Enough is enough!

You know it actually takes an awful lot to make me angry, but sometimes, just sometimes, I come across something that leaves me seething.

I was born in Salford which at the time was Lancashire, now of course part of Greater Manchester. My parents owned a terraced house in a road that was two away from my Mother's Aunt, and four roads away from her Mother. To walk to either my Great Aunt's house, or my Grandparents house took less than 5 minutes and we visited on a daily or certainly weekly basis.

At school I knew huge numbers of other children who had the same circumstances with their parents family living in close proximity to each other.

The extended family was commonplace and that is how most of my generation grew up. Indeed, whilst I no longer live "up North", my parents still live about 5 minutes away from one of my brothers and his family.

In my childhood, discipline came from within the family, the old adage of the child being told off at school leading to even more trouble from ones parents was certainly true.

But more importantly was the feeling of not letting your parents down, the idea of answering back was unthinkable, respect was the order of the day both inside and outside the family.

What caused the change in society, well who knows? I certainly have my suspicions, and these ar being borne out as time goes on, but that is for another day. I certainly still know a lot of people who have the same close knit families, the same sense of family values and who provide the same framework for discipline as they always did. Perhaps standards are what has changed, and what might be interpreted as lack of respect by some, may just be seen as a natural reaction to the changes in society by others.

So what is it that has made my blood boil?

My attention was drawn to the comments section of the Guardian Unlimited and an article by somebody called Sarfraz Manzoor.

In the article, we are informed that perhaps it is we, the "white society" (sic) that should integrate into Muslim values; to whit


"It is easy to dismiss Muslim parents as old-fashioned and traditional, but when the rest of the country is busy wondering how to respond to a culture of rampant disrespect, it is worth considering whether they could learn from Muslim values. Muslim children are more likely to be brought up in two-parent families rather than the single-parent households that are increasingly common in Britain."

"For example, when I was growing up there was no possibility of answering back to my parents, and this was accompanied by an all-pervasive fear of letting them down. This was a model of parenting that put great faith in deference."

""The right to be in a multicultural society," argued the prime minister in a speech last month, "was always implicitly balanced by a duty to integrate, to be part of Britain." Behind these remarks was an assumption that integration is a one-way street. However, there are many things that the rest of the country could learn from Muslims."

He further explains that not only can we whites learn from Muslim values, but also that where individual Muslims are no longer living up to his values for Muslim society, the fault lies with, yes you've guessed it, white society:

"Whether the danger is religious extremism, drugs or crime, those involved are largely third-generation Muslims who are so integrated into white society that they are emulating its worst characteristics. Integration did not save them, it created them."

My family has lived in this country for generations without ever feeling the need to have our values checked by anyone. Despite media propaganda, there are still a lot of places in this country that have relatively low levels of immigration, and contrary to current urban myths, rubbish collection, toilet cleaning, working at McDonald's, sweeping the streets, hell, even Estate Agency is carried out by local British workers with no assistance from outside.

This is a great country filled with great people. We have a history of achievement, of great advancements, a society that on the whole is still populated with people who deep down have the same values as when I was growing up.

We don't need telling what to do, or how to live our lives, we don't need to have groups and religions telling us where we have being going wrong, where we are going wrong and what we need to do to make things better. We have managed thus far without you and I know we will get along just fine in the future.

Up until a few years ago I had never bothered with politics. Sure, I voted at most elections but never paid more than a passing interest, mainly how much tax I was going to have to pay and what was in the budget.

Immigration and multiculturalism has changed all that. Now I find that the common values that have stood me and my family and friends in good stead are wrong, at least that is what the likes of Sarfraz Manzoor would have us believe.

My views and those of people like me are not wrong, we are not bigots or racists, we do not dislike other people because of who they are, because of the colour of their skin or their religious views. That we leave to others such as Sarfraz Manzoor, Nu Labour, The Conservatives, The Liberal Democrats,Ken Livingston, members of Black Association this, or Black Association that, Muslim this or Muslim that, Equality group for this, Equality group for that, the Main Stream Media sleaze merchants, anyone who tells us that we live in areas that are hideously white, the big businesses that want to have cheap labour at any costs, the minority groups who want to undermine the whole of society so that they can push through their own agenda.

These are the racists, these are the bigots. These are the people who gave me no choice in how I wanted society to be.

Had they asked me, and the tens of millions like me, whether or not we wanted this so called enriched society in which our own traditions, values and beliefs would be so freely rubbished by all comers, then my answer, our answer would have been no, no, no.

So to Mr Sarfraz Manzoor, The Guardian, and all the rest of the people that have used their position and authority to abuse me and people like me I say this, I am the common man, and I have had enough.

Britain should integrate into Muslim values