Balance, schmalance

In any war there are innocent casualties.

This dance troupe was to have appeared in the UK on Friday and Saturday - dancing and teaching and generally making a living and bringing a bit more of the magic of Arabic and Turkish dancing to our already culturally-diverse land. I like them. Alas, immigration have not let them in. Here's the cancellation message from the festival organisers.

It is with deep regret that we have to announce that Shakra will not be appearing. They were refused entry to the UK on arrival at Heathrow this morning. We have had no contact with them directly as yet, and Heathrow Immigration officers have given us very little useful information.

I'd be the last person to say that immigration officers shouldn't do their very best to keep out political or racial firebrands, terrorists or their bankers and cheerleaders, or spongers intent on finding British dole and subsidized housing and spending our taxes on a life of idleness.

Perhaps one or more of these ladies is a dangerous subversive whose plan was to justify the ways of our nation's enemies and so to encourage support for those enemies, like those good ol' gals the Tricksie Dicks, or perhaps there was an anonymous tip-off from an embittered rival hoofer, or a clerical error by an erroneous clerical officer, or at least there was some evidence against these sinister-looking women in their tribal goth uniforms with their menacing pale skins, and...

As Dumb Jon points out, there may be a slight imbalance in what our authorities are doing regarding the political rights of unfunded British subjects with their hateful, crackpot, ahistorical and distasteful notions who go along with the whole 'European peoples' thing, and those who have, uh, higher standards of right and wrong and who shouldn't be upset in case they get worse, or imprisoned because that's where the recruiting goes on.

'Norman Saladin Fte'qcha, you are an habitual Infidel...'

Perhaps the Immigration Service has to refuse entry to a fixed quota of non-veiled white American women as the police are doing to make up the numbers of non-Middle-Eastern or sub-Continent arrests they make in terrorism investigations?
Anybody else out there think that innocent people might die in the future as anti-terrorist investigations miss out looking closely at the odd dodgy takeaway or sari warehouse as they make sure they bust enough Methodist chapels and mountain bike shops to meet diversity targets instead? Or as John Horne Took points out ( how I wish he would blog) over at Biased BBC:

This is the first I have heard of this "non-political" civil service group. Who seem to be anything but political, for instance:
"There are a number of demonstrations and petitions we can take part in to raise awareness and demand for an immediate ceasefire. Following the UN resolution which calls for an immediate ceasefire we should all be writing to our MP’s and our Government to push this agenda forward. The links below provide a means to carrying this out, it’s very simple and very quick! There is also some information on the demonstrations taken place so far."
http://csislamicsociety.wordpress.com/2009/01/13/special-bulletin-from-csis-council-of-management/

Will these people also be covered in this:
"Civil servants who are members of extremist groups such as the BNP will face the sack if they “bring their politics to work” and refuse to promote ethnic diversity under a revised code of conduct, The Times has learnt. "
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/politics/article6488106.ece

Now try and find a "Civil Service Christian Society" or a "Civil Service Jewish Society"
No - didn't think they would exist.

Anyway, Shakra aren't coming to Britain this week.

If they are innocent, and it's all been a horrible mistake and they aren't evil international terrorist after all; or drug smugglers; or bringing in hooky electrical goods under the disguise of being vampire dance instructors [and they'd've gotten away with it too if it hadn't been for those interferin' Immigration Officers and that stupid dog] then Britain might be a shinier and more cheerful place, if people were to buy their workout dance album (fight obesity TODAY without dangerous and fascistic legislation) or watch them on grainy You Tube excerpts here, and they might make up a bit of their lost livelihood.


Of course, if they're actually guilty of anything at all; no matter how trivial, including parking offences and spitting, I hope they fry or fly to Guantanamo Bay.


But somehow, I doubt it.