Western Media a Clear and Present Danger to World Peace

Hegemonic and virulent threat

Undoubtedly one of the world’s most successful media MODEL in terms of the shear extent of reach and the efficacy of its “message” communication is the Anglo/American English language MODEL. Its Modus Operandi and proclivities place it at the centre of series of inter-connected webs, spawning powerful coalitions of the power hungry driven by an iniquitous alliance between corporate businesses, senior government officials, politicians, lobbyist, and prominent academics.

This piece contends that the above described model’s primary objective is to manipulate public thought and nudge its denizens to act in the local national, regional and international sphere in accordance with narrowly defined inscrutable self serving objectives.

This model’s tried and tested methods expresses themselves via a plethora of avenues and has spawned the salacious and vacuous “red top” the sanctimonious, self assured, naive pompous and overly intellectual broad sheets mind numbingly repetitive TV news networks and shock jock radio, rapacious and relentless 24 cable networks, the paternal didactic and sententious state broadcaster; have all replicated themselves virus-like across the planet. 

The Media’s collective capacity to channel colossal amounts of finance into the development and employment of modern cutting edge technology’s fuels it capacity to deliver “the message” in an effective, efficient and consistent manner determining the dynamics within which dissemination takes place wielding a power that is existentialist in its shear capacity to secure  control and domination.

The Messenger in this model becomes the message-creator not only deciding its nature, form and content but framing and delivering the “message” with a view to determining how it’s received.

This piece seeks to uncover and consider the model’s underlying premise and expose it as what in effect amounts to a confidence trick

In order to understand this model’s modus operandi and appreciate its efficacy one must de-cloak and distinguish its formal facade that which it proclaims to be, from its actual daily operational practices and motivations, to do so one must compare and contrast the media’s “articulate premise” as described below with s its “inarticulate premise”.

The media’s “articulate premise” is arguable very familiar to us, it is inculcated into our consciousness from the cradle to the grave; it asserts that the media’s role in a democratic society (whatever that means)  is predicated on principles of impartiality and independence in terms of gathering information and reporting, absent of political  bias or hidden  allegiance and a driven solely by a commitment to discover truth and thereby empower its audience. It does so in the lauded capacity of  our guardian of civil and human rights, and the protector of democratic ideals.

The essence of the “articulate premise” is predicated on  the primacy of the notion of the “freedom of the press” such freedom unfettered save for defamation and sedition laws and founded on constitutional principle of freedom of expression

Few would argue against the indispensability of such unfettered primacy for this socio-political construct we call the media in particular given its professed role as a bulwark against abuse of power   in a “free” society.

However, and there is almost always a pungent “however” lurking somewhere in the wings ,  the media’s  interpretation of “freedom of the press” in its daily manifestation  appears to be  at odds with this articulate premise; what  is becoming increasingly evident is that the proclaimed practice does not match or reflect the stated theory; and logic indicate that  if the theory does not explain the actuality then  the theory is self-evidently wrong or misconstrued and in need of further scrutiny.

This piece seeks to engage in that scrutiny and outline and evaluate some of the key underlying assumptions that fuel the media’s actual daily operations and its institutional culture and make-up.

To discover  how notions of “freedom of the press”  translate in the context of multi-billion pound/dollar international conglomerates driven by undisclosed agendas  intent on the pursuit of money and power  is crucial to the appreciating the actual role played by the media in its daily endeavours.

To move towards this objective we will analyse and consider how in practice the media operates with a view to discovering its unstated underlying assumptions and objectives in other words to analyse and consider the Media’s “inarticulate premise” that which in fact actually drives the daily activities of  individual news outlets’  .

The “inarticulate premise” in contrast to the “articulate premise” reveals actual practice rather than self serving theory

The notion of an “inarticulate premise” emerges within the realms of the law in  practice and refers to a technique used by common law judges to determine cases before them where there is no decided law upon which to base their determinations and where strict legal analysis is wanting; in such circumstances  judges resort to the pragmaticism and arrive at their determination deferring to their own narrow cultural, political and moral prejudices and  apply that to the facts and describe its outcome as  “the law” on the  matter thereby being considered.

The determination is made on the basis of the narrow proclivities of an individual judge but is expressed in the language of the law hiding from view that in fact there is no precise legal basis to such determination back only by  the undisclosed agenda of that particular judge.

The “Media” it is argued in this piece employs a similar sleight of hand. To understand how the notion of the “inarticulate premise” functions in the context of the Media one must appreciate how media houses manipulate facts to reflect their own particular view of the world affirming their self serving ideological outlook

The complicity of the political, legal and financial infra-structure (national and international level) is required to ensure the seamless operation of this model is obscured from view and thereby scrutiny masking that the stated

principles of independence and impartiality of the media are nothing but chimeras  stifling protest and an anathema to an open and transparent society

This piece argues that the media’s inarticulate premise endeavours towards the creation of an environment that nourishes, sustains and promotes a particular ideological and political stance in effect the purveyor of a particular point of view

To understand the modern media one must first consider that above all else media corporations are businesses indeed often coalitions of businesses driven in both the narrow and the wider sense by the maximisation of profit.

Profit in the narrow sense refers to generating profit for the particular media outlet whereas profit in the wider sense refers to the development and maintenance of a global environment conducive to the sustenance of business per se and their own power and influence. .

This has resulted in a tendency towards the cynical self serving management of information flows namely propagandism rather than being in pursuit of and reporting of “news” based on fact-sensitive, evidenced based politically unbiased, investigative journalism; it seeks to merely advocate a particular point of view about the matter at hand

Indeed even where individual journalists seek to honour their professed duty as impartial guardians and report on abuses of rights improper practices or behaviour contrary to the public interest their efforts are invariably thwarted by the modern media’s corporate machinery. In consequence opaqueness and obfuscation prevail usually to protect or promote the particular media corporation’s own undisclosed agenda. What must be born in mind however is that the notion of the public interest is overly malleable and nebulous and thereby subject to abuse needs of course to be considered and a clearer definition and/or method of determining public interest is to be sought

One recent rather blatant example that comes to mind is a story that was reported sometime in March –April this year where a team of Fox News journalist in Miami USA uncovered that Monsanto were feeding their milking cows with a growth hormones. The problem was that the very same hormones were finding their way into the human food chain turning up as toxins in blood test of Miami school children.

Prompted by pressure from some of its major advertisers Fox’s management buried its own journalist’s story and sacked the concerned journalist for going public with their findings thereby giving primacy to the protection of the business interest of the milk manufacturers with no concern for the adverse public health outcomes for vulnerable American children

However this piece does not seek to examine individual instances in which journalist have done the right thing or the emergence of “social media” to circumvent the “mainstream media”, instead it endeavours to examine and consider the political, economic, social and cultural factors that underpin and shape the role of the media in modern society; that is to unravel the media’s and thereby unravel the Media’s “inarticulate premise”.

To understand the media’s underlying “inarticulate premise” one must first appreciate  that the modern media translate the notion of the primacy of freedom of the press into the primacy of “coercive persuasion” this with a view towards engendering particular behaviour form  the  recipients of the “message” as a consequence of  the dissemination of a particular media determined point of view. The primary objective appears to be to  nudge its audience’s attitudes and behaviours towards acceptance consciously or unconsciously of a stated point of view, and to thereby illicit behaviour that conforms to that  particular Media outlet’s  ideological and cultural outlook.

The purveyed point of view usually reflects the self interested view of media moguls and/or media executives who act in coalition with a closed and obscured network of self serving politicians, senior government officials, lobbyist and fellow corporatist.

In pursuit of its self-defined primary purpose the Media employs the tried and tested tools and techniques of COERCIVE PERSUASION. Coercive persuasion functions  at the subliminal level, causing the target to repress, their own independent thoughts, desires or impulses by removing them the conscious mind and re-locating them into the sub-conscious mind; one outcome of which is that the individual’s thoughts are now delinked from the rational scrutiny of their conscious mind; thereby rendering the target more suggestible and apathetic.

Coercive Persuasion?

Coercive persuasion has 7 key objectives as follows:

1. Increased mental confusion and thereby increased suggestibility:
   
   this is often achieved by way of hypnosis or other suggestibility increasing techniques which includes repetitive audio, visual, tactile, or verbal stimuli and the employment of fixation exercises

2. the adoption of  strong non-physical punishments:

achieved via techniques that fuel humiliation and instigate loss of privilege and social isolation, causing the target anxiety, stress, repression and guilt and aimed at creating in the target intense negative emotional reactions left in no doubt they are on the wrong side of the argument

3. Promotion of social isolation:

similar to 2 above the individual is isolated as much as possible from sympathetic individuals that is anyone who does not share the group’s or in our case the media’s approved perception similarly the target is isolated from alternative sources of information, using  rewards, and group pressure again made to be outsiders ostracised from those on the right side of the argument

4. Attacks and denude the  target’s self concepts and independent world view: 

achieved by way of incessant repetition of the “message” seeking  to cause the target to lose sight of their distinct  "self," aimed at disorienting and destabilizing the target and weakening the will to resist the message

5. the intense and frequent undermining of the target’s confidence in their own judgment: 

The target is persuaded the system or in our case the media’s message is consistently correct and all others sources are consistently wrong.

6. The manipulation of  information and language:

Information is censored with a view to disorienting the audience and dis-information employed to further confuse the target using a cocktail of truth and strategically placed untruths using the truths to justify the lies and obscure the discovery of the falsehood.  The objective being the encourage the target to divide the world into the sanctimonious “us" and the, unworthy ignorant “them."

7. The use of psychological threat: 

Using stereotypes and super myths to fabricate enmity generate fear and suspicion between groups and communities with a view to control and domination and quashing alternative views and opinions and ways of living 

See Factnet.org

The techniques of coercive persuasion are the unique domain of the media but is also practiced by intelligence agencies and cults and any others seeking  to coerce for their own advantage

The CIA’s proud boast is that their techniques of coercive persuasion are at its best more efficient and effective than physical torture or the use of psychoactive drugs in eliciting conforming or compliant behaviour.

The CIA blue print on the use of the techniques of coercive persuasion has been immortalised in its KUBARK MANUAL. The Kubark manual is a training manual detailing precise step by step techniques of coercive persuasion; techniques which are utilised by CIA and its cohorts to pacify subjugate and “turn” captured enemy operatives and the wider society towards compliance with a particular world view as sanctioned by the CIA.

Many of the manual’s highly dubious techniques have been used in the Guantanamo concentration camps in Cuba and in a range of American conflicts across the world from Vietnam to Indonesia, from Nicaragua to Chile Afghanistan to Iraq

The Kubark manual describes its coercive techniques as consisting of three key components namely debility, dependency and dread.

Debility – consist of the weakening and erosion of the target’s capacity to question orthodoxy, to be effective its progenitors must conceal or misrepresent information which contradicts that orthodoxy thereby rendering the audience more amenable to suggestion.

There are various techniques by which this outcome can be achieved including the use of gross over-simplifications of a complex situation Putin as a Nazi, Assad as a war mongering tyrant and the continuous repetition of the compromised message causing it to be subliminally absorbed by the target

Dependency –requires the creation of a near pathological audience reliance on the approval and acceptance of the Messenger and the legitimacy of the Messenger’s message resulting in a near oracle like status for the message-creator engendering status of reliability and trustworthiness often achieved by way of sheer volume and reach of the outlet i.e. conglomeration

Dread – translates into elicitation of fear and foreboding, fear of ostracism or isolation, fear of change, fear of sanction, and fear of annihilation. the enemy within the media determines who is to be hated, the public enemy, the message demonises those who the media determines the audience should most both fear and hate   

The media’s adaptation of Kubark style coercive persuasion seeks by way of use of the above described key components to elicit dislocation, stimulate disorientation, generate fear, and anxiety in its targeted audience and thereby render such audience more malleable to psychological repression and thereby acceptance and approval of the Media’s projected messages

The media employs a range of tools from its tools kit to achieve the sought outcomes which include as follows:

TOOL KIT

DEFLECTION – to bend or turn aside the very question of truth this is a technique which seeks to control and direct the audience’s focus away from the crux of an issue by shifting  focus to a peripheral issue and “bigging up” that peripheral issue through use of superlatives and hyperbolic language or  alternatively focusing on a weakness in any contrary analysis to theirs  ignoring any obvious strengths and relevancies. The outcome is the substantive issues are obscured and never comprehensively discussed the focus being to extol the virtues of the media adopted message interpretatioin.

Graphic example of the use of deflection can be found in relation  to the war against Saddam Hussein which resulted in his ousting and execution in date the public’s attention was deflected to the existence of Weapons of mass destruction (WMDs) and the 2011 civil war in Libya which resulted in the brutal killing of the Colonel in the streets of Libyan city of Sirte near his place of birth where the international media’s focused its narrative on vilification of Muammar Gadaffi as a “mad dog blood thirsty dictator” with what seemed shear abandon and pushed the case for arming the opposition and bombing Gadaffi’s forces into submission. No thought was given to just who these “opposition force” were or their agendas or the legitimacy of their case against Gadaffi or the likelihood of resulting instability following his removal.

the outcomes of both situations was increased turmoil, killing destruction of infra-structure, communities on unprecedented scale

EUPHEMISMS – the substitution of a “soft” or indirect words or expressions for words or expressions considered to be too accurate, graphic or blunt where such usage would be considered “off message”.

Used when referring to something unpalatable with a view to concealing from scrutiny the  true nature of just what is taking place. For example expressions like “collateral damage” to describe an act of violence resulting in  inevitable killing of non-combatants (read women and children)  or the expression “shock and awe” to describe the horror and barbarity of wanton and all consuming destruction of men women and children and the obliteration of infra-structure and social and economic life in Iraq the effective traumatisation of an entire people, “downsizing” to refer to the social  dislocation pain and anguish  that results from  an employer  sacking  large numbers of staff

ASSOCIATION – where two or more variables move in apparent relation to each the media will assert a causal relationship between those variables for example Black youths and criminality, Muslims and terrorism, trade unionist and subversion, immigrants and increased benefits cost/fraud; whereas in fact the variables are in fact moving in the same direction but independent of each other  

INTENSITY – this concerns the prevalence of the message and seeks to ensure that  unproven and exaggerated claims are given unjustified weight by the enthusiastic use of superlatives and hyperbole such as “the greatest” , “most harmful” “most invaluable” “amazing” “unprecedented” resulting in  hype absent any fact driven investigative analytical  assessment or evaluation.

REPETITION–involves the continuous broadcast and re-broadcast of the message; sometimes every few minutes, sometimes hourly. The message or at least its key words are re-stated again and again one likely outcome of which is that the message is absorbed into the audience’s sub-conscious subliminally coercing the target audience and manipulating their perceptions and thereby their view point , leaving little room for reasoned thought or consensus building  

THE BIG LIE – This involves the deliberate adoption of complete untruths or fabrications with a view either to supporting the messenger’s particular point of view on the matter at hand and/or discrediting the opposing point of view.

One example of this is the so called “Dodgy Dossier” which appeared to establish that Iraq had the capacity to attack the UK with WMD and could do so within 45 minutes. This big lie played a decisive role in the UK government’s decision to enter the American’s war against Iraq, nudging public opinion to reluctantly accept  what was a settling of old scores a Bush and Blair’s war of conquest

The Media were willing to accept the dossiers validity without any serious scrutiny and were thereby complicit in this lie. It was not until after hostilities were well under way and 100s of thousands were being killed (according to the peer reviewed Lancet Reports of the period around 600,000 deaths) that the Media appeared to re-consider its position too little too late

Another more entrenched example is the media’s complicity in sustaining the status quo in Israel/Palestinian conflict resulting in extension and regularisation of this extraordinarily destructive conflict.  The big lie here is that the conflict is one of  a battle between crazed murderous thug like Arab zealots intent on mass murder and annihilation of righteous peoples of Jewish ethnicity.

 FLATERY – seeks to woo the individual or group by lauding and praising them, affirming their integrity, decency and wisdom and affirming that they are on the “right side “ of the argument  e.g. benefits cuts proponents, anti-human rights activist, anti-immigration proponents etc.

THE EXPERT – the Messenger endorses a person as an “expert” or “specialist” in a particular field and then elicits from the ascribed expert a narrative that supports the Messenger-makers point of view.

Another manifestation of the expert is where a journalist despite not being an ascribed expert adopts the language of an  expert duping the audience into believing that that journalist’s narrow opinions or heavily editorialised content are the fact based findings of an expert or at least an expert  opinion.

FEAR – the Messenger seeks to create the perception that the individual audience member’s way of life or indeed their mortal life is under threat such threat emanating from an identified enemy suitably vilified by the Messenger the usual suspects include Blacks, religious fundamentalist, immigrants, benefit scroungers, trade unionist, anti-capitalist, anti–fascist and anyone with an alternative point of view or life style which challenges the maintenance of the status quo.

The Messenger uses this fear to deflect the substance of the actual concerns at issue blindly almost reflex like nudge public opinion against these groups and weaken any opportunity for open and informed debate.

CHARISMA – Media operatives, Presenters and Journalist seek to develop a relationship with their audience wherein the presenter/journalist can inspire trust and devotion thereby inspiring the audience’s confidence and rendering such audience more liable to suspend their disbelief.

A variation on this is where the Media engage   in a campaign to popularise a person for example to promote a particular politician into ” the affections  of the nation” for example Boris Johnson portraying him as special, super intelligent, trustworthy indeed  simply charming ; diverting attention away from his consistent blatant misrepresentations of the truth otherwise known as   lies his obvious  raw self serving ambition to wield power and accumulate personal fortune  witness the cult of personality that surrounds Boris Johnson

ANALOGY – an analogy is a comparison between one thing and another usually for purpose of explanation or clarification of one or the other thing. The Media employs the creative use of analogy to massage perception and thereby influence thought and action. Done by way of use of distorted correlations which appear to substantiate the Messenger’s message, the creative obfuscation of context to elicit the sought response. Witness the media use of analogies comparing Putin’s engagement with the Crimean with Hitler’s voracious appetite for conquest which resulted in the death of over 50 million people across the world. Obscuring the fact that Crimea is and always has been an integral part of Russia with huge amounts of Russian assets and largely inhabited by ethnic Russian. Further that his was a response to a perceived attack on his country’s territorial integrity by shadowy western machinations.

ATTACK THE PLAYER AND NOT THE BALL – this tool is available to be utilised as part of a propaganda initiative and seeks to focus attention on the person or persons who are “off message” rather than attack the “off message” message itself seeking to discredit the person or persons proffering the particular unwelcome “off message” message. The focus is shifted to destroying the credibility of the delinquents themselves destroying their reputation and standing often with falsehoods and innuendos.

One example of a person so vilified is the USA Nation of Islam’s – Minister Louie Farrakhan despite his successes in motivating and instilling values of aspiration and self reliance into the African American psyche playing a pivotal role in equipping them   to overcome their poverty and listlessness and assisting with their transformation into productive members of their communities he is persona non grata in the UK being described as an anti Semite, racist and subversive because of his opposition to Israel’s ethnic cleansing of Palestinians and the role played by Jewish finance in the creation and sustenance of European slave trade and slavery.

ASSOCIATION, CORRELATION & CAUSE – this requires the deliberate blurring of the meanings of association, correlation and cause.  An association arises where there is a correlation between two or more variable which vary according to a determinable pattern for example high crime areas and poverty stricken black neighbourhoods; the Media will obfuscate this to Black people being somehow genetically disposed to delinquency, crime and anti social and subversive behaviour. Such blurring is a sine qua non of institutional racism and social alienation of groups targeted by the Media.

The employment of these tools and resultant modus operandi has transmogrified “NEWS” into “PROPAGANDA”. The Oxford dictionary defines Propaganda as: Information, especially of a biased or misleading nature, used to promote or publicize a particular political cause or point of view. 

The Media presides in its omnipotence propagating their own self interested message and does so in cohort with the mainstream political classes in conjunction with armies of think tank analyst, lobbyist and pollsters; working in a sort of hegemonic alliance towards sustaining “the message”. No thought for their role as described in their “articulate premise”.

The dissemination and inculcation of the particular Media Baron’s a unstated point of view with a view to  evince   compliance and ensuring adherence to a particular political, social, economic and cultural agenda with a view to  moulding  societal attitudes and eliciting  agenda conforming behaviour by the audience   

“The most brilliant propagandist technique will yield no success unless one fundamental principle is borne in mind constantly... it must confine itself to a few points and repeat them over and over”

This is a quote from former German Information Minister Joseph Goebbels the Nazi. It rings as true now as it did then if you keep the message simplistic and repeat it often enough it will result in changing outlooks and view points for the target audience.

In recent times Modern technology and the conglomerisation of the Media has exponentially expanded its capacity to repeat the message incessantly within a 24 hour global news cycle; run by global news networks able to unrelentingly repeat grossly simplified and blatantly self serving representations of extremely complex issues engendering a mind numbing hypnotic effect in the target who acquiesce in acceptance.

The result of this relentless bombardment of propagandised images and information is most powerful at the subliminal level, a heightening of suggestibility and short circuiting of the target audiences’ capacity for rational thought and reason known as dumbing down.

A more humble and reflective audience may pause for thought where uncertain as to validity or authenticity of the “message” and would demand  open discussion and reflection humility is an anathema to this kind of repression

This insipid approach to “reporting the news” was exposed in the revelations of the machinations of News Corp one of the world’s behemoth trans-national media corporations part of media mogul, Rupert Murdock’s media empire. His empire spans media outlets in Europe, Asia, Australia and the United States of America and includes a 24 hour cable news network Fox News and BSkyB  the Wall street Journal, the Times and Financial times newspapers,  20^th Century Fox media boasting annual revenues in the region of $33 Billion USD.

What emerged from this scandal was that Rupert Murdock British operations had, over decades, been subverting the democratic process in the United Kingdom wielding enormous influence over the setting of the agenda’s of the major British political parties and successive British Prime Ministers cynically directing their policy agendas.

In return Murdoch offered his endorsement of political parties and their policies where such policies reflected Murdoch’s unstated agenda. In effect it was found that Murdoch had for decades used fear and smear tactics, enticements, blackmail, threats and intimidation to coerce British prime ministers and leading politicians and civil servants towards serving the Murdoch agenda.

                                                                                         

The democratic process had been rendered subverted by unaccountable, un-elected super rich individual. This, in addition to the phone hacking scandal and unlawful invasion of privacy in search of salacious information has the populous on guard but not yet agitating loud enough for real change

No more potent a case could be made for the urgent curtailment of this near unfettered power is essential to restore the necessary democratic balance this, it seems to me, will require a judicious level of regulation of the media. It remains to be seen whether the recent bout of such regulation will achieve the ends sought and assist in regulation and rationalisation of the Media towards its “articulate premise”.

In recent years two major inquiries have been held into the operations of the media a judicial enquiry which resulted in the Hutton Report and the Leveson pubic judicial inquiry the former of which found BBC journalistic standards to be unsafe and wanting and called its impartiality into question and the latter dealt with the fallout from News Corporation corrupt activities which the inquiry found to included

“entrapment, blackmail, burglaries, theft of mobile phones and making of corrupt payments to officials in exchange for confidential information. The kind of information acquired illegally included private communication, physical location of individuals, bank account records, medical records, phone bills, tax files, and organisational strategies. Individuals involved in the scandal included victims, perpetrators, investigators, solicitors, and responsible oversight officials” Wikipedia

The modern Media conglomerate has become not only the progenitor of the message but holds near monopoly on the analysis and the determination of truth. The recent convictions of News International operatives following the phone hacking trials reinforces the argument for increased regulation which must be cautiously and intelligently considered.

 The guiding overriding objective that should inform the formulation of regulation should be that of freedom of expression responsibly exercised and based on fact sensitive investigative unbiased and impartial pursuit of the truth in the public interest balanced by respect for the individual’s clearly defined human rights and a fair and balanced assessment of the public good.

Greater freedom of expression requires a better informed audience and a better informed audience requires a more open, transparent and trustworthy Media. The good news is that

a new model of information and news dissemination has emerged in the guise of the internet and “social media” which has to some extent democratised information and its access and has the potential to engender a better informed and more engaged population with a view to a more cohesive, compassionate and caring society capable and confident enough to investigate and determine the truth for itself or at least to discover the questions they should be asking of themselves and their “leadership class”

The 06 August 2011 riots : The expression of a plea to be seen

The riots the expression of a plea to be seen

"...true justice can only follow a thorough investigation of the facts..."

The outbreak on 06 August 2011 of 3 consecutive days of sheer abandon across the major urban centres of England was arguably the predictable consequence of failed social policies stretching back some forty years. This blog argues that the August 2011 riots have exposed the underbelly of an insipid and deep rooted social political and cultural malaise that is being experienced by the British population such malaise driven by uncertainty disaffection and dislocation evident at all levels of society across all “class groups” across its major institutional and administrative structures, and amongst our “decision making classes”.

The decision-making classes have been left floundering in fear of the future potential for a dystopian crisis. Such fear fuelled by the widely held view amongst such decision makers that what they perceiving as “British values” and their well crafted fiction of cultural superiority as being at risk.

This piece seeks to not only explore what British values purport to be but to analyse and consider them in the context of actual concrete outcomes, even amongst its ardent progenitors there is no clarity on just what is distinctive about the values they describe as “British” and further the actual narratives of daily lives of the masses of society do not reflect an impartial adherence the values in question.

2012 finds Britain undergoing an epoch changing identity crises the emergent conditions of which the state finds itself unable to effectively manage or control. One of the key battle ground of this epoch changing identity crises is immigration and the agenda for a definition of what it means to be “British” in a globalised highly mobilized world of mass migration in the light of the legacies of Britain’s unsavoury colonial past and English isolationism.

On the ground can be witnessed a shifting of the tectonic plates in terms not only of a sense of self of those who describe themselves as British but a defacto social and political transformation, underpinned by changing political demographics and the ineluctable redefining of “traditional” societal cultural references. Thereby engendering the perception in the minds of the decision makers and by way of osmosis to the wider Dunkirk generations and their offspring that orthodoxy is under attack

To understand just what underpins the above one needs to consider and analyse current population shifts in the UK not just the current position but the projections that indicate that by 2051 so called ethnic minorities (from a range of diverse cultural and ethnic backgrounds) will make up upwards of 20% of the British population. This fact alone to my mind is sufficiently potentially transformative to stimulate a debate on particularising just exactly what concrete realities will manifest  and how these changes are to be managed with a view to building a cohesive, inclusive and just society.

Unfortunately rather than considering the above in a positive light and formulating a coherent strategy to modernise Britain the decision–making classes in near state of despondency appear to be battling in a futile rearguard action to maintain the status quo the unavoidable consequences of which is a fractious society where discontent is overwhelming and individuals are ready to act thereby heightening the danger of further widespread civil unrest.

The “decision making classes” include politicians in particular “conviction” politicians bent on sustaining the status quo, leviathan media houses, professional political commentators, think tanks trained in the dark arts of coercive persuasion, prominent and esteemed academics for hire and civil servant Comandantes,   this motley crew otherwise known pits itself with committed intent against those it considers to be the underclass “the plebs”; it is this confrontation and the resultant dialectic tension that played itself out in commercial centres across the inner-city  streets of the country in the riots of August 2011.  

The backdrop to the above conjectured is that Britons have for centuries languished under the considerable constraints of a rather odious class system an oppressive system whose stated aim is to  entrench inequality and embed social inertia.

The effects of this system is evidenced by statistics such as  although only 7% of children in education  go to  private schools upwards of 80% of leadership roles in our society are performed by privately  educated individuals. Indeed it so pervasive that even previously traditional working class avenues for social progression i.e. music now evidences between sixty and eighty percent of its commercially successful artist as coming from privately educated backgrounds

Needless to say the percentage of ethnic minorities represented in private schools is painfully low this feeds through into a dearth of ethnic minorities at the highest levels case in point being senior civil servants and local authority, prominent musicians, executives high ranking officials and the range of high end jobs. 

Thereby even in a post-modern Britain  class affiliations is a key determinant of success governing ease and terms of access to, opportunity, power, wealth and high life expectancy;  in effect access to opportunity is disproportionately determined on the basis of an individual’s membership of a particular class such membership bestowed by birth, and considerations of ethnic origin.

The outcome of the above is a social, cultural, political and economic landscape largely predicated on privilege and entitlement of those who own and control the wealth and resources and a disenfranchised majority with little chance of significant upward mobility. Predictably this system stifles dynamism, stunts social progression is divisive, archaic and inherently ethnocentric and racist, unfit for purpose in the context of a search for the development of twenty-first century ideals.

One of many debilitating legacies of this class system and a reflection of the overwhelming power of the state is that under the UK’s unwritten constitution we as citizens are not endowed with positive inalienable rights enjoyment  of which is protected by the state instead we remain subject to the unlimited power of the authority of the Queen in Parliament. 

Attempts to introduce positive inalienable rights are even today, in an era where the protection of human rights is widely accepted as indispensible to good governance is actively being thwarted by significant elements of the “leadership class” in particular politicians and the media stir up hysteria in opposition to the effective implementation of human rights laws in the UK.

Whilst it may be true that many of the strictures of class are less evident today than in the recent past, the issue is that its legacy continues to shape British cultural norms and institutions as is evident from the continued existence of an unelected second tier legislative chamber consisting of “Lords” a very class reflecting title , our subjugation to an unelected monarch as our constitutional head of state such monarch equipped with archaic, unspecified and opaque powers and unaccountable to any other organ of the state or individual.

Further it is to be noted that two-thirds of ministers in the current government are privately educated more than half senior civil servants are thought to be from a privately educated background as are the overwhelming majority of senior judges.  Act as a sort of Praetorian Guard charged with the maintenance of ritual nature and form.

The strategically important question is, just how do we move on from an insular, exclusionary, bombastic and jingoistic society predicated on class and privilege and the legacy of the vestiges of entitlement of empire, towards a progressive society predicated on inclusion, fairness, equality of access, positive rights effective economic and social mobility.

Diversity and ethnicity are and has for centuries been very much an integral part of the milieu of British culture and of itself has acted as a barrier to entry into the arena of the “leadership class” it shaped the horrors of British slavery and colonialism driven by notions of race superiority. 

The Diasporans

It seems to me that one of the leading transformative forces in this dialectic is the group of peoples this piece describes as African Diasporans a term which is explained below.

1940s post World War II Britain saw the influx of these Diasporans, into inner city areas across the country, it was not realised at the time, but these people and their descendants were to become one of the most dynamic agents of change and social transformation the UK had experienced for 100 or more years.

The Diasporans are the descendants of the peoples who, from the middle of the 15^th century to near the beginning of the 20^th century were forcible removed from their place of origin, that is Africa, stripped of their culture, names, de-humanised designated as livestock that is “beast of burden” tortured and held in bondage under the harshest of conditions used as forced labour in the Americas no control over their sexual reproductive capacity or physical integrity for some 400 years.

The word Diasporan is used her to identify this group of people whose children suffered a similar fate. Diasporans are the descendants of those who’s labour and ingenuity, born on the plantation, generated the profit that built this country and in consequence died in genocidal proportions.

One of the many legacies British enslavement of Diasporans is a people who deprived of their cultural heritages and rendered rootless in foreign lands and left with no alternative but to reconstruct their identity and achieve self determination as they individually and collectively determine it; indeed an all consuming task

One important and pivotal outcome of this diasporan experience is that Diasporan’s exist in a different dynamic from that experienced by “migrants” who are essentially adventurous TRAVELLERS who leave their place of origin and set up home in a foreign country with a view to gaining economic advantage but with their culture and connections with their places of origin intact.

During slavery Diasporans found themselves located in the “White dominions” of the empire the then commonwealth i.e. the Americas, the Caribbean, significant numbers were also present in the UK itself and various parts of Europe. All these peoples share a unique historical and cultural experience having been systematically stripped of their status as human beings and literally in law rendered animals.

One of the most invidious and virulently debilitating of the legacies of British enslavement of Diasporans is the loss “mother tongues” their cultural, emotional and psychological integrity. Their mother tongues transmogrified over time   in the case of the UK enslaved into English Dialect or Creole for French speaking Disaporans. Diasporan's are not only born into cultures that are not their own but compelled to subscribe to said cultural references tied via the medium of language and living experiences

It should be said that the Caribbean despite its unique flavour and idiosyncrasies is ideologically and culturally part of the West it shares the West’s history the “native“ Caribbean languages are either English or some other European language such as Spanish, French or Dutch, their religion is mainly western (Judaeo-Christian), their political, economic and legal system similarly western, as is their education system, cultural references, place names etc.

The enslavement experience left the Diasporans dispossessed, culturally dislocated, emotionally and psychologically traumatized however it also ignited their defiance and determination for freedom and equality of consideration.

British Values?

Treated as an underclass we find ourselves somewhat in a perpetual state of siege. Our history has been a relentless struggle for re-empowerment, fought out over many generations and evidenced by our uncompromising insistence on the need for social transformation that reflects the principles of equality of treatment for all wherever we find ourselves effectively we find ourselves in a continued state of protest. Such protest has borne well documented fruit

Diasporans have over the last 50 years had a far-reaching and deep impact on the development and implementation of Civil Liberties in the UK driving the agenda for accountability, transparency and the development of legal restraints on the day to day operations of the executive and the protection and promotion of the rights of the individual.

The Brixton riots of 1981 followed the wanton abuse and mass detention of law abiding Diasporans by the British police up and down the country’s cities such mass stop search and detain were part of an official policing policy; the infamous Operation Swamp,

In response to the Brixton riots and the vociferous calls for change on the part of the Diasporans the Home Secretary of the day William Whitelaw MP commissioned the Scarman Report the outcome of which was the radical overhauling of the rules and  procedures governing the police’s use of force, their powers of arrest, alongside the individual’s rights during and after arrest, methods of questioning faced, the rules on the taping  of police interviews with w view to avoid the common practice of false and fabricated confessions often extracted under torture and which I myself have witnessed . The referred to changes were enacted in law by the Police and Criminal Evidence Act (PACE) 1984 which was introduced in consequence of the Brixton riots of 1981.

The Brixton riots came about not only as a reaction to abusive policing tactics but because the victims of this police abuse and criminality perceived that they were under siege. In 1980 to 1981 I lived in Brixton and can remember the tense atmosphere and the aggressive and intimidatory tactics of the Brixton police who went around in gangs and made sure there presence was felt despite fact that crimes were not being committed or reported. This lead to overwhelming feeling of being under siege at the hands of the forces of the state and without recourse to the protection of the law and exposed to torture inhuman and degrading treatment and punishment a very unsettling experience.

To contextualise this period it is important to recognise that the 1980s saw over 1000 deaths in police custody a state of affairs that was under reported indeed the media, the politicians and political and social commentators called for even tougher laws, but resisted calls for any sanctioning of any corrupt and/or aggressively racist police and criminal justice system.

Brixton again erupted into violence September 1985 which itself was sparked by the unprovoked police shooting of Dorothy "Cherry" Groce by the Metropolitan police which in turn sparked the 1985 Brixton riots. Ms Groce  was the innocent mother of a young black man her crime was to open her front-door to allow the Metropolitan police entry into her home to search for her son 21 year old Michael .

The next major riot was that of Tottenham in 06 October 1985 this riot was preceded by the death of Cynthia Jarrett’s at the hands of the Metropolitan police.  Its aftermath heralded the introduction for the first time in the UK of Human Rights legislation giving rise to the Human Rights Act 1998

Throughout the “Windrush era” the British state operated a institutionally racist education system which branded Diasporans as uneducable deviants with little prospect of ever being gainfully employed upon leaving school (save as bus drivers, street cleaners, factory fodder and dustbin men). This failing haunts Diasporans even today who pass on the legacies of their deprivations suffered at the hands of the British education system to their children thereby rendering them and their families dysfunctional with very narrow spectrum of   life opportunities to all intents and purposes outcast

The British education system actively sought to undermine and demean and debase Diasporans by way of the subscription to an openly racist curriculum. Reading list including children’s books such as Little Black Sambo, Robinson Crusoe’s “Man Friday” Kipling’s racist poetry the Golliwog books. These curriculum books promoted negative racial stereotypes and not only re-enforced stereotypes in the minds of the white children but engendered feeling of self-hatred and self-denial in the psychic of the young supposedly uneducable Diasporans this was further compounded by racist teachers whose personal hatred of these children was often blatant and cutting. Diasporan children were seen by the state as “educationally subnormal” see Barnard Coard’s 1971 report.

My own experience of the British education system of the 1960s and 70s mirrored the above as did that of my contemporaries with whom I have discussed this. Any ambition was relentlessly discouraged and mercilessly quashed any Diasporans brazen enough to aspire above their station.

The self-evident result of the above was school leavers indoctrinated with the soul-destroying belief that they lacked the capacity for intellectual merit or indeed the capacity to develop the skills and competencies required to make a valuable contribution to the wider society and left in no doubt that they did not belong . 

Diasporan upon leaving school and attempting to enter the world of work, were confronted by employers who subscribed to the stereotype of young Diasporans as uneducable , untrustworthy, unreliable, indolent, unruly and lacking any intellectual merit. In consequence these young Diasporans were condemned to suffering throughout their adult lives a daunting all-consuming battle with the British “leadership class”

It was a widely held view amongst the white British population that Diasporans lacked the level of intellect and focus required to perform competently at any level be it sports or any other area of gainful employment, perceived as being physically imposing but lacking the levels of focus or ingenuity required to for example be a striker in a top football club. This is the sort of crass virulently racist BS that passed for reasoned thought and was openly b the backed and promoted by the British media.

Despite the obvious advances won by my generation since the dark days of the 1960s, 70s, 80s and 90s substantive equality in the UK remains a illusion even today. Indeed during the period October 2010 to 2012 there were 225 deaths in state custody the vast majority of who were Diasporans.

The paragraph below is an extract from a research report produced by the London School of Economics covering the period from 2001 to 2002.

For the UK as a whole, in 2001–2, 70 people died in police custody or ‘otherwise in the hands of the police’, an increase of 32 per cent on the previous year. In addition, ethnic minorities make up the bulk of those who have died as a result of physical force (other than guns) by the police or the use of restraints (Inquest 1996)

Those that experienced the personal and institutional racism of the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s are in the main the parents and grandparents of those who made up the so called rioters. Today young black males suffer an unemployment rate of near on 50%, are heavily over-represented in the prison system (7 times greater than our percentage of the population ) and conversely underrepresented in tertiary education (14,000 university professors in UK only 50 of whom are black) the music business, football management the list is seemingly endless.

These parents in consequence of their experiences often display symptoms of post-traumatic stress syndrome which has left them floundering therein lies the subtext of the riots of August 6^th 2011 and previous inner-city riots going back some 40 years certainly not the pathological predilection for expensive trainers and flat screen TVs or an addiction to wanton violence as posited by the “leadership classes”.

A riot can be described as a spontaneous eruption of shared anger expressed by way of violence against authority and property and is usually born of despair triggered by an actual or perceived injustice. The injustice is usually perpetrated by the representatives of the state or result from state policies or lack of policies that provide redress for perceived wrongs. The mindset is one of anger generated by feelings of powerlessness in the face of one’s plight

The intensity, duration and wide geographic spread of the 2011 riots across several of our urban centres to my mind reflect the depth and extent of the despair and perceived powerlessness. A tsunami of riots spread from Tottenham through to Wood Green Brixton, Hackney, Croydon, Clapham Junction, Ealing, East Ham, Battersea, Peckham, Enfield, Eltham the city centres of Birmingham Bristol, Liverpool, Nottingham Leicester and Manchester.

Building Stronger & More Dynamic Communities

Analysis in the aftermath of the riots has evidenced that it was disproportionately the children of second and third generation Diasporans born in the UK who were at the centre of the disturbances of early August. These young third and fourth generation British born Diasporans (mostly male) despite the advances fought for and won by their parents and the increased opportunities that resulted therefrom remained ostracised.

Left devoid of any emotional attachment to the country of their and their parents’ birth suffering a sort of double-whammy of despair born of rejection from their place of birth, and disorientation of the dislocation of enslavement and oppressive racist state policies.

The gains won by the parents and grandparents remained tantalizingly out of the reach of the young Diasporan any benefits instead accruing to newer entrants into  the country and the white majority population.

Newer entrants from [Eastern Europe, Africa, Latin America Asia and Middle East] were perceived by the white majority as not carrying the same baggage as the Diasporans and having the pliability and focus that is one of the hallmarks of the immigrant. Despite being the beneficiaries of gains won by the Diasporans the new entrants often look down on the Diasporans as lost, disconnected, lazy and disruptive; leaving the Diasporan further isolated abandoned and ignored. 

Further as regards state policy an insight into the mind set of modern UK social planners can be gathered from the Office of National Statistics’ (ONS) classifications of ethnicity in Britain. This classification breaks down ethnicity into the main headings given in bold below with the subcategories as listed.

White                                                                          Black or Black British 

British                                                                          Caribbean                                

Irish                                                                             African                                    

Any other white background                                       Any other black background    

Notice that it is only the category headed White that list a sub-category which describes itself as British thereby giving rise to the sub-category “white British” whereas the sub-category British does not appear under the heading Black or Black British  therefore there is no distinct sub category of Black British. Thereby for black born British person  

1.      there is no sub-category British

2.      anyone who is Black whether born British or not whether arrived in the country yesterday can select a listing of Caribbean, African or Any Other however this does not reveal whether that person is Black British that is born in the UK  or of some other nationality.

Those that use this data in the formulation and implementation of social policy would be none the wiser as to whether the person was black and British born or black and just arrived in the UK that day from Africa or the Caribbean This rather than engendering social cohesion entrenches immigration status and the racist perception that the status of being “British” or even “English” is reserved for white people.

The categorisation ought to be

Black

British

Caribbean

Any other black background

This is just one example of the sort of exclusionary measures adopted by British policy makers that militates against Diasporans nurturing any meaningful sense of belonging or any emotional attachment to their country of birth.

Further it demonstrates the determination of the “leadership class” to quash social transformation driven by desire to maintain notions of “Britishness” as founded on narratives of empire, class and nationalism.

Post-riot analysis has confirmed the common experience of the overwhelming number of rioters was not only that they perceived themselves as marginalised but they hailed from that part of the society that was more likely to suffer debilitating poverty, social exclusion, restrictive access to societal resources, family dysfunction, entrenched unemployment, compounded by a mismatched education system driven by mismatched education policy underlined by low teacher expectation.

Enlighten and meaningfully engaged communities encourage a sense of connectedness with those with whom they share the same space  demonstrate high levels of “emotionally intelligence” and display a sense of collective ownership of that shared space.  Such communities where provided with access to have perceived wrongs listened to and addressed do not resort to rioting.

The building of strong communities is the sin qua non for the development of a cohesive creative hard-working, aspirational altruistic society, and is the surest safeguard against social disorder and insurrection.

The nurturing of a shared community ethos and the development of the sense of a collective stake are powerful antidotes against the need for repression by the state or dissatisfaction expressed by way of riot.

Whilst riots and social disorder have in the past proved to be mechanisms of positive change they are extremely destructive not only of property, infra-structure, resources and access to services but can result in the permanent break-up of the very community itself as social planners intent on damage limitation in conjunction with the “flog em and hang em brigades” descend in hot pursuit of post riot retribution.

Further it may heighten tensions of members of one group within the community against another group within the community these can be difficult to heal as such riots should be avoided in favour of dialogue and consensus building. However where viable and efficacious avenues for such consensus building are not readily available, accessible, affordable, and transparent the outcome will be intercommunal strife  

Those 3 consecutive days and nights of looting and arson tragically resulted in 5 deaths and around £200 million pounds of property damage. Compounded by the damage to the future life and work prospects of several thousands of the young men and women pursued, arrested and prosecuted suffering harsh and disproportionate sentences, upwards of 52% of those arrested were descendants of Diasporans

One year on from the August riots, despite copious amounts of media and academic analysis investigation and report writing the precise underlying causes of the riots are still not understood, however what has become clear is that the public is being prepared for yet another white wash the ruling elite instinctively pulling up the draw bridges.

in the light of all of the above I am reminded of David Lammy’s (MP for Tottenham) rather insightfully statement made in the course of a televised interview conducted outside of the Tottenham police station a few days after the outbreak and I quote

"true justice can only follow a thorough investigation of the facts".

In consequence of all the above described obfuscation the wider society is left with little understanding of just what the actual cause or causes of the august 2011 riots were. Little or no constructive public debate has arisen thereby hindering the wider society’s involvement in the development of a viable strategy towards a more harmonious society. Instead the emphasis from the media and the usual state authorities has been focused on revenge evidenced by the disproportional punishments meted out.

Over one year on from those torrid 3 days in August 2011 no comprehensive or meaningful research into the UNDERLYING causes of the riots has yet been called for or emerged in despite the magnitude of the events of those days in August and its portent of worse to come.

The failure to do so (i.e. some sort of public inquiry) at this late stage reflects the myopia and isolation of the country’s “leadership class” who remain lamentably unaware of the need for serious reconsideration of the suitability and efficacy of current social political and legal order in the face of a radically and rapidly changing society region and wider world.

Tolerance 

Such investigation would of course require the focused scrutiny of UK government policies form the 1970s to current date; in particular the unwritten policy of “Tolerance” which has been one of the primary tools of public policy in regards to the management of ethnic social relations in this country. Whilst in and of itself tolerance is a laudable thing unfortunately the manner and context of use of this tool has resulted in condescension and entrenched separation.

Whilst the development of a society based on tolerance is on its face desirable, the outcome in the UK has been the development of policies that encourages indifference and wilful disinterest in the needs of “the other” that is those who are not perceived as native or indigenous.

 “Tolerance” can be defined as “a fair, objective, and permissive attitude toward those whose opinions, practices, race, religion, nationality, etc., differ from one's own; freedom from bigotry”. Wikipedia

All quite laudable however tolerance can prejudice active engagement between communities, and promote apartness and facilitates formal rather than substantive equality. Inclusion, on the other hand, stimulates engagement, promotes substantive equality, encourages mutual respect, and provides a more viable framework for direct and active participation in the wider society.

This piece suggested that social strategy should be predicated on inclusion providing an alternative and more productive policy development tool and would likely lead to a more equitable society and kerb some of the excesses of privilege.

The attainment of inclusion will require a radical overhaul of the fundamental principles upon which British society is currently based including the dismantling of the remaining vestiges of empire, entrenched privilege, and the scourge of class this would require the abolition of the monarchy and the web of anachronistic allegiances to the Monarch you know Lords et al.

This would open the door to the formulation of a new inclusive national anthem which rather than speaking of a heinous past could reflect a modern Britain where the progressive development of talent is the guiding principle underpinned by  the principle that no one should be left behind

British cultural identity ought no longer to be defined solely on the basis a narrow and restrictive traditional English culture and customs but must now take greater account of the fact of its greater diversity; guided by a commitment to promote cohesion and celebrate seeking the benefits difference has to offer rather than stifle difference.

Ironically this country is in fact built on waves of mass migrations 11th century Britons were descended from immigrants from northern, western  and southern Europe that is the Lutes, Angles, Saxons, Normans, Celtics, Romans and Nordics each ethnic influx having an immediate and profound impact on growth and development of the English language, and the direction of British culture.  

It seems to me that in more recent times it is the Diasporans who have had the greatest impact on radically changing British cultural identity towards a more inclusive agenda not only through our activism and fight for civil and human rights but by way of music, arts, sports, fashion, thoughts and ideas.   

Britain emerged from WWII essentially as a basket case the ravages of the Second World War saw the disintegration of its empire, and left the British economy devastated and floundering, its hegemonic status having been usurped by the United States of America.

African Diasporans where literally shipped in from the Caribbean by the UK government to drive the British recovery and the reconstruction and development of Britain in the aftermath of the fight against Nazism; a war in which the Diasporans also fought and suffered and died.

The early Diasporan’s experience in the UK was particularly harsh, living in overcrowded slum conditions blighted by an unofficial social policy of “colour bar” that is exclusion on the basis of colour. This culminated in 1958 in the Notting Hill riots which resulted in five days of riot and two weeks of disturbances in that part of London as Diasporans engaged in street battles with the police, Oswald Mosley’s fascist Union thugs, the White Defence League, Teddy boys and the Skin heads.

Whilst most recent entrants have had a connection with Britain predicated on their experiences of colonialism; in many cases having suffered terrible and unremitting oppression under the rule of the British Empire and as with the Diasporans this history continues to define the relationship of these groups with Britain even today.

However Africans, Indians, Pakistanis etc. were able to keep intact their language, culture, mores and traditions their rituals and religion and were thereby able to maintain their sense of self and distinct culture and identity a luxury denied to the Diasporan

Multiculturalism

Tolerance as a tool of public policy was concretized by way of the ideology of multiculturalism. The last 30 years or more of multiculturalism has brought some gains for new entrants in particular it has permitted new entrants the opportunity to engage with the wider society in regards to work and political enfranchisement whilst maintaining their own language, culture and religion, thereby able to express their ethnic or cultural identity as   they saw fit once they remained within the law.

However multiculturalism also contributed to development of an industry in and of itself and gave rise to some intractable and invidious problems not least of which is a culture of “institutional racism” across the institutions of the state, business, education and the media wherein policy planners develop policies focused on maintaining and entrenching disadvantage for the exotic other rather than facilitating engagement on the basis of equality and fairness of access and treatment.

The suitability and efficacy of any social policy should be measured against its capacity to produce a more equal society and improve the quality and extent of access to opportunities particularly for those “in need” regardless  of ethnicity.

The debate surrounding the admission by the state that it is in fact institutionally racist was fuelled by the Macpherson report (1999) instituted following the racist murder (April 1993) of Steven Lawrence in south east London and the state denied access to justice for the Lawrence family.

To my mind Macpherson should be the end of the “race equality agenda” and a move to a post-modernist “inclusion agenda” should be sought the difference being the “race equality agenda” focuses on difference and is one dimensional reducing a complex set of circumstances to that of just colour whereas the “inclusion agenda” treats each individual as multidimensional and focuses on resolving a complex set of relationships and factors constitutional, institutional, public and interpersonal, cultural and focused on developing emotionally intelligent.

Further and paradoxically multiculturalism although aimed at tolerance inadvertently acts as a barrier to the development of a fairer more cohesive and inclusive society acting as a barrier to meaningful cross cultural engagement and thereby normalising prejudice and entrenching separatism.

Thereby engendering a “them and us” mentality on the part of policy makers (the vast bulk of whom are white middle class men) and fails to equip new entrants with the cultural understanding required to productively and effectively interact with the wider British society in a meaningful, holistic and mutually beneficial manner. Further and paradoxically multiculturalism has contributed to stymieing outcomes for the poorest classes of white British denying them the focus on their needs that an inclusive agenda would permit.  

It is important to note that the argument against the entrenchment of multiculturalism is not an argument against the need to permit ethnically different peoples to proudly maintain their cultural identity and indeed to educate and engage the wider population in regards to their distinct foods, music, clothes and traditions or religious and/or non-religious festivals since where this is done in an open and inviting manner it can assist in enriching the wider society and strengthening bonds. However social planners should focus on developing an environment conducive to engendering a unitary identity whilst respecting the need for the embedding of provision for the promotion of cultural difference in a increasingly globalised world

This is limited by the bounds of pragmatism a dirty word for some. It is important to note the current extent of cultural diversity makes a nonsense of any arguments in favour of the UK continuing its experiment with multiculturalism particularly given the current multiplicity of ethnicities in our major urban centres a case in point being Tottenham which is populated by Ghanaians, Nigerians Somalis, Zairians, Ugandans, Ethiopians, Angolans, Pakistani, Indians, Greeks, Turkish, Kurds, Iraqi, Sri Lankan, eastern Europeans, Afghanis, and Latinos to mention those of which I as a long term resident of Tottenham am aware.

These various ethnic groups all speak distinct and separate languages, occupy distinct and separate spaces, and adhere to different cultural references and practice. With little or no shared spaces or cross cultural engagement save perhaps for some of the children of some of these groups who may find themselves engaged in the schools that is where these schools themselves are not separatist. This presents a practical and pragmatic barrier to multiculturalism. Multiculturalism tends to only work effectively in removing barriers where there are a limited number of distinct cultural groups to be catered for.

The purpose of this blog is to start an open and honest public debate on just how out of such diversity “we” can create a cohesive and productive society which recognises and accepts difference but seeks to find commonality without retreating into notions of assimilation or integration

It is important to be aware that references in this blog to Diasporans is not intended to ascribe labels but to open the debate about identity and sense of belonging. As a permanently dispersed people we recognise the paramountcy of stimulating such a debate but need our unique circumstances to be acknowledged and thereby taken into account.

The Pursuit of an Inclusion Agenda

The building of an inclusive and cohesive society whilst elusive is the only way forward for the UK indeed it is the only way forward for any multi-ethnic unitary society. Present communities should take a long term view of the way forward seeking to create a set of circumstances conducive to inclusion and engagement with a view to setting the stage for the creation of amenable conditions within the next 50 years or so.

This however will require the making of the collective decision today to become part of something new and dynamic. This means out with the old and in with the new, otherwise the unavoidable outcome will be continued separatism and maintenance of a fractious society

The implementation of an inclusion agenda will require the embedding of principles and ways of thinking with a view to creating a progressive consensus rather than a coercive or prescriptive approach and will require the development of fundamental values that are clearly understood and widely accepted to inform the framework within which inclusion can be achieved

The primary objective of inclusion is the creation of conditions which allow for representation of all across all areas of societal endeavour and the abandonment of arrogant traditional English values that are the legacy of slavery, colonialism and neo-colonialism across all spheres of state. Of course the emergence of any new approach will present challenges and incur casualties but the rewards would be bountiful as barriers to cohesive social policy and sustainable and equitable economic growth and development would be dismantled

Inclusion should be predicated on the adoptions of “universal values” founded on international human rights law, equality of consideration of interest, fairness of outcome, and proportionality in regards to sanctions with a VIEW TO achieving substantive equality a caring and compassionate society.

This will require a radically transformed “leadership class” i.e. one that abandons its class affiliations and historic allegiances (institutional and constitutional reform).

The society’s collective attentions should be focused on eradicating an archaic, restrictive and intractable status quo, with a view to healing this fractious society.