Enoch Powell on The Rivers of Blood speech. Powell argued that although many thousands of immigrants wanted to integrate, he contended that the majority did not, and that some had vested interests in fostering racial and religious differences with a view to the exercise of actual domination, first over fellow-immigrants and then over the rest of the population. Powells peroration of the speech gave rise to its popular title. He quotes the Sibyl prophesies in the epic poem Aeneid, 6, 86–87, of wars, terrible wars, / and the Tiber foaming with much blood. As I look ahead, I am filled with foreboding. Like the Roman, I seem to see the River Tiber foaming with much blood. That tragic and intractable phenomenon which we watch with horror on the other side of the Atlantic but which there is interwoven with the history and existence of the States itself, is coming upon us here by our own volition and our own neglect. Indeed, it has all but come. In numerical terms, it will be of American proportions long before the end of the century. Only resolute and urgent action will avert it even now. Whether there will be the public will to demand and obtain that action, I do not know. All I know is that to see, and not to speak, would be the great betrayal. Enoch Powell
Posted on: Sat, 02 Aug 2014 11:23:30 +0000
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