Here are a few extracts from Enoch Powell's infinitely demonized April 20, 1968 speech, delivered two weeks after the Martin Luther King riots in northern American cities.
The supreme function of statesmanship is to provide against preventable evils.
In seeking to do so, it encounters obstacles which are deeply rooted in human nature. One is that by the very order of things such evils are not demonstrable until they have occurred: At each stage in their onset there is room for doubt and for dispute whether they be real or imaginary. By the same token, they attract little attention in comparison with current troubles, which are both indisputable and pressing: whence the besetting temptation of all politics to concern itself with the immediate present at the expense of the future. Above all, people are disposed to mistake predicting troubles for causing troubles and even for desiring troubles: “if only”, they love to think, “if only people wouldn't talk about it, it probably wouldn't happen”. Perhaps this habit goes back to the primitive belief that the word and the thing, the name and the object, are identical.
At all events, the discussion of future grave but, with effort now, avoidable evils is the most unpopular and at the same time the most necessary occupation for the politician. Those who knowingly shirk it, deserve, and not infrequently receive, the curses of those who come after. ...
In fifteen or twenty years, on present trends, there will be in this country 3 1/2 million Commonwealth immigrants and their descendants. That is not my figure. That is the official figure given to Parliament by the spokesman of the Registrar General's office. There is no comparable official figure for the year 2000, but it must be in the region of 5-7 million, approximately one-tenth of the whole population, and approaching that of Greater London.
Of course, it will not be evenly distributed from Margate to Aberystwyth and from Penzance to Aberdeen. Whole areas, towns and parts of towns across England will be occupied by different sections of the immigrant and immigrant-descended population.
... Nothing is more misleading than comparison between the Commonwealth immigrant in Britain and the American Negro. The Negro population of the United states, which was already in existence before the United States became a nation, started literally as slaves and were later given the franchise and other rights of citizenship, to the exercise of which they have only gradually and still incompletely come. The Commonwealth immigrant came to Britain as a full citizen, to a country which knows no discrimination between one citizen and another, and he entered instantly into the possession of the rights of every citizen, from the vote to free treatment under the National Health Service. Whatever drawbacks attended the immigrants—and they were drawbacks which did not, and do not, make admission into Britain by hook or by crook appear less than desirable—arose not from the law or from public policy or from administration but from those personal circumstances and accidents which cause, and always will cause, the fortunes and experience of one man to be different for another's. ...
For these dangerous and divisive elements the legislation proposed in the Race Relations Bill is the very pabulum they need to flourish. Here is the means of showing that the immigrant communities can organize to consolidate their members, to agitate and campaign against their fellow citizens, and to overawe and dominate the rest with the legal weapons which the ignorant and the ill-informed have provided.
As I look ahead, I am filled with foreboding. Like the Roman [i.e., , I seem to see “the River Tiber foaming with much blood”.
That tragic and intractable phenomenon which we watch with horror on the other side of the Atlantic but which there is interwoven with the history and existence of the States itself, is coming upon us here by our own volition and our own neglect.
Indeed, it has all but come. In numerical terms, it will be of American proportions long before the end of the century. Only resolute and urgent action will avert it even now.
Whether there will be the public will to demand and obtain that action, I do not know.
All I know is that to see, and not to speak, would be the great betrayal.
Now, it's not clear from this speech (although perhaps it is from others) that Powell feared what historian David Starkey called a couple of nights ago "intercommunal violence" of the Bombay-Hindus-whomp-on-Muslims type seen in the opening of Slumdog Millionaire. Powell's focus was evidently the black American riots of 1965-1968, which weren't all that intercommunal, although there was some animus against Jewish and other nonblack shopkeepers. They were more "political shopping," with Civil Rights as an excuse for looting sprees, much like this week's riots.
Powell was not a Citizenist I'm afraid.
ReplyDeleteSteve,
ReplyDeleteYour illustrious employer was once mugged, on his Chelsea door-step, many many moons ago, by a vicious black gang.
He was punched hard in the face and had his watch stolen.This despite Taki being a martial arts expert.
Afterwards he wrote an angry piece in the Spectator denouncing Britain's black population, "they are thugs, the sons of thugs and grandsons of thugs".
Taki caught a lot of flak for that article.
Billionaire Formula One boss Bernie Ecclestone has also been targeted by black thugs on numerous occasions.
Steve, if you speak to Taki about the real state of play in London, I'm sure he'll feel you in with all the details.
The irony is that Powell was complaining of an immigration rate of 50,000 per annum.
ReplyDeleteLast year Britain accepted at the very least 700,000 immigrants - or over 12 times the number Powell was apoplectic about.
In this context Powell was ultimately a failure.
A potted history of post-Powell British immigration policy:
Powell tapped a huge wellspring of public support, the London dockers went on strike in support of him.Labour unexpectedly lost the 1970 General Election largely because of the Powell speech (the consequences in subsequent history are very profound), and the Tory, Ted Heath won.Ted Heath passed what was supposed to be a kick-ass restrictive immigration law, the 1971 Act, which promised to stop all large scale immigration altogether.Apart from minor incidence like Idi Amin dumping subcons on Britain, the issue died down.That is until Tony Blair's New labour Government of 1997.By the year 2000 they are riding high and cocky, and by stealth, they sneak in a neo-con immigration agenda endorsed by the WSJ and 'The Economist'.Basically tthey sceretly abolish all immigration controls whatsoever, with no public debate or consultation.Senior Labour Party apparatchik Andrew Neather spills the beans in an arrogant newspaper article.This article reveals that the motivation was to 'make Britain truly multicultural' (ie to disposess the English of their ancestral land and turn them into just another racial minority amongst others).
By 2010 over 700,000 immigrants per annum land in Britain, a nation of mass unemployment, economic contraction, sky-high accomodation costs and extreme population density.
In fact on a proportionate basis Britain takes in 3 x the number of immigrants per capita and at least 30 x per land available.
Sheer unadulterated madness.
In the '90s under the Tories we were taking in some 50,000 'asylum seekers' a year, plus family reunification for existing immigrants, so mass immigration did not stall until New Labour. Blair did step up the pace a lot but the frog had still been boiling under Thatcher & Major.
ReplyDeleteThe only criticism of Powell's speech was his overly sanguine aside on race relations in North America.
ReplyDeleteGilbert P.
Steve:
ReplyDeletePowell may have focused on America in his speech, but I'll bet that was what he thought white Britons would relate to. He was around for the decolonization of India, though. It probably had an effect on him. The recent BBC documentary on "Rivers of Blood" seemed to think so, at any rate.
In this context Powell was ultimately a failure.
ReplyDeleteThis is unfair to Powell.
A signficant fraction of current immigrants to the UK come from the EU due to the Masstricht Treaty. Which means they are predominantly white. The ascendancy of English has also been a factor -- most schoolchildren in Europe study English, and university graduates usually speak English pretty well. So there are no legal or language barriers for them.
Powell spoke about non-white "Commonwealth immigrants", meaning from India/Asia, Africa, Jamaica, etc.
In hindsight I wonder if Powell would have been more effective if he'd left out the "Rivers of Blood" piece of imagery. If he'd toned it down a bit would he have received the same level of outrage & been sacked from his shadow ministerial post?
ReplyDeleteIt's infuriating to think someone outlined the problems so clearly but was attacked instead of being listened too. Also, he was probably the most intelligent UK politician of the previous century.
""He was brilliant. Everyone said that, even those who loathed his ideas. Few doubted the story that he was reading Greek at five, coached by his mother, a schoolteacher. Young Enoch won a free place to Trinity College, Cambridge, took prize after prize in classical studies and, of course, gained a first. He took no part in the social life of the university, which, for many students, was the whole point of being there. A fellow politician in later life remarked that there was something mechanical about the way Enoch Powell studied. He apparently learnt German without visiting Germany to pick up its idioms, and the result sounded wooden, though the syntax was flawless.
Still, at 25 he held the chair of Greek at Sydney University, and so became the youngest professor in what was then the British empire (and rather cross that Friedrich Nietzsche, whose philosophic works he admired, had become a professor at an even earlier age). His war service was equally remarkable: wearing “the king’s coat”, as he put it, he was the only British to rise from private soldier to brigadier (although he never saw combat). He added systematically to his store of languages, among them Hebrew, which he learnt at 70 to help his studies of the Bible."
Economist on Powell's life
Until Blair-Brown took power, net migration was about 40-50K per year under the Tories. Not commendable, but still about 1/4th the per capita rate of the U.S.
ReplyDeleteOther than asylum seekers, Tories were pretty effective at keeping migration low.
For example, they instituted the Primary Purpose Rule. This rule made it illegal for a foreign spouse to settle in Britain for reasons of "economic migration"; and required the immigrant to submit convincing proof of this. Blair, of course, abolished this, but it's amazing that a Western country could implement such a rule as a recently as a decade ago. I recall a few years ago that William Hague spoke of bringing it back.
Really I think there's hope for Britain. Tories are decent on immigration and you've got a growing Blue Labor movement. Lib Dem and the BBC-Guardian media axis are insane, but the general public mood is strongly restrictionist.
In the U.S., unfortunately, all we debate is illegal immigration. Even bringing up the need to cut legal immigration is off the table. The idea of completely immigration may never come up.
Your Labor Party is more conservative than our Republicans on immigration, believe it or not.
Powell edited the Greek text of Thucydides' History of the Peloponnesian War for Oxford University Press, in two volumes. It's still widely used around the world.
ReplyDeleteTo anyone familiar with classical literature, his intense study of Thucydides left a clear and indelible mark on his mind. Thucydides was and still is the great paradigm of cold, rational, calculating thought. As Powell surely noticed, tiny Athens, like tiny England, ruled over a mighty empire, often held in check with brute force because to let go of it would be far more dangerous.
Having studied classics, he included the 'rivers of blood' reference drawn from Rome (hence Tiber) because he expected his fellow elites/MPs to recognize it. This kind of allusion had been standard fare in English rhetoric at least the 18th century and should have helped him pose as a Victorian carrying on into modernity.
Powell knew the speech would be a failure before he delivered it; he told a friend that. But like Thucydides, who famously wrote that he was writing 'not for the taste of the immediate public, but as a possession for all time,' Powell martyred his career for his belief.
Athens lost her empire in 404 when Sparta finally defeated her, and in short order became a college town, never to recover.
Very articulate and impressive, especially when compared to the blathering of American politicians. Makes me wonder what's wrong with our system and the electorate when we always seem to get leaders who are hardly distinguishable from the average bozo walking down the street.
ReplyDeleteA Nick Griffin speech.
ReplyDeleteJT
"Someone needs to take a photographic shot of the Thames with blood or flames roiling the water. Unfortunately the next riot will provide this opportunity."
ReplyDeleteI believe the destruction in our white communities has already happened at a spiritual/psychological level. Most of the white population has been induced to destroy itself.
I guess there will end up being physical confrontations between the immigrant communities but Powell was probably afraid for the lives of English he thought would still be breeding.
That the teeming masses from all over the world might kill each other off in the husks of cities that whites have abandoned, I'm not sure how I feel about that.
In reality, Muslims are the aggressors in India just as they are everywhere else, and when rural Hindus fight back *then* it's all about "the cycle of violence".
ReplyDeleteAnd how did Hinduism replace Buddhism in India? Hindu thuggery.
In hindsight I wonder if Powell would have been more effective if he'd left out the "Rivers of Blood" piece of imagery.
ReplyDeleteHe first considered quoting it in Latin, but then decided to quote it in English so his listeners would understand it.
In retrospect, I think it's good that he quoted it, and in English. Without that image the speech might have become known as the "grinning piccaninnies" speech.
What a prophet Enoch Powell was. What a genius. What a man of courage. And what he says is true for any white country in the world. IF ONLY HE HAD BEEN LISTENED TOO. London wouldn't be on fire right now.
ReplyDeletePowell edited the Greek text of Thucydides' History of the Peloponnesian War for Oxford University Press, in two volumes. It's still widely used around the world.
ReplyDeleteImpossible! Everyone knows that these mouth-breathing nativists are barely literate sub-humans!
Liberals count as "everyone", doncha know?
In the '90s under the Tories we were taking in some 50,000 'asylum seekers' a year, plus family reunification for existing immigrants, so mass immigration did not stall until New Labour.
ReplyDeleteSorry Simon, but I don't think that 50,000/yr counts as "mass immigration".
Hell, in the US we let in 50,000/yr H1-b visa workers to drive down the cost of labor in the computer industry. And they don't even count in the million per year legal immigrants who come here.
"And how did Hinduism replace Buddhism in India? Hindu thuggery."
ReplyDeleteWomen hate, hate, hate beta men. Even Buddha understood the concept.
"But he predicted that allowing women into the Sangha would cause his teachings to survive only half as long - 500 years instead of a 1,000."
http://buddhism.about.com/od/buddhisthistory/a/buddhistwomen.htm
Steve: "Hindus whomp on Muslims" is man bites dog in the subcontinent, and the equivalent of "whites attack blacks". The Slumdog Millionaire writers are leftists and hate India, which is part of why they were feted by Hollywood. In reality, Muslims are the aggressors in India just as they are everywhere else, and when rural Hindus fight back *then* it's all about "the cycle of violence".
ReplyDeleteRight on.
> And how did Hinduism replace Buddhism in India? Hindu thuggery.
ReplyDeleteHinduism predates Buddhism. I suppose you are referring to this ancient history:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decline_of_Buddhism_in_India
This is like pointing to the Crusades to support an argument that modern Christians are bloodthirsty killers.
In the present day, Hindus aren't exactly known for high levels of violence. They are kind of wimpy and unathletic in fact. Those who immigrated to the UK probably committed fewer crimes on a per-capita basis than native British whites during these recent riots.
And India, while poor and still dirty in most parts, is nowhere near Africa, South America, or even parts of Eastern Europe in terms of physical danger to your person.
There are really more pressing targets for deserved vituperation than the phantasm of "Hindu violence".
You think 1 million immigrants a year is a lot? Bush wanted to let in 200 million immigrants with his guest worker program.
ReplyDeleteOf course, Bush is more mentally handicapped than Terry Schiavo.
"Someone needs to take a photographic shot of the Thames with blood or flames roiling the water. Unfortunately the next riot will provide this opportunity."
ReplyDelete- I think the pic of a young white man being forced in public to strip off his clothes and give them to an impatient black mugger speaks the same message well enough...
@airtommy, note the islamic areas of south asia, Afghanistan, Pakistan and Bangladesh, they were all buddhist areas.
ReplyDeleteIslam eradicated buddhism in Central Asia and in India too
Buddhist monasteries in Nalanda, were massacred by muslims.
Buddhism is concentrated among its monks, once the muslims killed off the buddhist monks, buddhism vanished.
Regarding islam and buddhism,
ReplyDeleteBuddhism has a ritual called the Kalachakra Puja, which calls for holy war against the muslims.
This is because the muslims genocided the buddhists everywhere.
Muslims in south asia are like blacks in the west, low IQ, prone to crime, violence and rape. The 15% muslims in India are 50% of the Indian jail population.
London wouldn't be on fire right now.
ReplyDeletePossibly true. And you wouldn't be able to get chicken vindaloo.
And how did Hinduism replace Buddhism in India? Hindu thuggery.
ReplyDeleteHinduism never replaced Buddhism. It's more that Buddhism failed to replace Hinduism.
Who is Ram Sharma? Never heard of him and he's probably even more marginal in India than William Pierce in the US.
ReplyDeleteThe BJP/Hindu nationalists can be usefully mapped to US Republicans/Christian Conservatives. I assure you that vanishingly few nationalists are interested in attacking whites more than 60 years after independence. The Hindu right, pathetic as it is, can at most muster some
bleatings as ever more concessions are made to the Muslims. The War against Christmas in the US = the campaign for "secularism" in India.
Right wing Indians are pretty anti-government and more similar to the US right in overall outlook (pro business, pro defense, anti govt, anti Muslim terrorism) than pretty much any other non European political group.
And India will be pro-America even after the upcoming US collapse, as the new American-Euro-Israel-Japan-India vs. Russia-China axis begins to take shape.
Hinduism never replaced Buddhism. It's more that Buddhism failed to replace Hinduism.
ReplyDeleteMy knowledge of the period is not super, but at an elite level, you can't really argue that there was not a Hindu revival in India amongst elites - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Hinduism & http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decline_of_Buddhism_in_India - "Classical Hinduism emerges as a revival of Vedic traditions with the gradual decline of Buddhism in India from around the beginning of the Common Era."
I'm not sure how much violence was involved in this transition, and how much was Hinduism making itself otherwise more congenial to Indian elites than Buddhism was. Violence is not mentioned in the wikipedia article as a significant force.
I'm sure that even during the peak of the Buddhist period there was a fair amount of syncretism with earlier Hindu forms, in terms of theism and caste, particularly at non-elite and folk levels.
Indians in NJ are just as bad as blacks when it comes to harassing white women. Both (blacks and Indians) must think their own women are ugly as sin given their psychotic obsession with white women.
ReplyDeleteyeah, all those Hindu mobs in New Jersey.
ReplyDeleteRight wing Indians are pretty anti-government and more similar to the US right in overall outlook (pro business, pro defense, anti govt, anti Muslim terrorism) than pretty much any other non European political group.
ReplyDeleteToo bad most Indians are not right-wing then. Like every other non-European political group, they vote left.
Would one be questioned by the authorities in Britain, if one placed a bumper sticker on one's auto reading "Enoch Powell Was Right"?
ReplyDeleteThe problem with the West today: it's being murdered - not committing suicide, but being murdered - by the elites.
Would one be questioned by the authorities in Britain, if one placed a bumper sticker on one's auto reading "Enoch Powell Was Right"?
ReplyDeleteI suspect your car would get keyed, bricked, and baseball batted before getting noticed by a cop. Then when you complained they'd be more interested in the sticker than the vandalism.
Theodore Dalrymple wrote in one essay about a slightly intoxicated college student who was fined for telling a cop his horse was "gay." Not even a "faggot" - just "gay."
"In NJ and London you can see Indian men constantly harassing white women."
ReplyDeleteReally ? Maybe some Pakistani men, but generally Indian men are pretty well behaved. Or are those just the ones I work with ?
Botti quotes The Economist saying:
ReplyDeletehe was the only British to rise from private soldier to brigadier
I don't think this is true even for the Second World War, but he was definitely beaten by 'Wullie' Robertson, who rose in the British Army from private --- and before that a footman in private service --- to CIGS in the Great War.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Robertson
A very tough gentleman really.