Things are not looking down
Re: “Dig deeper for proof that civilisation is doomed,” Have Your Say, August 3.
Nigel Pike, of course, could be right that immigration into the UK will blight everything he holds dear. But he should take some comfort from the long history of these claims.
In the 17th century English slave owners scrubbed their black slaves or “black-a-moors” because their colour was assumed to mean lack of cleanliness. In Victorian England, a major preoccupation of the press was that the white Irish labourers flooding into England were quasi-apes who would ruin England’s economic success.
Then we became panicked by all the Jews rushing into England because of the Russian pogroms, which led to a Restriction of Jews law in 1905. Black soldiers were rarely used as troops in World War I and II lest potential intermingling should lead to mongrelisation of British values. And so on.
For my money, civilisation is more likely to become a dodo in this century because of the threats from global warming, sociopath statesmen pressing nuclear buttons and the collapse of the corrupt international banking system. But, after all, it’s the end of the world every day – for somebody!
Barry Kenyon
