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Why we will never see an end to racism in the UK.

19th October 2012 Dougie Brimson Leave a comment

racism, john terry, bigot, football, soccer, serbia, sex, scum, Kick racism out of football The other evening, whilst taking part in a late-night radio debate on the disgraceful scenes in Serbia, I was asked if I thought we would ever see an end to racism in the UK. My answer was an instant and resounding no. I then added that my thinking was based on the simple fact that we had never had a free and open debate on the issues of racism, immigration and multiculturalism in our country and more importantly, would never be allowed to have one.

When asked why not, I made the point that in my opinion it was because the powers that be were afraid of the answers the vast majority of the population would provide. I was cut off almost instantly. As proof of my point, that’s as conclusive as it gets.

Now let me quote something to you. It’s lengthy, but bare with it.

Racism and multiculturalism have become two of the key issues affecting the way we live but by allowing the anti-racist and politically driven lobby groups to occupy the moral high ground, we [as a society] have become terrified of openly questioning anything relating to race for fear that we will be labelled as racist. A fear that is especially prevalent amongst the white Anglo-Saxon and Christian communities who lest we forget, actually form the majority of the population.

As a consequence, they [the liberal-left and the anti-racist groups] have been allowed to get away with things that they really should not be allowed to get away with. We may laugh at the stupidity of banning piggy banks or replacing the seven dwarves with the seven gnomes but in their own way, each act of petty political correctness drives the wedge between the various ethnic groups ever deeper.

More importantly, by suppressing a much needed and long overdue debate about the impact these issues have on us all, we as a nation are clearly storing up huge problems. If only because ignorance breeds fear and fear breeds resentment which could, potentially, play right into the hands of extreme political groups. It doesn’t take a genius to realise that the implications of that would stretch far wider than the turnstile or the playing field.

However, racism is an issue which not only should be talked about it is one which we must talk about. Dialogue is after all, the only way we, as a society will ever understand things and we have to do that if we are ever to be rid of this most shameful of scourges. That will only happen when we are brave enough to allow everyone to have their say and more importantly, listen to what is being said. Tragically, even though we live in a supposedly free society, I cannot ever see that happening. Indeed, there is something to be said for the idea that if Enoch Powell achieved one thing with his infamous ‘Rivers of Blood’ speech, it was to suppress forever any chance of anyone having a free and open debate about either immigration or race in Britain.

Ironically, the area of society that has done more than any other to combat racism in Britain is football. In recent weeks I have witnessed racist abuse being hurled by blacks, whites and Asians in shops, pubs and even at a motorway service station yet I can count on three fingers the number of racist incidents I have encountered inside a stadium in this country since I began writing in 1996 and two of those have been at non-league games. And I’m not alone. Even Thierry Henry has been quoted as saying that he has not heard any racist abuse inside a stadium since he came to play in this country yet still we routinely hear football being slaughtered. Why? Surely the fact that on the rare occasions an incident of football related racial abuse takes place here in England it is roundly and swiftly condemned by all parties is proof of how serious this issue has been taken. Similarly, the fury with which we react to abuse targeted at English players abroad must indicate how far we have come as well as how far others lag behind.

I’m not saying that we should sit on our laurels, but we shouldn’t be so self critical either. As fans, we should be proud that for the most part, the only colour we care about is the colour of the shirt and we should celebrate the fact that people come from all over the world to play the game here free of the abuse and intimidation seen all too often in Spain, Italy, Germany and most of Eastern Europe. We should also be thrilled that so many black players represent us at international level but equally, we should enjoy a smug smile of satisfaction that these days we don’t even really notice. All we actually see is eleven proud Englishmen and that in itself says everything to me.

That’s an extract from Kicking Off which I wrote in 2004 and to me, it’s sadly still as relevant now as it was back then. However, if there is a silver lining to the horrific events in Serbia this week it has been to highlight just how far we as a nation have come in the drive to defeat racism and as I wrote in the piece, no section of society has fought more valiantly than football. Although let’s be honest, as the John Terry affair has proven, whilst the fans continue to do their bit there is much to be said for the idea that football’s administration needs to up its game not least with an ounce to two of consistency.

But there is still much work to be done and the great game can’t do everything, nor should it even try. For sure as we saw only too clearly this summer, sport can be a fantastic unifying force but if we are ever to see a resolution to the cancer of racism in our nation and legitimately sit upon the moral high ground where we so richly deserve to be, it can only happen if we, as individuals, can freely and honestly discuss all of the issues associated with it.

The last I heard, this is a free country. So why can’t we?

fart, sex, love, anal, "bodily functions" penguins, vibrators — The Art of Fart – still a bargain!

Just a quick note to let you know that Amazon have now price matched most of my titles with iTunes so that the bulk, including The Art of Fart, are now just 99p. The only exceptions are The Crew which is free and Top Dog and Billy’s Log which will set you back £1.99.

So if you’re missing a book, now is as good a time as any!

looting, moaning, riot, scroungers, Uncategorized, writing

I Blame Telly. Really, I do!

16th August 2011 Dougie Brimson 3 Comments

In all the soul searching and hand wringing that has gone on since the riots that engulfed London, Birmingham and Manchester barely two weeks ago, little has been mentioned about what I regard as one of the major factors to have impacted on the fabric of British society over the last 50 or so years.

For whilst much has been made of the role computer games have played in the desensitisation of violence and the fact that music videos are increasingly portraying women as little more than sexual objects (and where are the feminists in that debate? Gyrating to Rihanna along with their 8 year old daughters perhaps?) little has been made of the most powerful medium of all, television.

Now I love TV. It is an amazing thing and the people who work within it produce some incredible programming. Yet as a weapon, it is unrivalled. For it has the potential to shape public opinion in a way no other medium can and only a fool would deny that it has certainly been wielded plenty of times over the years and for all kinds of reasons. Some good, most bad.

Never is this more graphically illustrated than in the soaps. Soaps are different to all other forms of entertainment in that they are infinite. Characters come, evolve and go, storylines unfold and die but the essence remains constant. This is of course, one of the great attractions and for many viewers that essence becomes so familiar that it takes on a sense of reality. A place it stops being the product of some writers imagination and is instead somewhere where the characters change from jobbing actors into into real people who actually experience real things. It’s Truman in all but name.

The arguement often put forward in defence of this type of programming is that it’s art mirroring life which would be fine if they showed lives, communities and problems which were actually ‘normal’ in the sense that yours and my lives are normal but they do not. Instead they paint a warped and necessarily condensed picture of a drama. One where hatred, shouting, violence, criminality and dysfunctional families are everyday normality.

And if you’re 7 and your evenings involve sitting in front of some screaming banshee supposedly living in a Manchester suburb and your only datum point is a home life which isn’t that far removed from what you’re seeing on screen, it simply becomes an extension of reality. When that is so destructive (and so repetitive) it can only have a negative impact because if anti-social behaviour is something you witness on a daily basis and it is rarely if ever condemned, how can you hope to learn that it is unacceptable in the real ‘real’ world?

Therefore, those who develop these storylines must be made aware that they too have a responsibility to society to portray life is it actually is as opposed to the twisted vision they trot out for us. Because whilst I’m sure everyone involved with Eastenders is happy to work there, I doubt any of them would actually want to live there in real life.

And that has to be the defining question all producers and commissioners need to ask themselves before they put their signature on that line to sign off that script. Because if it’s not good enough for them, why on earth should it be good enough for us?

looting, riot, scroungers, Uncategorized, writing

Rioting…. It’s Just Old School Hooliganism

11th August 2011 Dougie Brimson 4 Comments

I think it’s fair to say that my blog yesterday on the death of the gun-toting Mark Duggan caused something of a stir. Not only did it receive the highest number of hits I’ve ever had but it attracted favourable comments from all sections of the community bar one. But given that he was an American who seemed obsessed with the notion that this is all our own fault because we’re, well… British I didn’t really take it seriously.

However, during the day a question was posed of me and it is one I’ve thought long and hard about ever since. To say it has caused me some angst is an understatement but it is this… what’s the difference between hooligan gangs and street gangs?

Now the simple answer is that street gangs exist 24/7 with the sole intention of bullying and exploiting to further their own activities. They have little or no respect for anyone or anything yet demand it as their right simply through their very existence.

The hooligan gangs are very different. The catalyst for their existence is and always was football and in the vast majority of cases, certainly in my experience, the only thing they are really interested in these days is confrontations with those who wish to confront them. And I use that term confront advisedly. The changing nature of hooliganism and the impact of policing on football have changed things dramatically over the last decade or so but that’s another blog entirely.

The other important thing to note is that the hooligan gangs tend to exist as proper entities only on match days which is when they come together as a group to enjoy their weekly buzz of football and its culture. For the rest of the time the majority of those involved are normal citizens going about their normal business.

This was and is a very simplistic but pat answer. However, whilst considering it in the wake of the riots (and they were riots, not protests) I have been forced to confront a few home truths. For whilst it’s all well and good for me to sit here condemning the vandals, the looters and yes, the murderers, the simple truth is that they weren’t doing anything that football hooligans didn’t do in the past.

Back in the ‘70’s, football fans used to lay waste to town centres on match days with London almost a war zone on occasions and most can recall the devastation England fans caused on their travels at the time.

Equally, anyone who knows anything about the Casual culture knows that a fundamental element of the early days was the fact that the expensive clothes worn back then were rarely ever paid for but were instead liberated. Often through the simple act of invading high-end clothes or sports shops en-masse and emptying the racks before anyone could stop it happening or even on occassions, through the act of ‘taxing’. An activity which involved an individual handing over his gear by way of a charge (or tax) for being somewhere he shouldn’t! Furthermore, jewellers were often targets especially in the West End of London whilst motorway services were on occasions stripped all but bare by coach loads of football lads which is one of the reasons why they were eventually banned. And sadly, plenty of people have died as a direct result of football hooliganism over the years.

As a consequence of this reflection, I have been forced to become a little less judgemental when it comes to those who have ended up in court. Don’t get me wrong, I firmly believe that anyone who ends up in front of either a magistrate or a judge deserves everything they get but it is fair to say that I know only too well that some of those arrested will indeed have been swept up in things and will have been doing things that they might not necessarily have ever considered doing before. It’s called ‘mob-mentality’ or as my dad used to call it ‘like-mind’.

Dr Clifford Stott of Liverpool University (a man who oddly enough seems to have founded much of his early career on the content of my books) argues that this phenomenon doesn’t actually exist but having experienced it first hand on many occasions over the years and witnessed it on far more, I would argue that Dr Clifford Stott is talking bollocks.

As I say, it is no defence and it is certainly no excuse. But maybe, just maybe, we should consider the idea that some of those who claim to have been caught up in things do actually have a legitimate case. And in such circumstances is either prison or a criminal record really the best punishment to be handed down?

Especially when some kind of public apology together with a bit of community reparation would serve equally well if not better.

british film, independent film, riot, writing

Mark Duggan – Not A Victim, Just Simple Vermin.

10th August 2011 Dougie Brimson 112 Comments

mark-duggan-tottenham-riots — Duggan = Scum

I have heard a lot of things over the last few days which have left me not simply angry, but seething. These range from some young ‘woman’ claiming she was rioting because she was taking her taxes back (sic) to Ken Livingstone trying (and failing) to gain political points of the back of what’s been going on.

However, there was one thing that surpassed all of these. It was a simple sentence which somehow became lost in the madness that engulfed the country yesterday and was uttered by the brother of Michael Duggan. The individual whose shooting was the catalyst for all this kicking off. In the wake of the initial Independent Police Complaints Commission confirming that Duggan did not fire a shot at police officers before they killed him, his brother released a statement which included the following: ‘this is an outrage, someone must be held to account’.

Let’s get one thing crystal clear here. The fact he did not shoot at police is irrelevant because the only thing that counts is that he was knowingly in possession of a loaded weapon which is illegal in the UK. Now this isn’t an offence of the ‘I’m sorry I didn’t know how fast I was going officer’ this is one of the most serious offences anyone can commit under UK law because guns are designed for one purpose and one purpose only, to kill. And if you knowingly carry a gun then there can only be one reason, that at some point you expect to use it. A simple truth which does kind of taint any suggestion that you are a ‘decent’ man or a pillar of the community because the simple act of picking up a weapon and putting it in your pocket actually makes you a major and dangerous armed criminal.

Inevitably, there will be utterances that he was carrying it for ‘self-defence’ but that isn’t a reason, it’s actually a further admission of guilt. Because it provides further evidence of the type of life he was leading and the type of circles he moved in. Circles in which guns get shot and people die. And let’s not forget, it is Duggan and his gun carrying ilk who continue to hold large areas of London and beyond ransom on account of their mere presence on our streets. Indeed, if this sorry episode has one potential silver lining it’s that the good law-abiding people of this country might finally show the resolve to stand up and reclaim the streets from these vermin.

Yet there is another equally important issue here. This wasn’t a teenager, it was a 29-year-old man who had already served a period on remand and so the family must have known what he was like and exactly what kind of life he was living.

Yes, I’m sure he might well have been a decent bloke who loved his wife, kids and mum but he was also a criminal. A gun carrying criminal. So should we feel sorry for him, no. Should we feel sorry for the family, possibly.

But I’d have a lot more sympathy for them if they came out and admitted what every like-minded individual thinks; that the one and only person responsible for the death of Mark Duggan is Mark Duggan.

Since this blog was first posted two and a half years ago it has caused all kinds of reaction, some negative but the bulk supportive. That has continued in the wake of the verdict yesterday which ruled the killing lawful. The death of an individual in any instance is regrettable but the fact remains, had Duggan not knowingly and seemingly willingly allied himself to a culture of crime and violence, he would be alive today and his children would still have their father.

That is a fact and it is one those screaming for ‘justice’ would do well to remember before they start trying to apportion blame.

Dougie Brimson is an author and screenwriter who served 18 years as a member of the RAF. Details of his life and work can be found at www.dougiebrimson.com

benefits, looting, moaning, riot

The Riots…. part two

9th August 2011 Dougie Brimson 3 Comments

I don’t really know where to begin with this. Like many people I am both furious and dismayed by the scenes I have witnessed on my television over the last few days.

Equally, I am disgusted by the attempts of supposedly intelligent people to try to justify the riots as some kind of legitimate rebellion against the government. What total and utter bollocks. There is no excuse and there never can be. Because the root causes of these riots lie in the breakdown of the values that this country was founded on; family, respect, right and wrong. It really is as simple as that.

As I wrote yesterday (and as the deputy leader of the Met and the Home Secretary repeated about 12 hours later) all of those involved are sons, daughters, brothers, neighbours, etc. Where on earth did some of these mothers think their children were at that time of night? And when they did eventually crawl home, where did they think they had been?

But equally, the lack of respect for the forces of law and order sends shivers down my spine. Don’t get me wrong, I’m no fan of the old bill generally (a sentiment forged by years of football and motoring experiences) but they have a tough job to do and deserve our admiration. However, it was clear from what I saw last night that they are obviously not getting it from sections of the community who clearly thought that not only were they untouchable, but that they would never get caught.

Hopefully, with so many cameras on our streets and many already in custody, the majority of them will not only be named and shamed, but hauled before the courts and dealt with to the full extent of the law. However, this does not deal with the most pressing issue.

When people are involved in what amounts to civil disorder, I, as a citizen of this once great country, want the police to wade in and batter those responsible. Not for revenge but to let them know that if they don’t fuck off and sharpish, they are actually going to get hurt.

Sadly, like the military in such situations the police are governed by the rule of minimum force. For the police, what this actually means is that they can use whatever force they feel necessary in a situation but they must be confident that they can justify this in a court of law.

Now as we have seen all too often, that is an incredibly restrictive rule because the risks are immense. And clearly, over the last few nights, we have seen the impact of that with police holding back when the obvious (and possibly best) thing to do would be to wade in and batter a few people to show force and intent to those causing mayhem.

I don’t know about you, but I want to see that rule relaxed in certain situations. It’s not about revenge or anything like it but it is about the protection of the law-abiding individual and their property. That can only happen if we allow the police to actually uphold the rule of law by taking whatever steps are necessary in such situations and if they could do that, then we wouldn’t need to be screaming blue murder for water cannon or the Army.

Because the truth is that the bulk of people involved in these riots –like all people involved in such riots- are cowards and the knowledge that they might well end up on the receiving end of a few batons courtesy of the thin blue line would almost certainly be enough to make them behave.

benefits, bloke, looting, moaning, riot, Uncategorized

The Riots….

8th August 2011 Dougie Brimson 2 Comments

Like most people with a brain in their head, I was incensed to see the events in London unfold over the weekend. Looting has to be one of the most despicable of crimes and to see it happen on English streets leaves me disgusted.

Inevitably, the do-gooders have been quick to climb out from under their rocks and indulge in the typically anti-authority tirades they use to apportion blame to anyone but those actually responsible. However, this time even they are starting to realise that there are no excuses for this kind of behaviour and none are going to be accepted. The people who thought it ok to smash their way through windows and steal in pure daylight are vermin, pure and simple.

The interesting thing of course, is what happens next. I know North London , it’s where my family originated, and I have seen how the gangs have all but taken over the streets and brought fear and terror to the area. Yet the stark truth is that this is not as the community leaders will have you believe, the fault of the police, it is instead the fault of the community as a whole because they are the ones who have allowed this cancer to grow from within.

For it is a fact that every gang member is a son, brother, sister, friend or neighbour so why have they not done more to stop this culture developing under their noses? They after all, are the ones most directly affected as we have tragically seen over the weekend.

Instead, they have for years abdicated responsibility which is ironic given that the people they have abdicated it to are the same ones they are currently busy trying to blame for it all going horribly wrong.

Only by individuals facing up to their responsibility as either citizens or parents can the people of North London ever hope to rebuild trust and develop genuinely a safe and caring communities. It’s also the only way that those who live outside the borough of Tottenham will ever come to regard the people who live their with any degree of respect.

Because have no doubt, unless they are seen to act, that will be the long term consequence of what happened at the weekend. The lessons of Broadwater Farm should have shown them that.

A Write Old Life.