In Herman Melville’s 1846 captivity narrative Typee, a white Western author’s imagination runs amok as an ‘exotic’ race acts as a monolithic canvas upon which he paints his Orientalist fantasies. Narrator Tommo depicts Pacific Islanders known as Nukuhevans, whose culture he fetishizes, as incapable of wrongdoing until they are corrupted by immoral practices supplied by Europeans. Devastatingly, literature was used to reinforce primitive ideas of a racial ‘Other’ in the West. In modern political discourse, there are unambiguous echoes of Melville’s benevolent racism in the language used by the liberal left when explaining away unsavoury issues associated with ethnic minorities.
Though indiscriminately tacky, The Sun’s recent headline about one in five Muslims sympathising with jihadis alluded to a bigger problem that was suppressed by terrified reactionaries. Yes, The Scum embarrassed the country with its facile attempt to divide and conquer. The pseudo-intellectual screed was rightly met with derision, although there was a reluctance among the excellent satire to acknowledge there is genuine sympathy for ISIS from some British Muslims.
It’s not often I think The Scum is onto something, but in this case it highlighted an uncomfortable truth, albeit in a cynically opportunistic and crude way. It would be idiotic to suggest that there aren’t Muslim communities in Britain who support ISIS. Plurality of thought stems from political, religious and cultural ideas, and denying it reanimates Melville’s paternalistic racism. There is no hive mind, no omniscient entity ventriloquizing British Muslims’ consciences. Community leaders and Imams who deliver clumsy interviews do not speak for all British Muslims, who should also not have to make public explanations why admiration for ISIS exists.
We do however need to accept that some people relish the establishment of a caliphate, regardless of Britain’s colonial past and present. Most British Muslims despise ISIS for killing their brothers and sisters and increasing hostility towards them in the West. Some Muslims, however, want to Islamise the United Kingdom and implement a system of Sharia Law; some detest the prominent drinking culture that sustains this nation’s moral fibre, due to their social conservatism; some loathe the overwhelmingly irreligious nature of the population. Unpalatable as it might sound, some Muslims, incensed by the relentlessly negative portrayal of their communities in the media, think, stupidly in my view, that ISIS are heroes. These views coexist alongside other disgusting opinions belonging to other citizens, and we shouldn’t pretend they don’t exist.
Accepting these views exist is not the first step to winning hearts and minds, which is an extremely patronising approach that further intensifies separateness. Enfranchisement happens gradually through one’s own choice, not through an imperialist programme of brainwashing. If Britain genuinely sought a Palestinian state, stopped supporting despotic rulers in Israel and Saudi Arabia and ceased flattering terror sponsoring states like Qatar, then mass enfranchisement could occur. Tragically, this is unlikely to happen any time soon. An intransigent ruling class shouldn’t mean we cease challenging views which could lead to bloodshed, however.
Criticism of a member of an embattled community is diluted for fear of intensifying disillusionment. Howls of ‘yeah but!’ often smother valid attacks on ethnic minority figures implicated in crimes. It’s the liberal left’s duty to defend beleaguered groups, but that often stretches to a point where offences committed by ethnic minorities are ignored. As a result, there is a risk of exonerating the offender instead of defending the victim(s). In an attempt to exculpate those of migrant stock, who are capable of good and bad, earnest liberals inadvertently display benevolent racism by denying them the agency to commit harm of their own volition. Benevolent racism further marginalises the cultural ‘Other’ because it refuses to accommodate the possibility that other factors contribute to disdain for English cultural tropes than imperialism.
The unholy collusion of utopian crusaders and Tory hate-preachers has asphyxiated debate, incarcerating it in a putrid hovel. Horrible rags like The Daily Express demonise vulnerable asylum seekers with nonsensical swill, creating an atmosphere of suspicion. The left responds by courageously forming a protective ring around the victimised group. Regrettably, this leads to a complete failure to condemn villainous cretins like Anjem Chaudhry and the Rochdale grooming gangs, for fear of appearing treacherous or racist.
Marxist philosopher Slavoj Zizek charismatically suggests that excessive political correctness, or good manners in layman’s terms, creates a culture in which only superficial relationships can grow because of the spectre of offence. As characteristically iconoclastic as ever, Zizek correctly bludgeons the idea that you can polite your way into social harmony. Meaningful bonds form only when playful mockery of each other’s values is skilfully executed in full knowledge that obscene humour is being used to lacerate racist idiocy. Some American Indians, he observes, are sick of being presented as wholly pure when research shows they destroyed more natural resources than white colonialists who robbed them of their land. The same principle can be applied to this example. Most British Muslims comprehensively reject ISIS’s brand of poison, but we shouldn’t dismiss that some support them because it doesn’t corroborate a romantic image.
We have the courage to say that communities in the United States like Ferguson are bitterly divided, yet there is a reluctance to concede that some communities in Britain, like Orthodox Jewish or Eastern European, are for numerous reasons, wilfully insular. The fear of being socially exiled by those who think they’re on the side of the ‘right-thinking majority’ suffocates debate. People must gauge in a situation whether or not the opponent is being racist, and not inflate like sanctimonious pufferfish the second they hear the words ‘Muslim’ and ‘terrorist’ in the same sentence.
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