Views on the News
Dr James Jupp AM FASSA
Dr James Jupp has been the Director of the Centre for Immigration and Multicultural Studies at the Australian National University since 1988. Born in England, James studied at the London School of Economics. He has held teaching positions in Australia, England, and Canada and has published widely on immigration and multicultural affairs.
His most recent authored book published in 2004 for Cambridge UP is The English in Australia. His major edited work is The Australian People, an encyclopaedia edited in 1988 and 2001. In 2007 James was editor of Social Cohesion in Australia and last year he edited The Encyclopaedia of Australian Religion for Cambridge University Press.
In 2004 James was awarded the Order of Australia (AM) for ‘service to the development of public policy in relation to immigration and multiculturalism, to education and to recording Australian history.’
Such a lot has been happening in the past six months that it is hard to know where to start or what to leave out. The two most startling and worrying events were the massacre of over eighty members of the Norwegian Labour Party youth league by Anders Breivik on 22 July, and the massive riots in London (and one or two other cities) in the second week of August. Some commentators tried to link these two, as proving the failure of multiculturalism and the need for tighter control over immigration. However the likelihood of either being replicated in Australia is (almost) zero.
Norway is one of the most peaceful, prosperous and democratic of nations. It gives a higher level of foreign aid from its resources than anyone else. It is normally ruled by the Labour Party and has settled many thousands of refugees among its small population of 4.5 million – a little more than New Zealand. Like its neighbour, Sweden, it has adopted multicultural policies for many years, while still asserting its own unique culture and language. All this was not good enough for Breivik, a thirty-two year-old obsessed with the threat from Marxism, multiculturalism and Muslims. In his view, the government and the Labour party were traitors who needed to be killed. His political views are spelled out in detail in his huge manifesto, 2083-a European Declaration of Independence. I have read the entire 1500 pages, which are still available on the Internet for anyone with the stamina to do the same.
This manifesto was distributed the day before Breivik murdered the unarmed youth league delegates enjoying their reunion on a holiday island. It reflects his dedication to the internet and the wide range of extreme views readily available there in English. He had already established links with the Norwegian Progress Party and the English Defence League – a violent street fighting British organisation. The Progress Party has increased its electoral support from two percent and no seats in 1977 to 22.9 percent in 2009, on the basis of opposing immigration, multiculturalism and the European Union (of which Norway is not a member). However, it repudiated Breivik. There is no evidence that he has any organisation behind him. He claimed to lead an army of European Knights who would be the front line troops of the civil war against Muslims as they advanced into Europe. In his dreams!
What is interesting and frightening about all this is that it is based on his intense reading of a huge body of anti-Muslim propaganda which is available to anyone who cares to tap into it. Those who had most influence on him included the Egyptian woman Bat Ye’or, the American Robert Spencer and the British woman Melanie Phillips, all with massive written outputs. Central to their arguments is the notion of Eurabia – the Muslim conquest of Europe and its amalgamation with the Arab world. This is believed to be proceeding by immigration, not by military conquest. All this seems a long way from Australia, but distance and boundaries no longer exist in the internet world. The European situation is becoming acute because of mass migration from the chaos in Africa and the Middle East and the economic problems of the European Union. Anti-Muslim and anti-multicultural parties are scoring high votes and even entering European governments. These are issues we should know about, even if they are currently remote.
The London riots were not caused by Muslims, immigrants or extremists. If anything they suggest the failure of the half-hearted British multiculturalism, which the present prime minister, David Cameron, recently renounced. British multiculturalism has largely been left to local governments in areas where there are large minority communities. These communities have been developing since the 1950s and include a majority born in Britain. They are officially called the “black British”, which suggests the rather hostile attitudes of the majority. I have a very detailed knowledge of these areas, having been born and brought up in Croydon, which experienced its first serious riot for a thousand years, with widespread arson and looting and one death. We do not have official figures on the ethnicity of the rioters, as police and other authorities are reluctant to keep or provide them. But maps of the affected areas show them to be in districts which have had similar problems before on a smaller scale. These include Tottenham (where the riots started), Hackney and Brixton, and form a continuous stretch of poor districts from north to south. Croydon is in the far south, but is influenced by Brixton. They have several common features: a high proportion of people living in public housing and high rise flats; a high level of youth unemployment; low educational outcomes; large populations of locally born ”black British” of Caribbean origin; more recent additions of Africans; and serious levels of crime associated with drug use.
Videos of the riots show quite clearly an ethnic mix. In other words, this was not a race riot but a community riot, in which young people of a variety of backgrounds were jointly involved. While there are no figures available for ethnic background, it was interesting that the large areas to the east and west of the north-south line were not affected. These are the areas inhabited mainly by South Asians – Indians, Pakistanis, Bangladeshis and Muslims. Very little happened in Newham, Tower Hamlets, Hounslow, Southall, Harrow, or Brent, the areas where Melanie Phillips’ imaginary Londonistan is based. In the northern textile towns of Lancashire and Yorkshire, where “Pakibashing” is an ancient sport now taken up by the English Defence League and the British National Party, nothing happened at all. Many Indians, Pakistanis and Turks were shown defending their shops, including three who were run down and killed in Birmingham.
Obviously there is a great need to analyse events such as these, especially if some are arguing that similar events might happen in Australia. There are many reasons why they will not, in my opinion. England is one of the most socially divided societies in the developed world. In contrast, we have very few large public housing projects which have become “sink estates” for the unemployed and the poor; we have nothing like the youth unemployment levels that many “black British” suffer from; we do not have many congested and decaying inner-city areas as are common in London and other large cities. But we do have drink, drug and violence problems with some young Australians; we have run down our manufacturing workforce; we do have racists; and we do have opponents of multicultural policies and the welfare state. Nowhere is perfect.