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Sunday 28 February 2010

Birth and Belonging: Personal, National and Ethnic Identity

http://www.wellcomecollection.org/whats-on/events/china-birth-and-belonging.aspx

A fascinating symposium demonstrating that the Chinese are also whingeing about not knowing what they are and what they are supposed to be.

Obviously, the Chinese are not what they were, ie in pigtails, concubines, bound feet etc.

But what are they now? Is it a race thing or nation thing?

In Taiwan they have a better idea of ancient Chinese traditions.

On the mainland they are modern individual barbarians: godless, consumerist, mostly without relations, siblings, aunts, uncles, cousins, little emperors who will probably euthanase their parents if they hang around too long.

(The Chinese were once known for their filial piety.)

Identity, at any rate, is something that can be

  1. performed
  2. claimed
  3. fought over
Identity is what those with a weak sense of identity seek to establish. The lack of it is most painful at adolescence, impelling some to become suicide bombers as an assertion of an identity they have chosen to embrace.

Let us therefore universalise this pain in a world with an embarrassment of riches as to the kinds of identities we could embrace.

The factors affecting identity are:

  1. birthplace
  2. race
  3. nationality
  4. religion
  5. family
  6. politics
  7. culture
  8. language
  9. gender
  10. sexual orientation
  11. talent
  12. reputation
  13. occupation
  14. associates
  15. current place of residence
  16. where our heart is
  17. class
I could go on and on, but ultimately, we all have multiple identities.

Our identity depends on who is asking, why they want to know, where we are and the social context in which the question is being asked.

They are shifting all the time.

What a shame that members of BNP - for whom such a symposium would be so enlightening, would never dream of attending such an event.

That is because they are working class and lower middle class, who are conservative people who would unhesitatingly say things "I don't know much about art, but I know what I like."

They are unimaginative people who like being with their own kind even as they are unkind to their own kind.

They are right, up to a point, that a mono-racial nation is visually comforting, but forget that people of the same race will soon find differences to kill each other over. History is littered with endless examples.

There was an exercise in which someone would be asked to copy from a picture, another would copy from that person's drawing and yet another would do the same etc.

This exercise made me think of Chinese whispers and out of control cancer cells dividing, not stopping, not doing what they are supposed to do.

The result could be more interesting, perhaps, if the artist, Yuen Fong Ling, had made a participant draw a self-portrait of himself and had someone else copy the result etc.

It was one of the many demonstrations about how deracinated and inauthentic the British and overseas Chinese are.

The concept of Chinese identity is paradoxically stronger in a non-Chinese, even if mistaken. It is after all the non-Chinese, who say very confidently that the Chinese are this, that or the other.

The Taiwanese think they are the real thing because they have been protected from the unChinese characteristics of Communism, while the mainlanders think they are The Real Thing, whatever they have turned into.

Even now we no don't really know what we are, what we could become or what we ought to be.

Perhaps too much choice is confusing, unsettling and upsetting.

This partly explains why Muslim youth who blow themselves up do what they do. They live on as Islamist terrorists, which was the identity they actively embraced and must have known would establish their post mortem reputation. They lived and died with this certainty.

Our identity is what we really are, what we want to be, and how others see us. Only if they are in harmony will we be happy in our skins.

Monday 22 February 2010

The Tools of the Modern Witch-hunter: racism and bullying

Bullying, like, racism is now another means with which we can enrich the lawyers and teach our superiors a lesson when we report them to the authorities.

The Holy Trinity Explained, Christianity Exposed

There is a meeting today (which I shall not be attending) discussing whether the Islamic contentions to the Trinity are justified, and if the Trinity really is contrary to monotheism, between a Muslim and a Christian speaker.

I hope however that the following points will be made.

The Trinity "explains" Christ's divinity. Christians are not allowed to question God's mysteries. If they did they would find themselves being accused of heresy and blasphemy and liable to be burnt at the stake in the days when they took their religion seriously. Christians are therefore asked to believe in a "black box" theory that they are not allowed to question. It is no wonder then that "Christian" and "hypocrisy" so frequently go together.

Christ's divinity is necessary to Christians because otherwise he would just be another failed revolutionary who paid with his life.

Morally unimaginative people want, indeed NEED to believe in superstition and magic (and therefore Christ's divinity), just like children wish to believe in Santa and fairies.

Socrates was NOT a failed revolutionary, and he willingly died to make his point. He did not claim divinity, nor was divinity claimed on his behalf by his followers. His name lives on, arguably with more credit than Jesus's.

A philosopher who asks unanswerable questions is infuriating to the point of death.

Seeking the truth, speaking the truth and acting upon our knowledge of the truth is all it takes to be a revolutionary, though that is easier said than done. In the end, only prophets can do all three successfully.

The Prophet Muhammad was a more successful revolutionary than Jesus, and this is partly because he learnt from the mistakes of the previous ones and built upon their successes.

The Koran is a more comprehensive, clearer, more humane and easier to remember self-help guide to Mankind than the Bible.

Only pride and sloth - the most deadly of the seven deadly sins - prevents those us who deny this from acknowledging this.

Those who insist that Christianity is better yet refuse to read the Koran are stubbornly insisting that their Reliant Robin has a better chance of surviving an arduous journey than a four-wheeled vehicle powered by an internal combustion engine with its manual still in the glove compartment. For reasons of tradition, sentimentality and chauvinism, they cling to the old, incoherent and schismatic religion of their ancestors when a better version is immediately available.

Gerry Adams on Jesus and the Bible

http://www.channel4.com/programmes/the-bible-a-history/episode-guide/series-1/episode-5

Gerry Adams on Jesus and the Bible. I thought he came across very well. He has obviously had his teeth done. Nice smile.

A few excremental analogies

A revolution is analogous to a national act of defecation. It won't be pretty, with the world looking on.

Politicians should be a like sewage workers and dustmen, who clear away excremental accumulations and toxic ideologies.

They get no thanks when they are doing their job properly, but we soon notice when they don't.

Thursday 18 February 2010

The Falklands 2010

The Argies are kicking the British in the mouth after their dentures have fallen out.

We are decrepit, disgraced and detested. We are going to lose everything precious we ever had: pride, confidence, health, wealth and respect.

It's all going, going, gone ......

Saturday 13 February 2010

Young, Angry and White

http://www.channel4.com/programmes/young-angry-and-white/episode-guide/series-1/episode-1

It turned out that Kieren didn't join the BNP because it wasn't sufficiently purist for him.

Strangely enough, he had a very sweet Oriental girlfriend of whom he was clearly fond who denied she was Oriental or had anyone in her family who was Oriental.

Rather ironically, he was shown complaining that white girls were making things hard for white men by taking non-white male partners.

However, if white working class men were more up to scratch they would find they would be in demand as partners, and it is well-known that they have had their characters ruined by the welfare state and their prospects destroyed by a state education system that is an international scandal.

Since the white working classes are mostly illegitimate and fatherless, it is not surprising that the quality of these men as employees and male partners generally leave much to be desired.

Unfortunately, Kieren's academic performance at school was somewhat erratic and this means he now hasn't much of a chance of getting himself a good job and making himself attractive to a decent woman of any race at all.

Being only 19 he still does not realise that we women ultimately want a good provider and the way to a woman's heart is through a thick wallet.

A good-looking, good-natured and engaging lad, Kieren was unfortunately singly and negligently parented. I do hope he finds his way in life.

The British White People's Party

Tomorrow is St Valentine's Day, Chinese New Year and the day on which the British National Party will vote on their constitution.

Under the compulsion of the Equalities and Human Rights Commission, they have to allow non-whites into their party.

They will have to excise clause 3.2.2 (against what they would call miscegenation or anti-race mixing) which has been declared illegal:

"We stand for the preservation of the national and ethnic characteristics of all indigenous peoples in their own homelands throughout the world. We are implacably opposed to the promotion by any means of any form of integration or assimilation of any indigenous peoples, including the Indigenous British, which is or is likely to deprive any such people of their integrity as a distinct people or the distinctiveness of their cultural values or of their ethnic or national identities or characteristics. We are therefore each duty bound, as our own consciences shall dictate, to oppose the promotion of any form integration or assimilation which is or is likely to have such an effect on the Indigenous British."


If I were the Equalities Commission setting out to persecute these anti-misceganists and racial separatists, I would just have left them to themselves. It is after all their right not to mix with anyone they don't wish to mix with, however offensive it is to the rest of us.

I would however draw attention to the fact that they have misunderstood the concept of Nation and Nationhood. Both are abstract ideas and cannot be seen, only understood in the same way we understand pleasure and pain, order and chaos and other such abstract concepts.

I would forbid them from mis-using the term "National" or "Nationalist" any further and demand that they change their name to the British White People's Party.

This is after all what they are and what they want to be.

Friday 12 February 2010

Arguing over Allah

Muslims in Malaysia are objecting to a Catholic publication in Malay referring to the Muslim God as "Allah" (Al = The, Lah -= God). You would have thought they would be pleased. They say only Muslims can refer to their God as "Allah". By this logic it would mean that atheists cannot refer to the Christian God as "God"? Ridiculous!

I am FUMING that a Malay and Muslim schoolfriend has not only defriended me on Facebook, but has asked her friends and family to do so too.

She has also deleted me from the Facebook group consisting of former classmates, which she runs.

She is the daughter of a Sultan and claims that I have insulted Malays and Muslims. This is outrageous as it was she who asked my opinion in the first place. I also deny that it was my intention to insult Muslims or Malays or that anything I have said could reasonably be interpreted to be insulting, unless it is an offence in itself to disagree with her and that she speaks for all Muslims and Malays??


http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1952497,00.html

http://www.themalaysianinsider.com/index.php/opinion/breaking-views/48629-allah-cant-be-substituted-with-tuhan-in-bible-translation--dr-ng-kam-weng

Thursday 11 February 2010

The difference between "should" and "is likely to"

Stephan Schneider, chief international economist at Deutsche Bank, comments on the German government's ability to fund a rescue.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/today/hi/today/newsid_8509000/8509850.stm

He was asked by the interviewer: "What should happen?"

His answer: "The correct question is to ask what is likely to happen." [c 3.27]


"Should" and "ought" contain moral assumptions - these are invariably subjective.

"Likely to" is uncompromisingly objective.

A skilled politician knows the difference and thinks, speaks and acts accordingly.

Wednesday 10 February 2010

What Hamlet was really all about

The whole play was a metaphor for the futility of political action if you do things just for the sake of doing something, because you end up killing everybody.

Fortinbras serves as a foil for Hamlet: While the Danish prince is hesitant and given to making long-winded speeches, the Norwegian is impulsive and hot-headed, determined to avenge his slain father at any cost. In this light, the triumph of Norway over Denmark at the end of the play can be seen as a triumph of firm, decisive action over doubt and prevarication; Hamlet's ambivalence and reluctance to act in the early parts of the play exacerbate the situation within the Danish court and ultimately lead to a massacre which eliminates the entire leadership, ruining any hope the nation has of defending itself against the invasion.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fortinbras

Politicians, Dustmen, Sewage Workers and Hamlet Explained

Being a politician is a bit like being a dustman or a sewage worker. Someone's got to do it, but you rather despise a person for doing it. A revolution is a bit like a nation having a crap or a spew after a bout of food poisoning and heavy drinking, and it is always politicians who started it and have to clear up afterwards. Politics is therefore a vocation. You do it because you can't help going on and on about those bees in your bonnet. There are many far easier ways of earning money and respect.

The reason why politics is so crap in this country is because you now have a new breed of the cowardly and contemptible who don't like to do the dirty work that comes with being in politics, such as seeking the ugly truth and telling the ugly truth and a dodging the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune when those who don't like the ugly truth want to shoot the messenger who told them the ugly truth.

The Constantine Option

We all know how the Romans crucified Christ and threw his followers to the lions for refusing to worship Roman gods.

But we also know that the Emperor Constantine eventually embraced Christianity, ostensibly because he saw the light, but really to control it and to harness the power of the Unique Omnipotent God whom he thought would better assist him in the ruling of his empire.

It is both humbling and revealing to learn that even gods are disposable.

Perhaps if Islam had been around for Constantine to embrace (as he embraced Christianity in 312 AD), the Roman Empire might well have lasted another thousand years. But it was the only Abrahamic religion around at the time for the Romans to embrace.

By 476 the Roman Empire had fallen. The Prophet Muhammad was not born until 570 - too late to save the Romans from themselves.

However, it is not too late for the British to part-exchange their Unreliant Robin of a religion for a four-wheel drive with its instruction manual still in the glove compartment.

After all, the journey ahead will be long and arduous.

Monday 8 February 2010

Sikh judge Sir Mota Singh criticises banning of Kirpan

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/8500712.stm

Has Sir Mota gone senile? What makes him think it would be a good idea to make it legal to allow a Sikh to carry around a weapon of offence while forbidding other races from doing so?

The BNP have quite a close relationship with Sikhs because they both hate Muslims, but this proposal is rather more objectionable than allowing Muslim women to go around with sinister masked faces.

Perhaps it is now time for a group of non-white immigrants to found a religion whose badge of faith is to go around like masked highwaymen while carrying weapons of offence?

Brain-rotted Britain with its Equalities and Human Rights Commission would no doubt kick into knee-jerk tolerance and compulsory self-abnegation.

£140 million's worth of advice to the UK government

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/11/02/prevent-anti-muslim-extre_n_342827.html

"... the 140 million pound ($230 million) Preventing Violent Extremism (Prevent) program is now facing serious criticism, not just from within the Muslim community, but from civil liberties groups."


If they gave me the money I would tell the government exactly how to prevent violent extremism.

  1. Withdraw British soldiers from Afghanistan and apologise to the Afghans.
  2. Withdraw British presence from Iraq and apologise to the Iraqis.
  3. Dissociate the UK from the US and formally declare an end to the Special Poodle Relationship.
  4. Declare that the UK is now steadfastly neutral on Israel's right to exist.
  5. Declare that the government will promote social cohesion through family values thereby decreasing the likelihood adolescent angst likely to result in explosive acts of violence.
There. £140 million, please!

Friday 5 February 2010

Neo-Conservatism = how to behave like a bull in a China shop

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neoconservatism

the "main characteristics of neoconservatism":
  • "a tendency to see the world in binary good/evil terms
  • low tolerance for diplomacy
  • readiness to use military force
  • emphasis on US unilateral action
  • disdain for multilateral organizations
  • focus on the Middle East
  • an us versus them mentality".
Here are mine:

  1. How to Lose Friends and Alienate People
  2. How to Behave Like a Bull in a China Shop
  3. How to make 9/11 happen
  4. How to embark on the 21st century equivalent of the Peloponnesian War that ruined Athens
  5. How to bankrupt yourself while making everyone hate you
  6. How to threaten to nuke people at the drop of a hat. Neo-Cons constantly talk about Muslim extremism but amongst their recommendations were that NATO should be prepared to launch a pre-emptive nuclear attack in order to prevent the use of weapons of mass destruction (like the ones that weren't found in Iraq). (Even Osama bin Laden himself does not talk of nuking people so casually. All he says is stop supporting Israel, withdraw from "Afraq", butt out of our lives and we'll leave you alone.)

The last straw that broke the back of Western Civilisation: Neo-Conservatism

Will future historians attribute the fall of Western civilisation to Neo-Conservatism, the last straw that broke the camel's back?

The other straws are:

1) the welfare state
2) indiscriminate universal suffrage
3) feminism
4) Political Correctness
5) female promiscuity
6) Quantitative Easing
7) the West's stubborn policy of robbing Peter Palestinian to pay Paul Zionist as regards the State of Israel

Demise of the Stiff Upper Lip

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/7149940/Last-Mitford-girl-bemoans-demise-of-the-stiff-upper-lip.html

It was precisely this impression that convinced the rest of the world that the English were a superior race.

Stiff upper lip was an aristocratic and masculine virtue. Modern Britain now prefers proletarian and feminine vices.

Possession is nine points of the law from 1:34:00

1:34:00  I chime in. 1:37:00  The narrow and wide interpretation of racism 1:40:00  It is racist to say black people are good at sport and d...