Racism Past & Present

Racism is raising its ugly head today and everyday. The rise of racism is due to the Reform party and Farage. People believe that he is just like them. He is actually a public school boy from Dulwich College and a millionaire so-called businessman and politician who is renowned for allegedly being one of the laziest of them all. A famous quote by American President Franklin D Roosevelt,( president during the Second World War,)

“Religious intolerance, social intolerance and political intolerance have no place in American life.” His other famous quote is “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.” Farage plays on your fears but you can stand up to him. You just have to make the effort.

What we see around us is more and more hatred. It is turning us into a more and more divisive society; us against muslims, us against Jews, us against black people, us against Asians but always we protect the rich and anti-poor, always attacking people on benefits. 

Why do we want this? I am not religious at all but Jesus did say that we should love our neighbours as ourselves. I see the world as a gigantic neighbourhood not a place where we hate each other.

These attitudes are not new, but we have to protect the weak and support people who are asylum seekers and people who are on benefits whether they are white or people of colour.

John Lennon once said, “Don’t hate what you don’t understand”. That is the problem because hate comes from ignorance. Einstein once said, “the more I learn, the more I realise how much I don’t know.”

Being ignorant is not something to be proud of so when you say or think that you do not know something, then FIND OUT. It is like when you see some litter, as they say in the TV programme “The war between the Land and the Sea”, the last words when someone is ignoring her and dropping litter, the detective gets angry and takes out her gun and shouts, “PICK IT UP”. So we should care about our environment and people.

In Glasgow there is a refugee charity called Refugeewee which helps refugees to find accommodation and to learn English, although most of them have basic English. Selina Hales who runs this programme is dreading the arrival of Farage as he is so divisive and Glasgow is known for its tolerance. 

As she says, “We are very privileged in that we get to see the larger community response, which is: what can I do? How can I share? What do you need at the moment? That’s a beautiful thing.”

We should be proud of the Glaswegians.

If we look back at the past there is a point when, between my youth and now, when Britain was known all over the world for its tolerance. That is over. We are now famous all over the world for hatred of foreigners. This is so shameful.

As a student, I demonstrated against the South African government for its apartheid. Nelson Mandela was in prison at that time. At these demonstrations, once I was beaten up by the police and once thrown into a police cell. In those days there were no such things as mobile phones, so the police had cameras and would take photographs of us.

At that time it was the National Front that we were against in Britain. They were the Bovver boys with boots with red laces. When we were demonstrating against the Front the police at that time in East London were also very racist. One example of this was of a man of colour was at the bus stop going to work at Fords in Dagenham. He was arrested as part of the demonstration.

A young Asian lad wearing an orange anorak was arrested. My mother who was with me on the demo went up to a police officer and told him that the young man had done nothing. The policeman’s response was, “Just move along and mind your own business”. She asked for his number and he said that he did not have one as he was an inspector. My elderly mother went to every police station in the East End and found him by the colour of his anorak. She told him that she and her daughter would stand up for him in court. 

My mother had a huge sense of justice. We got him off but the police had made up a story, committing perjury. The magistrate’s court was known as the Police court in the old days. The magistrate then said, “This case is properly brought.” I asked the lawyer what that meant and she said that we could not get the police for perjury because of that statement.

I lived in Barking at one point which was incredibly racist and Margaret Hodge, their MP worked very hard to eradicate this attitude. She was amazing. My mother and I were at a local fete and discovered that the National Front had a stall. My mother was furious and went up to them and told them how disgraceful they were. One of them turned to her and said,

“Don’t worry love when we get the gas ovens back you’ll be the first in there.”

Now we call them the Right wing whereas there is so much racism there we should call Reform the National Front. It is just breeding hatred and the name Reform gives them a sense of respectability. The fact that their people are winning in the polls is extremely worrying. It means that local people are voting for hatred.

As I said before, tolerance in this country has gone. Those who are still tolerant try to talk to people about how awful racism is and how it breeds hate. It is shameful that racism is now seen as OK and that people can express their hatred. What a tragedy for our country.

The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of the Llanelli Standard and Red Brand Media.