International treasure Andrew Rilstone has been writing regularly on the dire UK paper the Daily Express. He has a particularly good line in dissecting the rhetoric to get at the transactional impact underneath.
In this post, which I’ve been meaning to link to here for several weeks, he digs into the 2006 installment of that hardy Christmas perennial in UK journalism, Political Correctness Has Gone Mad And Is Stealing Our Christmas. It is a classic example of Rilstone’s biting, deadpan analysis and bitter humour, but then it goes the extra mile in quite a surprising and splendid way and puts the whole thing in a broader context. Check this out:
I think that the Express is engaged in a pretty transparent attempt to radicalize the White community. It is systematically running news stories which conflate Christianity with Englishness;and that equate Islam with foreign-ness. If the English can be persuaded to use Bibles, Stamps, Prince Charles, Silver Crosses and very occasional church-going as signifiers of national identity, then they will start to perceive themselves as part of White Community. If they perceive themselves as part of a Community, then they will also perceive themselves as different from members of the Veil-Wearing Community. If ‘England’ is defined as ‘a Christian Country’ and dark skinned people are defined as ‘Muslims’, then dark-skinned people are outsiders, full stop.
If you are in the UK, go read the whole post, and then bookmark Mr Rilstone and read him regularly. You won’t regret it.
(If you are not in the UK, you really should do exactly the same thing. It’s just that good.)