A city foaming with blood
What exactly is to blame for this once peaceful melting pot of global identities boiling over into a tidal wave of trashing temples and street brawls?
It seems as if the decaying Western world exists in two alternate realities simultaneously, as if spread trillions of light years across the cosmos, destined to never interact with one another before the sands of time degrade their dominions into mere atoms and photons. Specks of creation undetectable to any modern, scientific instrument.
These two kingdoms are polar opposite in every which way; one is crowded, the other desolate; one is violent, the other is peaceful; one has disorder through inaction, and the other has order through inactivity.
A mere twenty-minute drive in any direction to an urban centre proves that this paradox exists, and the metaphysical differences between the two plains of reality will only broaden further.
If the rural Englishman smashes his electronics to bits with a cricket bat and is left with his cottage, his farm, his village hall, and his local, and keeps to the annual traditions of summer fairs and carols at Christmas, he will not notice the alien planet which exists not a week’s walk from his children’s home.
To figure out where one is from, one need only to realise whether they live in a shire or a city. The shires are where England still remains, well, England, in both values, loyalties, and population. The cities, however, may as well be located in the heart of the Andromeda galaxy.
With each passing day, English cities are increasingly mutilated into a foreign land. One such locality is Leicester, the first British city where those of foreign heritage compose a majority of the population.
The West Midlands city has been frequently touted as a powerhouse of twenty-first century tolerance and the flagbearer of a successful, inclusive, multicultural et al. city. A palace which shines like a blinding beacon atop a hill of gold, breeding the new man who would not know the word discrimination and walk through Ricky Gervais’ Equality Street with a smile on his face.
Unfortunately, dreams and oases of imagination do not always force their way into reality.
Over the past few days, ancient sectarian tensions have exploded onto the pavements, ruthlessly fought between gangs of Hindus and Muslims. Only forty-seven have been arrested (thus far) as part of the copper’s laughable crackdown on disorder, a number which dwarfs the casually clothed battalions walking in file up the street. Footage also shows many to be wearing pandemic era Covid face coverings, so at least they’re making sure everyone is safe while they try to intimidate their mortal enemies into submission.
What exactly is to blame for this once peaceful melting pot of global identities boiling over into a tidal wave of trashing temples and street brawls? The mayor (the executive post responsible for ensuring order and catching criminals) blames social media disinformation, as if a video showing a Hindu temple being ransacked by an Islamist mob was made by a Modi sympathiser using CGI and a green-screen in his New Delhi bedroom.
Was it that fabled cricket match where Pakistan beat India which took place in Dubai last month? Though bear in mind all three nations are at least 2,000 miles away from where the post-match dressing room talk was taking place.
Perhaps the cricket hypothesis is correct, if the cricket match had been running for thousands of years. That’s a lot of overs!
But the answer lies outside of mere summer sport. Indian Hindus and Pakistani Muslims have engaged in a brutal, blood-ridden war that has lasted over a thousand years. In 711 AD, the Muslim armies commanded by Mohammed Bin Qasim invaded India. In just over 500 years, the Islamic invasion of India had slain close to 100 million Hindus, with countless temples being ransacked by the invading hordes. That religious power struggle maintains its fanaticism and animosity within the nations of India and Pakistan, countries that were created less than a hundred years ago.
Today, forced religious conversion is rife and hangs over the head like the sword of Damocles of any religious minority. Young girls in Pakistan are frequently coerced into accepting Islam and are married off to older Muslim men, while in India Hindu fanatics have been accused of targeting both Christians and Muslims in an attempt to bolster the country’s hegemonic Hindu doctrine, now institutionalised under the theocratic Modi government.
The Indian Prime Minister’s name has surfaced in the British news reel as a result of the unrest sprouting in Leicester, a city oceans outside of his jurisdiction. From the chaos, the word Hinduvta has now undoubtedly entered the English dictionary.
Hinduvta refers to an extreme form of Indian/Hindu nationalism, that has now come to blows with Islamic culture, whose language and customs originate from the Arabian Peninsula. Though, as one could guess, both are not native to England.
Before my parents were born, the political (and some may say visionary) Enoch Powell prophesised that the mass importation of people with cultures, customs, and values completely outside and often opposed to the English way of life will one day lead to conflict.
The day has now come (if it hadn’t already). Human nature decrees that man exists in a tribe united through common understanding and a shared, moral consensus, and anything outside of this pre-defined state of nature is ultimately dangerous to one’s lineage and survival.
The university educated, sipping their lattes and tapping away on their Lenovos (guilty as charged) don’t like this message beaten into their ear drums, but man is, by animalistic nature and evolutionary necessity, an instinctively violent animal.
The river Soar flows through Leicester, and the water’s surface has reached boiling point. The millennia old animosity present within the souls of foreign civilisations that flocked to the city could be contained no longer. For all the talk that Leicester was a ‘peaceful and harmonious’ city, this was only the calm before the storm.
With the increasing numbers walled off voluntarily within segregated communities, the dam has finally burst. This overtly sectarian, nationalistic, and unapologetic rampage will be a frequent occurrence in English cities, as cultures and civilisations that could not exist peacefully are stuffed side-by-side into the cramped, urban pockets of the industrial revolution.
As we gaze ahead into our future, we see a bleak land of strife and torment, and sectarian/ethnic violence coated in many colours. Like Powell, we see our own rivers foaming with blood.