Sunday 5 February 2012

The Ethnic Cleansing of Our Streets


The coalition government intends to bring into being a new strategy on Housing Benefits; and these changes are going to crush ethnic minority families and force them out of the cities into ghettos.

I can hear you shouting it’s a little melodramatic – absolutely. However, before you rush to judgement with perverse claims of racism and bigotry, consider this; Her Majesty's Government all but admits it.

On 23rd January 2012 the Conservative MP for Chingford and Woodford Green appeared on all manner of media channels, a junket of sorts, extolling the virtues of the Welfare Reforms which the coalition government is pushing through.

In particular, Mr Duncan Smith was here to do something. Spin the impact assessments which came out that morning. Distraction is always a good political strategy. Mr Duncan Smith went further to say categorically “we don’t believe there will be any increase in child poverty” live that morning on Radio 4’s flagship Today Programme. He utterly refused to accept any of the challenges that were thrown at him. In response of course (and this is why we get the government we deserve) broadcasters get cocker hoop with excitement and blood lust as they strain painfully, diligently but stupidly, to try and pull him up on the figures.

Why not go further by refusing even your own Department of Work and Pension's figures which state up to 100,000 children are going to be affected. Even The Children’s Society say that the proposed cap on benefits will cut support for more than 200,000 children – in fact kids are around nine times more likely than adults to be affected.

But this is all by the by and has been discussed ad nauseam. This article isn’t going to make easy reading and its not the usual mix of libertarianism and blue Labour thinking. It’s about lifting the rock and realising some uncomfortable truths.

What should really interest us is the idea of deflecting from the impact assessments. Why has no one been talking about the impact assessments? If you look at them, they tell you the Government is utterly clueless about impact on race, religion and belief. I believe intentionally so. The figures are there for all to see. The Government wishes to convince us that it cannot breakdown figures any further than race, for example into religion and belief. They would also have us believe that the Welfare Reforms are fair.

Masters of the political distraction, whether forests for sale, or cat deportations, we have to give credit where credit is due; the coalition government is playing us like the suckers we are turning out to be. And so let’s look at one of their latest fastest gun in the West trick, windmill punch and palmed card.

Back to those figures that all the world can see - let’s join the dots.

Number One: Higher priced housing. The government is expressly stating that they wish to move people (large families) out of expensive i.e. London and other cities, higher priced commuter areas, to make way for workers. Hash tag: workers deserve nice houses and the poor should move out and give them their homes.

Number Two: The largest families will be affected the most. We need to be absolutely crystal clear who this means. Asian families, in fact Muslim families at that have the highest age profile. Whilst the average age of the non-Muslim English population is around 46, the average age for British Muslims is nearer 26. The largest demographic slice of the cake for Christianity in the UK is with the over 70 age bracket. With Muslims, it is with the under 4s.

Proportion of large families (3 or more dependent children), by ethnicity
 
(from www.jrf.org.uk)

Number Three. Hitting the poorest. There isn’t much question that the least able, those with the least capacity to absorb change, enter the employment market or to access education (or adequately to higher education), are going to be the hardest hit. The poor. And so who are the benefit based, or low income poor. A recent reportby the Muslim Council of Britain stated that 75% of all Pakistani and Bangladeshi families live on or below the poverty line. This needs to be compared with only 20% of the white British population.

Figures suggest somewhere in the region of between 95% - 98% of the British Pakistani and Bangladeshi population are Muslim. Whether you want to slice the equality cake down lines of Race (a statutory area for impact assessment), or Religion and Belief, we have major matter of disproportionate impact.

Number Four. Those getting hit, are somehow deserving of it (aka the benefit scroungers). Poor is not about income, it is about opportunity, aspiration and capacity.

In 2006, the TUC and MCB issued a joint statement on the fact that 69 per cent classified as poor compared with 22 per cent of the country as a whole. Overall British Muslims are three times more likely to be unemployed than the population as a whole. Islamophobia is a real and present threat, fuelled by misunderstandings, prejudice and the characterisation of whole communities.

Discrimination keeps the poor at arm’s length.

The Joseph Rowntree Foundation tell us that more white Muslims than those from other ethnic backgrounds reported they were suffering prejudice. The Report’s co-author Arzu Merali said she believed discrimination had become "normalised" in a backlash after the 11 September attacks. According to the report, Muslims from all backgrounds were now experiencing far higher levels of prejudice than in previous years. In its survey asking people to record their experiences, the Islamic Human Rights Commission, a campaign body, said eight out of 10 respondents said they had suffered discrimination.

Baroness Warsi says Islamophobia has passed the dinner table test. And Tariq Modood, University of Bristol has contended that by most socio-economic measures Asian Muslims are amongst the most disadvantaged of the ethnic minorities.

And the cherry on the cake is that even the Government’s own Home Office Research Study 220, 'Religious discrimination in England and Wales' stated a consistently higher level of unfair treatment was reported by Muslim organisations than by most other religious groups; unfair treatment in every aspect of education, employment, housing, law and order, and in all the local government services covered by the questionnaire. And that was 6 months before 9/11.

The IFS has made it clear, time after time, especially in its report by the Family and Parenting Institute that the child poverty gap between Black and Asian families and white families is going to increase by 2015. Just to be clear, for the poorest in society, for those large families, the white population is going to be come (relatively speaking) less poor, and the ethnic minorities, more poor.

The axe is not going to fall equally on the poor.

Number Five. Location location location. So we have defined those most disproportionately hit. Those with big families, those who are least able to respond, those who struggle to access education, employment, training. Blacks, Asians and Muslims.

So precisely where are all these undesirables meant to go. Enter Sarkozy stage left. The Tories and Sarkozies have been comparing notes on their social engineering experiments for sometime now. We know in France, discrimination in housing and public services has lead to the ghettoisation of Muslims, the unemployed and immigrants, particularly those of North African origins. Steve Connor, the science editor of The Independent wrote in 2010 that Muslims faced "massive discrimination" when applying for jobs, according to the first scientifically validated study of anti-Muslim bias among employers in France. All indications show we have the same in Britian.

What flows eerily naturally too often, is high crime, social disorder and marginalisation from mainstream society. There is no question we are pushing out the great unwashed, the breeding minorities, out-out-out, and into what must, by any definition, be called ghettos. Modern day workhouses where Britain will learn to compete on a levelled global playing field where cheap labour is the new black. Or where black...

As frightening as a thought as it must be, can we afford not to draw parallels with conditions in the 1930s. We saw the treatment of the Jews in Europe in the early part of the 20th century. At that time, the only way the world was able to stimulate its way out of the economic crisis was through extraordinary and extortionate funding for WW2. Every major economist tells us that no federal or governmental stimulus has ever been shown to work in a great systemic economic crisis. Watch out Iran.

But back to our shores, those of perfidious albion. We know the PMs stance on all this equality, lefty, libertarian mumbo jumbo:

“The cap is right and the cap is fair.”

Perhaps we can start by defining ‘right’ and ‘fair’. I can’t help but think that ‘right’ as Mr Cameron defines it means something very insidious, even more than the rhetoric of benefit claimants living the Life of Riley. As for ‘fairness’; a millionaire who has never held down a proper job a day in his life, Eton educated, a Bullingdon Club old boy, a fifth cousin twice removed to our Queen Elizabeth II (making him apparently 13th in line for the throne), would need to wield these terms very carefully indeed.

The claim continues to echo that never in the history of this country, has there been a more out of touch Prime Minister.

And deny it all you want but we have the greatest civil rights crisis this country has ever seen. The Muslim Civil Rights Crisis. And welcome to a new chapter of this crisis

               - the government mandated ethnic cleansing of our streets.


Follow me on Twitter, @MoAnsar


19 comments:

John Moss said...

The most expensive area of London is Westminster. Tube journey to the cheapest, Barking, is 34 minutes by District Line, where 3 bedroom houses rent for £225 a week.

Welfare should be adequate, not comfortable.

Anonymous said...

Interesting that the author of this piece and all the other people objecting to the cuts. Actually stand to lose, I mean how else will you support your six kids?
If people can't afford them don't have them!

Anonymous said...

The welfare state is the cause of all of these problems and immigration policies are no small part. If there was not a generous welfare state, immigrants who were not able to support themselves and their families would not come. And if they came despite this, would not have large families that they could not support. Having large families in the west is a luxury that few can afford; to do so while not having the wherewithall to support them is irresponsible. "I" am not responsible for housing your large family.

I can say this because I love large families. I can also say this because I believe that government should help the most vulnerable. Government is also responsible for some very basic services, such as infrastructure and defence. Otherwise, government should leave us alone and let us keep as much of our own money as possible, all the better to support our families and give generously to reputable charities, which by all accounts are more economical than government.

The fault also lies with government and it's efforts to create artificial, multicultural societies COMBINED with the welfare state. Artificial multicultural societies are doomed for as long as there remains generous welfare benefits for people who are not qualified to function in the society. For government to encourage people to immigrate that they know have multiple barriers to merging with society is irresponsible.

So I have sympathy for immigrants who have been lured to our countries with an incomplete understanding of the barriers to success. However, once arrived and confronted with the barriers it is irresponsible to continue living as though one lived in Pakistan.

Anonymous said...

What an insightful article and whilst it's easy to shout if u can't afford kids, don't have them. Tell that to the family who find themselves a victim of the economic downturn- who could afford to have a large family and now need to rely on the state for support. A system that fails once section of the community is a disgrace. Time and time again I say.... ABC- anyone but Cameron!

JoJo said...

Articulate and interesting post. It is very alarming seeing the poverty trap widen and suck more people in. I totally agree about the current PM not being in touch, he doesn't have a clue about the major challenges that face minority groups. Its not just ethnic cleansing of our streets either (although I recognise that the Muslim community tends to get the rough end of the wedge) its also ghettoisation of whole swathes of groups of people from families with disabled children to lone parents. Its government control through monetarism, elitism and just being bloody minded because they can and sadly we let them. So the rich shall get richer, the poor shall get poorer and those most marginalised will be blamed for everything.

Anonymous said...

if you want to breed like rabbits do so back in Pakistan.

Paul Stott said...

Who does Mo Ansar thinks benefits from the current system, where housing benefit is financed by council tax payers to pay off the mortgages of private landlords?

Who does he think owns private property houses to rent in Manchester, Birmingham or London? Does he not speak to any businessmen in his own community?

I will give him a little clue - for many white people like myself, leaving home to go to Polytechnic or University in the 1980s, our first experience of Asians (no one really used the term Muslims then) was as private landlords. It was not generally a positive one.

The only thing that has changed since then is the further decline of the public housing system, and the increased size of the rental one.

If a few of these guys owning 10, 20 30 houses in our big cities have to charge a little less rent because of these reforms - all well and good.

Anonymous said...

A thought provoking article, thank you for writing it.

Cameron apparently has a tenuous claim to the throne at best, his royal line is illegitimate and illegitimate lines have no real claim. A Wikipedia search shows he's certainly not 13th in line. But I knew none of that before today!

Fat Tom said...

Mo,
This would read a little more comfortably if you also referred to the position of people who are paying tax rather than drawing benefit but who are quite unable to afford to pay a rent that would be anywhere near the cap. Why should they be forced to pay for people to live at a level above theirs?
T

Anonymous said...

so true to all your comments. . Welfare is meant to be a stop gap not fullstop of working. A 'privilege' of earnings that was put in , in the first place. Not a God Dam right of form of Income Till retirement. Job hard to come by. . better ones self respect by going back to college, University or training courses.

Not intercourse. . .That all stops when a person is of a responible nature. Funding ones household, providing and not neglecting ones family.

Anonymous said...

so true to all your comments. . Welfare is meant to be a stop gap not fullstop of working. A 'privilege' of earnings that was put in , in the first place. Not a God Dam right of form of Income Till retirement. Job hard to come by. . better ones self respect by going back to college, University or training courses.

Not intercourse. . .That all stops when a person is of a responible nature. Funding ones household, providing and not neglecting ones family.

Anonymous said...

I work in Hackney and let me tell you from experience that its not only Muslims that will suffer but Jews. Each and every Jewish family have between 8 to 12 children in household getting on average £5-6k in benefits per month. Often these young Jewish family have 6-7 bedroom houses which has monthly rent in upwards of £3k a month. So to those that say muslims should go back to their country if they want to have loads of kids, are you going to be saying the same thing to Jews or refrain on the basis that its anti-semitic? Don't have double standards. Im all for having a benefit cap as Im a tax payer myself and Iam fedup of increasing benefit abuse but not everyone is out to scrounge and bleed the system. No one plans to have kids to go on benefits!!

Charlene Fairchild said...

If this doesn't sound like nut-job far right Tea Party American Republicanism I'll eat my shirt! The disdain for the "47%" in America is matched in Britain by the very things Mo Ansar is outlining so well. Out of touch government sees not the costs of its stupidity and plays into the primal fears of xenophobia that some in the UK, USA, Canada and other first world nations have. Bravo Mo for writing this and thank you!

Anonymous said...

In 1980 82000 was the total UK population of all muslims.2012 and the figure is estimated at aconservative 2.5 million .These communities sit uneasily on the peripherals of society,not so much excluded as uninterested in integration.British Pakistanis are proud to straddle two continents, importing their cousin brides and grooms from Peshawar,Mirpur and Lahore.With these imports come poverty both financial & an inability to perform in an alien advanced marketplace.
Yes there is and always has been a huge white underclass here in the UK. Once referred to as the great unwashed and now so sweetly as, the chavs or the Jeremy Kyle generation.
There is no doubt their poverty and alienation leads to a breeding ground ripe for the likes of the EDL or the BNP to exploit. However their influence is miniscule and a joke for the vast majority.The Brish population remain liberal thinking and open, far more so than the lands of origin of most of the immigrant population.
Yes I imagine many immigrants will suffer under the new legislation particularly the Pakistani and Bagladeshi muslims whose large families need large houses and just well,cost a lot. Unhealthy practices of inter-cousin marriage strain the NHS ever further,
through recessive gene fault inheritance.
Education is needed in both communities.Yes both.To succeed here new values will have to be adopted.The money has run out or at least this government is snubbing the problem.
It is adapt to survive.Or leave. And no that is not a racist response.I personally have had enough,I am currently searching any tax free career possibilities in Saudi,where my freedoms will no doubt be cut, as I conform to their values....

Abdul Rahman Reijerink said...

When people want work but can't get it due to discrimination, this welfare bashing becomes exceptionally ugly.

Dave said...

I would love to have a discussion with Mohammed Ansar about this. (d.hitchman @ tesco . net)

I work. I pay taxes. A large amount of my taxes go to housing benefit. The housing benefit is paid largely to wealthy people with lots of houses so (mainly) unemployed people can live in them.

So I am paying taxes to (a) make people who are rich somewhat richer. and (b) to push up rents and house prices near where I work to the point I can no longer afford them.

It is NOT ethnic cleansing to move the unemployed away from areas where people work, it is a way of allowing workers to live nearer to where they work. If we do this all over we end up with workers needing to commute less. This cuts the bills for roads and rail, it cuts pollution in the environment, it cuts the bills for stressed induced injury, it cuts the bills for treating people who have been involved in accidents.

By claiming it is a swipe against muslims or other minorities Ansar is undermining any impression of fairness or intelligence on his part. Perhaps he has never actually asked people outside his 'community' about the problems they face. I certainly don't see from the various things I have read that he considers the UK, Britain or England as his 'community' but just one small section of it.

Frankly I would build some social housing in some cheap back of beyond corner of the empire and move all the unemployed there... get a job and we'll allow you back.

Anonymous said...

Then hopefully they will move back to their home countries. Where I doubt they will get paid anything at all to have children.

I despise seeing women dressed in the black sack trailing after men (at a big distance) in their white dress. They are always followed by masses of burdens on the welfare state.

Go on: LEAVE!

Peter Sardonica said...

Statistics are dangerous because they dehumanise very real people. But, as a teacher in East London I have to question why it is that all cultures and ethnicities seem to succeed expect for Pakistani and Bangladeshi, and it's an uncomfortable truth that it is in their culture to always marry someone young from their village back home. They then seem to have an issue with allowing her to be educated and be equal. Yes, I know that is not what Islam says, but I am talking about the reality. If you don't see that then I think you've spent too long in the rarified air of the BBC and not enough time on the streets. If the males allowed women in their culture to 'fit in' then we wouldn't have a problem with welfare disproportionately hitting these groups, as they wouldn't need to rely on the state, but would succeed the same as Indians/Chinese/Japanese/French/in fact every other bloody group that fits in in London and doesn't ask for special consideration due to an intolerant and medieval faith.

Anonymous said...

Declare your interest.