Tolerance cannot mean
one side does all the tolerating.
Tolerance Is a One-Way Street is RebelliousBard’s rejection of a version of multiculturalism he believes demands endless accommodation from Britain while treating criticism of imported cultures, religions and practices as intolerance in itself. The song moves through knife attacks, religious exemptions, grooming gangs, flags and accusations of racism to make one deliberately uncompromising argument: tolerance that can only ever be demanded from the host society is not mutual tolerance at all.
Another day, another headline they try to hide “Community tensions”, yeah, right, they’ve lied
Knives in the street, tolerance on repeat
But only one direction. feel the heat
Another blade in the night, another kid on the ground
They tell us it’s “enrichment” best not make a sound
Nowak bleeding out, but the story’s been spun
Kirpan exemption sacred, till the damage is done
Last night in Belfast, Stanley knife to the neck
Sudanese welcome, try to take off a head
Sikh speakers debating if Nowak’s grave’s for a piss
While the papers cry “backlash” and give tolerance a kiss
One-way street of tolerance, bows and bent knees
Our culture’s “problematic” but theirs? Hands off, please
Tolerance is a one-way street, mate, don’t you know?
Celebrate their knives, their courts, their “no-go”
We fight for our pubs, our flags, our way of life
And we’re the racists, while the bodies pile high
Tolerance is a one-way street, see the signs?
Import the problems, ignore the warning signs
Grooming gangs rolling, thousands of girls betrayed
But questioning Sharia? That’s the crime they’ve made
Burqas in the classroom, Sharia in the shade
Criticise it softly “Islamophobe” grenade
Demand we bend over for every faith and rite
But wave the Union Jack? You’re far-right overnight
They carve their exceptions, we swallow the cost
Multicultural utopia, paradise lost
Tolerance is a one-way street, mate, don’t you know?
How many more Nowaks, how many Belfast nights?
Stanley blades swinging under tolerance lights
One rule for the guests, another for the host
Britain’s great experiment, who’s paying the most?
Tolerance is a one-way street, mate, don’t you know?
Celebrate their knives, their courts, their “no-go”
We fight for our pubs, our flags, our way of life
And we’re the racists, while the bodies pile high
One-way street. one-way street
Tolerance is a one-way street, mate
How many more? How many more?
One-way street. till it all falls down
Tolerance Is a One-Way Street followed closely from the events that had already fed into I Don’t Think You Have, Mate. Henry Nowak had been stabbed and, while under arrest, told an officer that he had been stabbed only to receive the now-infamous response that gave the earlier song its title. Within weeks, footage from Belfast showed another horrifying knife attack in which a man appeared to repeatedly slash at another man’s head and neck with a Stanley-style knife. For RebelliousBard, the proximity of the two incidents intensified a much broader frustration already building around immigration, religious and cultural accommodation, grooming gangs and the language used whenever those subjects become uncomfortable. The song asks why tolerance is so often presented as something Britain owes to everybody arriving within it, while expecting reciprocal respect for British culture can itself be condemned as intolerant.
