Thread to discuss the reality of parts of the UK absorbing large numbers of men from other cultures

[BernardBlacksMolluscs]

This thread is to replace the one that got deleted earlier today, and the TAATs that came after it.

As per MNHQ in site stuff, we're OK to have this conversatrion

www.mumsnet.com/talk/site_stuff/4687254-how-do-we-discuss-the-reality-of-parts-of-the-uk-absorbing-large-numbers-of-men-from-other-cultures?reply=121883255

So groups of Algerian men only exist in the Banlieues? I don’t know how you can expect anyone to take you seriously whilst coming out with such rubbish!

But I’m sensing you are experiencing some form of smug superiority in putting my experience down to unfounded allegation of racism. How lovely for you .

I didn’t accuse you of being racist if you read my post - I wondered if you had been taught to be more afraid of Algerians because that was fairly common in France at the time.

I have no prejudice against you or any other woman, I’m merely trying to reconcile why your experiences were so different from my own in the same area of Paris.

It’s odd that you broad brush Algerians as if they’re all newly arrived, for second and third generation etc immigrants their “culture” is France.

Wow

I’ve not actually said any of this.

I don’t think being asked if Irish girls like to fuck , are you sure Irish girls don’t like to fuck, do you want to taste my cock , do you want me to put it in your white ass and similar , carrying on and following me when I was ignoring them calling me an Irish whore, is something I’ve ever experienced from any other groups of males.

But no that must have been my unconscious bias. Totally acceptable behaviour .

I wonder if you have been taught to disbelieve women's accounts of sexual harassment and to gaslight them about their experiences if they cause you political discomfort.

I’m not Irish by the way just fair skinned, freckled with red hair.

you may not have used the words racist but you have implied that the harassment was imagined due to preconceptions which is pretty much saying the same thing.

Frustratingly, I don’t have time to rtft. But this subject needs to be urgently looked at doesn’t it? Also, I have a little bit of a niggle about the thread title, because it’s not ‘other cultures’ is it? It’s other more misogynistic, sexist and backwards cultures*.

I know people are trying to be balanced and fair, suggesting our repulsive sex tourists going to Thailand is somehow equivalent, but I think this is obscuring the issue.

In all cultures you get free thinkers, people with intrinsic decency and moral courage to go against the grain, but you also get the majority of people who mostly live by externally guided norms and laws. In Iran, look at how those arsehole blokes berate women for not covering their hair. They wouldn’t do that if the norms and laws didn’t support them.

I went briefly travelling in the ME with other females a while back (no male ‘chaperone’) and it was shocking. It wasn’t just the levels of sexual harassment, people openly said things like ‘Hitler was a good man, he took care of his people’ - open support of genocide in casual everyday conversation. I know some feminists speak of the threat of fascism in the UK, but I have never heard anything so gobsmacking spoken here. How about the support for barbaric things like stonings, beheadings, amputating hands, the lash? It is backwards.

This conversation needs to be had considering we’ve got a major problem with home-grown jihadis and grooming gangs. These are often second generation men (and disturbingly women) supporting this war against Western progress.

I suppose the issue is, how do you tackle the cultural misogyny and support for barbaric practices in the UK, without intruding upon the lives and freedoms of the majority of decent, peaceful people?

*by cultures, I am not referring to art, science, literature, etc - more the culture of mundane things.

You’ve only ever had graphic sexual insults from Algerians? I’ve not found them the preserve of any nationality, culture or race. My most recent (last week) was a white cab driver.

We’re there several white cab drivers following you across public area , making you feel unsafe and like they wouldn’t take no for an answer? .were you worried that one or more would follow you onto the metro? If you think that level of harassment is commonplace that’s terrible. Perhaps I didn’t express myself very well but I do hope you reported the cab driver, he must be identifiable .

I’m not going to engage with you on here further as what you are doing is minimising to support your political ideas.

@LangClegsInSpace I agree with your explanation for why a large proportion of asylum seekers are male. The irony is, the harder/more dangerous the journey is, and the lower the chances of success, the larger the proportion of people travelling will be young men (both because they will be more capable of the journey and because of attitudes to risk). So public opinion hardens (even without sexual assault) and the more restrictions get put in place - so the proportion becomes even more marked. (I am not saying therefore let's fling the borders open. But I genuinely think that balancing a very strict policy on people following illegal channels with actual policies to take in a set number of genuine claims would allow the UK to be more picky and offer a genuine (if only a slim chance) to families so they don't gamble by sending the oldest son of alone.) At the moment the whole system seems a racket)

I was in a car with him so that was quite stressful, of course I reported him.

I wouldn’t say that kind of harassment was “commonplace” but I certainly wouldn’t say it was unusual in London or NY or any of the major cities I’ve spent time in. Less so now I’m older - but as a teen I remember harassment felt relentless.

What political ideas are these? I’m sharing my experience, you’re sharing yours.

I think you saying “I just wonder whether you were infected the the general demonising of N.Africans that was part of French culture at the time. I noticed how othered and separate ethnic communities were in Paris compared to London.” came across as minimising to support your political ideas.

This thread confirms my belief that Mumsnet is becoming increasingly infiltrated by the extreme right.

There are a number of posters who repeatedly repeat far right talking points-(like Rotherham)e- without acknowledging that paedophile gangs occur across all communities . They also make repeated reference to "our Western way of life"

Courage to those who stand up to the onslaught.

One could equally argue maximising due to political ideas - I don’t think it’s a very fruitful line of argument on either side.

I don’t see that a perfectly reasonable observation that someone could be influenced by the prevailing attitudes is related to any political perspective.

It’s just based in my experience of France at the time. Indeed, I gave an example of being influenced by the French suspicion of Algerians myself - to avoid an area of town that turned out to be perfectly fine.

There are a number of posters who repeatedly repeat far right talking points-(like Rotherham)e- without acknowledging that paedophile gangs occur across all communities.

This thread is about misogynistic attitudes in men from other cultures. Its not necessary to keep saying 'other men do it too'. No one is denying that.

Stop trying to shut down talk about Rotherham with claims that its a far right talking point. Its no better and no different than the police who dismissed the reports being made.

Lets imagine...

I want to talk about male VAWG in general "noooo, NAMALT, stop demonising men"
I want to talk about sexual violence in the army (or that horrific murder in Kenya) "noooo, most soldiers are good and prepared to sacrifice their lives to save us"
I want to talk about misogyny in the police "noooo, most police-men are trying hard to do a difficult job, one bad apple blah blah blah"
I want to talk about the real world consequences of incel chat rooms/culture "nooo, not the poor men who can't have sex. Why are you demonising all lonely/depressed men."
I want to talk about issues with men abusing self ID "NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO"

The thing is I like many men. I know policemen, men in the army, Muslims, immigrants etc who are very good people. I have no interest in throwing mud for the sake of it or categorising people according to an artificial drama triangle. But sometimes difficult discussions need to happen and shutting them down doesn't help. If it helps you feel better @xxyyzz then OK, most perpetrators of Munchausen by proxy are women. Most mothers would never do that but it is a female pattern crime (unusually) and as a mother I am not offended when people on these boards talk about possible cases of the phenomenon (not naming names) and I haven't seen anyone else get offended either. If someone was saying "all mothers do this" or "this is the problem with mothers" or "this is what happens when women get the vote" I would have a problem with it. But that isn't the usual tenor of discussions here is it?

Sorry that should have been @Mirabai

Since I am someone who you quoted to suggest mumsnet is being ‘infiltrated’ by the ‘extreme right’ I can’t let this pass with comment @MinistryofCheer

I find it quite bizarre that we have been subject to many terrorist attacks by people - (men generally) who think of the ‘Western way of life’ - ie- liberal democracy- as unclean, and those of us living it as the ‘Infidel’. These are religious extremists who believe themselves to be fighting a ‘holy war’ against us. They want theocracy not democracy. They also happen to be misogynistic arseholes too.

These extremists want all societies to go backwards, to Old Testament times with barbaric punishments and oppression of women, the same way Iran and Afghanistan went backwards.

Of course, no one wants the lovely families living next door suffering in any way as a result of addressing extremists. But there must be a way to talk about religious extremism and cultural misogyny stemming from it. In my experience, people have banded together pretty well to hold off backlash.

For me, I have been a little shocked to learn how close to me these extremists have lived - ie- finding out bombers have lived in the next street, sympathisers holding meetings in facilities I use, that sort of thing. In fact, I realised that I even witnessed people in large crowds effectively being radicalised to wish for my death, in the street from out of the window of the bus as I was going to work, as I smiled benignly, feeling glad that I lived in a country where different cultures could rub along happily and wrestle out what I believed to be disagreements within. I had always felt that extremists were ‘over there somewhere’ not people I would regularly cross paths with. I definitely get the sense I had been sleepwalking. I also believed anyone talking in an analytical way, rather than smearing around ameliorating, obfuscating platitudes to ward off a potential backlash, was actually racist, far right, etc. So in a way, MinisteryOfCheer I can understand where you are coming from.

I think we need to ask -why the UK? What policies have we had in place which has allowed religious extremism and cultural misogyny to foment and for racially and religiously aggravated crimes of misogyny to mushroom with impunity?

I have seen how the Conservative policies of wanting to get rid of bureaucracy let organisations operate with no oversight) and award grants to private organisations, often with no expertise in the thing, but who make the most cost effective bid in paper, is partly to blame. It has ended up with Mermaids and other shit shows like Kids Company. I also think Blair’s multiculturalism has led to increased separation of communities. I think post-colonial guilt, feeling others have a right to be angry about those injustices, is clouding our awareness.

Got to get ready for the day now, so I may not have expressed myself so well.

Endless it is a good post and an important one. We have to be able to talk about these things.

PSA- Women! you are far right extremists for wanting to discuss sexual violence and the misogynistic trappings of less civilised societies.

Nicola - is that you?

I realise that I have drifted a bit into talking about religious extremists, and the focus of this thread is upon grooming gangs. I shared this video on a different thread, and I found it to be an eye-opener. I know there are grooming gangs of all different backgrounds, but the difference is with these, is the reluctance of the police to intervene and the reluctance of everyone to recognise that these crimes are racially and religiously aggravated.

I’ve been having more thoughts about Blair and the policy decisions which made the world less safe - Iraq was secular and women had professional careers under Saddam Hussein, so it was a strange move to target him in the ‘war on terror’, it led to increased hatred of the West as well as being a backwards step for Iraqi women, his promotion of cultural separation through encouraging the proliferation of religious schools led to less empathy across people from different backgrounds. Although he encouraged all the ‘Cool Britannia’ stuff and introduced the citizenship test for immigrants- these measures were inadequate.

However, in this video, it is clear that the grooming gangs and the police apathy predated New Labour, so I think we have to look back a bit further to understand it.