History > 2007 > UK > Racism (I)
Mandela's
message to black Britain
'Scale the mountains':
the call from Mandela to black leaders
Published: 29 August 2007
The Independent
By Cahal Milmo
Nelson Mandela, the hero of the global battle for racial equality, last night
made an impassioned appeal for leading black Britons to take a lead in
countering violence and low achievement in the inner cities.
At the start of a visit to Britain to celebrate his own life, the former South
African president said it was vital that the achievements of the UK's successful
black people were harnessed to inspire those "who scale the mountains with you".
The challenge from the 89-year-old Nobel Peace Prize winner, who will today
unveil a 9ft statue of himself in Parliament Square, comes at a time of intense
debate about the need for a new generation of role models for black teenagers.
A report this month estimated that tackling under-achievement among young black
men and boys would boost the British economy by £24bn over 50 years.
Mr Mandela said the gathering was "testament not only to the achievements of all
of you gathered but also to the ability of a city to harness the talents of all
of those who come in search of opportunity, and all of those who follow them".
Mr Mandela added: "Leadership comes with responsibility. It is important for you
as leaders to harness those responsibilities and ensure that you also empower
those around you who scale the mountains with you."
The message was delivered by Mr Mandela's grandson to a dinner held at the
Dorchester Hotel in Mayfair for leading black Britons to recognise their
success, much of it in areas that go unrecognised by mainstream media.
Mr Mandela said of the gathering: "Although this evening may only represent the
first-ever Londoner Black Leader dinner, it is your job to ensure that this is
only the first of many such events to follow."
Among the guests last night were Stanley Musesengwa, the head of multi-national
sugar conglomerate Tate & Lyle, and Damon Buffini, the boss of the private
equity firm, Permira.
Mr Mandela, who was too frail to attend last night's event, took the opportunity
to underline the message that black communities should be seeking equality
during an earlier visit to Downing Street.
Speaking alongside his wife, Graca Machel, after a meeting with Prime Minister
Gordon Brown, Mr Mandela said: "My wife and I are happy to be here because, as
you know, they were one of our rulers, but we overthrew them. We are on an equal
basis now."
Gordon Brown described the one-time prisoner of apartheid as "the most
inspiring, the greatest and most courageous leader of our generation".
Mr Mandela's intervention takes place amid growing concern that youths in inner
cities are being drawn into gangs because they see a lack of alternatives.
Tony Blair caused anger among black community leaders when he used a speech
shortly before his resignation to insist that a spate of fatal shootings and
stabbings in London was caused by a distinct black culture rather than poverty.
According to Home Office figures, some 75 per cent of gun crime victims - and 79
per cent of suspects - come from the African-Caribbean community.
US civil rights activist the Reverend Jesse Jackson said last week that stemming
the flow of guns and drugs into the UK was "critical".
But he echoed the thoughts of many black leaders when he said that equal
importance needed to be attached to bringing ethnic communities into politics
and investing in issues such as job opportunities, wage inequality, the impact
of debt and day-care provision.
Reach, a report by 20 experts on how to tackle the issues faced by black
youngsters published this month, highlighted mentoring as key measure alongside
investment to prevent the creation of US-style ghettos in the inner cities.
Leading campaigners welcomed Mr Mandela's message. The Reverend Nims Obunge, the
chief executive of the Peace Alliance, a leading campaign group against gang
crime, said: "There is an African saying that it takes a whole village to raise
a child. I believe he is calling on Britain's village elders to take a greater
role in raising the children of our own village."
Dr John Sentamu Archbishop of York
"The criminalisation of generations of black men is being accompanied by the
demonisation of Asian, Muslim men. Criminality does not belong to one ethnic
group, nor is it innate. It is learnt. It is not a 'black problem', it is a
human problem.
"Physical poverty can breed the conditions in which criminality flourishes, but
spiritual and moral poverty will lead to crime. As long as idolatry and rampant
materialism replace faith and hope, criminality will continue to take hold of
our young.
"Ultimately it is not politicians who will lead us out of this but parents. It
is parents who have primary responsibility for teaching values to their children
and it is the duty of the rest of us to support them. There are shared values
that can be both taught and learnt. Values are learnt in the home and then
replicated in the street. If there is a vacuum of values at home, if parents
absolve themselves of this responsibility, the values of the street will be
replicated in the home and violence will come home to roost.
"Parents must shoulder the responsibility for where their children are, who they
are with and what they are doing. The state cannot do this and nor should it be
expected to."
Kano Rapper
"I was raised by a single mother. I know that not having a father affects many
people in a deep way. All young people, black or otherwise, need role models.
And it's true that black people have fewer role models than most. That's why I
want to be one: I know I'm a positive person with a lot to offer.
But politicians who blame everything on family breakdown miss the real point:
broken homes will generally only breed criminals if they're poor. This is about
young people and poverty, not about colour. Except for a few, black people
raised in the UK are not raised by rich families. The children themselves have
to raise cash, and from an early age. Of course some of them will be forced into
crime. Talking about it in terms of race only entrenches the feeling of
difference and opposition amongst communities. If we talk about black people as
being particularly predisposed to crime, suddenly everyone becomes afraid of
black people. As a result, black people feel victimised. It all gives rise to a
kind of 'they don't care about us' feeling within society."
John Regis Olympic medal winner
His nephew, Adam Regis, was stabbed to death in Plaistow, East London, in March
"It's neither useful nor fair to treat this as a 'black' problem. What we're
dealing with is a nationwide epidemic. We have to face up to the fact that a
generation of young people (mostly men) have lost direction. This is largely
because our politically correct adults have lost faith in their own authority.
The result is that children have lost all sense of discipline. We need much
tougher penalties for children who misbehave. That starts in school.
Teachers used to feel confident about asserting their authority, but now they
let kids off lightly because they're fearful of prosecution. This is nonsense:
we need our schools to be strict environments where children are rewarded for
good behaviour and punished for bad behaviour. People like those who killed my
nephew join gangs because they offer a sense of worth. But it is totally false.
Gangs are like families which you qualify for through crime. We need to
demonstrate to young people that family ties are the truest source of love and
security."
Ray Lewis Founder and executive director of Eastside Young Leaders Academy
"Our first flaw has been talking of the 'black community'. That label is hollow:
no such community exists. An absence of community is the major problem on
British streets: it leaves a vacuum filled by crime. Only be re-invigorating
community spirit can we give our young a sense of belonging, regardless of
colour.
"Increasingly, young, black Britons become socially excluded as a matter of
choice. It's important that we recognise that they are active players in this.
Poverty has plenty to do with it, yes, but there is no direct link between
poverty and criminality. Instead, many black Britons live on the margins of
society because they feel a sense of abandonment and alienation. This leads
directly to a collapse in aspiration. Many young black men are suffering from an
identity crisis, and don't know how much of themselves they have to give up in
order to feel British.
"Beyond this, the collapse of family values has gripped many young black men. I
was raised by a single mother, and I don't believe that a single mother can
raise a boy to manhood. No family is complete without a masculine voice and
presence."
Simon Wooley National co-ordinator, Operation Black Vote
"We need to be clear that racism still thrives in the UK, and the depiction of
young black men as criminals is part of that. Black people are still seen as
inferior by most people who aren't black. They are still much less likely to get
a job than their white counterparts. They tend to be born into deprivation. And
deprivation can breed criminality.
The government has openly admitted that black people still face sustained
discrimination within the criminal justice system, for example. It's the
combination of racial inequality and social inequality that has brought us to
our current situation. Black people are unique in suffering heavily from both.
When the two combine it's a massive problem: there is an added dynamic of
deprivation when it comes to race. If we're to move on from this situation,
black people must be the agents of change. We have to break the cycle of
exclusion and start creating opportunities. We need black people to have the
same chances as everyone else in terms of getting jobs and houses. Incentivising
marriage through the welfare system is a total red herring: poverty is the
problem, not single-parent families.
Mandela's message to
black Britain, I, 29.8.2007,
http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/this_britain/article2903556.ece
Mandela Statue Unveiled in London
August 29, 2007
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 9:16 a.m. ET
The New York Times
LONDON (AP) -- Britain unveiled a statue of Nelson Mandela on Wednesday
outside the houses of Parliament, honoring the South African anti-apartheid
campaigner as one of the great leaders of his era.
Mandela, 89, saluted all the South African heroes who joined him in the struggle
against apartheid.
''Though this statue is of one man, it should in actual fact symbolize all those
who have resisted oppression, especially in my country,'' Mandela said at the
ceremony attended by Prime Minister Gordon Brown.
''The history of the struggle in South Africa is rich with the stories of heroes
and heroines, some of them leaders, some of them followers. All of them deserve
to be remembered.''
The 9-foot bronze statue of Mandela joins those of Abraham Lincoln and Winston
Churchill in Parliament Square.
Mandela appeared frail as he made his way to the platform, leaning on the arm of
his wife, Graca Machel. But he spoke clearly as he invited the crowd to
celebrate his 90th birthday next year at a concert in London's Hyde Park in
support of his efforts to combat HIV/AIDS. The concert will support his
foundation, which is called ''46664'' -- the number he wore in prison.
Brown called the statue ''a beacon of hope.''
''It sends around the world the most powerful of messages -- that no injustice
can last forever, that suffering in the cause of freedom will never be in vain,
that no matter how long the night of oppression, the morning of liberty will
break through, and there is nothing that we the peoples of the world, working
together, cannot achieve.''
Mayor Ken Livingstone, anti-apartheid campaigners and community leaders also
attended the ceremony outside Parliament, close to Westminster Abbey. There was
a gospel choir and 40 dancers in carnival costumes.
Mandela came to personify the black majority's struggle to end apartheid,
spending 27 years in jail before being released in 1990. He shared the Nobel
Peace Prize in 1993 with then-President F.W. de Klerk for negotiating the
transition to democratic rule, and the following year Mandela was elected
president of South Africa.
He left office in 1999, but` a continued to lead in the fight against poverty,
illiteracy and HIV/AIDS in Africa.
The campaign to erect a statue of Mandela in London was started seven years ago
by the late Donald Woods, a South African journalist who was driven into exile
because of his anti-apartheid activities.
It was an honor that the young Mandela dared to dream of.
In his autobiography, Mandela said that during a visit to London in 1962 with
his law partner and fellow anti-apartheid leader, the late Oliver Tambo, they
walked together through Parliament Square, and joked that perhaps someday, their
statues would stand there.
------
On the Web:
www.46664.com
(This version CORRECTS year of Mandela visit
cited in autobiography to 1962, not
1972.)
Mandela Statue Unveiled
in London, NYT, 29.8.2007,
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/world/AP-Britain-Mandela.html
A stony reminder
of how Churchill
betrayed black Africa
Two incongruous neighbours
for the new Mandela statue
August 29, 2007
From The Times
Richard Dowden
Nelson Mandela talks to everybody. He has famously gone out of his way to
confront his persecutors by greeting them with respect and a warm smile. The
former President of South Africa is also very polite. If he attends today’s
ceremony to unveil his statue in Parliament Square I would be surprised if he
makes any reference to other figures represented there. But I wonder what the
statues will say to each other when the crowds have gone and the square is
deserted.
Take Palmerston, for example, who was Prime Minister in the 1850s when some
50,000 of Mandela’s own Xhosa people died in a famine triggered by Britain’s
seizure of their lands. Or Disraeli, who helped to carve up Africa with other
European powers at the Congress of Berlin in 1885. Both argued that British
imperialism brought nothing but benefits to people who came under its rule. Mr
Mandela could offer evidence to the contrary from the subsequent history of
South Africa.
But Mr Mandela’s most interesting conversations would be with Winston Churchill
and Jan Smuts, who stand close together near the northeast end of the square.
Churchill, massive, glowering like a bull, Smuts striding out with pious
purpose. We remember these two men, contemporaries and friends, for other
reasons. Smuts, although an Afrikaner, was the only signatory to the peace
treaties that ended both the First and Second World Wars. And he was
instrumental in setting up both the League of Nations and the United Nations.
Smuts was the favoured replacement as prime minister if anything should happen
to Churchill during the war. But in South Africa Smuts and Churchill laid the
foundations of what was to become the apartheid state, the state Mandela
dedicated his life to destroying.
Churchill had been a journalist during the Boer War. He was captured, then
escaped from the Afrikaners. But he became convinced of the justice of their
cause and after the war, argued ferociously in favour of self-rule for South
Africa. A Boer general during the war, Smuts negotiated the surrender of the
Afrikaner army in 1902 and was a key player in the creation of the Union of
South Africa.
During the war Britain had encouraged and armed blacks in the Boer republics to
rise up against their Afrikaner masters. That had given many blacks the belief
that they might enjoy more rights in the British-ruled Transvaal and the Orange
Free State – just as they did in British Cape Province where non-whites had
voting rights based on property. Westminster always insisted on a nonracial
franchise and it was assumed that this would be extended to the whole of the new
South Africa. But the interests of blacks came a long way behind the British
greed for South African gold and the Afrikaners’ belief in racial purity and
their demands for land and self-rule.
The man who should have spoken up for the non-racial franchise was Churchill.
After the war, he had become an MP and in 1905 was made Under-Secretary of State
for the Colonies. Instead Churchill supported the aspirations of the Afrikaners.
He described South Africa as a “war-torn country, still red-hot from race
hatred”. But he was not referring to race as we would understand it. He meant
the mutual hatred of Britons and Afrikaners. Churchill’s solution was a
British-ruled South Africa with virtual autonomy for the Afrikaners.
In 1906 Smuts came to London and proposed self-rule based on a white population.
As the negotiations progressed it became clear that the nonracial franchise was
not going to be introduced in the new South Africa. Although they retained their
property voting rights in the Cape, non-white South Africans were to have no say
in the new parliament.
Churchill accepted this. In a House of Commons speech in 1906 he said: “We must
be bound by the interpretation which the other party [the Afrikaners] places on
it and it is undoubted that the Boers would regard it as a breach of that treaty
if the franchise were . . . extended to any persons who are not white”.
A multiracial deputation travelled to London to protest. It included the premier
of the Cape and several black members of a movement that was to become the
African National Congress. They failed to get a hearing from the Commons and
only saw a minister after the Act giving a new constitution to South Africa had
been passed.
Only the Indians in South Africa managed to keep some of their rights. But not
thanks to Churchill or Smuts. Proposed restrictions on Indian immigrants in
South Africa were only blocked when Gandhi – then a young lawyer there –
launched a mass protest movement.
Although not the Prime Minister, Smuts was the most influential man in the new
Union of South Africa. Under his direction South Africa became a race-based
state. All the laws that were later refined and clarified by Apartheid were
passed while Smuts was in government. Blacks were only allowed in urban areas if
they were there to serve whites. In 1911 skilled jobs were reserved for whites
and black contract labourers were forbidden to strike.
Two years later the Native Land Act sent blacks to the reserves and forbade them
to own land in white areas. Thousands of blacks were uprooted or thrown off
their land. Their only political representation were five “leaders”, nominated
by the Government, who held an annual meeting with the Native Affairs
Commission, white “experts” appointed by the Government. In a second political
incarnation in the 1930s Smuts was part of a coalition government that
strengthened these laws, though Smuts himself argued against stringent
segregation.
So perhaps in the long empty nights, when even Brian Haw and the Iraq war
protesters are asleep, Mr Mandela might ask why so many of his fellow statues
who did so much for human freedom in other contexts seemed to have been on the
wrong side over Africa. It is a question we might ask ourselves today.
Richard Dowden is Director of the Royal African Society
A stony reminder of how
Churchill betrayed black Africa, Ts, 29.8.2007,
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/guest_contributors/article2343767.ece
Role models
are hard to come by
in Peckham
Published: 29 August 2007
The Independent
By Jonathan Brown
A group of youngsters take turns to ride the motorbike up and down Sceaux
Gardens, one of the last of Peckham's post-war housing estates to survive the
post-Damilola Taylor regeneration of this part of South London.
Dressed in the typical uniform of the street, baseball caps, trainers, long
trailing jewellery, every few minutes they break out inexaggerated bouts of
pushing and shouted threats.
One peels notes from a suspiciously large roll of cash. Asked what their opinion
of Nelson Mandela, there was a mixed response. "He's just an old man," says one
before disappearing into a car. Others are not so sure, "He was a freedom
fighter, he's got total credibility says 17-year-old Onyeka Obiodu. "I haven't
got any role models. You have to struggle to get where you want. That's just how
it is," he adds.
Like many of his friends, the young Nigerian-born Londoner was brought up by his
mother. "She is a brilliant woman. My old man doesn't care," he says.
Onyeka admits he has been in trouble with the police in the past, after getting
involved in a fight, but he still wants to make his mark on the world. Next year
he plans to study performing arts and wants to make it as an actor. His big
screen heroes are Will Smith and Eddie Murphy. The reasons for admiring them are
straightforward. "I like them because they are black," he says.
According to local youth worker and musician Jason Castro, for most young people
in Peckham, the biggest hero is without doubt 50 Cent. "They say 'he's got bare
money' - they like the fact he is rich and that he can get the girls," he says.
Mr Castro believes that society has until the age of eight, nine at the latest,
to influence children into making the right choices. After that, the laws of the
street take over and promising youngsters are lost to the battles of Peckham's
notorious frontline - the streets around the bustling shopping area and its
cornucopia of world foods - where local gangs do battle with rivals from nearby
New Cross.
"Everybody is busy just trying to live, trying to put food on the table for
their children. The things outside of that, such as teaching and inspiring -
they haven't got time for that. U ltimately, the cause of the problems here is
family breakdown," he says.
But, he warns, young people can see through superficial help from outsiders.
"When they see people come here they know they have got money and, at the end of
the day, they will go back to where there they came from."
Peckham is home to a dozens of nationalities. Some 23 languages are spoken at
local schools, more than 60 per cent are black and most are poor. The area has
reaped £300m in regeneration money in the past decade, a new library, a Damilola
Taylor community centre and a glittering new school.
Yet while only 30 per cent of pupils at the £28m Peckham Academy pass five GCSEs
at grade C and above, that figure has nearly tripled in the past three years.
Crime, while still high by national standards, is also on the decline in the
borough.
Jamaine Facey, 30, operations manager at the Fusion gym, worked hard to achieve
his success. He says there are plenty of role models in sport and entertainment
but in other areas of life, there is little for young black people to aspire to.
"When it comes to the big money jobs, barristers, lawyers and chief executives,
they all seem to be doing their own thing. They could do more to help black men
and women here to get the opportunities they need."
Role models are hard to
come by in Peckham, I, 29.8.2007,
http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/this_britain/article2903561.ece
Leading
British institutions
gripped by racism rows
Three
British institutions are engulfed by race rows
- but the protagonists all deny
any charges of bigotry
Published:
09 March 2007
The Independent
By Robert Verkaik
Britain's
institutions stand accused of fostering a climate of casual racism after a
series of race rows yesterday provoked clashes between MPs, academics and
leaders of the black and Asian communities.
In the most high-profile case, David Cameron, the Tory party leader, was forced
to sack his frontbench spokesman on homeland security, Patrick Mercer, because
he suggested that being called a "black bastard" was part and parcel of life in
the Army for ethnic minority soldiers.
Shortly afterwards the Independent Police Complaints Commission announced that
it was to investigate the brutal assault of a black teenager by a white police
officer outside a Sheffield nightclub.
In Manchester, a magistrate who was overheard talking to a colleague about
"bloody foreigners" in private after a hearing was reprimanded by the Judicial
Appointments Commission but allowed to return to work.
In Oxford, a university professor was forced to defend himself after students
protested at his outspoken comments on immigration.
Last night MPs and leaders of Britain's ethnic minority communities said the
incidents, although all unconnected, painted a picture of resurgent racism at
the heart of British society which needed to be tackled.
Massoud Shadjareh, chair of the Islamic Human Rights Commission, said: "Racism
is sneaking back in to mainstream respectability and this is very dangerous. It
is not isolated incidents ... it's been happening for some time. In some
aspects, it's coming through on the back of Islamophobia and in other ways, it
is mainstream, old-fashioned racism."
Michelynn Lafleche, director of the Runnymede Trust, a think-tank on ethnicity
and cultural diversity, said that while significant steps had been made in the
fight against racism much of the legislation had failed to make a mark on
British life. She added: "The fight against terrorism ... gives people the
excuse to step back 40 years in time and say it is OK to say these things when
it is not only morally reprehensible but often illegal. We may have the
legislation in place, but it is of great concern because too often we are not
seeing that permeate into our everyday lives."
Many institutions have tried to implement the recommendations of Sir William
Macpherson of Cluny who published a landmark report into the death of Stephen
Lawrence. But almost 14 years after the black teenager's murder and eight years
after Sir William's report Britain is still trying to combat racism in society.
Critics seized on Mr Mercer's comments as evidence that the Tory party is one of
many institutions still plagued by such problems.
The Labour MP Shahid Malik said they showed the Tories remained the "nasty
party" and had not changed under Mr Cameron's leadership. "It doesn't matter
what they tell you, they still are the nasty, racist, sexist, homophobic party
they have been for many, many, many years," he said. "It is going to take a long
time to weed out the inherent racism that actually exists in that particular
party."
However, the Tories are not the only political party facing accusations of
fuelling racial tensions. Earlier this week the Home Secretary John Reid faced
criticism after promising to make life difficult for illegal immigrants in
Britain. He came under fire after pledging a crackdown on foreigners who "steal
our benefits".
Darcus Howe, the prominent journalist and broadcaster, believes there is a
new-found confidence among the right when discussing racial issues in Britain.
He described the latest race rows as "very disturbing" saying there was no one
to speak up for black and working-class people.
"This is not the same country I came to 50 years ago. I have great sympathy for
the whites because everything has been swept away by Mrs Thatcher and now Tony
Blair but there is nothing to take its place."
Some commentators believe the 9/11 attacks led to a dramatic change in race
relations in Britain. Ahmed Versi, editor of Muslim News, said: "Respectable
figures in British society have begun to speak in a way they never would have
spoken in before 11 September. I believe the rise in much of the right-wing
discourse we hear from these prominent people, was triggered by the events of 11
September, and fuelled by fear and ignorance. It is becoming much more normal to
use racist, Islamophobic discourse."
Lee Jasper, Secretary of the National Assembly Against Racism, said Mr Mercer's
comments followed David Cameron's own reference to multiculturalism as a
"barrier to cohesion" which he said was designed to make headlines. "It is this
approach that results in a full-scale Tory attack on the principle of black
self-organisation," said Mr Jasper.
He added: "While we welcome the resignation of Patrick Mercer, we remain deeply
sceptical about the Tory party's commitment to root out racism within the party
itself."
The politician
Patrick Mercer, the Conservative homeland security spokesman, was sacked by his
party leader, David Cameron, yesterday after claiming it was acceptable to use
the phrase "black bastard" in the Army. He later said: "I very much regret the
interpretation that has been put on my comments."
The policeman
PC Anthony Mulhall has been removed from frontline duties after allegedly
beating up a black woman outside a nightclub in Sheffield. A South Yorkshire
Police spokesman said: "The force is outraged at... the possible suggestion that
this may be linked to any kind of racist incident."
The professor
David Coleman of Oxford University has provoked student anger after it emerged
that he was a co-founder of the anti-immigration pressure group Migrationwatch.
He has said that immigrants contribute the equivalent of "a Mars bar a month" to
Britain. Yesterday he defended his views.
The colour divide
* African Caribbean pupils are up to six times more likely to be excluded from
school than white pupils, but no more likely to truant
* 70 per cent of all ethnic minorities live in the 88 most deprived areas,
compared to 40 per cent of the general population
* Prisoners from ethnic minorities accounted for a fifth of the male prison
population, 12 per cent of whom were Black British
* The number of arrests for black people is three times higher
* 87,000 members of ethnic minorities say they have been a victim of racially
motivated crime, the latest figures show
* 49,000 of those say they have been a victim of violent crime
* The average wage for ethnic minorities is £7.50 per hour, compared to £8.00
for whites
* Just over a fifth of people in England and Wales live in poverty, compared to
40 per cent of African Caribbeans and 8 per cent of whites in 1997
Figures from 2004
Leading British institutions gripped by racism rows, I,
9.3.2007,
http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/this_britain/article2341371.ece
Howard Jacobson:
'Big Brother' encourages us
to embrace a condition
far more worrying than racism
The debate as to whether Jade
and her super-dumb cohorts are racist
is not
worth having
Published: 20 January 2007
The Independent
After the Revolution, the Terror. This - the invariable consequence of
filling the heads of the uneducated with grandiosity - is what we are seeing on
Celebrity Big Brother. In the days when she sweetly knew herself to be pig
ignorant, Jade Goody had neither the reason nor the confidence to launch the
sort of terrifying tirades to which poor little rich girl Shilpa Shetty has been
subjected - never mind with what provocation - this last week.
But then television made Jade a star. Television rewarded her with renown for
all the things she didn't know. Television set her up as a sort of Ugly Betty of
the reason and the intellect, an example and a promise to everyone who had
hitherto felt damned in their own fatuity. You, too, said television, can be
rich and famous for being an airhead. Indeed, if we have our way, you won't be
rich and famous for being anything else. And now the airhead is a swollen head,
and won't be spoken down to by a mistress of Indian subcontinent hauteur. Jade
has rights now, whether or not she can spell them, and will shake the planet to
its foundations before she forgoes a single one.
Well, and why should she be spoken down to? No reason. Hence the brute little
corner of us that cheers her on, at once exhilarated and appalled by the
tenacity of her sense of wrong. "Your mother would be proud of you," one of her
chums in girly vacuity told her, without a trace of irony, after she had sworn
the house down. No doubt about it. Pride has probably been beating in sullen
hearts all over the country. The Terror, too, as the aristocrats went
helter-skelter to the guillotine, made the children of the Revolution proud.
Channel 4, which has a big stake in cultural mischief, has fomented this unrest.
It has been fomenting it ever since Big Brother started, learning as it goes
that no one ever made a buck overestimating the sense or sensibility of the
British public. But in Jade Goody it has found its Héroïne de la Revolution. How
long it has been sitting on the idea of returning Jade to Big Brother as a
celebrity - a perfected monster of televisual incestuousness, on telly for
having been on telly - is anyone's guess. But this time it made its intentions
apparent immediately. Jade and her family were to be royalty - Queen Carnival
and her entourage for a day - and the rest of the house were to wait on her hand
and foot.
In fact, Shilpa was among those who found exemption from this indignity, which
must have been a disappointment to the programme makers, since here was the
dream reversal of roles, the very reason, presumably, she had been imported to
play opposite Jade in the first place. But the tone had been set. This was to be
an incendiary Big Brother, pitting culture against culture, class against class,
and in the process flattering its viewers with the Channel 4 philosophy, that
what is low is high.
The debate as to whether Jade and her super-dumb cohorts are racist is not worth
having, whatever the expressions of sanctimonious outrage on all sides. (The
Carphone Warehouse taking the high moral ground and pulling out of sponsoring
the programme - there's a laugh after the thousands of hours of mindlessness and
bilge it has lent its name to without a qualm.)
Racism - the fear and dislike of people alien to you - is slumberingly integral
to all ignorance, so we shouldn't be in the slightest surprised to find it among
people who are witless enough to go on such a programme in the first place. Not
all racists are stupid, but all stupid people are at some level racists, cowed
into resentment and mistrust by the enormity of their incomprehension. In
proportion as the world and its ideas are a mystery to you, so the world and its
peoples are a threat.
Jade is goaded into wild abuse by the unfamiliar appearance and manners of a
woman who's name she cannot get her tongue round, whose value system she cannot
comprehend, and who makes her feel cheap. The footballer's bit of fluff - the
one who dresses like a toddler and eats with her mouth open - looks blankly into
all she doesn't know about the dining customs of people not from Liverpool, and
worries where their hands have been.
To confuse this vegetative state with full-blown racism is to dignify it. More
than that, it is to confuse a lesser crime with a greater. There are worse
things than racism. There is the unapologetic inanity from which the ordinary,
daily, unremarkable bigotries and prejudices of the public draw their strength.
We are too soft on stupidity. I am not talking about general knowledge or
vocabulary failure. Jade doesn't recognise wedlock - the word, that is, not the
state. This is not a sin in itself; words can pass you by. I can never get a
purchase on ontological and have to look it up whenever I encounter it. Nor do I
mean not having heard of famous people or places. The footballer's fluff thinks
Winston Churchill was the first black President of America, having seen a black
statue of him near where she lies her empty head. And Jade suspects Rio de
Janeiro might be a person. So what? For all I know to the contrary Rio Ferdinand
is a region of Ecuador.
They add up, though - the words you can't pronounce, the events you haven't
heard of, the ideas with which you are not and do not wish to be acquainted. At
some point the accumulation of missing information and curiosity amounts to your
not being in the world at all. And it is this condition - a condition that can
with far more justice be described as alienation than the ennui of the
intellectual - that Big Brother and its host of satellite celebrity magazines
have for years been encouraging us to embrace.
There is a vindictiveness in dumbing down. It aims to dethrone not only
intelligence but the means by which we rate one thing above another. Dumbing
down is an assault upon the very concept of value. Thus Jade, though she
wouldn't know what I am talking about, is the child of that nihilism which gave
us postmodernism and the Turner prize. A celebrity for being nobody, a belcher
and a farter with her own perfume, she is an ironic reference to the
unmeaningness of meaning.
Racism? We have far more to worry about than that.
Howard Jacobson: 'Big
Brother' encourages us to embrace a condition far more worrying than racism, I,
20.1.2007,
http://comment.independent.co.uk/columnists_a_l/howard_jacobson/article2169216.ece
Racism gets a reality
check
The abuse of Shilpa Shetty on 'Celebrity Big Brother'
has prompted more than
21,000 protests.
Effigies of contestants are burnt in Patna
as India reacts angrily to her
treatment.
Tony Blair's spokesman says any perception
Britain tolerates racism 'has to be
regretted'.
The broadcaster defends programme
against criticism but enjoys boost in ratings.
Published: 18 January 2007
The Independent
By Robert Verkaik, Ben Russell, and Justin Huggler
The alleged racist abuse directed at a Bollywood film star appearing on the
Channel 4 reality show Celebrity Big Brother became an international issue
yesterday.
In a day of extraordinary developments, Chancellor Gordon Brown was forced to
defend Britain against allegations of racism on his first full day of a trip to
India.
Mr Brown said he regarded the alleged racist comments made on the programme as
"offensive". He added: "I want Britain to be seen as a country of fairness and
tolerance. Anything detracting from this I condemn" .
And as the protests grew more vociferous, No 10 was put on the defensive. Tony
Blair's spokesman said any perception abroad that Britain tolerated racism had
to be "regretted and countered".
Yesterday, Indian TV news was dominated by images of Shilpa Shetty in tears
after arguments with flatmates, during which she was allegedly called a " Paki"
and a "cunt".
"Racist Big Brother leaves Shilpa shattered," read the headline in the Deccan
Herald, one of several newspapers to carry the story on its front page.
And in the city of Patna, effigies of Jade Goody, Danielle Lloyd and Jo O'Meara
were burnt. "The big question is: why does everyone hate Shilpa Shetty?" the
Indian Express asked on its website.
In one recent argument on the show, Goody told Shetty: "Go back to the slums and
find out what real life is like, lady. You are not some princess in fucking
Neverland. You're not some princess here... you need a day in the slums...
fucking go in your community."
And Danielle Lloyd was heard to mutter, out of Shetty's earshot: "I think she
should fuck off home." Britain's media watchdog Ofcom reported a record 19,300
complaints against the programme, with a further 2,000 contacting Channel 4
directly.
Last night, it emerged Channel 4 and Endemol, makers of Big Brother, are facing
a lawsuit from viewers who say they were distressed by what they saw. In what
would be the first case of its kind, seven Asian viewers, all victims of racism,
have instructed the civil rights law firm, Equal Justice, to institute
proceedings in the "provision of services" under the Race Relations Act 1976.
Keith Vaz MP, former minister for Europe, used an early day motion in the House
of Commons to call on Channel 4 bosses to take "effective action" against the
"unacceptable" racist language allegedly used.
The London Mayor, Ken Livingstone, said: "The mocking of Shilpa Shetty's accent,
her Indian cooking and other aspects of her culture, as well as such basic
things as repeated failure to get her name right and referring to her in extreme
derogatory terms are completely unacceptable ... All cultures are welcome in
London and we do not ask anyone to give up their culture or background in order
to be welcome and to contribute to the city and its great prosperity. The
treatment meted out to Shilpa Shetty is totally opposite to such an approach."
But Channel 4 appears in no hurry to take action. Ratings for the highlights
show on Tuesday evening hit 4.5 million viewers, up from 3.5 million on Monday.
The bookmaker William Hill said Shetty was now the new "hot favourite" to win.
In a further twist, Goody and Shetty are to go head to head in the next round of
evictions.
Last night, Channel 4 claimed there had been "no overt racial abuse or racist
behaviour directed against Shilpa Shetty within the Big Brother house" . It said
what had happened could be characterised as a "cultural and class clash between
her and three of the British females in the house." It added: "Unambiguous
racist behaviour and language is not tolerated under any circumstances in the
house. Housemates are constantly monitored and Channel 4 would intervene if a
clear instance of this arose." Channel 4 said it had spoken to Shetty, "who has
not complained or raised the issue of racism".
Hours later, however, Shetty spoke for the first time of her fears that she is
the victim of racism. Unaware that the race row has developed into an
international incident, the housemates last night had an argument over Oxo
cubes.
After the spat, fellow housemate Cleo Rocos told Shetty: "I don't think there's
anything racist in it."
Shetty replied: "It is, I'm telling you."
One of the complainants bringing the claim against Channel 4 said the comments
he heard triggered memories of racism he had experienced in the 1970s. Tallat
Mukhtar,a former banker who now runs his own firm, said: " This series has taken
me back to the 1970s when I was racially abused on the streets and encountered
the Jade Goody mentality. I find it disgusting that Channel 4 and Endemol
broadcast such material. Even if it boosts their profits, it is not a fit or
ethical way to make money."
Racism gets a reality check, I,
18.1.2007,
http://news.independent.co.uk/media/article2162868.ece
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