Shitholes

Donald Trump has asked "Why are we having all these people from shithole countries come here?". I can imagine the population of Rotherham might very well be asking the same question.

No doubt even asking the question is racist according to Twitter. The accusations will flow from those people who ordinarily demand "evidence based policy" but are at the same time convinced by the argument "The Somalian taxi driver who dropped me off last night said he couldn't read or write but his daughter is training to be a cancer doctor in our beloved NHS".

In other news, apropos of nothing, two civilians were killed yesterday when officers fired live rounds to disburse crowds that attacked a police station in Pakistan on Wednesday in a protest over the rape and murder of a 7-year-old girl. Police recovered the body of Zainab Ansari on Tuesday from a garbage dumpster in the town of Kasur in eastern Pakistan, four days after she was reported missing.

It was the twelfth incident of a girl being abducted, raped, and killed in the past year in Kasur district, police say. Residents have been furious at the authorities for what they see as a failure to investigate such cases.

Pakistan is presently “mainstreaming” misogynist tribal justice. In August, a 15-year-old girl, attempted to elope with her boyfriend. Before she could meet him, relatives found her and brought her home. Although both families agreed on a swift marriage for their children, a jirga, or tribal council, demanded blood. Obeying its edict, Ms Bakht’s father drugged and then electrocuted her. Her boyfriend was murdered by his own father in the same way the next day, restoring “honour” in the eyes of the jirga.

Such barbarism has become synonymous with jirgas, a traditional form of justice that blends tribal and Islamic customs with the whims of participants. Despite a law passed in 2011 that allows police to arrest members of jirgas suspected of “anti-women” practices, grotesque abuses continue unabated, activists say. Mukhtar Mai, who was gang-raped on the orders of a jirga in 2002 as recompense for a sexual assault supposedly committed by a male relative, recently lamented that her subsequent campaign to curb the use of jirgas had not succeeded. Just three months ago a girl, aged 16, suffered a horrifically similar “revenge rape” in the same province. Instead of trying to stamp out jirgas, however, the government has decided to integrate them into the formal justice system.

This is according to that renowned ultra far right publication "The Economist". Meanwhile, today the Guardian hails "a great milestone" as Somaliland finally adopts legislation outlawing rape.

This has ramifications for the UK. In the early days of Ukip, there was an attempt to field two muslim candidates in Bradford. Both were forced to step down after death threats from Labour rivals, having been told their relatives in Kashmir would be killed if they didn't. For safety reasons this was never reported by the local press. We do not, therefore, have a full picture how extensive this is. What we do know though is that the local politics of Northern mill towns and "shitholes" like Tower Hamlets are very much influenced by the tribal politics of Pakistan.

So while the media and polite society gasp in horror at the "rudeness" of Donald J Trump, in the face of local authorities who are unable and unwilling to act on these such issues, it does seem reasonable to ask; why are we having all these people from shithole countries come here?