Sometimes one just gets tired

[fpb]

Why is it that so many people cannot reject one stupid and dangerous extreme without diving head-first into the other? I had got into the habit of reading a blog called The Brussels Journal for all sorts of opposition news about Europe, but I will have to reconsider it. It had no less than THREE separate puff pieces for the anniversary of Enoch Powell's odious attempt to reintroduce racism into British politics, his "rivers of blood" (or, as I prefer to call it, "misquotation of Virgil") speech. Which the author disingenuously tried to peddle as an attack on "multi-culturalism"; though you cannot read it with any care without realizing that what it really is against is the presence of people of different colours. It is specifically and clearly skin colour that is the discriminant in Powell's speech. A man who tries to bring it back into repute not once but three times must be said to be shilling for racism. Now what bothers me is that, while I know where to look for oppositional views in Britain and the States without actually touching poison, this ugly revelation of the real agenda behind TBJ leaves me with no sensible conservative source for the Continent.

Comments

[stigandnasty919.livejournal.com]

I had never actually read the text of the 'Rivers of Blood' speach until this morning, but during the time when Powell was an MP for the Ulster Unionist Party I heard many defending it in the terms you speak about. I now wonder how many of those who took part in the defence in those days had read what Powell actually said.

The 'fact' that his speach was misunderstood and that it was somehow a warning against the effects of "multi-culturalism" does appear to be ingrained in many people, a perfect example of a meme, perhaps?

I read the speach this morning. I think what appalled me most about it was the casual assumption of racism. That people of a different colour are 'of a different sort'.

[fpb.livejournal.com]

Exactly. I saw that assumption all over the speech, and it beggars belief that people still do not seem to get the message.

[fpb.livejournal.com]

Incidentally, the speech commits the minor but heinous (in a Classics don) sin of misquoting Virgil. When Virgil's King Latinus foretells that the Tiber will be foaming with blood, it is exactly because, under the insurgent leadership of Turnus, his own Latin subjects are proposing to drive the Trojan immigrants into the sea instead of welcoming them as the gods want. This kind of "text-proofing" is notorious enough among Christians, but it is positively inexcusable in a supposed Classicist. The only thing it proves is that he is trying to assert his superior status with a quotation he expects others not to know.