Rotherham, England

My mother remembers how in late 1944 grandpa heard a knock on the door in their apartment in Japanese occupied Manila. Since he was active in the underground, gramps cautiously peered out and was relieved to see that it was only his compadre. He hastened to open the door only to see in the shadows beyond his gibbering compadre the dread figures of the Japanese kempeitai. By then it was too late to run and for the next three days, mom and the rest of the family waited at home in despair, knowing he almost certainly never return. But on the fourth day, to their surprise and delight, gramps (then aged 52) staggered back home battered but whole with an extraordinary story.

He had been brought to Fort Santiago and once the preliminaries were over, taken to a chamber where he was hung upside down and beaten with oar handles and burned with cigarette butts. There is a Japanese phrase for “we have ways of making you talk”. From that upside down view of the world he glimpsed other prisoners like Hans Menzi, later to be owner of the Manila Bulletin, scuttling past the corridor outside carrying buckets of ordure under the direction of the Japanese jailers.

Then an unexpected figure looked through the gap. It was his pre-war Japanese mining engineer friend wearing the uniform of a full colonel in Japanese intelligence. “Ramon, the colonel said, ‘what are you doing here?'” Since the Kempeitai had nothing definite yet, the colonel could pull strings and sprang him from the darkest dungeon in wartime Manila. Gramps went on to fight Japanese stragglers in the battle of Manila. The compadre survived, though gramps never spoke to him again. That unnamed Japanese colonel almost certainly died in the inferno which engulfed Luzon. Grandpa died many years later, one day short of 99, with my mother and I at his side.

The old family story came to mind reading the New York Times account of a modern betrayal: ‘Betrayal of Yazidis Stokes Iraqi Fears of Return to 2006 Sectarian Horrors’. The core of the article is a story of how one Yazidi family was betrayed by their closest family friend, an Arab, Mr. Mare.

The men had helped one another over the years: Mr. Mare brought supplies to Mr. Habash’s community in the years after the American invasion, when travel outside their northern enclave was too dangerous for Yazidis. Mr. Mare bought tomatoes and watermelon from Mr. Habash’s farm and sometimes borrowed money.

But his friend’s assurances did not sit right with Mr. Habash. That night, he gathered his family and fled. Soon afterward, he said, he found out that Mr. Mare had joined the militants and was helping them hunt down Yazidi families.

There’s a moral here, but the most appropriate is probably that the more things change, they more they remain the same, allowing for differences in costume between the Kempeitai and ISIS. It has ever been thus. It’s the guys you trust who can betray you. The enemy will fight you, but you know that already.

Betrayal was in the news again today, when Britain was rocked by allegations that the entire English town of Rotherham had for years been in the grip of an “Asian” gang which raped or kidnapped or abused some 1,400 mostly white underaged girls. The town authorities apparently knew as did the police, but they suppressed the facts out of the fear of being called ‘racist’ and more probably, the physical menaces of these ‘Asians’.

The ‘Asians’ were of course Pakistani Muslims, which is not to say that every apple in the barrel is bad, but nevertheless they were that sort of apple. The British public are momentarily outraged, but the Rotherham officials, including the official in charge of child welfare, aren’t too worried, aware they will be protected by the political system. Roger Stone, the head of Rotherham Council has in fact urged everyone to move on.

No council officers in Rotherham will face disciplinary action, despite the resignation of its council leader, chief executive Martin Kimber has said, after a report found around 1,400 children were sexually exploited in the town over a 16-year period. Council leader Roger Stone said:

I believe it is only right that I, as Leader, take responsibility on behalf of the Council for the historic failings that are described so clearly in the report and it is my intention to do so.

I have always considered my most important job as Leader has been to share my passion for this borough and to work in the best interests of everyone here in Rotherham. I believe my decision to step down, though not an easy one for me to make, does exactly that, allowing a new chapter in the history of Rotherham Borough Council to begin.

And doubtless everyone will move on. There are too many horrors in the world for people to dwell on the fates of 1,400 low income girls from a little town. The reaction of the Pakistani Muslims is also predictable. The Washington Post quotes Muhbeen Hussain, founder of the British Muslim Youth as essentially saying ‘it is your fault for not arresting us’.

the reason the problem has gone on for so long isn’t about race, despite the authorities tiptoeing around the issue. What it is about, he argues, is a lack of accountability. “Saying it’s about race is just an excuse for the failure of the local council. Are they not going to arrest a drug dealer because the Muslims may be upset? It’s ludicrous … as a Pakistani Muslim I don’t find anything within our religion to condone this.”

Doubtless there’s nothing in his religion that explicitly instructs it believers to act thus, but there’s something in the atmosphere. The BBC reports that investigators have only now just discovered “child sexual exploitation is happening in a ‘number of towns’ in different parts of the country”. Rotherham might just be the tip of the iceberg.

But Muhbeen Hussain is at least fighting his side, arguing his cause. Our problem, as Hussain notes, is that the Western elites have quit fighting theirs. If the British authorities really wanted peace with the “Asians”, they should have as he suggests, arrested them. Assent is consent, or may be perceived as such.

You may disagree with Hussein. You may hate what you think is his side. But at least he’s no traitor, not to his side at least. Not like those mealy mouthed politicians in Rotherham. As Daniel Hannan notes “interesting to see whether people in Rotherham keep voting for Labour councils. On the evidence so far, they will.” Because the arrangement is the “Asians” will vote for Labour and in return Labour will let them practice their traditions unhindered under the color of diversity and tolerance. Expect Labour to dominate in Rotherham until the day the Democratic Party loses Detroit.

The role of radical Islam in Britain is as the proxy Brownshirt wing of the Left. The Left knows that if it can terrorize a town into surrendering — and indeed a nation — into surrendering their children with their proxy thugs, then the door is open to everything. Rotherham is not about racism. It is about fascism: about aspiring tyrants with impeccable double-barreled Anglo-Saxon names, wearing fashionable dress nightly luring a passive population into the chute of slavery with dulcet tones over national TV. And if you don’t listen to them, then you’ll heed the boys with the funny hats.

One of the most interesting things about treason is it cannot legally exist in times of peace. “The Treason Clause applies only to disloyal acts committed during times of war.” Even Ethel and Julius Rosenberg were only convicted of espionage. Similarly, Douglas McAuthur McCain, a Chicago born rapper who died in Syria fighting for ISIS is still referred to as an “American” by ABC News. “Jen Psaki, a State Department spokesperson, declined to comment on the matter earlier today ‘out of respect for the family’”.

The greatest safety for traitors lies in quite literally abolishing war. For as long as ‘war’ does not legally exist they can never legally be traitors, not even if they abet the rape and abuse of 1,400 under age girls in a single British town, not even if they fight for ISIS. The principal danger to the Left lies in matters getting out of hand. Should the boys go too far — should their proxies start a de facto war — they will be de facto traitors, in which case all the bets are off. One of the subliminal promises by Left is that the Jihadis will forbear from attacking them should they gain power. And the reason is simple. The Jihad benefits when the Left is in office.

One sure way for a political system in crisis to resolve the problem through war, and then as Barca said: “en batallas tales los que vencen son leales, los vencidos los traidores” which translates to: after a war the winners get to hang the losers as traitors.

But that’s really like destroying the village in order to save it. Since no one in his right mind wants to roll the Iron Dice, society must wrestle with the problem of how to rid itself of traitors without crossing the boundary of war. History’s only guideposts to resolution lie in the dismal continuum of low to medium level conflict characteristic of the troubles in Latin America and the Middle East. If there’s a medicine for treason, it isn’t tasty.

The fundamental truth, as John LeCarre once noted is that “treason is very much a matter of habit”. And for too many years we’ve developed really bad habits. Smiley, watching “Bill again stretched out on the floor in Bywater Street, while Ann played him music on the gramophone” saw it for what it was: a long goodbye without a punchline. However we might want to have the Judas back, he has already boarded the train to another country. Resolvng treason is process of divorce, whatever else you want to call it. In the end, there is always more than one side, and the memories that abide are not all of a single kind. Traitors should remember it is sometimes they who are forgotten.

I am packing my belongings in the shawl my mother used to wear when she went to the market. And I’m going from my valley. And this time, I shall never return. I am leaving behind me my fifty years of memory. Memory. Strange that the mind will forget so much of what only this moment has passed, and yet hold clear and bright the memory of what happened years ago – of men and women long since dead. Yet who shall say what is real and what is not? Can I believe my friends all gone when their voices are still a glory in my ears? No. And I will stand to say no and no again, for they remain a living truth within my mind. There is no fence nor hedge round Time that is gone. You can go back and have what you like of it, if you can remember.

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