| Topic: | Re:Re:Re:Re:Re:Re:Re:Re:Re:Re:Re:Re:Re:Re:Southall Spammer discovers the joys of Wikipedia | |
| Posted by: | Robin Taylor | |
| Date/Time: | 25/06/10 12:14:00 |
| In reply to "Max Mills":- Max, You say you are half Jamaican. Is there some way I can verify this, please? It's just that it seems rather strange for someone who is of mixed race parentage to leap so enthusiastically to the defence of Enoch Powell. Further more, I have previously challenged you over what appears to be your habit of posting under different names, both on CW4 and TW8, and you have failed to respond to those challenges. (I'm not the only one who has strong suspicions about you doing this, by the way). For example, various postings under your alleged name of "Max Mills" are remarkably similar to postings previously made by "Michael Webb". Both of you have alluded to being gay (nothing wrong with that) and have articulated strong racial prejudices (Michael Webb once started a thread entitled "black teenage robbers" whereas "Max Mills" attacked me for saying something against Nick Griffin); you both display the same style of written English; and both have betrayed a penchant for using inflammatory language (e.g. Michael Webb's use of the phrase "complete pratts" and Max Mills calling me "a lying unsufferable(sic) prat"). Am I correct in thinking that you have also posted under the name "Andy Webb"? That is certainly the view of another forum regular who has PM'd me about you. Turning to the issue of xenophobic flags and symbols, these things often taken on different meanings depending upon the context in which they are used. An unnecessary proliferation of English flags and symbols - combined with dubious nationalist rhetoric - does, in the view of many, imply xenophobia. A black British sprinter doing a lap of honour draped in the union flag has a completely different meaning to the BNP unfurling the same flag on Feltham High Street. Finally, "Max Mills" takes me to task for giving a link to an article in a socialist newspaper which allegedly calls people "coons" and "darkies". That is an utterly contemptible misrepresentation of both the article (which was written by an active anti fascist) and me. The article's reference to these two words was in the form of a characterisation of those on the far right for whom such terminology is regarded as acceptable. It was part of a written analysis of the psychology behind those on the racist right who hark back to a non-existent time (before the arrival of Commonwealth immigrants) when everything was supposedly nice and secure and we all enjoyed the taste of warm beer on the village green. So that forum readers can fully appreciate the depths of deceit to which "Max Mills" has descended in misrepresenting the context of the offending words, I invite them to read the full paragraph in which they appear... ---------- English Enoch saw the US as the enemy of the British Empire, a view which was sharply inverted in John Sturgess’ 1963 film The Great Escape. The movie’s continuing popularity is not just the result of Elmer Bernstein’s viral theme tune. No less than Powell’s immortal influence, the film’s resurgent appeal reveals something about the social psychology of its many fans and also about aspects of the historical condition of a nation that has become steadily more anxious about what now binds it together. The quest for an answer to that question presses us all back towards a simplified sense of identity as radical sameness. That national seriality can be imagined best through a heavily filtered and idealised invocation of the anti-Nazi war. It generates a version of the battle of Britain that is conducted without the aid of Polish, Indian or Caribbean pilots. It summons a different England, which unfolds most smoothly when it is understood to be an all-white, anglophone affair. No darkies, coons or kit-e-kat eaters are present to sully the glorious unanimity of tea drinking and hokey cokey dancing that takes place safely down in the underground while the solidarising adversity of the blitz bursts overhead. The pursuit of security, safety and consolation via those familiar images is worth exploring, even if we acknowledge that the affection in which Sturgess’ film is held today has been tinged with irony. The re-figuring of the nation in exclusively masculine form is a significant component of its popularity. Today, that shift returns us to a pre-feminist world where quiet men proved and tested their manhood in battle and women knew their places and made their own clothes. This is the fantasy of England celebrated in the popular fiction of Tony Parsons and boldly repudiated by Mike Leigh in Vera Drake; Among other things, The Great Escape dramatises the transition from European – specifically British – world domination to the emergent alternative order dictated by the US Empire. The gumchewing, mit-wearing, motor-bike-riding Steve McQueen is the avatar of a novel imperial arrangement: the nomos of the earth. ---------- |