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This is untrue. There was plenty of hate for Pakistani muslims in the 80s and 90s when this started. So that cannot be the whole story. The first reason it wasn't stopped and why white prostitution gangs still operate in the same way is that no-one really cares about the victims. Underclass girls who drink and do drugs and are from broken homes or in care are seen as a problem, as scum. I've heard the cops say it, in towns just down the road from Rotherham. Their own families barely care for them let alone anyone else.
That is the true and ongoing failure here. Condemned by conservatives for loose morals and sin and condemned by liberals for being chavvy and ill educated and low class.
They will continue to be victimised by one group or another for these reasons. Its Russian gangs in London, Sectarian ones in Northern Ireland, but the victims remain the same.
A lack of hate is not the issue by far. There is more than enough of that. It's not enough compassion. Not enough love.
Child prostitution is popular because there are always men who will pay for it. Always. Lock up the offenders of course, but just like with drug dealers, a new one will be along in a minute. You have to want to protect the victims not just punish the guilty. You have to want to see them not as a problem but as broken girls from broken homes who need help and treatment. But they aren't easy to work with or help so even the most compassionate of social workers or police officers becomes a jaded burned out cynic soon enough. I've seen it happen in my days working in social care. So then the cops treat the girls as prostitutes and drug addicts not as vulnerable children. No humans involved as the saying goes.
That is the almost insumountable problem. Anyone who wants to help is set against an almost unending torrent of misery and exposed to the sordid underbelly of human desire. Not many come out of it with their compassion intact. But that is what is needed, not more hate.
Have you commented anywhere around here on the refugee and resistance goings-on in Ireland? Seeing ladies getting run roughshod by the police is a bit strange to this American.
Not meant to be a gotcha of any sort, just asking since your commentary on the UK tends to be thoughtful and much more charitable than I'll see anywhere else. Not around as much as I used to be and figured I'd missed it if it's come up.
Not really, I'm from Northern Ireland, and I lived in England for a long while, so those are the places I know best. My insight into the South of Ireland is likely to be slightly superficial. I was raised Protestant so I don't have a lot of close links south of the border.
Dublin, I know is expensive and its likely immigration is contributing to that, and I think the Irish government much like the English has been reasonably pro-immigration for some time, so I'd imagine its the same pressures driving resentment as elsewhere. The Gardai don't to my knowledge have much of a reputation for unnecessary brutality, but they are part of the establishment and its very easy for an us vs them mentality to result in overreaction. To see the mass of people not the individuals.
@FtttG may have more local knowledge.
I appreciate your kind words by the way.
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You also have to keep in mind that the actions of the public were stymied by their own government. There was no mechanism for driving out the Pakistani rape gangs because the cops were running cover for them — to the point that today, cops waste time and resources tracking down people posting mean things about the rotherham gangs and Pakistanis in general, while still not doing much about said rape gangs.
I think vigilante justice would probably be a perfectly reasonable way to keep grooming gangs from acting openly. They’d know that if they hang around primary schools they’re going to face consequences from the community, and they … don’t do it. They know that if they touch a girl they face being hung from a telephone pole, they’re not going to be doing that. Keeping Pakistani men from being able to gain access to children, and being willing to actually punish wrongdoing is protective. And as far as im concerned, noting who is likely to do harmful things to your community and acting to keep them out is a social good.
To be clear the anti-racist stuff was certainly the reason those particular gangs were able to last longer than they should.
Though I'll note cops in the 80s and 90s were not running cover and it still happened thats why it isn't the whole picture.
The problem is no-one actually wants to hang around the schools these girls go to and protect them from Pakistanis or anyone else. Are you going to hang out in schools and care homes in Stoke on Trent? In run down city centres with drug addicts shooting up around the corner and breaking into your car? And the local alkies shambling around? You're going to be there all day everyday? You won't and nor will anyone else, is the point. Regardless of Pakistani grooming gangs, no-one cares enough to start vigilante gangs. The odd attempt to burn down a mosque is the best you're going to get.
I want to be really clear, I worked in city government in the Midlands and large numbers of Pakistani immigrants are a huge problem for multiple reasons, over-representation in child prostiution gangs being one among many. But class attitudes towards lower and underclass girls are a huge part of why they are victims all across the country and people don't care.
You ask why the average Brit won't riot to protect these girls? Because to most of them they are just as much the outgroup as Pakistanis. Worse even because they should know better. Even with the cops blessing there aren't going to be lynch mobs over this. Not until most of the victims are nice middle class girls.
That's bullshit covering for them, because the government actively went after a) anyone who tried to do anything, like the girls' dads, and b) anyone who tried to bring it to public attention.
"Ohh we're just so lazy" would be a better excuse if the coverup wasn't so active. And yes, I was there in the 80s and 90s, and local governments were absolutely running cover just as much back then. I remember the "minorities can do no wrong, so the police had better find no wrong" attitudes of the time, and I'm very much not surprised you were mixed up in it.
Stop lobbing personal attacks, especially with no foundation in anything the person you're attacking said.
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When we say "the government went after the girls' dads", we are talking about dads who had been kicked out of their daughters' lives for reasons. Sometimes the mundane - there was a messy breakup, Mum got the kids, and Mum doesn't find Dad's continued involvement convenient. Sometime the kids had been taken away because Dad was abusing them too - both Pakistani and white rape gangs preferentially targeted girls in children's homes. But the criminal charge against the fathers was variants on "violating a restraining order" rather than "being a racist".
Pakistani rape gangs did not go after girls with married parents. Even in the UK, the fraction of married fathers whose attitude would be "I'll kill him, go to prison, and expect to have a tolerable time there after the other inmates find out I'm in for murdering a sex offender" is too high to risk. Particularly in the working-class neighbourhoods of Rotherham.
And it seems like these girls went to the grooming gangs willingly. Even for teenagers, that's not the sort of thing they'd do if there was a dad in her life.
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Beat bobbies in the 80's were calling Pakistanis Paki scum and much worse things. They were not running cover for them. That didn't start until it got up to the political levels (as you point out). "Paki-bashing" was still common through the 1980s. The "anti-racism" of not wanting to incriminate Pakistani communities was a direct reaction to that behavior. I was in the Midlands in the 80s working with the police (albeit in adult social care not children's). My first wife is from that working class background. I saw exactly the treatment those girls got from their own families and communities, let alone anyone else.
There is simply no widespread movement (even now!) to help these girls. Whether it is to protect them from prostitution gangs, to protect them from county line gangs or often their own families.
I'm not covering for anyone. I am telling you WHY even after all the revelations the reaction from Brits is still pretty muted. If they wanted to protest over it in numbers they could. If they wanted to make it a huge deal they could, just like Brexit. For Brexit, Labour strongholds who hated the Tories with the burning passion of a million flaming Maggie Thatcher's torching mining unions with a flamethrower were willing to flip. But for these girls? Barely a peep.
The average middle class liberal will talk about how its just awful, but will they actually be willing to pay more taxes to help these girls? No. Will they adopt troubled young "chav" girls in care homes? No. Actions speak louder than words, and the actions of the Great British public shows us exactly where these girls come in the hierarchy of care.
Believe me I have my own issues with Pakistani communities particularly in the Midlands, and I have no love for them. But we cannot ignore our own failings to protect these vulnerable girls and how that is even more widespread, simply due to demographics. If we do, we are failing these girls even harder than we already did and are.
By all means lock up every Pakistani grooming gang member and throw away the key. I won't shed a tear. Want to zero immigration from Pakistan? I'm all on board. In fact, I recommended that in the 1990s, when I joined central government. Condemn anti-racists for running cover? Go off King! (or whatever the kids of today say).
But if we do not pair that with staring into the face of own monsters, with our own biases and apathy, well the men grooming and drugging and raping these girls might then be white, but I don't think that is much comfort personally.
The demand for underage kids is ubiquitous whether we are talking Rotherham, Glasgow, Belfast, Epstein Island or Diddy parties. There will always be predators. Protecting the prey better, protects them against all predators whether wolves, foxes or coyotes. Otherwise you'll come back from hunting the wolves to discover the foxes ate your chickens.
I am not saying not to hunt the wolves. I am saying putting up a chicken coop is part of the solution. And observing people don't care about doing that, gives us information about what those people actually care about.
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