that more objective scientists have rudely punctured this idyll.  Not only do apes not mix:  they will fight and kill each other if they happen to cross paths. 

     The sight of a troop of chimpanzees tearing in pieces a live colobus monkey and eating it raw is, to say the least, confronting.  They go further. In many locations – from Congo to Gombe in Tanzania – these brightest of apes actually seek out other troops and attack and kill them, purely from territorial lust.  There are also increasing cases of chimps seizing human babies from their mother’s arms and bearing them off to eat.

     Science now informs us what the ape-huggers always knew but refused to accept:  Gorillas don’t mix with chimpanzees; Geladas don’t mix with Baboons; Colobus don’t mix with Macaques; Mandrills don’t mix with Bonobos.   And so on.  No zoo owner would dare put any combination in the same enclosure.

     And apes and monkeys aren’t the only separatists.  Chickens often attack others of different breed; some will persecute anything with one feather different, hence the proverb, Birds of a feather flock together.  Predators of all sizes detest each other and will fight to the death if pushed.  Lions don’t mix with Tigers; leopards don’t mix with either.  Hawks and eagles don’t mix or associate.  Sharks eat each other.

     Why is this?  It is because they are from different families of animals with distinct characteristics, each having differing tribal values.

     Homo sapiens are no different.  In fact, we – 98.3% chimps, don’t forget – are the ultimate Tribe.  We know from archaeological evidence that primitive men killed, and not infrequently ate, each other.  From the Vikings of the icy North to the Torres Strait Islanders and Papuan head-hunters of the antipodes; from the dwarf Andaman tribes of the Indian Ocean to the scalp-hunting Indians of pioneer America:  ancient warrior tribes invaded other tribes, defeated them and then carried off their booty, either to be enslaved or eaten.  Warfare is simply the modern extrapolation.  Moreover, conflict may occur even when tribes share many similarities:  the Rwandan massacres of the nineties were the result of two tribes – the Tutsis and the Hutus – falling upon each other.

     My point?  Every country is a tribe, or a mix of similar tribes, bonded by shared beliefs and customs.  Remember the Twelve tribes of Israel?  Recall the Roman Triunes?  The major bonding matter today is still either religion or ideology.  There are lesser, though important, bonding factors:  e.g., civil considerations, family connexions, moral prerogatives, physical appearance (i.e., skin colour, eye type, hair texture, etc.), sporting activities, even dietary preferences.  A society will only achieve harmony – and success on the world stage – when its members share most of those bonding factors, as they do in China or Japan for instance.  And when they do, nationalism is born, and with it, national pride.  That is: pride in the Tribe.

     This is why, when individuals attempt to enter from other distinct tribes, resentment will arise. It is a challenge to the tribal status quo, i.e., to the Nation. This resentment may be low-key initially, even subliminal.  But eventually, if misunderstandings and disagreements are not addressed, it will mature into hostility. 

     Currently this is happening in many western nations who earlier welcomed migrants.  It is especially serious, and worsening, in many of the Greek islands, and also in Italy’s Lampedusa and Spain’s enclave of Ceuta.  When a few dozen migrants arrived from Turkey (ostensibly fleeing war in Syria), the Greek government – one of Europe’s poorest – welcomed them, fed them, housed them, documented them.  The tiny Italian island of Lampedusa acted similarly.  But before long the trickle of migrants became a flood; the earlier arrivals began to complain about their living conditions; and the majority of them were obsessed with making it to the richer lands of Europe and the UK, becoming piqued and angry when denied.  Predictably, the locals began to resent the migrants, more so when the richer nations refused to fund their poorer Mediterranean partners.  When the Spanish government let in a few poor North Africans, they soon had a flood too.  They were obliged to close their southern border and return the migrants to their African origins.  And the thousands of migrants currently sneaking across the English Channel from mainland Europe is causing a storm of resentment – especially since most of them are being housed in hotels, and hardly any of them share UK tribal mores.

    Migrants are fleeing mostly from poverty, some from war, and a few from religious persecution.  This qualifies, and effectively preconditions, their hopes for a better life in liberal democracies:  they perceive a tribe which will welcome them, protect them and nourish them. 

     But this is simplistic.  Why?  Because if they fail to study the more complex tribal mores of the tribe they presume to covet, they might find they are not welcomed in the way they have imagined.         

     The current migrant crisis in Britain, Europe and America is a profound example of this phenomenon.  All of these cultures have distinct tribal demographics:  e.g., they are largely Christian or agnostic, democratic, morally lax, have similar physiology, and few food or drink taboos.  They also exhibit those lesser tribal characteristics:  religious plurality, equality for women, acceptance of sexual minorities, and sympathy with oppressed minorities within other countries.

     The plain fact is that the cultures currently migrating to Britain, Europe and America share few of the tribal demographics of their target countries.  In contradistinction, these immigrants are mostly:  Muslim, disinclined to democracy (or, as in the case of many from Central America, greatly misinformed about it), morally strict, and repelled by certain foods and beverages such as pork and alcohol.  Nor are they likely to share many of those lesser tribal mores:  they will barely tolerate other religions (nor religion’s secular alternatives such as agnosticism or atheism), nor will they willingly accept equality with women; moreover, they will loathe homosexuals, and will exhibit little or no sympathy for oppressed cultures in other countries (nota bene:  ironically, most of the sympathy for the Palestinians and the Moslem Uyghurs is coming from non-Islamic western democracies).

     When I migrated to the Philippines, I did not expect the Philippines to accommodate itself to me:  I accommodated myself to the Philippines. Before I moved there, I studied the country, the religions, the climate, the social conditions, their diet, literature, and so on.  I travelled there many times and prepared myself thoroughly for my new life.  Yet even after almost twenty years of permanent residency there, I don’t presume to think I am a Filipino; nor will I – at nearly two metres tall, with blue eyes and white skin – ever look like one.  I am and remain an Englishman who has chosen to live in another country (my wife’s).  I follow all their news and habits and politics, and eat many of their national or tribal foods.  But I don’t presume to lecture them or berate them over things about their national tribe that I dislike or disagree with.  I keep those (few) things to myself.

     But when migrants settle in Britain, Europe and America, what do we see?  The moment they set foot on land, they whinge and criticise, moan and vilify.  If they stay long enough to get higher education, woolly-minded liberals give them a platform from which they may denigrate the whole edifice of the tribe at whose mercy they have cast themselves – effectively biting the very hands that have fed them.

     It’s easy to identify the primary impulse for migrants, regardless of their origins.  It’s cash.  Just look at the countries they head for:  America, Canada, UK, Germany, Scandinavia, and a small number to Australia.  These are all rich and liberal countries.  If migrants were truly escaping from war or famine or desperate political or religious repression, then why be choosey?  Why reject Greek and Italian hospitality?  Why not go to Russia, China, Japan, Brazil, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Kazakhstan, or Saudi Arabia?  These countries are all very spacious, mostly wealthy, and the last four have Muslim majorities.

     There are two reasons for their reluctance.  The migrants know that the aforementioned countries are all traditional, hierarchical, largely oligarchic and, although welcoming to short-stay visitors, they are very reluctant to permit migrants of any sort. Japan may be the locus classicus of this curiosity.  The Japanese welcome visitors with genuine warmth and immaculate manners; but they have a deep-seated fear of foreign integration.  They see themselves as a unique, immaculate tribe.  Migrants know that, even if they were to be accepted into any of these countries, they would be subject to strict conditions, their every movement scrutinised; nor are their religions likely to be welcomed. Even Islamic countries are disinclined to mix sects.  Sunnis will seldom be welcomed in Shia-dominant societies, and vice versa; and few will welcome Sufis or Alawites.

     In contradistinction, migrants know that once they reach western soil, they will not only be welcomed:  they will be feted, coddled, cosseted, spoon fed; their religious beliefs and dietary taboos will be tactfully accommodated (ironically by people either with no religion or a pick-and-mix approach to faith), and their rights will be assured; moreover, once in possession of their ‘papers’, the grinning Vote-for-Me! populist leaders of their new country will smilingly tolerate all manner of criticism, even critique of the state’s own religious beliefs or ethical principles – i.e., their shared tribal bonds.

     Were they to attempt this behaviour in any of the countries listed above, they would be told in clear language to shut up and integrate – or leave.

     The simian equivalent?  Imagine what might happen if Chimps were invited to sup with Gorillas – but then snatched all the best food and bore off an infant to snack on later.  What would happen if Baboons gate-crashed a Mandrill mating ritual?  And what if Geladas descended from their grassy hills and attempted to learn other monkeys’ business?

     Ask the primate experts.  They will tell you:  there would be a massacre. 

     Apes don’t mix because they are tribal.  Human beings – 98.3% apes, don’t forget – are tribal too.  Evolution has taught us how to co-exist; but, when ‘push comes to shove,’ tribal instincts supervene.

     Let’s remind ourselves of the status quo.  It is this: migrants are coming to western democracies mainly from North Africa, the Levant, Afghanistan and Pakistan; many since World War II came to Britain from the Caribbean, and a few from other former colonial outposts. 

     But what if the status quo were reversed – as has happened many times through world history?  What, say, if hundreds of thousands of white impoverished Caucasian families – many of them Christian, many atheists, some gay, etc – were suddenly disenfranchised and forced to flee – say, from another virus, nuclear strike, etc – south across the Mediterranean and descend upon the largely Muslim cultures of North Africa?

     This is what would happen.  Not one would offer them asylum.  And in many places, such migrants would be sabotaged at sea, most likely at night and off camera.  Their different religions (or their lack of religion) would not be accommodated.  Probably even Israel would not welcome them; more likely it would intern them with apologies, and then mumble away in the background as to what they might do with them.  Any who made it as far as the Caribbean would be cursed as a burden on the state; those few who eventually managed to integrate and work would nevertheless face a lifetime of background resentment, as would their children.  And Caucasian migrants would simply not be tolerated anywhere near Pakistan nor Afghanistan, especially if they were Christians, atheists or, worse still, gay.  Traditional Moslem tribes are bitterly opposed to such things, even modernising ones like Malaysia or Borneo.

    But the plastic doolally West cuddles and coddles all-comers.  In Britain it houses many of them in first-class hotels.  Its leaders – all obsessed with PC and desperate to be liked by anyone willing to vote for them – welcome all beings into their ark of inclusivity (even snakes and scorpions).  They even criticise and penalise those few brave native souls among their ranks who voice fears or critique about the invaders of their tribe (particularly those creeping and slithering around after dark).  And these are their Vote-for-Me! ripostes:  We’re all integrating!  Don’t rock the ark! Snakes and scorpions can be cuddly!

     And where will all this preposterous PC lead?  Where else but the complete destruction of the original tribe. ‘Integration’ and ‘inclusivity’ are simply buzz-words thrown out by politicians desperate for the ethnic vote – though, of course, they don’t actually mix with any of them in their exclusive verdant suburbs.  

Roots

     A common complaint from migrants living in western democracies is:  We still aren’t accepted, even though we have lived here fifty years. The ‘Windrush Generation’ in the UK – mass migration from the Caribbean after the end of World War II – is a prominent example of this lament.

     The rub is this:  one or two generations are simply not enough for any person from one distinct tribe to settle and fully integrate within another distinctly different tribe. History shows us copious examples.

     Jews – the ultimate tribe – lived for centuries in Egypt and Babylon (and in many other countries), but were always regarded as outsiders, and regularly expelled en masse (officially, 1030 times).  The Bible makes this quite clear.  Migratory tribes who entered the Greek peninsula and its islands in antiquity were regarded for generations as xenos, ‘foreigner’ or allodapós, ‘alien’.  Homer (himself a migrant from Ionia, now Turkey) references these peoples frequently in his Iliad, often dismissing them as epigones, ‘inferior descendants or lesser followers, imitators.’ The invading Mughal Muslims lived in Western India for centuries, and produced its most iconic building, the Taj Mahal; but they were always regarded as colonial invaders, anathema to Hindus and Sikhs.  The Partition of India in 1947 merely permitted the hatred of centuries to surface as mutual vilification.  Settlers from Europe are still regarded by the Maoris in New Zealand as colonists, be they ever so cordial.  In vast neighbouring Australia (which condemns poor migrants to prison cells on remote Manus Island, although those with assets and vast pensions are welcome), the Aboriginal tribes still deride all outsiders as foreign usurpers – for very good historical reasons, of course. And one of the less public reasons behind China’s suppression of the Uyghurs is that they were a Moslem tribe who invaded Xinjiang centuries ago, usurping the resident tribe of Han Chinese.

Name-Calling & Colour-Coding

     The famous Asian actress Michelle Yeoh recently lamented in the media that she had often been treated with condescension when acting in America.  Has she, I wonder, ever seen the way white Caucasian actors are depicted in Asian or Indian cinema?  The very few western actors employed in the East are usually stylised as criminals, perverts or weirdos; they have few leading roles.  Blacks are regularly depicted as criminals, even morons.  Filipino cinema routinely casts black men as drug dealers.  In the rare cases where white women appear, they are invariably cast as whores trying to tempt virtuous Filipino men.  Indians – known locally as Bombays – are generally cast as loan-sharks or pimps.

     Colour prejudice and racial discrimination are not confined to white Caucasians (or white Slavs, come to that).  When a young couple from my own Filipino family migrated to Australia in the nineties, one of the conditions of their naturalisation process was to work for six months among Aboriginal tribes in the remote Kimberley.  The idea was to introduce them to the customs, beliefs and preferences of the ancient tribe among whom they would be living. Every day the Aborigines told them: Go back to your own country. 

     We have a lot of Filipino friends back in UK.  Many of them work in (or, like my wife, have retired from) the National Health Service.  One – a Filipina from Ilocos Sur, married to an Englishman – still works, aged over 70, in a local nursing home.  On a daily basis, she is racially abused – but not by elderly whites, who dote on her.  The perpetrators this time are Indians and Pakistanis, most of whom think she’s Chinese:  so, double racism.  She told us recently on Facebook that it’s only her sense of humour that keeps her going – and, of course, the need to send cash home to her Filipino family. 

     Remember the furore when someone unearthed a college photo of Canada’s Premier Trudeau with his face blacked in make-up for a college panto? Asian actors – especially in China and Japan – have for centuries painted their faces white.  (Remember The Mikado?)  As far as I know, no white person has objected.  Asians generally are obsessed with having and retaining flawless white skin, preferably one with a rosy-pink blush.  South Koreans seem especially obsessed about this attainment.  Seoul is in fact the world’s capital of skin treatment; every one of their numerous clinics promotes fair skin as the ideal complexion.  In the Philippines almost every bar of soap contains whitening agents, usually glutathione; they are promoted daily on all the TV channels.  When I first moved to the Philippines I searched long and hard before I could find a brand which didn’t contain any – a brand from UK.  Has any white westerner challenged this obsession?  I doubt it.

     It’s not just skin colour. In Hong Kong, a common Cantonese term for westerners (the foreign tribe) is gwai-lou – ‘foreign devils.’  On mainland China there are other derisive terms in Mandarin, many of them translating as ‘round-eyed devils.’  Indonesians refer to us as Orang bule (‘albino’), and in Thailand as Farang (‘white race’). Do white westerners take them to task?  Of course not.  Dark-skinned Australian aboriginals paint their faces white as part of their ancient tribal rituals.  Do white Australians complain?  Of course not.  And here in the Philippines when westerners are not being dubbed Kano (slang for ‘Americano’), we are called ‘the Whities.’  Ex-President Duterte is himself especially fond of this term, which is usually only mildly pejorative.  Am I offended?  Of course not:  I’m a grown-up. I’m no more troubled by adverse comments about my skin shade than I am about the language in which they are delivered.  A common playground ditty from my nineteen-fifties’ childhood ran:

     “Sticks and stones may hurt my bones, but names will never hurt me!”

     Names don’t bother me because they are no more than obvious designations of my tribal characteristics.  In a way, they are inverted compliments.  I am happy to belong to a certain Tribe among whom I feel comfortable simply because we share so many tribal mores.  There are many tribes in which I would not feel comfortable.  And there are some who would shoot me on sight.

     It seems to me that the only real type of skin problem in the West is the thin-skinned variety.  There are two types.  There’s the one who takes offence at everything, no matter how trivial; the other possesses sensitivities so extreme that he takes offence vicariously and then attempts to project his tribal protocols in defence of someone else, often someone far removed from tribe or country.  The first is vanity; the second is misplaced empathy.  The first is a hangover from colonial times when everything the coloniser did was perceived to be orthodox and therefore superior.  The second is the mindset that arises from the current western obsession with all things anodyne and effeminate, inter alia: wokery, vegetarianism, gender neuroses, feminism and vague, fluffy inclusivity issues.  An excess of either invites conflict.

     The East, of course, has its own prejudices, its own foibles, as I’ve sketched out above.  And by and by, for good or for ill, we shall surely come to know more of them.   

     We should all, West or East, aim to be and remain comfortable within the parameters of our own tribal mores.  For us westerners that should include celebrating and promoting our ‘white’ lifestyle. 

     The rest, as they say, is apeshit.  And that’s best left to the apes.  

Satyrista

For once, we at Satyrista agree with Bardocrat on a contentious subject. So we are offering a poem to express our agreement.

Swarms

Old Everyman stood on a beach;

Europa stood beside him.

Discussing were they how to reach

The soul of man inside him.

So sweet the Mediterranean land,

So glorious its history,

There was so much that both had planned

To penetrate its mystery.

So deep they talked that for some time

They noticed naught around;

Until a cry came off the brine;

It was a scary sound.

The sun it glimmered off the sea,

And there they saw a sight:

A raft of migrants frantic’ly

Paddling with waning might.

They struck the beach from out the tide;

 Their faces pale as sand.

“Our Odyssey ends here!” they cried.

“We’ve reached the Promised Land!

“Now, when our weary heads have rest,

The people of this place we’ll thank.

Yet more than that, we’ll give our best,

Our life-blood to the local bank.”

“But wait a moment,” someone said.

“This ‘Promised Land’ maybe the place

Where we’ve been promised bread;

But farther on – if we’ve the grace –

“Are others that are paved with gold!

How foolish of us to stay here:

We’ll only drudge until we’re old.

North, North, dear friends, to profiteer!”

They dumped their dinghies and their gear,

Bought cases, shoes, rucksacks,

Then marched away, their purpose clear,

On saviours turned their backs.

Too soon they drew up to a halt,

Their passage North was blocked.

Officials, thorough to a fault,

Said:  “Look, our customs can’t be mocked.

“Be patient, please; complete these forms.

Here’s food and water while you wait.

We must comply with national norms.

These are the rules of state.”

“But we don’t want to live with you!

You’re poor!” they cried en masse.

“Your culture’s cold, your lingo’s crude.

North, north we go.  Don’t us harass!”

They shoved and pushed and made their way,

Scorning all signs and aid.

To all the watchers of this Play

The pity it evoked was stayed

When hordes more coming seemed the same:

Obsessed with moving on

To countries with the richest game,

The biggest purse, the bright neon.

Old Everyman, he watched this farce,

And to himself he said:

“A drowning man the first straw grasps:

Nor casts about for feather bed.

“For sure among these hordes there are

Real fugitives from grief,

Bouyed up by freedom’s brightest star.

Polite they knock our door.”

“So true!” Europa said to him,

Her eyes still full of pity.

“You’ve tapped my thoughts, and some are grim.

What happens when our cities

“Open their gates and in among

The genuine, the sick,

Those who would hurt us also come

And cut us to the quick?”

Old Everyman, he shook his head.

“Europa, you’re so right.

This exodus fills me with dread.

The Trojan horse of flight –

Once housed within our lib’ral gates –

Might loose a bane within,

A culture alien to our states,

An ideological jinn.”

“What shall we do?” Europa cried,

Her voice was near despair.

“We welcomed them; their tears we dried.

To all we would be fair.

“But how to sift the dross, the scams

That one day’ll do us harm?”

“Not only that,” said Everyman.

“There’s more yet to alarm.

“Sheer numbers overwhelm us more.

We’re overcrowded now.

Yet where they came from, to be sure,

They were with space endowed.

“Where souls are crowded, pestilence

Stalks in among the crush.

When its black soul cries ‘Recompense!’

 Dear mercy’s voice is hushed.”

Europa hung her troubled head.

“What shall we do?” she wept.

“God knows,” said Everyman.  “I dread

What comes if we’re inept.”

Europa hung her noble head;

Her piteous eyes she masked.

When she looked up her glance instead

Conveyed what she then asked:

“What, say, if it were otherwise:

If Europe were attacked

And we set sail to foreign skies,

And everything we lacked?”

Old Everyman, at this he smiled.

“I think I know the answer.

But I’ll keep it to myself all while

We’re ruled by fools and chancers.”