This is England

"All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing"

 

“Teenage girl admits punching frail Sikh pensioner, 80, to the ground, knocking off his turban and then SPITTING in his face in vile daylight attack filmed by shoppers” 

Quote from the Daily Mail yesterday.

 

Well, that says it all about community spirit, doesn’t it?

I’m not talking about the fact that someone would senselessly attack a poor old codger in the street just because he looked different, the English have been doing that for decades.  When I arrived in England with my younger brothers in tow, the natives abandoned Paki Bashing and added to their list of sports (the victories which, as they never failed to remind us, included one World Cup and Two World Wars) Nazzie Bashing.  As a youngster, therefore, and with what would now no doubt be classified in a detrimental light as Teutonic efficiency,  I quickly realised how useful a sock with a rock in it in one’s school satchel was compared with a pencil case and a geography book,  To my mind, the English were bloody animals and to defend myself and my brothers, I resorted to my own form of Blitzkrieg.  Nowadays, and with the benefit of years of experience, I would dispense with the rock and just stab them in the eye with a pencil.  But in those days I was still civilised.

What I am on about, in part, is the fact that passers-by would film the assault and presumably sell the footage to the Daily Mail, rather than step in and help the poor sod.  After all, the assailant was only a teenage girl.  Are there no men left in England with the courage to take on a teenage girl?  If my Mother had seen that in her younger days she would have told us kids to hang on to the shopping while she slapped the shit out of the assailant.  But then, she lived through Cristall Nacht and saw what happened to her neighbours who had, from one day to the next, been classified as legally different.

Instead of the headline the Daily Mail posted perhaps they could have, unusually for them, been honest and simply stated,

‘Uncaring, Cowardly and Venal English People Watch Old Foreign Looking Person Who Has Lived In England All His Life and Made a Contribution to Society Being Beaten by Uneducated Dopey Stupid Kid Redolent of English Youth and Do Nothing Except Ring Us to a Cut Lucrative Deal for the Vídeo Footage and Photos!’ 

To be fair to the Daily Mail, they did describe the attack as ‘Vile’, which it was.  But the Daily Mail missed the point (again).  These sorts of mindless xenophobic assaults occur daily.  How about all the Homophobic assaults?  How about the assaults on people with pink dyed spiky hair?  The story the spotty faced youth who penned this article, typically shallow, failed to appreciate was the deeper sickness, the evil virus infecting a society that allows one member of it to beat another, just because he is in non-compliance with their norm, while others just film it.

I am sure a decent Editor could tighten my strap line up a bit to something like: ‘Oh, The Shame!’

This reporting by the Daily Mail made the news in Angola.

The Angolans immediately picked up on the fact that English shoppers stood by as this poor old non-English looking guy was beaten up on an English high street and instead of diving in to help him, the natives just filmed the attack.

For the Angolans, the story wasn’t that someone got beaten up in the street, that happens all the time.  For them the story was that everyone would stand around watching it happen.

And do nothing.