The 2016 Eurovision Song Contest: Grand Final Pt.8

This should be read as a direct continuation of Part 7; http://watchitdie.blogspot.co.uk/2016/05/the-2016-eurovision-song-contest-grand_24.html

Although they had some fun with it the Balkan nations used the Song Contest largely to protest the migration crisis that has been thrust upon them by the western European states. That is because they are still dealing with the consequences of the last time the western European states thrust a migration crisis upon them in the form of the Greater Albania movement.

For many of the western European nations the mass migration of predominately Muslims is still considered something of a novelty.

So they concentrated their efforts on exploring the aspects of this strange new phenomenon with a view to offering a solution. After all the way that you integrate large numbers of Muslim migrants is more or less the same as the way you stop native born Muslims migrating away to join the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) and associated terrorist groups.

Finland: As I mentioned at the time of the first semi-final they were represented by Sandhja who is half-Finnish, half-Indian. Her look borrowed heavily from British Tamil (Sri Lankan) star M.I.A and the video in support of the song owed a lot to the imagery of Britain's - particularly London's - multicultural inner-city housing estates.

This was done to highlight that due to its links with the UK Commonwealth the UK has a long history of non-white immigration. Despite coming from a vast range of ethnic and religious groups all of these immigrants have been rather successfully integrated into British society. As such very white Finland was hoping the UK could share its experience with the group.

In her stage performance Sandhja kept raising her fingers in the form of a pistol as if she wanted to start singing; "Braap, Braap!" in the middle of her song. This is something that is synonymous with American hip-hop music - "the black music" as it was referred to this year. As such Finland seemed to be openly mocking US policy - particularly that of US President Obama.

However it also seemed to be Sandhja firing the starting gun for the discussion about racial integration.

Although I wouldn't go so far as to describe race relations in Britain as being perfect it is certainly doing a lot better than a lot of other nations. The key to the UK's relative success lies in four main areas;

1.Housing: Obviously the first challenge in integrating immigrants into a society is getting them to live within that society.

If that fails to happen then a phenomenon known as Ghettoisation emerges where all the immigrants from a certain country/culture all live together within a distinct area of a city/country. With no reason to leave their ghetto the immigrants really exist as citizens of the country/culture they've come from with no meaningful contact with the society in which they now live.

Regardless of whether you're talking about Muslims in Molenbeek, Belgium. Tamils in Tooting, UK or African-Americans in Atlanta, US the main driver behind ghettoisation is economic. Newly arrived migrants tend to be poor meaning that they can only afford to live in the cheapest areas of a city.

To combat this the UK operates an integrated planning policy that is largely laid out in Section 106 of the Town & County Planning Act 1990. Broadly speaking this states that if a property developer wants to receive permission for a construction project it must include provision for affordable social housing.

This policy means that even in the richest areas of the UK such as central London you still find properties owned by the local authority or as now more often the case local housing associations. Despite being in some of the richest areas these properties are available at the cheapest rents in the entire country.

As a result no matter where you go in Britain you will find very poor people living right next door to very rich people. This stops poor immigrants clustering together and stops either the rich or the poor forgetting that the other group exists.

The Section 106 provisions are backed up by what is known as Housing Benefit. This is a social welfare payment that is most often used to top-up the wages of the very low paid in order to allow them to pay the higher rents in the private sector away from the social housing sector.

Unfortunately Muslim immigrants pose a particular problem when it comes to housing policy.

That is because they are very heavily influenced by Arab society where the tribal system is extremely prevalent meaning that strong family links are highly valued. As a result if you go to areas of Britain where there are large Muslim populations you will very often find that not only is everybody on a particular street Muslims they're all actually members of the same extended family.

There is also a specific problem with certain sects of Islam such as Deobandi sect which is prevalent amongst Pakistani Muslims. Often confused with the Wahhabism that is actively promoted by Saudi Arabia this sect actually discourages contact between Muslims and non-Muslims whom Deobandis consider disgusting.

2.Schooling: As with many Eurovision nations the schooling of children is compulsory in the UK. Although a great deal of work by Local Authorities and Social Services goes into avoiding things escalating to that stage under law the power does exist for officers of the Court (Sheriffs) to go into homes and physical drag children out in order to force them to go to school.

This obviously provides a useful mechanism to ensure that children are forced to interact with other children from different ethnic, religious and economic backgrounds from a very young age for at least 10 years.

The example that's sort of on the tip of my tongue at the moment comes from the British city of Oldham.

Here following the 2001 race riots the local authority discovered that it had two schools. One was in the middle of a catchment area that had an almost exclusively Muslim population so the school was made up of exclusively Muslim students. The other was in the middle of the neighbouring catchment area that had an almost exclusively white population. As a result that school was made up of exclusively white students.

What the local authority did was shut down both schools. They then opened one big school - the Waterhead Academy - that sat on the border of both catchment areas and mixed all the Muslim and white students together. This not only forced the children to interact with each other it also meant that the parents had to start interacting with each other through things like the Parent Teacher Association (PTA) and the school board of parent governors.

Even taking Islam out of the equation integrated education and school has long been recognised as a mechanism for social cohesion. It is being particularly pursued in Northern Ireland through the governmental Integrated Education Fund (IEF) and the non-governmental Northen Ireland Council for Integrated Education  (NICIE).

3.Employment: As with schooling employment provides an environment where people from different ethnic, religious and to a lesser extent economic backgrounds are forced to interact with each other on a daily basis.

However in a freemarket economy it is one where the government and Courts as less able to intervene in order to ensure social cohesion. In fact particularly with the European Human Rights Act and other anti-discrimination legislation it is an area where governments are actually specifically forbidden from interfering.

However it does give me an opportunity to discuss something that has been troubling me for a number of years now. The Boycott, Divest, Sanction (BDS) campaign against illegal Israeli settlements on Palestinian territory.

In my younger, more active days I actually did a lot of work alongside BDS activists particularly in relation to the Defence Systems Exhibition International (DSEI) arms fair that takes place in London, UK every two years. Not only were many of these BDS activists Jewish many of them were actually natural born Israeli citizens.

What these BDS activists would do is carefully research all those companies involved in or profiting from the establishment of illegal Israel settlements in Palestine. That research would go to the extent of looking at the entire corporate culture of those companies.

So if an extremist Zionist in the sort of Avigdor Lieberman mould was looking to replace a more moderate Director on the board of one of those companies the BDS activists would buy up shares in that company and make sure that all other shareholders were aware to the prospective candidates political views. The idea being to make sure the appointment was blocked and prevent the company moving in a more extreme direction.

BDS activists would also look carefully at what each of these companies were actually doing in the occupied territories and prioritise them accordingly.

An example of a company that would be given a high priority for campaigning against would be the US construction machinery company Caterpillar. After all their involvement is limited to simply making profit by selling the Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) bulldozers to smash down Palestinians homes.

An example of a company given a much lower priority by BDS campaigners would be SodaStream.

Their involvement in the occupied territories is much more significant than Caterpillar's with them operating a factory in the West Bank.

However by operating their factory there SodaStream were providing employment for Palestinian workers where jobs are scarce. They were also providing an environment where Israeli Jews and Palestinian Arab were working together in peace and harmony free from the violence and intolerance that plagues much of the rest of Israel/Arab interactions.

Unfortunately in recent years almost all of that precision has completely disappeared from the BDS.

Where before there was lots of research and the careful application of pressure to force companies to consider the ethics of their involvement in the occupied territories there now seems to be an utter hatred of not only all Israeli companies but also all Jews worldwide.

For example having become a major target for BDS SodaStream closed their West Bank factory in March 2016. The 70+ Palestinians who are now unemployed as a result are hardly giving thanks to BDS activists and a lot of people are left mourning this example of relative harmony between Israeli Jews and Palestinian Arabs. Caterpillar still makes a fortune selling bulldozers.

In 2014 the actress Scarlett Johansson did a controversial Super Bowl commercial for SodaStream that seemed to gently mock the increasingly hysterical BDS campaigners.

What I found interesting is that amid all the controversy is that even amongst the more extreme Arab press where highlighting someones Jewishness is still considered a form of insult because of her blond hair and blue eyes very few people actually picked up on the fact that Scarlett Johansson is Jewish.

I would make a joke about the Nazis making the same mistake about her ancestors. But there's probably some truth in that.

The Eurovision community itself has rather suffered from this rising tide of anti-Semitism is recent years.

For a long part of the Song Contest's history Israel's fortunes were carefully tied to their aggression towards the Palestinians. So for example if the Israelis were being particularly aggressive a good song would be marked down accordingly while if they were being more peaceful a bad song would be marked up. How good an entry Israel made in relation to their Palestine policy was one of the areas of great political artistry within the contest.

In recent years though that too has disappeared to be replaced by a deafening chorus of: "Kill The Jews!" and last year Israel threatened to quit the contest if they didn't start receiving more equitable treatment. As such it was reassuring that their particularly strong entry this year did deservedly make it through to the final.

Most worryingly this rising tide of anti-Semitism seems to have spread beyond the BDS campaign and Eurovision to infect large parts of the European left.

A prime example of this was the recent suspension by the UK Labour Party of Naz Shah for making extremely anti-Semitic comments. This was followed up by senior Labour Party figure Ken Livingstone attempting to defend her by claiming that Adolf Hitler was a secret Zionist because of the Haazara Agreement.

In both cases Labour supporters lept to both Ms Shah and Mr Livingstone's defence claiming that there was absolutely nothing anti-Semitic about their comments and they were merely protesting Israel's illegal occupation of Palestinian territory. Ms Shah in particular had attempted to deny the entire history of not only the middle-east region but also of the entire Jewish religion.

If people cannot identify that as anti-Semitic then they are either aggressively anti-Semitic themselves or are so extremely stupid that they have no understanding of the situation whatsoever. Either way as a Socialist I want absolutely nothing to do with them.

I think the problem with the European left really began following the September 11th 2001 (11/9/01) terrorist attacks against the United States. In response to this the American right seemed to declare every Muslim - and a fair few Sikhs - to be terrorists.

In response to that to show their opposition the European left sort of started to bestow this almost Messianic status on Muslims whereby they're all sainted, good people who cannot possibly lie and don't engage in terrorism. Those who do are simply freedom fighters responding to the oppression of Guantanamo Bay and American Imperialism.

Even after Mohammed Emwazi had been revealed as ISIL's self-styled executioner-in-chief "Jihadi John" there were still those and are still those amongst the British left prepared to defend him. They claim he is merely an innocent victim of British Islamaphobia and racism rather than the a*rsehole he very clear was.

The reality of course is far more complicated than either the American right, the European left or anyone else who engages in this sort of school yard nonsense could bring themselves to understand.

There are roughly 1.7bn Muslims on the planet with big divisions between not only the Sunni and Shia branches but also between the Salafi and Sufi interpretations of those branches to name just a few.

So as with Christians, Jews, Sikhs, Buddhists, Hindus and all the other religions the vast majority of Muslims are kind, peaceful, reasonable people.

However there is a tiny minority who are utterly opposed to things like religious freedom and ethnic tolerance. Some of that minority are prepared to use violence to achieve their aims so pose a significant security risk to those who don't agree with them.

In fact I would go so far as to say that the European left's insistence that all Muslims are one thing or the other is in itself a form of racism.

The fourth main plank of Britain's success in race relations is the policy of multiculturalism. At around 16:55 on 29/5/16 (UK date) I will try and deal with that along with a bit of a tidy up after dinner.

Edited at around 18:10 on 29/5/16 (UK date) to add above & below;

4.Multiculturalism. This is something that has been practised by successive British governments since at least the 1970's. Far from being just a mere buzzword it is actually a carefully developed political philosophy.

Essentially it dictates that rather than being forced to adopt the cultural practises of their new homeland immigrants are free to continue practising their own culture. Provided their culture doesn't impede on the rights of other people in their adopted homeland.

As always when it comes to balancing the rights of different individual citizens within a society what sort of compromises are considered reasonable under multiculturalism is an extremely complicated and evolving set of legal, moral and political questions. I am certainly not going to be able to give a definitive answer here and I don't think anyone ever will.

Obviously there are some situations where the answer is easy.

For example if you don't want to eat pork or a woman wants to wear a headscarf it makes absolutely no difference to me. However if you are starting to talk about passing laws or even creating a societal peer pressure whereby nobody is allowed to eat pork and all women must wear a headscarf then you are starting to behave unreasonably by impeding on the rights of others.

By the same token you couldn't suddenly declare that rape, murder and theft are part of your culture and therefore your right to commit those illegal acts is protected under multiculturalism.

Quite an interesting example from British law that's built up over recent years relates to Sikhs and the carrying of offensive weapons.

It is one of the five articles of the Sikh faith that men must carry a sword or knife known as a "Kirpan" with them at all times. However British law prohibits the carrying of most knives in public in order to reduce violent crime such as murder, assault and armed robbery.

Although I can't pretend I'm up to date on the latest guidance to prosecutors there has been extensive debate over the years as to how reconcile Sikh's duty to carry a Kirpan with the offence under Section 139 of the Criminal Justice Act 1988.

I seem to remember that a specific design of a Kirpan is defined in case law. Therefore if a clearly very observant Sikh man who is upholding the other four articles of faith - Kesh, Kangha, Kara, Kachera - is found in possession of a Kirpan which is say 4 inches rather than the permitted 3.5 inches in length it is impossible for them to have committed the criminal offence.

However if they suddenly start carrying a machete up and down the High Street or use their Kirpan to murder someone they're still going to go to prison.

Another quite interesting example that's cropped up in London recently concerns Pentecostalist Christians from sub-Saharan Africa. Although there doesn't seem to be any fixed rules for Pentecostalism many practitioners still believe in demonic possession. As such they regularly conduct exorcisms to rid naughty children of evil spirits.

Many of these exorcisms can be both physically and psychologically extremely violent. Therefore they break various UK laws against child abuse. It is becoming an increasing problem for child social services to know when to step in to protect the children and when to stand back and respect the cultural practises of their parents.

A current example from the Eurovision area that does directly relate to Muslims in particular comes from Switzerland.

Here two Muslim boys - of unspecified sect - aged 14 and 15 refused to shake the hand of their female teacher as is expected under school rules. They argued that their interpretation of Islam forbids them from that type of physical contact with members of the opposite sex whom they are not related to.

The school in the town of Therwil in the Basel-Country Canton caused uproar by accepting this argument and refusing to punish the boys for violating school discipline.

The national education authority then got involved. It ruled that the local authority had violated the teacher's right not to be discriminated against at work on the basis of gender by not disciplining the boys and threatened a USD5,100 fine if the school did not reverse its decision.

I understand that this is an ongoing debate within Switzerland. However at the risk of being ostracised by the European left I think that the boys should do what they are told.

After all if they can't find a way to reconcile that sort of completely non-sexual touching with their religion they are going to have extreme problems both with women and living in a European society for the rest of their lives.

19:20 on 29/5/16 (UK date).