Ray Honeyford

[emmie]

who died recently, i too wonder how this is all going to work out. I don't believe he was a racist, nor that for the most part he was wrong. Hounded out of the job for his views, how many more.

http://www.dailymail....d-vindicated-man.html

[sp1814]

em10

I saw this article last week, but had never heard of Honeyford before. It was interesting as a piece of social history, but I would be interested to hear how a shared British identity could be promoted.

There are certain things that can unite people across racial lines (sport, politics, religion, entertainment), but perhaps now more than ever, there are more things that divide us?

[emmie]

sp why should there be, after all people integrated well enough before, or at least that was my perception on growing up in London. If you read the whole piece, one wonders how we ever got to this stage, where a word out of place has one being labelled a racist, or worse, This man obviously knew a good more than most about integration, not just because he worked with asian children, but long experience in the teaching profession. I did know about him long ago, but as he died fairly recently his name has been in the papers. I read through the whole link, he seemed a committed teacher, a good man, and to be hounded out of a job he clearly loved makes one wonder how many other good people lose their careers, livelihoods over situations like this. I see London becoming more separate in it's identity along racial/religious lines, our area a ghetto, and nothing has been done to challenge that.

[Gromit]

How has he been vindicated?

And though he had every right to, it was pretty dumb to enlighten us to his views on education and race on the pages of a rightwing magazine. Being headmaster of a Bradford school and sharing the pages of a journal with Enoch Powell are not the best career moves. He was preaching to the converted anyway so achieved nothing.

[emmie]

How many more Gromit, with views that don't accord with the left wing lobby. I am all for integration, always have been, but i see none of it where we live, none at all. The local junior school is almost entirely Muslim, and the area mostly asian, so how does that fit in with the grand plan for Britain, a multicultural, multiracial integrated society, which i don't see at all. If parents want their children to integrate and mix with others, which i believe will create a better more social society then all to the good, but that hasn't happened, or certainly not where we live, nor in many parts of London and Britain. I don't believe in faith schools, and that children should be instructed in a faith away from a school environment.

[sp1814]

"How many more Gromit, with views that don't accord with the left wing lobby"

But the left wing lobby isn't all powerful. There's a pretty strong right wing lobby who are just as vocal.

[d9f1c7]

Another example that shows who the real bigots are.

[Gromit]

It may be useful for ABers to read his articles.

http://www.salisburyr...uk/Ray_Honeyford.html

[sp1814]

em10

Also, you wrote:

"The local junior school is almost entirely Muslim, and the area mostly asian, so how does that fit in with the grand plan for Britain"

If there's a large Asian local population, this will be reflected in schools. The alternative is to implement a system where kids do not go to their local schools but are bussed to schools out of their district in order to artificially maintain predefined racial mixes.

Re: faith schools - I totally agree with you, however, I don't see a time when all schools will become 'secularized' as there's a strong tradition of both Catholic and CofE schools in this country. Both churches would put up a hell of a fight against a change along those lines.

[Gromit]

Honeyford's articles weren't really about education. They were an attack on everyone who didn't agree with him. It wasn't a balanced arguement but more a tirade at the left. When they in returned attacked back, he portrayed himself as the victim of a conspiracy. It is also worth reminding ourseves that non of this took place under a stalinist Labour Government, Margaret Thatcher was at the helm and we had a Conservative Education Secretary.

[Quizmonster]

There you go again, Gromit, imagining that the truth actually matters!

[sp1814]

Gromit

Oh dear...suddenly the clouds part.

He raised some very precient points, but unfortunately, your eye is drawn to comments about 'brown parents', comparisons between Shakespeare and Linton Kwesi Johnson, half-educated Sikhs etc.

[anotheoldgit]

/// Being headmaster of a Bradford school and sharing the pages of a journal with Enoch Powell are not the best career moves. ///

Much better for those in the common room to be reading from 'The Communist Manifesto' by Karl Marx, or perhaps from the 'Little Red Book' by Chairman Mao.

The 'Left' have much to answer for.

[anotheoldgit]

/// They were an attack on everyone who didn't agree with him. It wasn't a balanced arguement but more a tirade at the right. ///

I only had to change 'left' to 'right' in that passage by Gromit, and it fitted Gromit attitude to right thinkers precisely.

So why are the late Mr Honeyford's views any less valid?

[Gromit]

AOG

I was unaware that I did tirades at the right. Many apologies old chap.

So I do not do it again, would you kindly link to just one example, so I know when I am overstepping the mark.

[New Judge]

You ask how Mr Honeyford has been vindicated, Gromit.

Essentially he spoke out against the principle of multiculturalism. He suggested that that principle was almost certain to lead to divisions rather than integration. And of course he was right. He simply said, many years ago, what many people either already knew or learned soon afterwards. So right was he, in fact, that his views finally found accord with those of Trevor Phillips, the chairman of the Commission for Racial Equality:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/3615379.stm

The only people who did not learn were the politicians who continued with their dogma, thus leading to the situation many areas of the UK find themselves in today.

This is not about “Left” vs “Right”. It is far too important for that childish nonsense. It is about the well-being of the nation.

[Gromit]

Mr Honeyford has not been vindicated because not one thing has changed since he wrote his article 28 years ago.

Just as Enoch Powell's 'Rivers of Blood' prediction of 44 years ago has equally not been vindicated.

We haven't had a good right wing Prophet of Doom for ages. We are overdue one.

[sp1814]

NJ

But you could also argue uniculteralism is almost impossible to enforce. It can be encouraged, but not enforced.

Something to consider - America is what one would call the apex of multiculturalism...however, it doesn't matter there whether you're black, white, Hispanic, Jewish, WASP or whatever, there's a great unifying 'Americanism' which everyone buys into.

I think THAT is the ideal...

[anotheoldgit]

/// Just as Enoch Powell's 'Rivers of Blood' prediction of 44 years ago has equally not been vindicated. ///

The Thames must be getting close, judging by London's almost daily stabbings and shootings.

[Gromit]

AOG.

The Rivers of Blood which Enoch predicted was not domestic street violence to which you allude. What Enoch was predicting was that the UK would follow the US which was witnessing riots and deaths when black Americans were seeking equal rights.

Powells words were:
// I seem to see "the River Tiber foaming with much blood". That tragic and intractable phenomenon which we watch with horror on the other side of the Atlantic but which there is interwoven with the history and existence of the States itself, is coming upon us here. //

Thankfully, it didn't come upon us.

[New Judge]

You’re quite right, sp. The difference between the US and the UK is that in the US everybody is encouraged to embrace the common culture of the US. Here in the UK they have been actively discouraged from doing so.

“Multiculturalism” cannot, by definition, exist. I think this thread:

http://www.theanswerb.../Question1054271.html

explains my point of view on the matter and that is what Mr Honeyford was getting at.