Yes, it has grown out of proportion.

Though as an artistic no go area…

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/celebritynews/2055874/Islam-is-off-limits-for-us,-say-brothers-Jake-and-Dinos-Chapman.html

Such brave iconoclasm!

It’s been going a long time though. The tale twenty years ago when I was at school was that only a fool would go up Gibbet Street in Halifax if they were white. So I did. And you know what? It was a normal street. People smiled at me and I smiled back in proper Yorkshire fashion…

The problem with this sort of shit is it’s a self-fulfilling prophecy. If an area gets a reputation as a non go area then people not in the “approved group” only go there if they are 1, brave or 2, want to cause trouble. The people who ARE in the approved group are immediately put on the defensive by this, and then trouble is more likely.

There’s an old saying which my scouse nan taught me that the strangest and most exotic place in the world is your neighbour’s parlour, and the strangest and most exotic food in the world will be found on your neighbour’s dining table. It was true when it was taught to her and it’s still true now.

This was blow into huge proportions in some parts of the MSM and blogosphere yesterday. I thought it would have been more useful as a story demonstrating how pathetic Police Community Support Officers are!

http://lettersfromatory.wordpress.com

LFaT in “says something sensible and hard to disagree with” shock!

I Live in Blackburn, Lancashire and there are numerous areas of the town that are Muslim ‘no-go’ areas, it pains me to say it but they are there and arent going away.

Have you been to said area and been chased away by demented ayatollahs, or are you in the same camp as the old-wives’-tale-spreaders Jennie mentions in comment #1?

I live in a plurality-Muslim area in London. It’s fine. I used to live in a plurality-Muslim area in Manchester. It was fine. I’ve friends who’ve lived in plurality-Muslim areas in Blackburn, Preston and Leeds. They were fine.

No media citing of “no-go areas” I’ve ever seen has gone beyond “there are places in [town X]“, rather than “[xxx street in town X]” (except for a particularly daft piece by Littlejohn which cited the area where I live as an example). To me, this is a strong sign that the dhimmitudinalists are making the whole thing up.

If anyone reading honestly believes in ‘no-go areas’, name any street, pay my train fare to get there, and I’ll happily walk down it. And I’ll be fine.

I agree with Jennie. When you are young, there is always someone, who’s best authority is their big brother, who delights in telling you that, if you go to the dockside say, you’ll be kidnapped and taken away to be a slave somewhere. These urban myths seem to me to be just more exaggerated versions of the same thing.

This has the potential to be just as daft as the ‘Satanic Child Abuse’ panic. When we take our myths and base public policy on them we are giving in to the childish delight of a shiver of fear.

So, Sunny and johnb are right. Name the street and I’ll walk down it too.

Absolutely agree with John B above. The idea of Muslim “no-go” areas is one dreamed up and nurtured by an underlying xenophobia. I have had the privilege of many years working within Muslim communities. I am used to people saying to me “I wouldn’t go into (such and such an area) after dark, I wouldn’t feel safe.” “Funny” say I – “I feel safer there, day or night, than many other areas of town.” The sense of community and hospitality within the Muslim community is something we have largely lost in urban Britain and is something worth celebrating.

The issue with Christians in Birmingham has played to the moral panic and I fear just offering the totally misguided PCSO training will do nothing to help. Until and unless we recognise that we all have a responsibility for the marginalisation of communities and all have a role to play in community cohesion, we will continue to face this kind of nonsense.

I’m not sure what you think is at stake by seeking to establish or deny the existence of physical no-go areas – surely a factual matter which can be quite easily ascertained. I am far more worried by the mental no-go areas which separate religious bigots and fanatics, whether Jewish, Christian, or Muslim, from each other and from the vast majority who aren’t committed to any of these faiths. What liberals should be concerned about is the damage being done by religions to the fabric of our society, which thanks to them is rapidly becoming less open, tolerant, and democratic.

surely a factual matter which can be quite easily ascertained.

anticant – then go for it and show us the evidence.

I am far more worried by the mental no-go areas which separate religious bigots and fanatics

Agreed, but don’t you think they would be perpetuated by these urban myths and naked xenophobia?

which thanks to them is rapidly becoming less open, tolerant, and democratic.

oh jeez, here we go again. *yawn*

The same authoritarian organisation that is pushing for Muslims to be locked up for 42 days without charge

No.

They’re pushing for terrorist suspects to be locked up for 42 days NOT Muslims, so that’s a tad disingenuous.

No. They’re pushing for terrorist suspects to be locked up for 42 days

You know, I yearn for the days when we used to call such people suspected terrorists rather than terrorist suspects.

It just carried this whole presumption-of-innocence vibe, made you think we might have needed a damn good reason before we started locking people up.

Good start Sunny. Sadly, not just the ‘evil media’, but sometimes the Government that is creating/spreading/feeding the urban myth:

Quoting Hazel Blears in the Mail (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-555531/Blears-calls-break-ethnic-ghettos-warning-social-apartheid.html):

“When we consider the impact of immigration on some of our towns, cities, and latterly rural areas, we must ensure that community cohesion is maintained, and no one faith or ethnic group can totally dominate a locality to the exclusion of all others.

“There is nothing wrong with enclaves of particular groups – every city benefits from its Chinatowns, Little Italys or, as in London, Bangla Town, Kangaroo Valley or Little Korea.

“But no neighbourhood should be dominated by one group in ways which make members of other groups feel alienated, insecure or unsafe.”

And less sensational, quoting the Minister in the Guardian (http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2008/apr/03/planning.localgovernment):

“No neighbourhood should be dominated by one group in ways which make members of other groups feel alienated, insecure or unsafe”.

Flying Rodent, Steven Poole is good on this, if you haven’t seen it already.

“They’re pushing for terrorist suspects to be locked up for 42 days NOT Muslims, so that’s a tad disingenuous.”

Like these guys:

http://www.smh.com.au/news/Global-Terrorism/British-Guantanamo-Bay-detainees-released-without-charge/2005/01/27/1106415736067.html

It’s overwhelming likely that it is the case that the idea of “muslim no-go areas” has been blown out of all proportion. However…

A ‘Muslim no-go’ area is presumably one where non-Muslims and the law fear to tread.

So how exactly is the police, by harassing some Christian evangelicals, creating a Muslim no-go area? Surely, by logic, they wouldn’t exist in an area where the police is active?

The police are only “active” in the sense of warning people that they can’t preach there, and that they’re likely to get beaten up if they do, without a hint of trying to prevent that beating (ie they’re not bothering to actually police the area).

Chris Atkins tells in his book Taking Liberties of when he went to protest about David Blaine’s silly “box” stunt on his own, and had to be protected, by the police, from some of Blaine’s fans. That’s more or less what the police should’ve been doing here, if the risk of these preachers getting a kicking was genuine. But they didn’t.

(Incidental to the story, but a police officer or a PCSO telling a member of the public that something that is not a crime is a crime really should be quite a serious disciplinary matter.)

By the way, I think we should congratulate the police on seeing off a pair of suspicious foreigners apparently bent on stirring up racial conflict and propagandising their sinister ideology.

They’re pushing for terrorist suspects to be locked up for 42 days NOT Muslims, so that’s a tad disingenuous.

It’s not, when you look at who exactly is caught up in the legislation over 90% of the time.

Zohra, I think in that case the Daily Mail inflated what the minister said… I wouldn’t exactly say she’s buying into the same narrative. She’s trying to skirt around it.

Her actual speech, which you can see on the Fabian website somewhere, was a lot more measured.

Incidental to the story, but a police officer or a PCSO telling a member of the public that something that is not a crime is a crime really should be quite a serious disciplinary matter.

Yes, but it hardly constitutes the end of British society as we know it.

Hi Sunny
Um, wasn’t I the one that sent you the speech?! (It’s here for anyone else that wants to read it: http://fabians.org.uk/events/speeches/blears-housing-speech)

I disagree – I think Hazel Blears was very much buying into the narrative and the ‘skirting’ was around saying anything explicit that could come back to her later. E.g. on your ‘inflation’ charge: the quotes I copied from the Daily Mail are used in the exact same way (exact same order and exact same quotes) by the Fabian Society itself, on its own website, to introduce her speech, which she delivered at its event, entitled ‘No more urban exclusion zones’ (http://fabians.org.uk/general-news/general-news/blears-newtowns).

‘No more urban exclusion zones’ sounds a lot like ‘no-go urban areas’ to me, just in New Labour speak.

By all means yawn if you like, Sunny – but why drag poor old Jeez into it?

I don’t know how long you’ve been around, but I have clear memories of a time when most people in this country didn’t feel nearly so bothered about or threatened by religious bigots as they do today.

Maybe if you have a real big yawn, your rose-coloured spectacles will drop off.

People smiled at me and I smiled back in proper Yorkshire fashion…

well really, there was no need to gob at them

I would qualify this. I would guess that in a number of places, particularly in some of the Lancashire ex-mill towns, there are majority-Muslim parts of town where young white men would be well-advised not to go in small numbers after dark. This is because, just as there are bits of Glasgow that are “no go” if you’re wearing a Rangers shirt, towns do have gangs and territories, and in towns with a big Asian population, some of those gang territories are going to split up on racial lines which are also religious lines. If you were looking for a kernel of truth in this patent bollocks, that would probably be it.

I have clear memories of a time when most people in this country didn’t feel nearly so bothered about or threatened by religious bigots as they do today

yes, during the Brixton riots one hardly gave the matter a thought. Can we call a stainless steel digging implement a bloody entrenching tool here; this “Muslims” thing is simply racist code-talk and people ought to be called on it a hell of a lot more than they actually are.

“this “Muslims” thing is simply racist code-talk and people ought to be called on it a hell of a lot more than they actually are.”

Well, I for one, tend to tar ALL religious folk with the same brush. And then get called on it by my pagan/tolerant christian/tolerant muslim/jewish friends. But yes, lots of people these days are using “Muslims” in the way they used to use “Pakis”. It’s fun, therefore, to bring other religions into the equation. When they start going on about muslim intolerance, say “I know, but bloody Christians are as bad! And as for atheists, don’t get me started on that Dawkins chap…”

Not that I like to sow mischief, or anything…

zohra: ‘No more urban exclusion zones’ sounds a lot like ‘no-go urban areas’ to me, just in New Labour speak.

Mmm… ok I’ll concede that point.

anticant: Maybe if you have a real big yawn, your rose-coloured spectacles will drop off.

I’m not sure what I have rose-tinted spectacles about. More than most bloggers I’ve taken to task Muslim orgs over their stance on extremism etc. Just have a look at my articles on CIF. I know the differences between them and their stances better than 99% of bloggers.

What I don’t stand for is thinly veiled racist and bigotry in the name of “we just want to protect ourselves from Muslims and their attempts to take over our country“. Especially when the evidence on that is so flimsy as to be laughable.

Jennie: Well, I for one, tend to tar ALL religious folk with the same brush.

I think this is also quite dangerous, and I don’t. There are plenty of compassionate, leftwing, humanistic people who believe in God and their faith. I have no problems with them at all. After all, I don’t describe myself as an atheist.

My problem is only with fundamentalists of all stripes. Nadine Dorries for example cannot be compared to Simon Barrow for example, also of this parish.

Bloody journalists and their selcetive quoting. The proceeding sentence makes it perfectly clear that my tongue was planted firmly in my cheek for that one; if I was THAT bad, I wouldn’t HAVE any religious friends, would I?

dsquared,

Nope, you are not going to get let off on this. Either there are streets you and I can walk down, or there aren’t. I’d doubt there would be a problem. You are, frankly buying into the myth without evidence. So, a challenge.

You should accept it.

As I doubt you are young enough to be just macho , and hopefully you’d not be daft enough to wear a T-Shirt saying something offensive, let’s see if you and I can walk down a street without being attacked. Name the street, pay my rail fare and lets see whether it is true or not.

I accept the gang ownership arguement. But that has always been the case and is seperate from race, religion or politics. It is about territory. Yet, I think you and I could walk down any street in the UK without anything adverse happening to us.

What I am saying to you is that this is an Urban Myth, and one that deserves to be kicked into touch.

Let’s have lots of streets named here. Lets have lots of train tickets bought. I’ll walk down those streets with or without dsquared.

Incidentally,

If you sell this to the telly, I want half!

Why is everyone wanting to walk down streets in non-existent no-go areas, when we could all go take a walk down Melanie Philips street, and hover in Nazir Ali’s. Wearing hoodies and beards. Lets give them a no-go area if only for an afternoon.

Well Mr Hundal,

If you ever discover a street that someone says we can’t walk down, please let me and john b know. I think there is a telly programme in this….

What was that ridiculous Johhny Cash number:

“I’ll walk the line”.

I’d think that a direct challenge to this ridiculous notion might kill it dead. I, and you and john b should put our money where our mouths are, and walk that line. Assuming that dsquared and his colleagues can come up with a line for us to walk. Which they can’t.

Urban myth, dsquared. Name that street.

dsquared, apart from this complete nonense, which brings you back to a human scale, I think you talk a lot of sense. However, this has not been your finest hour, Name that street. Pay my railfare, and I’ll be there. And if anyone makes a bean out of the media it ought to be Sunny Hundal, john b and me.

There you go. Someone that plays with hydrogen peroxide can’t be scared of a challenge like this?

john b and Sunny Hundal, if you don’t wan’t to participate, and , I’;d understand if you didn’t. The potential for fucking it up is enormoius, although I would absolve dsquared from that, for he is an honest man.

So, the lines in the sand have to be drawn, but either you think there are no, no go areas, or you think there aren’t. I know where I stand.

Or two negatives do not a positive make.

So, the lines in the sand have to be drawn, but either you think there are no, no go areas, or you think there aren’t.

what the hell does that mean? I haven’t a clue.

Or. altenatively, “So the lines in the sand are drawn but either you think there are no go areas, or you don’t.”

Oh, fuck it.. The guy is just talking pish….that’s what being a long time admirer of someone – dsquared in this case – does to you….all heros have the potential to be dust….

Shit.

Please don’t call me a racist, Sunny. Genetically, I’m 25% Arab. As for your “hostility to Islam is thinly veiled racism” piffle, it isn’t Muslims as human beings I object to, or the country of origin of “British Muslims” – though their imported tribalist culture all too often sticks out like a sore thumb. It’s the totalitarian mindset of their barmy religion. Your oh-so-”liberal” tolerance to this makes me curious as to what your attitude would have been towards Nazism in the 1930s? Doubtless you’d have been sucking up to Stalin, as nearly all Lefties did in those days.

Anticant,

Can you name a street I can’t walk down? Quite frankly, I want to walk that street and then tell you how I experienced it. I think I’d be OK. But there you go, I might be wrong.

So, name that street, mate. That is what this thread is about, not hah hah liberalism. I am not willing to compromise on my lack of religion. Yet, you’d be hard pushed to hear me argue that you should give up your beliefs. So, lets hear it. Where are those streets?

Of course this thread is not about hah hah liberalism. Neither is this blog. It isn’t about liberalism, nor is it a conspiracy – just a lot of headless NewLab chickens rushing aimlessly around wringing their collective hands and wondering why the electorate has gone sour on them.

As for streets you wouldn’t be wise to walk down, I’m don’t soubt there are plenty in most British cities and towns, depending on the area and time of day. I know for sure there are plenty of streets here in London I wouldn’t care to walk down at any time of day – and not just because of Muslims. Kids [race unspecified] carrying knives, for one thing.

And I am not arguing that anyone should give up their beliefs – just that some beliefs – and I think Islam, whether extremist or moderate, is one – are incompatible with an open democratic society. Either this is a real problem which has to be faced up to or else I am utterly mistaken, in which case you are welcome to convince me of my error.

Jennie – sorry, whoops…

douglas – I think you’re misreading dsquared’s post. He’s not far from where you are.

anticant:
It’s the totalitarian mindset of their barmy religion. Your oh-so-”liberal” tolerance to this makes me curious as to what your attitude would have been towards Nazism in the 1930s?

Why am I surprised you’ve raised the nazis again. Look, you can think what you want about Islam the religion. Frankly I couldn’t care a rats arse. But I do have a problem with someone making the statement that all Muslims are potential trouble makers or terrorists or whatever just because they happen to be Muslim.

and I think Islam, whether extremist or moderate, is one – are incompatible with an open democratic society. Either this is a real problem which has to be faced up to or else I am utterly mistaken, in which case you are welcome to convince me of my error.

I think you’re past convincing, so frankly its a waste of time. You see all Muslims as a problem – that’s your prerogative. I think you’re being a bigot frankly. I’ve got close Muslims mates who drink and close Muslim mates who are more bloody pacifist than I am.

It doesn’t matter if you’re a quarter Arab. The fact is, you clearly don’t know many Muslims if thats all you can say. And trying to bring up nazis, stalin really is wasting everyone’s intelligence. It doesn’t bother me if you want to join the Melanie Phillips camp. But please don’t pretend your views are anything but irrational xenophobia, stoked by stupid media narratives.

Sunny, I see Islam as an ideological problem. I haven’t lived where I do without knowing quite a few Muslims – one a next door neighbour for over twenty years – and very pleasant some of them are. But with closed minds and basically irrational. I never said that they were all basically trouble-makers or potential terrorists – but as you, in your own idiosyncratically ‘liberal’ way, don’t care a rat’s arse what I think, there’s little point in debating this or anything else with you. Before you continue blogging, it would be a good idea if you took crash courses in both Islam and liberalism. And I have better things to do than to hang around here to be insulted by intolerant lefties posing as ‘liberals’ every time I say something they disagree with.

douglas clark – I think you’re misreading dsquared, too. He’s not saying that there are streets where you’d get hassled by fundamentalists, but that territory and gangs exist in the UK and can make areas unpleasant. The error in the original Mel/Naz ‘argument’ is connecting basic testerone-fuelled human behaviour with Islamic fundamentalists, and the error is the usual one of ‘they’re all the same, aren’t they, these Muslims?’, which is of course the fundamental racist error.

dsquared’s point, to me, reads more like ‘we’re all the same’, which includes an often overlooked aspect of anti-racism, that if you accept that all people share a common humanity that includes the vices as well as the virtues.

It occurs to me that if you went out there and got beaten up by a white gang, the Melanite response would be ‘this is symptomatic of the decadence and decay at the heart of a once proud Judao-Christian nation and that will lead to dhimmification’ while if you got beaten up by an Asian gang it would be because Asians were taking over the streets and making them no-go areas prior to enslaving us all. In other words, whatever you do there’s a ready-made incoherent right-wing argument waiting at the end.

There must be a better way of tackling this, probably satire. There’s no adequate satire of Mel’n'co at present, because the so-called liberal media are too scared of them. It’s political correctness gone mad, I tell you, and will lead to idiotification.

The fact you’ve had to try and tell the blog owner it isn’t a conspiracy just goes to show how far the point has flown over your head to be honest, anticant.

Tom,

Thanks for the clarification. I withdraw my comment.

Douglas; to be honest I was a bit drunk when I wrote that and it doesn’t read with the clean bright light of clarity that it had when I was typing it. But the basic idea here is that the term “no go areas” needs to be separated from the ordinary concept of “dangerous streets”, and also we need to recognise that young men live in a somewhat different world than we do when it comes to violence. I would bet dollars to fried mars bars that I could wander around in the Glasgow estate where Kriss Donald was murdered, happily bantering with the locals, because I’m old and not threatening and I visibly don’t have any local affiliations. But the kid was, in fact, the victim of a racially aggravated murder and we have to face up to that fact. In other words I think I’m trying to resist exactly the bit of Unspeak that someone above correctly identified Hazel Blears of using – “mono-ethnic and violent ghettoes” aren’t the same thing as “racial no-go areas”, because the second one implies a real and self-aware claim on the turf by the whole community, whereas quite obviously the locals in Pollokshields almost certainly dislike the young thugs there more than their white neighbours do, because they have to live with them.

anyway, I think we’re basically in agreement so there you go.

There’s no adequate satire of Mel’n’co at present, because the so-called liberal media are too scared of them.

Tom – yes! my sentiments exactly. This really does annoy me, a lot.

I think that the Spectator blogs (with the exception of Clive Davis) are just too putrid to investigate closely. Last week, Stephen Pollard jested that George Monbiot having previously cerebral malaria ‘explains a lot’. I saw the same sick little joke at least five times while fishing for comments on Little Green Footballs.

The very term ‘no go areas’ does, as Douglas suggests, seem obfuscatory, as well as being uncomfortably ambiguous.

In fact, it’s a term to recommend to Unspeak.

dsquared,

You are actually too generous. It was I that jumped off the deep end, not you. I have already withdrawn my daft comment, and I apologise for it.

I think we do see eye to eye on this. The issue is probably more about youthful territoriality than anything else.

Usually, the mean streets of Pollokshields are not that mean, they are less than five minutes away from where I live and I have never felt alarmed walking through the area. But, as you say, I am not the target audience. Which was the point I was not getting.

Thanks.