Isms

Just when we thought we were safe along comes the recession. Not many saw it coming, and the few of us who did could do nothing about it except warn anyone who would listen. That does not deter me from warning about the next big hazard that is now ready to stalk our streets.

This outcome of economic disaster is much more dangerous and pernicious than the problems that cause it. I am describing xenophobia and race hate, which originates from fear and ignorance.

Yesterday we saw evidence of this in the UK when wildcat strikes broke out in protest at foreign workers being used to fulfill a contract in an oil refinery. The imported workers are from the European Union and can therefore work legally, without restraint in this country. Furthermore the contract was given after a formal tendering process to an American company, and it was they who sub contracted the labor in from mainland Europe.

I have the sinking feeling that the people who follow “ ‘ism’s” instead of employing their own brains are behind this “spontaneous” wave of protests. I mean followers of Communism, Socialism, and Fascism etc. These people wait any length of time to find an opportunity to fulfill their exclusive utopia. Like any fanatics they believe that they are the followers of the only true religion and there can be no other. That’s the trouble with ‘ism’s, they are mean spirited and vicious. They will only be happy when they have control, and the control must be total, no one else can be allowed to exist. The Taliban in Afghanistan are just another form of this type of extremism, as are Al Queada, Hamas and many others. But we must be very wary of letting anyone open the door even an inch to the creeping extremism.

The pickets in support of the British workers who didn’t get the work are technically illegal. But the big point is that they are emotionally right, it doesn’t feel acceptable for British workers to be out of work whilst their European counterparts are bussed in to fill the vacancies.

It would be even easier for us to make that point if there were not British people working in every other country in the world. We can’t use this economic equation only when it suits us.