Shaun Milne takes to task “self-centred opinions” in the UK towards the refugee crisis in Calais, with migrants trying to reach British shores
“IF I die it’s okay, because it’s not worse than what I face in my country.”
Thus spoke one of these vile migrants clambering to get into Britain as he was interviewed by Paul Adams, BBC reporter.
Yes, this human being is going to keep trying to get across the Channel even if it kills him because it’s better than what he would face back home. Take that in for a minute. Process that. If that doesn’t knock you back for six then I really have to question your human credentials, your empathy and whether or not you actually possess a heart.
Oh, but these ‘illegal migrants’ crawl from the dark and terrible places such as Africa, Syria and Afghanistan, eyes gleaming with jealousy as they gaze upon the teat of our benevolent benefits system. They are all coming here to steal your taxes. They are massing like the Visigoths, a horde ready to sack Rome. They will come here and sponge off the state. They are hell-bent on living the life of Riley at your expense! All the while you work every day that god sends. Oh, this vicious tide of non-British miscreants must be fought off at all costs! They cannot be allowed in! They are monsters and demons that need to be kept out of our pure and respectfully British lands.
No, these migrants have the audacity to think they can enter our kingdom? PAH! Begone with you, vile rodents. Your kind are not welcome here. Go back to your own country, fight your own wars, we don’t want you here.
“A dip – make it a short one – below the line in any comment section on the subject will leave you feeling dirty.”
These words are only slightly more hyperbolic than the nonsense being peddled by most of the press, our elected politicians and swathes of the British public. A dip – make it a short one – below the line in any comment section on the subject will leave you feeling dirty. The hatred directed towards these migrants will make you want to up-sticks and move to Kepler.
The bloody migrants are interfering with Great British holidays, don’t you know? Have they no decency? Bastards.
Yes, some people do think like that. Yes, some human beings are so utterly self-centred as to put their holiday desire – well-earned I’ll have you know! – above the people who are risking their very lives to seek out a land that is safe for them to live in. Isn’t that the way of our beloved first world though? That we are so constrained by our consumerist culture, our holidays, our branded clothing, our iphones and ‘unique’ places to fucking eat, that the moment anything interrupts that bubble, the moment anything takes things away from us – things we somehow feel entitled to – we lose our shit.
Humanity and compassion evaporate in those situations. And this isn’t even a sole reserve of the political right. Left-wingers, at least in my experience, suffer the same self-absorption as anyone else, and are more the hypocritical for it.
Oh, I hear the cries, not me! No, I would never condemn the migrants! I would think long and hard about their situation and never put my situation above theirs!
“We all do it. The moment your routine gets interrupted you’re on the lookout for someone to blame, someone to take the fall, someone to point the finger at and scream ‘this is the source of all my woes!’ as if it’ll somehow improve your day or make you feel better.”
Bollocks. We all do it. The moment your routine gets interrupted you’re on the lookout for someone to blame, someone to take the fall, someone to point the finger at and scream ‘this is the source of all my woes!’ as if it’ll somehow improve your day or make you feel better. No thought goes into the reason behind the delays, the strikes, the whatever else, when it’s directly affecting YOU. You only see your wants and needs being limited, being restricted and you RESENT whomever is responsible regardless of the dire situations they may find themselves in.
Someone committed suicide on a train track and now you’re late for work? ‘Well they’re bloody selfish. They should’ve thought about how it affected people like me.’
Words I’ve heard spoken. Sentiments I’ve had the unpleasant privilege of being exposed to.
A human being has thought so little of their life that they felt the need to end it prematurely. A person has felt of such little worth, of such little value to the world, that they didn’t want to live anymore. And you’re worried about being late for work? You’re worried about how this affects your little world?
Fuck off. Fuck off and take every sodding selfish bastard with you. The sad thing is there seems to be a lot of you and you aren’t shy about sharing your fucking self-centred opinions either.
“For the extent of our compassion and our ability to empathise is directly correlated to how close these things are to us.”
For the extent of our compassion and our ability to empathise is directly correlated to how close these things are to us. Contrary to the logical conclusion – the closer a tragedy, the more we feel we can empathise – it is the opposite that holds true. We champion causes and screech righteous fury best when events aren’t on our front doorstep.
America’s damning issues around race relations? Oh, that’s terrible and something must be done.
A lion getting killed by a rich dentist? Oh, that’s terrible and that bastard should be utterly fucking ashamed of himself!
People clambering to get into Britain after fleeing the most utterly tragic of situations?
“Ooft. Look, I’m no a racist but-“
Many of these people – young men, women and children – flee the most vile atrocities a human should ever have to endure. They scramble across half the globe, risking their lives, enduring the worst of conditions, all to get to the promised land of Britain, a land they believe is filled with the hope of a better, more peaceful life.
“Many of these people – young men, women and children – flee the most vile atrocities a human should ever have to endure.”
What happens when they reach the gates? They are sneered at, looked down upon, and thought less of, by a bunch of white privileged pricks. ‘You’re not welcome here. Go back to your own country. This is Britain and we must keep Britain BRITISH!’
It’s hard to even comprehend these minds, these enlightened and civilized individuals. Britain’s imperial past – which we don’t talk about – casts a long shadow indeed. It’s fine going to other countries and killing their people, stealing their resources, imposing ‘British values’ through force of arms and insidious political manoeuvrings. That’s all dandy because Britain is Great and whiteness is a blessed gift to be shared benevolently across the globe, whether the natives like it or not.
Yet the Empire has fallen, and Britain’s bloody fingers have left instability and volatility across nearly every corner of the globe. That’s the Great legacy we don’t talk about. That’s the shadow that haunts this nation.
And when those ordinary citizens flee their countries, that have been torn apart by war, disease and poverty (many of which Britain still has a bloody hand in), to travel through hell to reach the safe bastion of British civilisation – the country turns its back. The media narrative turns toxic, we dehumanise human beings because they are not white. Because they have accents. Because they come from other places.
“The Empire has fallen, and Britain’s bloody fingers have left instability and volatility across nearly every corner of the globe.”
‘Throw them all in jail,’ one lovely British citizen commented.
‘They’re all just young muslim terrorists,’ claimed another.
‘Just you wait, the EDL will be able to say ‘We told you so’ before long!’
This is where we are at. The shadow of our past haunts us but we won’t confront it. We delude ourselves, distract ourselves, insulate ourselves with wealth and material possessions. Britain is civilised and thus we must protect it from the outside, from the rest of the world. This is ours by the grace of god and we all know God saves the fuckin’ Queen.
How easily Britain’s history of immigration and emigration is forgotten, swept under the rug.
‘It’s different this time,’ the cries ring out. It always is. Anything to separate the compassion and bravery of citizens in the past from citizens in the present having to do similar. Anything to prevent proud Brits from having to confront their own prejudice, their own hatred. More twisting of narratives, more delusions, more dismissal used by British citizens to lift the responsibility of them having to treat people from far-off places with the basic dignity and respect you would think extends to all human beings.
“There is a thin veneer between Britain and the rest of the world, and the more it is scratched at, the more the light shines through it, the harder British attitudes become.”
There is a thin veneer between Britain and the rest of the world, and the more it is scratched at, the more the light shines through it, the harder British attitudes become. We absolve ourselves of all responsibility. We become the arbiters of humanity, judging who is worthy and who is not. The world view of white Britain is monochrome. Us and them. The deserving and the sinister.
‘If I die it’s okay, because it’s not worse than what I face in my country’
Aye, let’s send in the army to deal with these people. Let’s treat them as invading aliens come to take our homes. Let us worry about the slightly diminutive array of produce in our bustling supermarkets. Our comfort is being attacked. Our holidays slightly delayed. And oh don’t we hold ourselves in such fucking high regard we think the world owes US everything.
“Our comfort is being attacked. Our holidays slightly delayed. And oh don’t we hold ourselves in such fucking high regard we think the world owes US everything.”
To those selfish fucks amongst you who look at this crisis, and others like it, and wash their hands, bemoaning the effect it has on them, not once thinking of the underlying issues, or the basic fucking decency of seeing another human’s suffering and not being a fucking cunt about it, I say this:
You can always go another holiday. The supermarket stocks will be replenished. Your delays will end.
I’m sure this would have comforted the poor desperate human beings who lie dead because they risked everything trying to make a life in the country YOU love so much. Well they don’t ever have to worry about that now.
They won’t get a holiday. They won’t get to walk the aisles of our supermarkets.
But please, tell me again why I should care about any single fucking thing you moan about, you utterly selfish sorry excuses for humanity.
I do love Great Britain, so I do.
Picture courtesy of Jey OH photographie