THE PAREKH REPORT [9]

‘1.15 Britain is a land of many different groups, interests and identities, from Home Counties English to Gaels, Geordies and Mancunians to Liverpudlians, Irish to Pakistanis, African-Caribbeans to Indians. Some of these identity groups are large, powerful and long-settled. Others are small, new and comparatively powerless. Some are limited to Britain but others have international links; some of the boundaries are clear, some are fuzzy. Many communities overlap; all affect and are affected by others. More and more people have multiple identities - they are Welsh Europeans, Pakistani Yorkshiremen, Glaswegian Muslims, English Jews and black British. Most enjoy this complexity but also experience conflicting loyalties. The term ‘communities’ can give the impression of stable, coherent, historic groups with tidy boundaries. But situations and relationships are changing. It is simply wrong to think that there are easily measured groups of people - working-class Scots, black Londoners, Jews, Irish, ‘middle’ England - who all think alike and are not changed by those around them. For everyone life is more interesting than that.

1.16 The diversity of its population gives Britain important opportunities in the global markets that now shape the world economy. Britain’s potential to become a community of communities is not something to shy away from - its people should celebrate it. In the world developing now, it is perhaps the country’s biggest single advantage.

1.17 Yet the opportunity is in danger of being squandered. It is endangered by the many varieties of racism and exclusion that disfigure modern Britain and that have been woven into the fabric of British history for many centuries. Racism and exclusion spoil millions of lives and waste the optimism and energy of people who could, and should, be building the country’s prosperous future. Aggressive hostility to Islam is expressed in ways unthinkable in relation to other beliefs. Among the best-educated and prosperous new British, there is a trend for re-emigration to the United States and Canada, countries seen as more open and equal. The state’s attitude to asylum-seekers sends a shiver down many spines. Stories of murder, injustices and outrages - the Deptford fire, Quddus Ali, Michael Menson, Ricky Reel, Imran Khan, the Birmingham Six and the Guildford Four, arson attacks on Asian shops, graffiti on mosques - haunt many people’s memories. The inquiry into Stephen Lawrence’s murder and its aftermath confirmed that racist attitudes and assumptions are embedded in the routine working practices and in the occupational cultures of most or all public institutions.

1.18 The essential task, we argue, is to move from ‘multicultural drift’ to a purposeful process of change. Along the way there are profound issues to be resolved. How to decide between the right of a religious community not to be offended by blasphemy or abuse and the right of free-thinkers and secularists to express their views. How to reconcile the right of a newspaper to free speech with the right of groups it attacks to fight back. These are not abstract questions - they crop up all over the country all the time, creating hurt and confusion and mutual suspicion.’

This morbid extract from the Parekh Report is an attempt to paint Britain as being divided and to portray the British - especially the English - as racists.

The comments about the ‘many different groups, interests and identities’ excludes mention of the English as a nation, and only refers to ‘Home Counties English’ as being one of many groups. This is a divide an conquer tactic and is also an attempt to deny that the English were ever a true nation.

Those who the report consider to be ‘comparatively powerless’ [a histrionic description] are intended to be the beneficiaries of anti-racism.

The comment about those who: ‘have international links; some of the boundaries are clear, some are fuzzy. Many communities overlap; all affect and are affected by others. More and more people have multiple identities’, is the argument which Vince Cable has recently peddled in his Demos report. It is a long-standing politically correct argument.

Throughout, the English are presented as being one of many groups, and not as being the host nation, or as composing the overwhelming majority of the population [more than 90% of the population of England are English].

The allegation that by being a ‘community of communities’ is a means of competing on world markets is plainly fatuous. The marketability of goods is not determined by the multicultural pretensions of quangos and pressure groups.

The allegation that ‘racism and exclusion spoil millions of lives’ is hysterical rubbish. Such comments as ‘racism and exclusion that disfigure modern Britain’ is pure race war politics. If Britain was so bad, we would not be suffering the present tidal wave of immigration.

The comment about the ‘new British’ re-emigrating is yet more race war malevolence. If immigrants to this country wish to re-emigrate [eg as many foreign nurses do in order to obtain better pay] then that is not a sign of alleged British racism. It might also be remembered the recent comments Trevor Phillips has made about the USA following the New Orleans disaster [see English Rights Campaign entry dated 5 October 2005], when he held that as proof positive of the kind of society that Britain was in danger of becoming:

‘This is a segregated society, in which the one truth that is self-evident is that people cannot and never will be equal. That is why, for all of us who care about racial equality and integration, America is not our dream, but our nightmare.’

Those comments are the exact opposite of the allegations he was willing to peddle in the Parekh Report when he described the USA as being a country ‘more open and equal’.

The whole basis of Mr Phillips’s recent arguments concerning racial integration [as defined by him] and ethnic ghettos is opportunistic. He is simply twisting facts and events to suit himself as he goes along.

The list of names cited as being victims of racism or injustice by the Parekh Report are exclusively black or Irish. None are English. Not one.

One also needs to examine the details of those names cited. Apart from the IRA aspect to the Irish who are cited, those who are black are not necessarily victims to the extent that is implied by the report. For example, the Deptford fire resulted in 13 black people killed and 27 injured in January 1981. A Guardian report of the inquest and aftermath dated 14 May 1981 states:

‘The Deptford fire achieved a symbolic significance far beyond the actual tragedy, a significance that laid upon the inquest expectations that it could not possibly fulfil. For the bereaved families in particular and black people in general, the reaction of white society to the fire epitomised the indifference and prejudice which they feel surrounds them all the time. Initial police remarks apparently suggested that the cause of the blaze was a petrol bomb. The Government failed to express prompt condolences, yet reacted publicly and fulsomely to the Dublin discotheque fire. These two developments helped seal an unshakeable belief that the Deptford fire was caused by white racialists and that nobody cared.

The misery and suspicion were fuelled and exploited by the New Cross Massacre Action Committee. It was decided right from the start that the tragedy was a racialist "massacre". There was not a shred of evidence to back up this assumption, apart from the highly inconclusive eye-witness account of a white man seen outside the house with his arm raised as if throwing something towards it. Nevertheless, the emotive impact of this theory, plus disbelief that any partygoer could have started such a conflagration even by accident, meant that before the inquest started it would have been impossible for any black person to have doubted openly that a racialist attack had taken place ...

Despite the involvement of 50 detectives who spent more than 40,000 man hours and £320,000 on their investigation, the inquiry provoked such bitterness among the black community that the inquest degenerated into a conflict between witnesses and the police.

These young black witnesses had signed statements at the police station, some of them in front of parents or clergymen, claiming that there had been a fight between two guests. But they all then told the inquest that there had been no fight; they had made false statements under pressure from the police. These charges are exceptionally serious and mean either that the police were guilty of a perversion of justice or that the witnesses committed mass perjury at the inquest. They told lies somewhere, either at the police station or at County Hall - but where? Both scenarios are plausible. The police, having decided that the fire stated as a result of a fight at the party, put pressure on the youngsters to support this theory. Since many of them were in trouble with the police already, and couldn't care less what they said as long as it got them home, they said what the police wanted them to say. Alternatively, they told the police the truth; afterwards, realising the importance of the fight to the police theory, and under heavy pressure to support the white attack explanation, they lied to the coroner.

The forensic evidence didn't help. The pool of liquid "like paint thinners" on the living room carpet was balanced by the baffling discovery of an unexploded incendiary device in the garden.’

The inquest reached an open verdict as the jury was unable to determine what had happened. Their task was not helped by the self-appointed New Cross Massacre Action Committee which caused much mayhem. The inquest itself was badly disrupted from the public gallery.

Yet the Parekh Report cites this as an example of British racism and injustice.

In fact the English are the main victims of racial violence as a Home Office report highlights. This has always been the case. The fact is that the racial hatred by the ethnic minorities towards the English in England is the main cause of racial violence. The racial minorities might only make up 8% of the population, yet the ethnic minority communities committed 55% of the racial homicides that occurred between 2001-04 [with white people being the victims]. This anti-white racism is a long term problem.

That the Parekh commissioners did not cite even one English victim of racial violence is a good example of their own Anglophobia/racism, and of their own twisted ideology.

The Parekh Reports demand for ‘purposeful process of change’ as opposed to ‘multicultural drift’ is simply an argument for more state control over ordinary people’s lives. The Parekh commissioners were simply intolerant of ordinary people being allowed to lead their own lives as they see fit.

The phrase that some might need to ‘fight back’ against a newspaper’s free speech is inflammatory. We already have laws which reconcile free speech with defamation etc. The general public are getting along just fine without yet more state interference. There is not all that much ‘hurt and confusion and mutual suspicion’.

The thrust of the Parekh Report’s lurid portrayal of Britain as racist needs to be compared with the 2002-03 British Crime Survey, which revealed that 2% of blacks claimed to have suffered a racially motivated crime, 3% of Asians and less than 1% whites.

Of course 1% of whites, given that they are the overwhelming majority, constitutes a far greater number than 2-3% of an ethnic minority.

Nor should it be overlooked that there is interracial violence between the ethnic minorities themselves, as has recently been the case in Birmingham where people were killed.

The Parekh Report fundamentally misrepresents the truth for its own neo-communist ideological purposes.