Enoch Powell - misunderstood?

[Johnny Yesno]

I got into an argument with a colleague today which went something along the lines of:

Me (reading front page of The Independent): Ooh! That's terrible about the flower picking Greek Romany slave labour in Cornwall.
Colleague: That's if it's true.
Me: Well, of course. But I see no reason to doubt it with the Chinese cockle picking incident.
Colleague: These bloody do-gooders. It's like them saying the NHS is institutionally racist. Saying they give blacks and Asians more drugs.
Me: There're records, aren't there? I mean of recorded deaths and that.
Colleague: If it was racist, how come there're loads of black and Asian doctors and nurses.
Me: That's no evidence of a lack of racism. Enoch Powell arranged a major recruitment drive of overseas medical staff, and he was a racist.
Colleague: If you read the "Rivers of Blood" speech you'll see he was just saying that if immigrants keep coming into this country there'll be trouble. Not that he advocated it.
I look sceptical because I know the BNP liked that speech.
The conversation continues through Abu Hamza causing trouble and staying here at the taxpayer's expense, and how my viewpoint is coloured by what paper I read ("You Guardian readers think you know it all"), and then I point out how Colleague's viewpoint is coloured by Colleague's reading matter, whereupon Colleague storms off.

Anyhoo, what I want to know is: was Enoch Powell misunderstood? Wikidpedia seems to think so. I haven't read the "Rivers of Blood" speech, and haven't been able to find it on the interweb (except, perhaps, at the BNPs website which I don't want to look at at work).
Your thoughts would be very much appreciated.

[Purple Tentacle]

Tony Benn always said so, and I've heard from quite a few sources that he merely got "overexcited" during his Rivers of Blood speech.

In all honesty I'm not sure what to think, I'll wait for jutl to post something.

[terrorist]

http://www.sterlingtimes.co.uk/powell_press.htm

[Evil Knevil]

It's possible that he was talking about the consequences of the UK's immigration policy which didn't provide for immigrants after their arrival. This led to Ghettoisation and riots. Enoch might have been responding to this, and the fact that racial tension *was* increasing. Indeed tension did increase after this period.

Wether there was a touch of "we don't like Darkies" I dunno. Enoch was right about racial tension though.

[big dogs cock]

After a bit of quick research, for all my opinion counts..

There are some well founded fears at the heart of the speech, but really, the severity of tone and general sense of paranoia throughout the whole thing seems to step over the mark blatantly.

This, for example:

"Eight years ago in a respectable street in Wolverhampton a house was sold to a negro.  Now only one white (a woman old-age pensioner) lives there.  This is her story.  She lost her husband and both her sons in the war.  So she turned her seven-roomed house, her only asset, into a boarding house.  She worked hard and did well, paid off her mortgage and began to put something by for her old age.  Then the immigrants moved in.  With growing fear, she saw one house after another taken over.  The quiet street became a place of noise and confusion Regretfully, her white tenants moved out.
"The day after the last one left, she was awakened at 7am by two negroes who wanted to use her phone to contact their employer.  When she refused, as she would have refused any stranger at such an hour, she was abused and feared she would have been attacked but for the chain on her door.  

That's just a case of interpreting a situation, low income low educated people move to an area, area goes down pan, and applying race to it, missing the point really, leaving aside all the other social issues that contribute to such an occurance. Heath sacked him from the shadow cabinet for the potential the speech had to stir up tensions, and it did by all accounts, with protests and strikes from people who had little understanding of the issues. Reducing a complex issue to a lowest common denominator call to arms!

Here's the famous bit:

As I look ahead, I am filled with foreboding;  like the Roman, 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 by our own volition and our own neglect.  

Yes, but the racial tensions in America were caused in no small part by the discrimination and pig-headedness of economically and politically empowered whites! And to use such strong emotive language like that about a delicate and potentially inflammitary situation, we have to discount such irreponsible and stupid behaviour. My verdict: Cunt!

[jutl]

We had this discussion before, I think, on my widely-reviled 'Racism in Comedy' thread. As far as I know it's true that Powell was just saying that others were likely to get violent, not that he encouraged them to do so. That's a bit of a red herring though - the issue really is whether violence against immigrants is an acceptable response to any problems they cause. Announcing that there will be violence without either advocating or decrying it is a cowardly avoidance of this issue. Powell didn't want immigration, and he used the potential violence of others as a shield for his own views. Powell's little circumlocution is entirely typical of the two-faced attitude of British politicians and people then and now. We like to maintain that we are moderate and incorruptible when in fact we merely hide our extremism by refusing to speak our mind, and do our shady deals under the guise of 'helping friends'. In short we're all cunts therefore Powell was a cunt.

[big dogs cock]

So he wasn't misunderstood in being labelled (by most) racist and inflammatory, but he himself may have misunderstood the impact of his words? Or are you saying that was that quite deliberate on his part, this sort of incitement by prediction? In  either case I think a defining speech by somebody which has such an obvious issue dodging emotive soundbite of the rivers of blood part should be discredited, as should the person in a postion of influence who delivered it, as it's obviously going to appeal to the dregs of society (i'm not sure we're all cunts, you seem like a nice chap ;), once it's gone through the filter of the media.
"Yes there will be rivers of blood. And i'll be there defending myself when it happens", and so it begins.

[jutl]

So he wasn't misunderstood in being labelled (by most) racist and inflammatory, but he himself may have misunderstood the impact of his words? Or are you saying that was that quite deliberate on his part, this sort of incitement by prediction? In  either case I think a defining speech by somebody which has such an obvious issue dodging emotive soundbite of the rivers of blood part should be discredited, as should the person in a postion of influence who delivered it, as it's obviously going to appeal to the dregs of society (i'm not sure we're all cunts, you seem like a nice chap ;), once it's gone through the filter of the media.
"Yes there will be rivers of blood. And i'll be there defending myself when it happens", and so it begins.

Well, Powell was speaking in the aftermath of the assassination of Martin Luther King - so racial violence was a fairly current subject at the time... Anyone talking about these things in that climate is making a point if they fail to condemn interracial violence.

He's quoting Virgil, from The Aeneid

'Oh, you who are done with all the perils of the sea,
(yet greater await you on land) the Trojans will come
to the realm of Lavinium (put that care from your heart):
but will not enjoy their coming. War, fierce war,
I see: and the Tiber foaming with much blood.

This is the Sibyl talking to Aeneas, advising him that if he and his Trojan mates hang about in Italy then they are likely to start a war...

[Shaddock]

Powell was stating the obvious but dressed up in his own learned historian fancy way.  If you allow mass immigration, the traditional values and domestic culture gets eroded as the country becomes a melting pot of cultures.  Thirty years on you may find that most white MPs are closet racists, if you got to know them.

I don't think Powell was racist, he once proposed marriage to an Indian lady while on service out there -- presumably with the intent of having (half-cast) children one day.  He personally didn't have a problem with brown-skinned people or their culture.

Enoch's problem was that his oratory was too clever-by-half for the numb skulls of this country.  Even Edward Heath panicked into sacking him.

[Johnny Yesno]

Ta for that, you lot. I've only been able to give the speech a cursory look so far but, as far as I could see, it looks like quite careful language, the kind of language that leaves some room for argument, while appeasing those it's meant to appease.

[kidsick5000]

Just being a bit thick on this but...
was he destined for greatness and it killed his career or was he one of those academics who just fell into politics and thats his most famous moment, or moment that made him famous.

I guess this one is to jutl.

Personally, it sounds to me like a version of 50's ignorant racism, rather than malicious racism. Fear of the unknown, loss of empire and subsequent retribution for oppression etc.  
One of those odd people who while not disliking people of different colours and religions whatever, would just prefer it if everyone would just stay in their own country, and make do there. Everybody apart from white folk, obviously.

[Ambient Sheep]

We had this discussion before, I think, on my widely-reviled 'Racism in Comedy' thread.

We've certainly had it before, but in a rather earlier thread than the "Racism in Comedy" one I think, one dedicated to this topic in fact (but I could be wrong).

It was interesting, because my opinion on Powell (and quite possibly no other topic) used to be the same as Johnny's colleague, i.e. he was merely warning about it, and wasn't racist himself, i.e. he *was* misunderstood and/or a victim of early "political correctness".

However as a result of that thread, which linked to a copy of Powell's speech, which I then read for the first time, I changed my views to what you've just said - he was indeed a racist, but hid it behind what he pretended were legitimate concerns.

I'm surprised nobody's posted the "grinning picaninnies" line yet, I would have done myself except that my PCs a bit on the blink at the moment and won't open the page.

[Almost Yearly]

I think he meant it, but then later lost his balls.

Eunoch Powell.


Filling in for PLC.

[gazzyk1ns]

In all honesty I'm not sure what to think, I'll wait for jutl to post something.

<sigh> You haven't got a clue, have you?

But you will do, if you wait for 30 minutes.

[Purple Tentacle]

Filling in PLC.

That'll make a change, then.

[Borboski]

I"You Guardian readers think you know it all"

Us Guardian readers do know it all. And what's more - we have nice warm feelings of moral superiority too!

Mmm... I love the state me. I even have fantasies about Stalin circa 1928, merrily frollicking in great mountains of grain...

"No, Kolya, I don't think we have enough yetski! Tell them to work harderski!"

[Dusty Gozongas]

Derek and Clive - misunderstood?

"Soul Time" has no doubt been discussed in the Comedy Chat forum and yet most of us who've heard it still respect Pete n' Dud.

That said, I reckon Enoch was far more eloquent.

[chand]

There seems to be a racist tone in the quoting of the story of the woman from Wolverhampton. It seems to be using a deliberately emotive case ('She lost her husband and both her sons in the war'), as if to say, one day these negroes will be running little old ladies out of town. Do you want that to happen to YOUR granny?

I read the whole speech recently and it reminded me of the way racists talk these days, the way the BNP talk about protecting our 'culture' and so on. It seems like the politician's way of being racist, because politicians are too smart to come out and say 'Send the darkies back to Africa!'.

[megatwat]

It seems to me that so often racists start their sentences with "I'm not racist but..." and then go on to say something which is ignorant, innacurate and very, very racist.

However, so often peoples racism is triggered by misconceptions so widely spread by the gutter rpess that people think them true. So, the answer to beating racism is to show these people the truth, teach them not to be afraid of immigrants- not shout and scream at them.

To get back to the point, I think this sums up Enoch Powell (I know I spelt that wrong but can't be arsed to go back a page to check). The body of a lot of his statements was racist, but he was genuinely concerned (if you see what I mean). He was afraid of the unknown. When he was speaking, the idea of 3 million people of asian and african descent in this country was something scary, something not yet seen. He was just afraid and ignorant, not hateful like Hitler or Mosely.

With the benefit of the hindsight of seeing how that imigration policy enritched our culture and jump-started our economy, it is hard to understand him now, but we need to.

We need to understand him, because again this country need lots of extra imigrants. We have an aging population and to put it bluntly, we need the labour. And again people are talking like he was. That's why the BNP is winning council seats. People are afraid. We need to help them see there is no reason to be. All of us.

[Dusty Gozongas]

We have an aging population and to put it bluntly, we need the labour

I've heard the argument many times, but as an example: Samsung just announced recently that their factory in Sedgefield (Tony Blair's constituency) is to be closed down.  Their spokesman, a Scottish geezer whos name escapes me said something like "[...] the workforce here is paid £5.70 per hour but in China the workforce workforce will get £1.50 and in Albania they will get £0.75 [...]"

Not an exact quote there, but the places and figures were close.

So.  How does this boost my/your knackerd pension?

[megatwat]

The baby boomers will retire quite soon. They will start to draw their pensions then. You and I must pay for this through national insurance. The baby boomer didn't have as many kids per head as their parents. So if our national insurance contributions are the same as theirs, we will not be able to sustain a comparable pension. There is also the problem (in  a manner of speaking) of people living longer.

To put it bluntly, to give our parents the same pension they gave their parents, and support the welfare state in general, we must either pay a lot more tax, import more workers or breed like rabbits (and magically grow those kids to adulthood in a very few years).

Your choice.

[Pinball]

We have an aging population and to put it bluntly, we need the labour

I've heard the argument many times, but as an example: Samsung just announced recently that their factory in Sedgefield (Tony Blair's constituency) is to be closed down.  Their spokesman, a Scottish geezer whos name escapes me said something like "[...] the workforce here is paid £5.70 per hour but in China the workforce workforce will get £1.50 and in Albania they will get £0.75 [...]"

Not an exact quote there, but the places and figures were close.

So.  How does this boost my/your knackerd pension?

Ah, the non-existent social conscience of business. Large companies pay relatively little tax anyway (offshore, moving funds between countries, low corporation tax etc.) - it's the employees that largely pay the Exchequer. Without the employees we're fucked. At the same time, though, we have the lowest unemployment rate for 30 years. Shame it's call centre & burger flipper jobs...

Solution? Retire abroad. If the mountain won't come to Mohammed etc. ;-)

An Indian friend told me that his elderly relatives go back to India when they retire. The UK pension is equivalent to a good salary over there, and of course the cost of living is much lower. They even have servants. There's a lesson for us there...