The English Defence League; 'Real' immigrants
Thinking Allowed
BBC
4.4 • 997 Ratings
🗓️ 13 July 2016
⏱️ 28 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
The English Defence League: A study of the individuals who comprise this far right movement. Hilary Pilkington, Professor of Sociology at the University of Manchester, provides fresh and timely insights into a politics built on English identity and opposition to 'Islamism'. They're joined by Nasar Meer, Professor of Comparative Citizenship and Social Policy at Strathclyde University,
Who's a 'real' immigrant and who's 'not really' an immigrant? Martina Byrne, Lecturer in the School of Social Policy, Social Policy and Social Justice at University College, Dublin, discusses her study into middle class attitudes to immigration. Why do white Irish professionals consider that white Eastern Europeans are immigrants but white French and Australians are not? Producer: Jayne Egerton.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | This is a Thinking Aloud Podcast from the BBC and for more details in our terms of use and much, |
| 0:06.2 | much more about thinking aloud and go to our website at BBC.co.uk. |
| 0:12.3 | Hello, I was at this metropolitan dinner party some months ago and a large man at the end of the table |
| 0:18.1 | embarked on a very long story about how pleased he'd been by the skill and commitment of the Polish builders who'd helped to |
| 0:24.4 | transform his attic into a children's playroom. Oh, you know, you see the great thing |
| 0:28.7 | about those polls, said the man is that they know what they're good at you see |
| 0:31.8 | because unlike British work |
| 0:33.0 | when they don't feel that hard work or dirty work is is somehow beneath them. |
| 0:37.4 | Well it was at this point that my companion for the evening gente suggested the man |
| 0:41.3 | was being racist. Why did he assume that Polish people |
| 0:44.5 | were somehow better suited to man your work than others? Is it perhaps, she asked |
| 0:48.8 | sarcastically because they come from peasant stock? Well the man was only mildly disconcerted. Well I'm sorry he said |
| 0:56.3 | but you've got me completely wrong you see fortunately I'm not a racist. Well in today's |
| 1:01.5 | program we'll be considering two studies which although based in very different |
| 1:05.2 | locations set out to examine the real beliefs of those who declare often with all the assertiveness |
| 1:10.0 | of my dinner companion that they are simply not fortunately racist. |
| 1:16.0 | Well we begin in the Republic of Ireland, a country which at least at governmental level |
| 1:20.8 | has prided itself on its degree of tolerance towards outsiders. |
| 1:24.8 | As recently as 2013, a government-backed website was issuing this explicit invitation. |
| 1:31.3 | From a rock in the middle of the ocean we have populated the globe with approximately |
| 1:35.3 | 70 million O Sullivan's, Murphys and Walshes, not to mention the roughly one million Irish-born |
| 1:40.9 | people who are currently living abroad. Of course we don't |
... |
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