Agree Or Disagree?

[merylpeep]

TONY PARSON writes in THE SUN newspaper: WHEN I see an ice cream van run by a woman in a full-veil, full-body burka, I no longer recognise the country I grew up in. Can this really be England in the 21st century? It looks like a scene from Pakistan or Saudi Arabia. It looks like the Dark Ages in some fundamentalist state in the Middle East. But this is Dewsbury, Yorkshire, in the summer of 2015. In the bright summer sunshine, a little boy approaches one of the most evocative symbols of the season. The name on the side of the van, Rossi’s ice cream, will ring a ding-dong bell in a million hearts who remember the name from their childhood. But I can’t look upon this image with anything but despair. This is where it leads to — our mindless, unthinking tolerance for any and every culture that chose to migrate here. This is where it leads to — our very British reluctance to appear racist, or judgmental or xenophobic. Ghettos have been built on British tolerance. There are ghettos in Yorkshire, Birmingham and leafy High Wycombe. There are ghettos in East London where nobody thinks it remarkable that the wife of the President of the United States can tour a school where almost every girl is wearing the hijab headdress. Everyone dressing the same is NOT diversity. It’s a ghetto. That is the country we have created. We have invited millions in, given them British passports, lavished them with British benefits, made them recipients of British freedoms that our fathers and grandfathers fought and died for. And too often we are rewarded for our kindness with hatred. It is no coincidence that the ice cream lady in a burka was flogging her creamy wares in one of the hotbeds of Islamic madness. It is almost exactly ten years since 7/7 and the mass slaughter on London transport by four suicide bombers. That atrocity was planned from the Dewsbury home of ringleader Mohammad Sidique Khan. And Dewsbury was also the home of wicked Talha Asmal, Britain’s youngest suicide bomber, who ran off to join Islamic State and detonated a car full of explosives. “A sweet-natured, friendly kid,” says the former Labour MP Shahid Malik — a spectacularly insensitive thing to say about someone who has just committed a terrorist act of mass murder. But that is how isolated sections of the Muslim community have become. That is how deluded, self-pitying and plain wrong they consistently get it. At 17, Talha Asmal was old enough to know EXACTLY what he was getting into with the bearded butchers of Islamic State. What the hell is wrong with Dewsbury, a town of 60,000 souls that has inflicted such a mountain of misery on this country and the world? And what is wrong with US that we have allowed these wretched, hateful ghettos to thrive in our own country?
We should not be surprised that three Muslim women in what are described as “very unhappy arranged marriages” choose to take their nine innocent children to live under the fanatical rule of Islamic State.Because we have not insisted on integration from the people who have come here. We have not asked for loyalty. We have not even asked for a little bit of bloody gratitude. Now we reap the whirlwind of all our kind-hearted British tolerance. Now we see we have given entire English towns and city neighbourhoods away to people who have not the slightest inclination to integrate with the rest of us. In one area of Dewsbury, 97 per cent of the population is Muslim. Ninety seven per cent! Does that statistic astound you? It astounds me. David Cameron says that UK Muslims need to do more in the fight on terror. No, Prime Minister, UK Muslims who are totally separated from the rest of British life need to decide if they really want to be a part of this country. Or not. Britain is a wonderful nation. We are ALL lucky to be living here. But ghettos are an affront to everything the British love and they have absolutely no place in British life....

[sandyRoe]

We're doomed, I tell you! Doomed!

[jim360]

What do you mean "oh dear"? The opposite of change is stagnation -- which is, clearly, far from desirable. I expect the changes to the country due to mass immigration to be significant but, on the whole, positive. And heck, it seems better to be optimistic anyway. There's not much we can do about it now, after all. You can stop or curb future immigration levels, but there's not much you can do about the immigration that has already occurred.

[mushroom25]

//I'm sort of struggling to see why a Muslim woman driving an ice cream van is an image of horror. //

it's a photo of a woman - regardless of religious bent - probably breaking every food hygiene rule in the book. if that doesn't fill you with horror, it should, soft ice cream is one of the worst reservoirs of salmonella going, if the rules aren't followed.

[Khandro]

jim; //In the long term, though, change -- even this change -- is healthy for a country.//
Would you care to explain that assertion please?

[whiskeryron]

// jim360,I expect the changes to the country due to mass immigration to be significant but, on the whole, positive // except they have become negative in the extreme.

[douglas9401]

"The opposite of change is stagnation --"

Other antonyms are available, Jim, towit: agreement, sameness, similarity, clearly desirable so let's not get too carried away with ourselves.

[trt]

## //I'm sort of struggling to see why a Muslim woman driving an ice cream van is an image of horror. // ##

How do we know its a woman, it could be a male doing a job that brings him into contact with children, and because the face is covered he/she could be on the sex offenders list!

[jim360]

It seems self-evident, Khandro, that countries that do not change tend to get left behind. Perhaps I should have said "tends to be healthy" rather than is, but arguing that it's better to be static seems bizarre and counter-intuitive.

[Khandro]

Anyone who missed the pic. it's on here;
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3125530/The-breeding-ground-jihadis-ice-cream-lady-wears-burka-great-textile-town-Dewsbury-undergone-terrible-transformation.html

[tamaris]

// Agree Or Disagree?// AGREE

[Svejk]

Ah, see what you mean now, jim. All the other countries that became Muslim are forging ahead and really healthy places to live. ;-/

[Arksided]

Ahh the good old days... Rossi’s ice cream, a very Jolly Italian fella always smiling and singing as he put extra sprinkles on. Heaven forbid this lady does any of those things and would we notice if she did.

[ichkeria]

Italian??
The Italians are taking over I tell you!!
What's wrong with traditional, original British ice cream
Oh hang on ...

[whirlyhurly]

Well, I fully concur with Tony Parson, I despair for our nation. Islam & it's culture is akin to an oil slick ie sly, creeping, becoming the mainstay. The genie is well & truly out of the bottle.

[Arksided]

'Walls' came crumbling down on their patch.

[Svejk]

Great analogy, ichi. Who can forget the Italians bombing our tube trains & decapitating soldiers on the streets of London.
Oh, hang on.

[Gromit]

Parsons clearly knows very little about Dewsbury or he would not have written such a daft OP.

Dewsbury was a mill town and immigration from Asia is not recent. They first came in the 1950s and now 60 years later we have third and fourth generation families lving there.
They do not live in ghettos as Parsons calls them, they mostly live in the poorer neighbourhoods.

As to the picture of the icecream seller being a step too far in terms of our tolerance, that is clearly a ridiculous suggestion. The icecream vendor is a commercial business and will survive or thrive by the ice cream buying public. If the majority of the children in the area that the van was being worked are Asian, then they will see the woman being veiled as not unusual.

The same van and seller may not do very much business in another part of the country that has fewer or no Asian customers. But Dewsbury has a demographic with many people of Asian origin, so it makes sense to employ someone from that culture to work that area.

There is a debate to be had about why people with four generations of living in Britain are being radicalised against us, but that is not where Parsons is coming from. His is a kneejerk reaction to a picture of modern Britain that he has not seen and can't be bothered to understand.

[anotheoldgit]

Gromit

/// Dewsbury was a mill town and immigration from Asia is not recent. ///

Did TONY PARSON ever say it wasn't, or that immigration from Asia was recent?

/// They first came in the 1950s and now 60 years later we have third and fourth generation families lving there. ///

Yes all part and the beginning of Labour's mass immigration programme into this fair land of ours.

/// They do not live in ghettos as Parsons calls them, they mostly live in the poorer neighbourhoods. ///

Ghetto definition: "a part of a city, especially a slum area, occupied by a minority group or groups".

[anotheoldgit]

jim360

/// but there's not much you can do about the immigration that has already occurred. ///

They managed it with us, they kicked out the British to gain their independence.

Perhaps one day in the far distance future, we may also gain independence?