Authored by Andrew Devine via The Daily Sceptic,
Left-leaning Boomers (born 1946-1964) and Gen Xers (born 1965-1980) view any criticism of 21st century mass immigration through a particular cultural and psychological lens that is outdated and a barrier to having a constructive debate about extremist mass immigration policies in the here and now.
Left-liberal 'progressives' who grew up or were young adults between the 1960s and 1990s were socially and culturally conditioned to believe that any criticism of immigration policies is synonymous with racial hatred. This is because in the eras when they grew up many of the people who opposed the much more limited immigration of those decades were openly racist. This is why it's almost impossible to have a nuanced discussion with 'progressive' Boomers or Gen X about the issue of mass immigration and get them to address the reality of resource constraints caused by excessively high numbers, or how certain immigrant groups like Indian Sikhs or Middle Eastern Christians are a better cultural fit with British and European people than say an Afghan Taliban supporter or an Islamic supremacist from Somalia who openly promotes Female Genital Mutilation as beneficial to society.
The moment a Boomer or Gen X Leftist open borders advocate is faced with anyone critical of 21st century mass immigration policies (which are radically more open than the immigration policies of the 1950s-1980s) all they see and hear in their mind's eye is some frothing at the mouth National Front extremist skinhead from the 1970s or 1980s who believes there shouldn't be a single brown or black face on the island of Britain. Unless you can break through that cultural and psychological conditioning regarding the issue of immigration, it's impossible to have a constructive debate with 'progressive' Gen Xers and Boomers on the issue. While you're trying to have a nuanced discussion on the issue of mass immigration, Left-liberal Boomers and Gen Xers are having a Pavlovian response.
In order to understand the psychology of Gen X and Boomer British 'progressives' further, it's important to understand that we are the generations who grew up listening to music that transcended cultural and racial lines. We grew up listening to Motown and Philly Soul from black America along with black musical giants like Prince, Michael Jackson or James Brown, while even all-white bands like the Rolling Stones, the Beatles, the Who and later U2 paid homage to the black R&B artists who inspired them. In the late 1970s and early 1980s, the 2-Tone music label fused white British Punk Rock with Jamaican Ska and Reggae and the label's multi-ethnic bands such as the Specials topped the charts. It was the norm for us to see black, brown and white musicians in bands together. For those who love football, many black footballers born and bred in England and even Ireland were viewed as belonging to the country as much as any white player. This inclusive ethos that was prevalent in the 1970s and 1980s that emphasised black, white and brown kids uniting in a love of music, fashion and football was all very laudable and it helped foster a cultural norm where genuine racism came to be viewed as anathema by most of the public.
However, the inclusiveness of the 1970s and 1980s led many of the people who adopted this mindset to adopt a very simplistic and shallow minded approach to the issue of immigration which is now influencing how we discuss the very different phenomenon of mass immigration in the 21st century. The Gen X or Boomer 'progressive' erroneously conflates criticism of any non-white, non-European culture with racism which in turn has led to the idea that to oppose unrestricted flows of people with darker skin from all of the world's non-white cultures is synonymous with white supremacy. This is the mindset that has dominated most of the British media and cultural establishment for decades. It shapes everything from how certain news items are reported (or not reported). It explains why TV dramas include the over representation of ethnic minorities even in periods and locations in British history where everyone was white along with the incongruous shoe-horning of radical-Leftist dogma into so much modern entertainment.
It must be infuriating for decent, law-abiding Caribbeans, African Christians and Indians who came to the British Isles many decades ago and are patriotic and well-integrated to be lumped in with Islamic supremacists coming from Afghanistan or Somalia just because they're all non-white. Leftists are so obsessed with skin colour and viewing 21st century mass immigration through the racial politics of the 1970s and 1980s that it blinds them to genuine cultural incompatibilities of certain immigrant groups as well as security threats and resource constraints that result from the 21st century open borders fiasco.
One aspect of the current debate about what it means to be British that needs to be acknowledged is that it was only possible for Caribbean or Indian migrants who came to Britain in the 1950s and 1960s to become culturally British because there was a majority white British population and culture with which to integrate. If you make whole areas of cities non-native British, and especially if those areas become dominated by Islamic supremacists, then there is no native culture for people to integrate with. Civic nationalism can only work when the indigenous people remain the dominant majority and immigrant groups come from compatible cultures who aspire to integrate with the host population.
Boomer and Gen X 'progressives' need to wake up to the fact that it's not the mid to late 20th century anymore. They need to have debates on mass immigration in the 21st century on the conditions and terms of the 21st century. Today's mass immigration is not comparable to the limited migration of the 1950s through to the 1980s. Those of us with centrist or small c conservative views on immigration, including many patriotic ethnic minority citizens, agree with 'progressives' that racism is wrong. Where we disagree with them is how they've extended that term and redefined it beyond its original meaning to the point of utter absurdity.
There is nothing racist about effective border controls or wanting manageable levels of immigration that consider resource constraints and security risks. There is nothing far Right about believing that the native peoples of the British Isles (the English, Scottish, Welsh, Irish and Northern Irish) should remain the majority in these islands and that only cultures that are compatible with ours should be invited to live amongst us. If we forget that, then the national and regional cultures that have shaped the British Isles will disappear.
Andrew Devine is a 2010 Orwell Prize winning blogger and author of Generation F (under the pseudonym Winston Smith). Former radical Leftist. Fully recovered. He blogs on his Substack page, the Devine Message, where this article first appeared.
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