Diane Abbott suspended from the Labour Party

Excellent and very thoughtful post TerriBull. Thank you.

Sorry think this is on the wrong thread 🧵 though not entirely unrelated I suppose.

No one can not fail to be moved by what happened to Jews and others during the war. It was truly terrible, of course it was. I can understand why the Jews felt they needed a home but what has happened to the Palestinians since 1967 has been appalling and every person killed is a recruiting sergeant for more to join the struggle. It is so very sad.

More thanks to TerriBull for your post

Very good post TerriBull. I have also read a number of memoirs written by Jewish people who managed to survive the Holocaust one way or another, and it has certainly shaped my views. Along with our dear Jewish friends whose families were both caught up in the Holocaust.

Like GSM I have had little time for DA for a while. I have long thought her to be racist after hearing her speak on Question Time some years ago. Now my position has been shown to be correct.

On a very shallow note, I have always felt that behind DA’s smiling face there lurked a nasty piece of work.

Excellent post Terribull.

I'm another who feels that the racism Jews face is multi -faceted, multi- layered and has been continuous through the centuries. I've read David Baddiel's book "Jews Don't Count" anyone like Diane Abbot who thinks it only exists in the form of slights such as those with ginger hair suffer, must be seriously obtuse, ignorant, disingenuous or possibly all three, but then this is a person who thought Mao's Great Leap Forward, where anything up to 50 million Chinese people perished, somehow that end justified the means. Easy to say perhaps when an observer extolling the virtues of their preferred "good" totalitarianism as opposed to far right totalitarianism.

Possibly more insightful and more detailed that David Baddiel's rather slim volume is Hadley Freeman's recent book, House of Glass, which is a history of three generations of her family starting at the beginning of the 20th century where her great grandparents and their children were eeking out a subsistence life in Poland, reviled as part of the Jewish community where pogroms were commonplace. By the late 20s/early 30s her grandmother and siblings had the means to leave racist and very catholic Poland and emigrate to Paris where they prospered until of course the storm clouds began to gather towards the end of the 1930s. Like many French Jews I think they thought they would be relatively safe not of course realising how the Vichy Government weren't much better than the Nazis and at least one of Hadley's great uncles perished in a concentration camp. Although some of the family believed that the prejudices that had previously suffered in Poland wouldn't happen in France. Many of the family did survive by lying low. As for her grandmother, she married an American and lived out the war, and later years in America,.. where once again she experienced, albeit a thinly veiled and more nuanced, a anti semitism never far from the surface, for example some golf clubs to give one example would ban Jews from joining. This book gave examples of what it must be like to perpetually moving countries only to find the same prejudices emerging and Jews per see have had everything laid at their door, they're a cabal that controls the capitalist world, hooked nose bankers as personified by the recent cartoon that wasn't deemed to be racist by Jeremy Corbyn, they're all rich, they're not Ayran, some sort of sub species, they've killed babies, they killed Jesus From a personal point of view, having recently had my DNA analysed on Ancestry I found out that my maternal great grandfather, who I thought was possibly from a French Huguenot protestant line was in fact Jewish and I have about 12% Jewish DNA which maybe has focused my mind on Jewish history even more.

I remember when I was 18 or so I went to work for a Jewish company, at that time I was quite young and naive and whilst I found them good to work for and in some ways the older female office manager was very nurturing, I do remember getting into a spat with a couple of them, my view being and still is "what about the rights of the Palestinians" they did fall on me like a pack of wolves and I saw an intransigence there then in not seeing another point of view. In retrospect possibly they were shaped by what had happened to them and extended family in what I perceived as their tunnel vision, I can only imagine how that would affect one's mindset. In the early 80s I went to Israel and do remember seeing a table of older people in a beach side restaurant, being hot having uncovered arms with their tattooed numbers visible that very much focused my mind just what those people had been through, branded like cattle, they survived but they will have undoubtedly lost so many of their family. That has been the thrust of many of the revelations on "Who do You Think You Are" when those participants have Jewish ancestry and I have no doubt that survival instinct must be hard wired in shaping what is sometimes an unreasonable point of view.

I do very much agree with everyone who feels that the Palestinians have of course been unfairly treated by how lines were drawn in the sand by a then government who gave no thought as to how that would pan out in the future and whilst some Jews aren't prepared to give an inch on that, I think it's fair also to say that there are a sizeable number who hate the way the Israeli government behaves. Nevertheless I think it's a tragedy how European Jews now feel unsafe, so much so, they feel the need to leave their respective communities over here for Israel and presumed safety, can any of us imagine how it must be to be reviled because of one's ethnicity and the malevolence that has come towards the Jewish people in waves throughout the centuries. I imagine when after a time of relative stability hate attacks happen, and they do!, there must be that ever present re occurring fear of living on a knife edge and the omnipresent worst case scenario is embedded in many a Jewish psyche.

The Irish were also enslaved way back before English rule. They were captured by Vikings and taken to Iceland. We have Icelandic friends and they say that people with red hair are still looked down on and called Irish.
Diane Abbot should look into her own heritage and check. Not all Africans were slaves some were slave owners who captured the poorer tribes and sold them to the Arabs as slaves.

I am half Irish and I have a more than sneaking feeling that my maternal grandmother's aim as a young woman was to marry someone with a name that would mean that she was not immediately marked down as Irish. She had a very happy marriage to someone who gave her an English surname.

As a child my maternal Irish origins were never mentioned. Not repressed,just never mentioned. The family lived in Bermondsey and in later life my mother did refer to signs on lodgings saying 'No Irish, No dogs, No children'. I do not think it was a racial matter, more a question of the Irish having a reputation for liking their drink and tending to get over active when drunk.

I think the same applied to the 'No Irish' in the 1960s when 10s of thousands of young Irish men came over to work in the building industry 'McAlpine's Fusiliers' they were known as. The Dubliners sang a famous ballad with that title that tells the history of these men as well as any history www.youtube.com/watch?v=kF-RNAedKA8

The 'No Blacks' was very different that was because people didn't want black people in the house. They were different and they were scared of them.

Thanks Galaxy found it. Very bright bloke.

Wyllow it's in a mens health magazine but if you go to Baddiels Twitter theres a large segment of the article on there.

Yup, England don't have a a particularly good rep on the Irish front either during our "fine" days of Empire.

As someone wrote upthread, the notices were often, "No black, no Irish". My Nan was Irish and did everything she could to hide the fact - all her life. People can internalise the "lesser people" thing in very damaging ways. Mind you it turned my mum and her brother into radicals, so some good came out of it.

vintage1950

DA is also wrong when she says that no white people were in manacles in ships. In France in the 17th century it was common practice to sentence criminals to serve as galley slaves. Some were Protestants who had refused to convert to Catholicism. There is a memoir, Galley Slave, written by a survivor, Jean Marteilhe.

I posted a few pages back that hundreds of Irish people were removed from Ireland in the 1600s. They were taken to Barbados and a few other Caribbean islands to work as slaves. Being Irish they were very fair skinned and red headed and they became known as “red legs” because they sunburned so badly. There are still descendants of them living there and they are still very poor.

I think I will write to DA and put her straight.

When was that on Galaxy would like to watch again?

I wouldn't say its a matter of feeling "guilty" but rather, having a keen awareness of the history of empire and of "othering" those that we as white people considered "lesser" and exploited in so many ways as well as the complexities of the many histories of slavery for thousands of years (and still happening!)

but racism has been in hearts and minds and actions for hundreds of years and I feel it's our responsibility to continue to seek to put matters right in both all the small and bigger ways when we can.

...and that means starting by recognising racism is alive and kicking (tho complex) and not smugly pretending it doesn't.

DA is also wrong when she says that no white people were in manacles in ships. In France in the 17th century it was common practice to sentence criminals to serve as galley slaves. Some were Protestants who had refused to convert to Catholicism. There is a memoir, Galley Slave, written by a survivor, Jean Marteilhe.

Really interesting interview/article with David Baddiel by Alister Campbell, mostly about mental health but also about the minimization or relegation as he calls it of anti semitism. He talks about the fact that Neo nazis saying they hate Jews is not interesting to him and needs no explanation but what he finds interesting is the anti racists who cant see that anti semitism is racism and so relegate it.

Curtaintwitcher

I'm afraid I don't understand all this obsession with racism. Consider the number of black, Asian and Jewish people in government. They were all voted into office by the British electorate. If racism was really as rife as those in power suggest, not a single one would be an MP.
The problem with Dianne Abbott and many others in the public eye (including a certain woman who married a royal), they see all slights and criticisms as being racial when it is more likely their personality that is at fault.
I know racism does exist, white people are victims of it too, but some people are obsessed by it.

Quite. There was a white middle aged woman on TV tonight saying that she felt guilty as a white British woman regarding the British involvement in the slave trade hundreds of years ago (they were discussing DA who said there were no white people in manacles on ships).

A young, black political commentator and journalist pointed out that slave owners were not all white British so it was absolutely stupid to talk like that right now when there are far more important things going on. She is a very bright young woman. DA needs to study history a bit more.

I have literally just finished reading The Life and Times of A Very British Man by Kamal Ahmed and that’s an interesting read.

Done just before local elections, too. Oh yes, intentional.

Anniebach

I believe the same as Iam, the letter was worded very carefully with full intent of causing trouble for Starmer, revenge perhaps

Agreed.

Fleurpepper

'To suggest Jewish people who hide their Jewishness by not wearing specific clothing, not sending their children to religious schools etc are avoiding discrimination is nonsense.'

they have that choice, someone with black skin does not, that is the point. And where did anyone say Synagogues and schools do not need protection??? What about Islamic schools, do you think they deserve protection?

You seem to be have been aligning yourself with DA’ s comments throughout this thread. Why? You have said you have many Jewish friends. Do they exercise that ‘choice’? Should they have to?

Iam64

Fleurpepper

Galaxy

I think there is also another layer to the racism faced by Jewish people, its here on this thread, their experiences are frequently minimised, its connected I think with the tropes around money and success.
I watched Jewish people receiving daily abuse online, just pop on to the Twitter feeds of any celebrity who is Jewish if you dont believe they dont experience daily abuse.

No, not at all.

Thanks Galaxy.
The Jewish museum in Berlin illustrates the way Jewish people have suffered anti semitism throughout time. To suggest Jewish people who hide their Jewishness by not wearing specific clothing, not sending their children to religious schools etc are avoiding discrimination is nonsense. Synagogues and schools need protection. Outside one north Manchester primary school, it isn’t unusual to hear a passer-by shout ‘can you smell gas’

Diane Abbott didn’t send this letter in error. There are local elections soon. She’s attempting to cause trouble for Starmer. She’d rather have the tories in than Labour.

If that was her intention it’s backfired quite spectacularly for her though because she’s been condemned from almost all quarters for what she said. I think I’m persuaded towards her engaging her mouth not her brain again.

Iam64

Fleurpepper, I live in a former mill town with a large Pakistani Muslim population. We have four large Islamic schools and many more under the radar home schoolers. We have had no threats or attacks. Round the corner is a large Jewish area, that’s where protection at schools and synagogues is needed. That’s where ‘can you smell the gas’ c]is sometimes heard.
To suggest as you do ‘they have a choice’ is offensive

I cannot understand why folks cannot or do not see the racism that Jewish men, women and children are subjected to daily.

Fleurpepper, I live in a former mill town with a large Pakistani Muslim population. We have four large Islamic schools and many more under the radar home schoolers. We have had no threats or attacks. Round the corner is a large Jewish area, that’s where protection at schools and synagogues is needed. That’s where ‘can you smell the gas’ c]is sometimes heard.
To suggest as you do ‘they have a choice’ is offensive

I believe the same as Iam, the letter was worded very carefully with full intent of causing trouble for Starmer, revenge perhaps