A few days moseying along the Poland/Czech border, last week. The profound impression it made is lost somewhere in the fog of sensations piled one above the other - the overriding image being of a couple of rusty Red Army tanks on plinths just outside of Wroclaw, their barrels pointing menacingly but impotently into the City's heart. An ironic joke, perhaps? Or a remnant of the Soviets' former power? I have no idea. I found communication difficult in a countryside where bars and cafes barely exist for people to meet in. Another remnant of Communist repression? That's the trouble... so tempting to see everything in those terms - both correctly and otherwise. Lovely, well-tended, patently decent, place, though.
Either way... it almost makes you want to kiss the ground when you land back in Britain. Bad as things have got here, they're nothing in comparison with the repression and hardship endured by Poland in recent history and we should be grateful for that, at least. The plane home was full of Poles and their babies; good people, an asset to us.
Interesting, then, returning to find we'd elected ourselves a couple of Nazis... and to hear mainstream politicos soothing themselves with the notion that those who voted for them aren't racists and didn't really know what they were voting for. Oh really? I believe it's remarkably true that, by accident or otherwise, BNP votes turned out to be almost the only ones worth casting - the only ones causing a ripple in the Euro elections. It was the votes for the status quo that were wasted.
I guess it's a thought crime, by current definitions, to wonder whether some kinds of immigration might be better for Britain than others. Whether migrants from the Third World, say, mainly brown, are a better bet than those from Eastern Europe who are wholly white. Or if Muslims are to be preferred as neighbours to, say, Hindus and Christians or vice-versa. Is it permissible to express a preference based on a considered conclusion? Doubt it.
There is a belief among the ruling class that they are ahead of the public in knowing what's best for us. The public is starting to disagree. Boringly, though, I'd voted Tory.
Review – Pantoland at the Palladium
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This time last year it didn’t seem possible there wouldn’t be panto this
year. Until a few months ago, it didn’t seem possible there would be any
panto thi...
3 years ago
7 comments:
"A few days moseying along the Poland/Czech border..."
That, somehow, reminds me of those immense slagheaps of Soviet armament we came across, in what was then the GDR, on the way to Prague. 1991. Colossal mountains of outdate weaponry, cannons and tanks, fenced in and guarded by the occasional solitary sentinel, like some time-capsuled War of the Worlds in a pre-historic universe ...
"The public is starting to disagree. Boringly, though, I'd voted Tory."
Of course, I'm not British, but either way, it seems to me, the English nation is losing her soul. A clutch of squabbling ghettoes, ridden by self-doubt, ill-governed and ill-led, at the twilight of its power - all I can do is to express is my immense astonishment that there are not more people who've voted BNP. But then, as someone said in the Sunday Times: "If Griffin's BNP has a future, it will always be looking back to the past." And, of course, there can be no future in that....
Yes, I'd hardly claim to have become an instant expert on Post-Soviet Eastern Europe... but even a quick trip over is enlightening.
As for the English nation is losing her soul - nothing in the news sums up the situation better than the resolute refusal of the BBC to properly describe the Belfast "Romanians" as other than Romanian passport-holders. This lack of honesty leads to stifling of legitimate debate and has the effect of drawing some people into the clutches of the BNP when no other political outlet exists for them to vent their disquiet.
Dear Mr Grimsby
The angst over the election of the BNP is misplaced; when Griffin and Co. launch a sustained, wicked, murderous assault on defenceless civilian populations, when they permit kidnapping and torture of predominantly Muslem individuals and deny them basic legal representation; when, in order to win hearts and minds, they strafe playgrounds and wedding parties; when they form the bulk of a parliament and vote, cross-party, for all this shit and cheer to the rooftops it's departing author, then we should grow alarmed.
Hey, I hope you aren't going to give up blogging. We want your thoughts on peak oil, defence procurement, Mandy, and Lars von Trier. And your photographs. Please.
I can't remember now how I first came across your blog. I thought it was via Anderby Creek, but a quick google shows you never mentioned it.
WV: pefts - trifling deductions made from one's credit card account attributable to one's own carelessness.
Hi Anne,
Nice to hear from you... yeah, I kind of got out of blogging through boring myself with the political stuff, especially since I've ceased to believe anything I read - so not much hope of the World having the benefit of my thoughts on peak oil, etc.
But you woke me up. Maybe I'll write about What I Did On My Hols again. Trouble is, I think I've become too cynical and isolated to make sense out of even those.
I'll hop over to yours for inspiration.
Spilsby still exists? Remarkable. I always liked Spilsby. Coming from Boston, it seemed like somewhere to aspire to.
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