I think it likely that she will go down the current international trend of differentiating “the other” through religion.
We see it all over in the “We may not all be practising Christians, but we have a Christian based country”, “Islam is not compatible with our culture”, etc comments.
Skin colour is often a short cut for that.
I used the phrase myself as coming from the point of view of these people. I probably did not make that clear, so that is my own mistake. But it is not my own point of view.
On another forum, I made a similar error. Should have learned from that, but I do sometimes start rattling away on the keyboard and take shortcuts assuming that all can see where I am coming from and going to. Maybe others make the same error with written rather than spoken conversations.
In the other instance I was talking to a person I hold to be a dyed in the wool racist, and was trying to take his part in a conversation. I was imitating the voice of a KKK-er and talked about “Hanging n*s from trees”. Yep after that, I was the racist because I dared to use a forbidden word.
Incidentally he and his buddies always complained that no word should ever be banned, but hypocrisy is nowt new is it?
For me language use, and abuse, is very relevant to politics and life in general everywhere. I don’t always get it right.
Islam is a religion, but it’s also a political and legal system. I don’t think it’s necessary to make the comparison between Christianity and Islam for several reasons, the principal one being the political distinction between the Western human rights-based worldview and the Islamic one, which is completely different.
In effect, Christian beliefs have become encoded (with the necessary changes, eg from “Love your neighbour” to “Your neighbour has the right to be gay”) into Western laws, most obviously the idea of human rights.
I am sure you are aware that in the UK the C of E is the established state religion and for centuries. Historically it has been part of Parliament.
The right especially always talk about “our proud past” etc. They hark back to when Christianity was a bigger part of UK society.
The US is constitutionally a secular country. It looks from the outside (I hope those here who lived there will comment) like a very religious place. By which I mean politicians talk a lot about their religion, not necessarily follow their professed religion well.
In the US, MAGA are becoming more vocal than ever about religion. The UK right is also becoming more vocal about religion and sometimes using that as a proxy for colour, or as differentiator in it’s own right. “I’m not racist. I just think Moslems are …whatever..” often twinned with “My barber is Turkish, I cannot be prejudiced”.
Which is of course because the funding in the US, the UK, or much further afield, all comes from the same places and the same people. Just as missionaries went out to other countries to convert the locals, the people running these shady US think tanks and evangelical organisations did their job so very well in the US and set their sights on the UK. So many of the hideous things happening in the UK can be tied back to US pressure groups like the ironically names Alliance for Defending Freedom, Family Policy Alliance, Focus on the Family etc. some of us have been warning about this for well over a decade but people didn’t want to listen. The same people who put Trump in the White House are the ones causing what’s happening in the UK. Throw in a bit of Russian mischief making on top and you’ve got masked men on the streets and a return to hate and division while your average person just looks on bemused at what is happening, and how it’s happening.
I think you are right.
A return to the middle ages.
The monarch had the first born son as an heir, and used another to head the church. One to take over the throne, and one to warn dissenters of eternal damnation if they did not conform.
Unite the nation against a common foe. Point to foreigners as being the enemy.
Yes, I agree the US is full of those exploiting religion for their ends, and is trying to move that successful tactic here.
I do note that we have had a Hindu PM here. In the US it would seem improbable to have anyone but an openly Christian. But Sunak was chosen by his party, and not the electorate as a whole. Would we have had a Moslem one at the same time? Would any party have a national Moslem leader?
London has Khan but London is not the UK. NY has Mamdani, but NY is not the USA.
They don’t go anywhere quickly where there’s a crime being committed which doesn’t involve someone wealthy or famous, or living in a posh area.
They get too much flack from these people who, even though they get a better service, complain more. How do I know this? Friends who are current and ex police officers.
In my own experience the police didn’t want to pursue a driver who had deliberately run into me because; " he’s really well educated".
Clearly, they had not checked his qualifications, but his address; expensive posh, his accent ; public school.
My address; far from posh , my accent; very working class.
I challenged the assumptions and declared my own degree, masters etc and convinced them to pursue the perp. They did, he was fined the maximum a magistrates court could fine him, gave him points that lead to a driving ban and made him re- take his test.
Therefore, not just no- go areas in the usual sense, but a hands off approach with certain groups of people.
That’s true. I lived in Mapperley Park in Nottingham which though within walking distance of the city centre and red-light areas was always regarded as posh, originally being where many of the lace factory owners lived. Alan Sillitoe mentions it, also DH Lawrence, (Frieda’s university lecturer husband once lived round the corner up Private Road).
You only had to pick up the phone and the coppers were there, but they were never interested in the fly tippers who took advantage of the quiet leafy avenues and dumped lorryloads under their noses.
Now many wealthy Asians live in the big Edwardian houses. My Indian dentist was on the Mansfield Rd side, and when we discussed the attraction of living there, compared with the commuter villages east of Nottingham, she said she would like the countryside for walking her dog but didn’t want to be “the odd one out”.
This was a reference to the racism which is evident only a few miles out of town in Brexitshire. The Reform numskulls complain about ghettoisation, but they are the people often responsible for it.
