Stand Up To Racism Demands Justice For Victims While Protesting Against Tommy Robinson

I was watching one of the Lotus Eaters’ videos early today and I came across a possibly hopeful sign when they were discussing the latest protest by Stand Up To Racism against Tommy Robinson and his documentary about grooming gangs in Telford. I noticed that the Stand Up To Racism protesters were waving placards with the slogan ‘Justice for the Victims – No To Tommy Robinson’. The Lotus Eaters seemed a bit confused over who the victims for whom SUTR were demanding justice were. I don’t know, but I hope it means the victims of the grooming gangs.

I was furious at the response to a protest by SUTR and Unite back in February against Tommy Robinson and his gang when they appeared in Birmingham or Telford to premier their documentary about the ‘rape’ of the town by the Pakistani grooming gangs. Now I have no sympathy for Robinson. He is a violent, islamophobic thug. But his presentation of the film’s public showing was, I felt, far better as propaganda and outdid the protest against it by SUTR. Robinson’s video about the event showed a young Black man wearing a ‘Black and White, Unite and Fight’ T-shirt, which presented his organisation as anti-racist. This is justified, up to a point. The majority of the gangs’ victims were White, and they were racially abused while being raped and brutalised. Not that Robinson’s organisation is genuinely anti-racist: it’s against Islam, and I got the distinct impression that Robinson and his team regard the rape and utterly horrific abuse of the White girls as a convenient stick to beat to beat the British Muslim community.

Stand Up To Racism, by contrast, seemed to mismanage their protest completely. They turned up to shout the usual anti-racist slogans of ‘Fascist scum, off our streets’ and ‘Refugees welcome here’. These are fine against the usual Nazis and racists. But they’re not good enough against Robinson and his film because they ignore the Pakistanis’ abuse of the White girls. This gives the impression that SUTR wasn’t interested in the girls’ suffering and that they are only concerned about racist against Blacks and Asians. Callum, from the Lotus Eaters, had been present at the event and walked over and asked the SUTR protesters if they approved of the grooming gangs. ‘No, of course not’, was their reply. He then asked on the Lotus Eaters’ video why they hadn’t joined Robinson in protesting the gangs. They could have done this without approving of the man himself.

It’s obvious why they wouldn’t want to lend support to Robinson: he’s one of the racists they’re protesting against, even if he claims that he isn’t because Islam is a religion not a race. But I was so annoyed by SUTR’s massive mishandling of the protest that I wrote an email to Hope Not Hate and, if I remember correctly, Stand Up To Racism themselves.

The Hope Not Hate email went:

‘Dear Sir,

I have always been impressed by the great work Hope Not Hate has done and is doing in uniting people of all races and creeds in this country against the threat of racism and Fascism on the one hand, and Islamist religious extremism on the other. I have read with great interest and pleasure about your organisation’s attempts to combat Tommy Robinson and his very real islamophobia. But I am writing to you in this instance to express my grave concerns that the liberal left’s response to his rally and film, ‘The Rape of Telford’, has been so poor and catastrophically mismanaged that by contrast Robinson and his supporters seemed good.

As you are aware Robinson has been exploiting the very understandable and entirely reasonable public fears about the grooming gangs as part of his wider campaign to sow hate against British Muslims as a whole. A couple of weeks ago he turned up in Birmingham to show his film about the grooming gangs, The Rape of Telford, which included testimony from the abused girls. He was met with a counterdemonstration from Unite the union and Stand Up To Racism. And this is where the problems lie.

The counterdemonstrators seemed not to understand that victims of racism in this instance were White and to tackle this issue while at the same time expressing their disgust at Robinson. Instead they shouted the usual slogans like ‘Fascist scum off our streets’ and ‘Refugees welcome’. These are fine and suitable against the usual anti-immigration and racist demonstrations. But here they miss the point. They give the impression that the established anti-racist organisations are so fixated on anti-Black and Asian racism, that they find the very concept of anti-White racism literally unthinkable and have no response to it. This is not the impression they should give, and I’m sure it’s unintentional. One of the members of the right-wing Lotus Eaters YouTube channel actually asked them if they supported the grooming gangs. They replied that they certainly didn’t, but did not reply to his next question about why they weren’t over there with Robinson protesting against the grooming gangs.

They shouldn’t, of course, but this doesn’t mean that they should stay silent when it comes to anti-White racism and abuse. The real issue behind the grooming gangs is that they were allowed to get away with it for so long by the police, social services and local authorities because the victims were White and the authorities were afraid of being accused of racism. There are concerns about how the inquiry has been managed,, with some of the witnesses complaining that they have been instructed to limit their testimony and some of the evidence being redacted. There is speculation that some very prominent people, going as high as Blair’s government, are being protected.

It wasn’t always the case that anti-White racism was ignored. In the 1990s the CRE published a report, written by Independent and i journalist Yasmin Alibhai-Brown about Black and Asian anti-White racism as it was found that 60 per cent of the victims of a racist incidents were White. In the first decade of this century Sunny Hidak in the Guardian wrote a piece stating that anti-racism must now include poor Whites and attack religious extremist organisations like Hizb ut-Tahrir. But this inclusive message seems to have been forgotten or discarded in the age of Black Lives Matter.

I strongly believe that the way to fight Robinson is to take this issue out of his hands. People should be marching against the Muslim grooming gangs, just as they should and do march against White fascists and racists. Indeed, a few years ago when the Islamic preachers of hate were emerging with the Satanic Verses controversy in Bradford, liberal Muslims organised marches and demonstrations against them. But they complained they were given no support from mainstream society. Blacks, Asians, Muslims, Christians, atheists, Hindus and other faiths need to unite and march together against anti-White racism. I believe this is possible and non-Whites would be willing to join such marches and protests if it were organised by genuine anti-racist organisations. You can protest against anti-White racism without supporting fascists and islamophobes like Robinson or the BNP.

But this is what the established anti-racist organisations are failing to do. And I’m afraid their refusal to engage with this is handing Robinson a terrible weapon. If you watch the video he produced with Voice of Wales and Free Man Media on the ‘Rape of Telford’, one of his supporters is a young Black or mixed race man with the sweatshirt bearing the slogan ‘Black and White unite’. This is what the real anti-racists should be doing, but aren’t.

I would like to see it changed, but I’m afraid it seems that you may be the only organisation that will take this on board. I wrote a similar email to Stand Up to Racism a few weeks ago and have not received a reply. I would be very interested to receive your views about this subject, which I intend to place on my blog. You can contact me wit the email below:

Yours with very best wishes,

David Sivier’

I also wrote a series of email to various papers and organisation, including Stand Up To Racism, urging the organisation of a multicultural march against the grooming gangs.

‘Dear Sir,

I’m sure you share my disgust at the recent reports on the Asian grooming gangs and how they preyed on White girls for decades, as well as the way they were allowed to get away with it by police forces and local authorities who were afraid of being accused of racism if they intervened. But I am also greatly concerned about the lack of response to this monstrous scandal by mainstream anti-racist organisations like yours. While White people have been marching in support of Blacks and Asians in their struggle against racism for decades, I very much regret that there have been no such marches in support of these victimised White girls. This, in my opinion, is a grave and odious mistake, as it gives more ammunition and plausibility to islamophobes such as Tommy Robinson. 

A few months ago Robinson and his supporters turned up in Birmingham for a public launch of his film about the city’s ‘rape’, which included testimony from the gangs’ victims. There was also a counterdemonstration by your organisation and Unite. However, while the protesters shouted anti-racist slogans against Robinson, they made no public gesture in support of the raped and abused girls. Robinson’s video of the demonstration, however, appears to show his organisation as by far the more anti-racist and diverse. One of his protesters was a young Black man wearing a T-shirt with the anti-racist slogan ‘Black and White, unite and fight’. Unfortunately, I don’t see the mainstream anti-racist organisations doing this against the grooming gangs.

This gives the impression that your organisation and others aren’t concerned about anti-White racism and hate crimes, and that the only racism that matters to you is that against Blacks and other people of colour. Thus Robinson is able to present himself as the only person standing up for these girls against a bigoted and complacent establishment.

I feel very strongly that the only way to combat this is to organise genuinely multicultural rallies against these grooming gangs, just as there have been rallies against the BNP and NF and in support of refugees. I would be very grateful indeed if you could organise one as one of the leading anti-racist organisations here in the UK. I would be particularly grateful if your branch in Bristol could stage one. This is not one of the towns plagued by these gangs, but it has a diverse, multicultural population, who have demonstrated against Robinson and his attempts to stir up hatred against Muslims. Now we need to go further and demonstrate in support of these gangs’ victims as part of the wider campaign against racism. I have also sent an email to the head of Bristol’s equalities and children’s departments in the council about the possibility of organising such a rally. 

I would very much like to hear your reply about this suggestion, which I intend to publish on my blog. I look forward eagerly to receiving it.

Yours faithfully,

David Sivier’

If the victims mentioned on Stand Up To Racism’s placards are those of the grooming gangs, and not simply Robinson’s own victims – who are more than entitled to justice themselves after his treatment of them – then it would seem that SUTR has come round to my point of view. Perhaps they received a number of letters like mine from other people who felt the same way.

Academic Historian T.O. Lloyd on British Immigration Policy After World War III

I’ve turned to T.O. Lloyd’s Empire to Welfare State: English History 1906-1985, 3rd edition (Oxford: OUP 1986) to try and make sense of Simon Webb’s claims that the Windrush migrants weren’t invited here, but were merely taking advantage of cheap cabins, and that London Transport appealed to Caribbean bus drivers to migrate in order alleviate political unrest in Barbados and Jamaica. Unfortunately I haven’t been able to find anything about these claims one way or another, but the history, published as part of the ‘Short Oxford History of the Modern World’, does contain some interesting snippets of information about immigration policy in this period. For example, he writes of the the wave of immigration in the 50s

‘Citizens from Commonwealth countries had always been allowed to enter England freely, but they had not made much use of this right before the 1950s. Citizens of the white Commonwealth occasionally came on shorter or longer visits, but nobody took any notice. In the fifties a flow of West Indians, Indians,, and Pakistanis began to come to England. From the economist’s point of view the country seemed to have found a fund of labour to draw on in the way West Germany drew on East Germany and Italy, or France and Italy drew on their underemployed agricultural labour. This development was not welcomed by the people who found themselves living near the immigrants. Occasionally it was suggested that immigrants took low wages and undercut the market rate, and it was sometimes said they were violent and noisy. While some of them were bachelors earning more than they had ever earned before, behaved as might be expected, most of them were quiet people with fairly strict ideas about family life. The hostility to them came simply from a feeling that black men were undesirable, just as Irish Catholics had been though undesirable in the 19th century and European aliens had aroused hostility earlier in the 20th century because they were different. The shortage of housing made matters worse; the immigrants were blamed for it, and then were blamed for living in slums. The Immigration Bill was welcomed by public opinion although it was condemned by a good deal of the Conservative press and by the Labour party. It allowed immigrants to come if they had certain skills, or if they had relations in the country, or if they had jobs waiting for them. The sentiment of liberally minded people was against the Bill partly on grounds of humane feeling and partly to promote economic growth., but most of these humane and tolerant people did not understand that other people, who were relatively uneducated and unaccustomed to novelty suffered real problems when immigrants came and lived near them.’ (p. 199).

Lloyd also writes about the shortage of labour created by the national plan of 1964, and the effects this had on immigration policy. It’s a lengthy passage, but I think it’s worth reproducing in full.

‘The point at which the planners had most clearly not accepted the constraints of reality was the supply of labour. They had accepted a target of expanding the national income by 23 per cent by 1970s, which meant a rate of growth of a fraction under 4 per cent, but their figures showed that to do this about 200,000 more workers were needed than seemed likely to be available. The prices and incomes policy was intended to check the tendency to inflation that had persisted in the economy ever since Beveridge’s definition of full employment – more vacant jobs than workers to fill them – had been tacitly accepted, but no incomes policy could prevent a rise in wages if there was a steady demand for 200,000 workers than could be found. Employers would naturally bid against each other, by offering higher wages or fringe benefits. If it was carried out, the National Plan would reproduce the very high level of demand that had existed under the 1945-51 Labour government, without the stringent physical controls that had been available just after the war. The government had in 1964 forbidden further office development in London, but in general it was ready to operate the economy with very little compulsion. This may have reassured economists that effort could not be diverted into the wrong channels by government decree, but it did leave open the possibility that a shortage of labour would lead to large wage increases.

More workers could easily have been found: Commonwealth citizens from the West Indies, India, and Pakistan were ready and eager to come. During the election the question of Commonwealth immigration had been lurking just below the surface, but the results suggest that the Labour party lost three or four seats on the issue in areas where there had been a certain amount of immigration and where local conditions of life were generally unpleasant enough to make the voters want to blame somebody. The bad housing conditions in Smethwick or Slough were not the fault of the immigrants, but the inhabitants thought differently and were influenced by the slogan ‘If you want a nigger neighbour, vote Labour’.

Tension and dissatisfaction over immigration rose after the election, with some Conservatives suggesting that their party ought to take a more determined stand against immigration than it had done in the Commonwealth Immigration Act. The government decided that it could not hold the existing position, and issued a White Paper indicating the way it would interpret the Commonwealth Immigration Act in the future. The policy laid down was decidedly more restrictive than in the past, at least so far as entry to the country was concerned; the White Paper also suggested ways in which the immigrants might be cared for more effectively once they were inside the country, and legislation against discrimination in public places was passed. Some people argued that legislation was not the best way to deal with the problem, though in fact other countries faced with the same situation had, in the end, fallen back on legislation after feeling at first that there must be less formal ways of acting.

The White Paper stated that no more than 8,500 Commonwealth immigrants, of whom 1,000 would be from Malta, were to be allowed work permits every year. All questions about freedom of movement and Commonwealth solidarity apart, this closed one of the ways in which the labour shortage revealed in the National Plan might have been made up. Rapid economic growth has, more often than not, been associated with rapid increase of the working population; there was no underemployed rural population in England to draw into the economy, as there was in the countries of Europe that had been thriving since the war, but an inflow of people from the underdeveloped parts of the Commonwealth might have enabled the economy to grow as intended. Public opposition to immigration was not inspired by a conscious choice between growth and keeping England white, because most of the people who opposed immigration did not realize that they had such a choice before them, but this was the effect of the policy in the White Paper.'(pp. 397-9).

These passages don’t say anything about whether there was a labour shortage in the immediate aftermath of the war, which immigrants from the Caribbean came to fill. But it does say that there a labour shortage created by the 1964 National Plan, which was prevented from being filled by opposition to immigration.

I looked through the book to see what sources Lloyd used for the pieces on immigration. In those chapters, he seemed to have relied on Paul Foot’s Race and Immigration in Britain of 1964.

There might be more information in more recent treatments of the issue, like Bloody Foreigners: Immigration and the English.

Now Johnson Weighs in on the Grooming Gang Scandal

I caught a brief look at a video by Mahyar Tousi on YouTube last night. Tousi’s a true-blue, hard-right Tory Brexiteer. He was crowing because Johnson had made a statement that he was going to come down hard on councils like Oldham, which had tried cover up the Pakistani grooming gangs and which were still trying to stop public inquiries into them. Tousi gave as an example of this a stormy public meeting with the council in Oldham last week, where furious citizens did not accept the council’s denials that any such cover-up had taken place. Those citizens who confronted the council on this had ASBOs slapped on them, in what looks very much like a display of totalitarian power by a local authority determined to silence critics of its wrongdoing. Johnson, however, has said he’s going to take action against authorities like Oldham,, and make them apologise to their victims.

This cheered the Tory hordes, but only to a certain extent. Despite their continuing faith in the blonde bozo, Johnson has connection to the working class and absolutely no interest in their welfare. This includes that of the raped and exploited White girls. He’s only interested in gaining a political advantage, and in hanging on to power for as long as possible. But the Tory base, or at least that part of the party that watches Tousi, Nigel Farage and the others like it because it’s primarily an attack on Labour. Tory spin on the issue is that, as most of the authorities where the gangs were allowed to operate while the police and council officials looked the other way, it’s a case of the Labour party siding with the rapists against the White working class. This ignores the fact that, as commenters on this blog have pointed out, Labour MPs and whistleblowers on these councils were heavily involved in the campaign to bring the rapists and child abusers to justice. Furthermore, Telford, the site of further revelations last week about depredations by another gang, has been under Tory control for the last couple of years. Johnson’s interest in the issue isn’t about obtaining justice for the girls, but about exploiting a popular and controversial issue over Labour.

I have to say that in my opinion, the anti-racist movement has badly handled the issue. I wrote various emails last week to the papers and to the local deputy elected mayor of Bristol, Asher Craig, who is also head of equalities and child services, urging multicultural marches against the grooming gangs. I may as well have whistled for it. The letters weren’t published and Craig did not reply to my inquiry. Not that I expected she would. Neither she nor Cleo Lake, the Green councillor in Bristol, replied to an email I sent them months ago criticising the motion they introduced and had passed at a city council meeting supporting reparations for slavery. Craig and others were, however, on local television the other night talking about the importance and legacy of a Mr Hackett, a Black gent who led the boycott against Bristol bus company. He had died at the grand old age of 93. At the time the bus company wouldn’t employ Blacks. Haskett’s actions was not only a victory over discrimination in Bristol, but influenced the passage of the first race relations act.

While it’s entirely right that Haskett should be commemorated and honoured, Craig’s failure to reply to me says much about the attitude of the anti-racist establishment. They are extremely uncomfortable, if not actually opposed, to confronting the issue of anti-White racism. Organisations like United Against Fascism and Stand Up To Racism were formed to combat anti-Black and Asian racism, which certainly was rife and violent. But prejudice, abuse and violence against Whites is generally played down or actively denied. This is largely because of the fear that inflammatory accounts of it,, like Enoch Powell’s notorious ‘Rivers of Blood’ speech, will result in further anti-minority feeling and racism. And underneath that is the fear of the Nazis, that noxious organisations like the BNP will exploit it to gain power, dragging Britain into dictatorship and racial murder.

That’s part of the reason, no doubt, why councils and police forces like Oldham’s did not take action against the gangs. The police said they didn’t want rioting to start, while there was also the fear that they’d be accused of racism. And anti-racist organisations like Stand Up To Racism don’t want to touch the issue. A month or so ago, the notorious islamophobe, grifter and thug Tommy Robinson was up in Brum with his Storm Troopers publicly showing a film they had made about the grooming gangs and their rape of the city. Stand Up To Racism turned up and protested against Robinson, shouting ‘Off our streets, Fascist scum!’ and ‘Refugees welcome here!’ But while these slogans are entirely right directed at organisations like the NF, they miss the point with Robinson. He’s been able to exploit the scandal, because Sabby Dhalu and Stand Up To Racism have allowed him by not marching or publicly condemning the venomous anti-White racism of the grooming gangs. Thus to a certain class of alienated working class Tories, Robinson’s a hero. As you could see from the many comments praising the thug on Tousi’s wretched video.

Commenters here have pointed out that Robinson is a bigot with no real interest in combatting child abuse per se. He hasn’t, for example, protested against notorious BBC abusers like Rolf Harris or Jimmy Savile, the last of whom was a friend of Maggie Thatcher. As for Robinson exposing the gangs through his supposed journalism, that’s a lie. Robinson’s often come late to the party after they’ve been exposed by others. And his citizen journalism is a menace. He’s been prosecuted several times for contempt of court for broadcasting his feelings about the trials of various gangs outside the courthouse while the trials were proceeding, making it very clear that in his opinion the accuse were guilty. The problem with this is that there are very strict rules on court reporting in order to make sure the accused have a fair trial. Robinson’s biased reporting, by contrast, threatens that and could lead to the trial being abandoned. Which would mean that, if the men were guilty, they’d get off scot free.

I’m very much aware that some of the commenters here may be uneasy about my call for a multicultural march against the gangs. Several commenters have said, quite rightly, that all the victims of child abuse and rape are of equal value, whatever their colour or the colour of their attackers. None should be regarded as more important than any other. I actually agree. But the case of the Pakistani grooming gangs has racial aspects to it which caused its White victims to be ignored and silenced for decades. And it exposes the deep flaws in an anti-racist political establishment which is swift, or wishes to be seen to be swift, to act against anti-BAME racism while covering up assaults against Whites. This double standard needs to be confronted and torn down, if we are to have a genuinely anti-racist society.

In my opinion, this can only be done by the left, if they can reject their own reluctance to deal with it. And in this struggle, Johnson is definitely not an ally.

Jim Round on New Labour’s Prosecution of the Grooming Gangs, and Mahyar Tousi’s Bias

Jim Round, one of the many great commenters on this blog, posted this remark adding more evidence to refute the right’s accusations that Labour was complacent about the Pakistani grooming gangs. The latest person to repeat the allegation is Mahyar Tousi, a right-wing Brexiteer Tory, in a video attacking Jess Philips. She had raised his ire by asking how many of the current Tory leadership candidates were aware of Johnson breaking the lockdown, but said nothing.

Jim writes

‘I was certainly no fan of “New Labour” but I read somewhere that under Labour, convictions of grooming gangs were far higher under them than under The Tories.
Let’s also not forget Johnson’s “staffing” comments and the alleged closeness of Jimmy Savile to Margaret Thatcher.
Also worth remembering that it was a Muslim, Nazir Afzal, who convicted many gang members.
As for Tousi, well, for someone who regularly gets his “news” from the Guido Fawkes blog, he has a cheek to call any other news outlets for bias and fake news.
He is also another one who deletes reasonable comments that disagree with him or correct his “news stories” an example being the young man who allegedly was kicked off his college course, in Burnley I think. There were, of course, two sides to this story and Tousi deleted or ignored comments putting across the other side.
Free speech but only if you agree with me again.’

Mark Pattie Debunks the Myth that Labour Councils Have a Problem with Pakistani Grooming Gangs

As I’ve mentioned in previous articles about this, the Tories are trying to spin the continuing scandal over the Pakistani grooming gangs as a uniquely Labour problem. The gangs were allowed to get away for decades with the horrendous crimes by Labour councils and local police forces, who were afraid that if they acted, with they would be charged with racism. But the Labour MPs Sarah Champion, Simon Danczuk stood against them, as did Rochdale Muslim councillor, Amina Lone. Mark Pattie, one of the commenters here, posted this remark also debunking this idea of a unique culpability by Labour and the Pakistani community overall:

‘Thanks for the mention. I kind of wonder whether her courage helped her keep her seat Labour, otherwise Rotherham would’ve gone Con in 2019? As for the “Labour councils…” smear, that can be easily debunked. Not all Labour councils with significant Pakistani-origin populations have problems with these gangs- I’ve never heard of any operating in Preston, Ashton-under-Lyne or Bolton (which I think is now Con anyway) for instance. Plus Telford has been Tory for a good few years I think now.’

Oh dear! Who would have thought of grooming gangs operating in a Tory-run town! Well, not Mahyar Tousi, a very right-wing Brexiteer YouTuber, who posted a video attacking Jess Phillips for Labour’s supposed silence over the grooming gangs. It was a tit-for-tat attack because Phillips quite reasonably asked why the various candidates for the Tory leadership kept their mouths well shut when Bozo was guzzling wine and canapes. But as this comment shows, the reply really doesn’t stick.

And we have to make sure it doesn’t to stop the Tories using it to keep themselves and their awful polices in government.

The Asian Religious Groups Who Defended Sarah Champion’s Remarks about the Grooming Gangs

Sarah Champion was the Labour MP for Rochdale, who was forced to resign from the front bench after writing a piece in the Scum stating that the grooming gangs were made up of Pakistani men. Which they largely have been, though not exclusively. Champion was, however, defended by Sara Rowbotham, the council whistleblower who exposed the gangs and there was a letter in the Times by members of the Sikh, Hindu and British Pakistani communities defending her and applauding a female Muslim councillor, who also worked to bring these scumbags to justice. I found this report from the Huffington Post UK by Owen Bennett from the 5th September 2017. It begins

‘Religious Groups Defend Sarah Champion For Claim UK Has A ‘Problem’ With Pakistani Rapists

‘Victims are being sacrificed on the altar of political correctness.’

A number of Sikh, Hindu and British Parkistani groups have come to the defence of a Labour MP who claimed “Britain has a problem with British Pakistani men raping and exploiting white girls.”

In a letter to The Times today, representatives of the groups – including Lord Singh of Wimbledon – praised Sarah Champion for taking a “courageous stand” in highlighting “a clear trend in criminality.”

The letter also accused the Labour leadership of having a “weak response” to the issue of grooming gangs.

Champion was sacked from Labour’s Shadow Cabinet after making the comments in an article for The Sun, but in an interview last weekend she defended her words, saying the “floppy left” in her party were too scared of being accused of racism to tackle child sexual exploitation carried out by grooming gangs.

In a letter today, representatives of groups including the Network of Sikh Organisations, the British Pakistani Christian Association and Hindu Council UK, said: “We commend Sarah Champion and the Muslim councillor Amina Lone for speaking up on a clear trend in criminality: the conviction of men of largely Pakistani Muslim heritage in sexual grooming cases.

“Despite being sacked from the shadow cabinet, Champion continues to make a courageous stand.”

The letter argues that it’s not just “white girls who fall victim” to grooming gangs, but youngsters from their respective communities.

“The common denominator is that victims almost always tend to be non-Muslim girls,” the letter reads , adding: “We are dismayed by the Labour leadership’s weak response.

“We are not willing to see the betrayal of victims, who are being sacrificed on the altar of political correctness.

“It’s not racist or Islamophobic to raise a matter of significant public concern. Smearing those speaking an inconvenient truth is unacceptable.”’

For more information, see https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/sarah-champion-grooming-gangs_uk_59ae77c2e4b0dfaafcf255ef

This does indicate that there’s a religious component to the grooming gangs predations. Nevertheless, it should not be forgotten either that whatever Tommy Robinson, Britain First or whoever else says, these men were definitely not practicing Muslims. Not when they were into drugs and alcohol, which are definitely forbidden to Muslims, and their crimes have nothing to do with Muslim sex slavery. They were just evil men, preying on the vulnerable, as rapists and child abusers among all races and religions do.

And despite the Tories’ divide and rule strategy, it was Labour MPs who stood up for these girls and who had the backing of a wide section of the Asian community.

Sarah Champion, the Labour MP, Who Warned About the Asian Grooming Gangs

As I’ve said in the previous article, the Tories and the populist right are trying to present the grooming gangs scandal as the fault of the Labour party, as the gangs were allowed to get away with their monstrous crimes in towns with Labour-run councils. This is part of a wider strategy of divide and rule to alienate the White working class from the Black and Asian community and the Labour party. But Mark Pattie, one of the many great commenters on this blog, has pointed out that it was the Labour MPs Simon Danczuk and Sarah Champion who worked to bring the gangs to justice. Champion, however, was forced to resign from the Labour front bench after writing a piece in the Scum stating that the gangs were Pakistani. This is largely true, though they also included scumbags of other ethnicities. She was accused of racism, but also had the support of Sara Rowbotham, the whistleblower on the council who exposed the gangs, as well as members of the Sikh, Hindu and Pakistani communities. Rowbotham was also played by the actress Maxine Peake in a BBC drama about the gangs, Three Girls. I found a piece by Rachel Wearmouth in the Huffington Post from 17th September 2017 in which Rowbotham defended Champion. It begins

‘Rochdale Grooming Scandal Whistleblower Defends Sarah Champion And Slams Austerity

Council worker played by Maxine Peake said the Labour Party has to encourage debate after race row.

The hero whistleblower of the Rochdale abuse scandal has said Sarah Champion should not have lost her job over controversial race comments she made in The Sun.

Champion was sacked as Labour’s shadow women and equalities minister after saying “Britain has a problem with British Pakistani men” raping white girls in a column in the newspaper in the wake of fresh grooming prosecutions in Newcastle.

But Sara Rowbotham, the woman lauded for exposing a criminal gang who abused young girls in Rochdale, has defended the Rotherham MP.

Rowbotham, now a Labour councillor, said Champion should not have made “sweeping statements” but told HuffPost UK: “We should be exploring all the issues, not just shutting people down because we don’t like what they are saying.

“Sarah Champion has been a real champion for young people in Rotherham and she has worked hard, but she disappointed me by some of the things that she said, and that she said them in The Sun.”

Corbyn said the Labour Party was “not going to blame any particular group, or demonise any particular group.”

Champion was branded “racist” by many Labour supporters but a number of Sikh, Hindu and British Pakistani groups came to her defence, saying in a letter to The Times she had taken a “courageous stand” in highlighting “a clear trend in criminality.”

Asked if Champion should have kept her job, Rowbotham said “yes,” before adding: “We have to encourage debate.

“If the Labour Party is a broad church then those views should be allowed to be heard but also be heard with something substantial that argues back against it, or that encourages the debate further.”

Rowbotham, who was portrayed by Maxine Peake in the BBC docudrama Three Girls, added: ”[Champion] is a knowledgeable, articulate woman. We benefit from having that debate with her.”’

For further information, please go to https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/sara-rowbotham-sarah-champion_uk_59bbad52e4b02da0e14106d5.

I have the greatest respect for Danczuk, Rowbotham and Champion for acting against the gangs, even if some of Champion’s comments were tactless at best. And kudos too to the Asians who supported her. Their support graphically demonstrates that the grooming gangs are not some kind of intrinsic problem within the Asian community or Islam. The gangs were anti-White racists, but they were also just evil men preying on the vulnerable.

We need to bear this in mind and come together to oppose the grooming gangs, along with all other kinds of racism. And very definitely not let the Tories distort this to divide this country’s hard-pressed working people from each other to their benefit and that of an exploitative privileged elite.

Book on Christians Enslaved by Muslim in the Early Modern Mediterranean

Robert C. Davis, Christian Slaves, Muslim Masters: White Slavery in the Mediterranean, The Barbary Coast and Italy, 1500-1800 (Houndmills: Palgrave Macmillan 2003).

This is another book I order for me reading about non-European forms of slavery, and particularly the enslavement of Europeans. I feel this is unjustly neglected and that the understandable concentration of the transatlantic slave trade has distorted the public understand of history as global phenomenon. One of the arguments the abolitionists had to face from the pro-slavery camp was that slavery was universal and had been a part of nearly every culture since ancient Egypt. It has also, in my view, created a distorted view in which Black enslavement by Whites is somehow seen as unique, and that the White European invasion and conquest of much of the rest of the world is somehow seen as inevitable. White are somehow seen as uniquely racist, imperialist and evil, as expressed in ideologies like Afrocentrism and Critical Race Theory. But this was not the case. Whites also suffered enslavement, and Europe was for centuries under threat from a militant and expansionist Islam, which also enslaved Black Africans and had its own ideology of racism.

The book’s blurb runs:

“In this book Robert C. Davis uses many new historical sources to re-examine one of the least understood forms of human bondage in modern times … the systematic enslavement of white, Christian Europeans by the Muslims of North Africa’s Barbary Coast. Far from the minor phenomenon that many have assumed it to be, white slavery in the Maghreb turns out, in Davis’ account, to have had enormous consequences, ensnaring as many as a million victims from France and Italy to Spain, Holland, Great Britain, the Americas and even Iceland in the centuries when it flourished between 1500 and 1800. Whether dealing with the methods used by slavers, the experience of slavery or its destructive impact on the slaves themselves, Davis demonstrates the many, often surprising, similarities between this ‘other’ slavery and the much better known human bondage suffered at the very same time by Black Africans in the Americas.”

The book is divided into three parts. Part II has chapters on the number of people enslaved and slave taking and slave breaking. Part II is on the Barbary states, and slave labour and slave life, Part III is on Italy, described as the home front. The final chapter is ‘celebrating slavery’. This appears to be about how the slaves themselves tried to reconcile their condition theologically by seeing it as a punishment from God.

As with the other books I’ve done no more than glance at it so far, but I was struck by this remark from an old Sicilian lady in the 20th century that shows the memory of raiding and enslavement still persisted into her lifetime:

“The oldest [still] tell of a time in which the Turks arrived in Sicily every day. They came down in the thousands from their galleys and you can imagine what happened! They seized unmarried girls and children, grabbed things and money and in an instant they were [back] aboard their galleys, set sail and disappeared… The next day it was the same thing, and there was always the bitter song, as you could not hear other than the lamentations and invocations of the mothers and the tears that ran like rivers through all the houses.” (174).

I’ve thought for a very long time that so many of the racism and Islamophobia in Europe is just a simple case of White racism against Blacks and Brown people, developed from imperialism and the slave trade, but also due to the memory of a real threat from Turkish and Muslim imperialism and slaving. And I do think that the attitudes that promoted the Islamic enslavement of White Christians still persist in that section of the Muslim community, chiefly Pakistani, that raped and abused White girls in grooming gangs.

The Lotus Eaters on Tommy Robinson’s Film about Telford Grooming Gang and the Counterdemonstration

As I hope I’ve made clear, I’m am very definitely no fan or supporter of Tommy Robinson. He’s a thuggish Islamophobe, with a background in the BNP as well as various anti-Islam groups like the EDL and Pegida UK. He’s got a string of convictions for violence and other offences, and tries to intimidate his critics into silence by doxing them while at the same time telling his supporters not to harm them and taking the details down later. Or he turns up late at night at their house with a couple of his goons demanding a quiet word. He’s been very loose with accusations of paedophilia, which he’s used to smear Mike Stuchbery, a teacher, who has been forced to leave his job. According to the anti-racist, anti-religious extremism organisation, Robinson’s in court today trying to avoid paying damages to a Syrian schoolboy he libelled as a racist bully, whereas the child was in fact the victim.

Robinson has been concentrating on the issue of the ‘Asian’ grooming gangs, which are in reality largely Pakistani Muslim men. He’s made a documentary about the gang in Telford and appeared in Birmingham to show it to the public a few days ago. Meeting him and his supporters on the other side of the police barricades was a counterdemonstration by Stand Up To Racism, who were joined by the Communist Party. Callum from the Lotus Eaters was also up there recording the event, and the right-wing YouTube channel duly put out a video with their own take on it. And really, I know that it’s biased, but the counterdemonstration looks extremely bad. They don’t tackle Robinson on the issue he’s talking about, but simply shout slogans like ‘Fascist scum, off our streets!’ and about welcoming asylum seekers and getting the Tories out. Which would be perfectly fine elsewhere, but when Robinson is talking about the sexual exploitation of White girls, it looks like Stand Up to Racism has either nothing to say about it, or worse, doesn’t care because it’s only racist when Blacks and Asians are victimised.

According to Robinson, the Telford gang comprised 200 suspects, of whom 11 were charged. One girl identified three men as her rapists – two Muslim and one Sikh. One of the Muslims fathered a child on her, and foetal DNA links him to her and the baby. But he was not charged, only the Sikh. There was also the allegation that a police inspector also took bribes from the gang to look the other way. Robinson tried to interview the inspector and the three suspected abusers. They either said ‘No comment’ or denied the accusation.

During the showing of the film a football hooligan firm, the Chelsea Headhunters, turned up looking for a fight. They were disappointed and so left again. They supposedly had nothing to do with Robinson, but Stand Up to Racism claimed they did. Then, when the film moved on to the girls telling the story how they were raped and abused, the counterdemonstrators left. Which gives the impression that they have no interest in protecting the White victims of horrific racial abuse.

This is not the impression they want to give. Callum went up to speak with them and asked them if they condemned the grooming gangs. Of course they did. But tribal politics prevented them from making common cause with Robinson. But I don’t think they need to have gone as far as that. What the anti-racist movement needs to do is assimilate protests against anti-White racism into their campaigning alongside prejudice, abuse and violence against Blacks and Asians. This would have the result of taking away at least some of Robinson’s ammunition, and demonstrate a much needed broader anti-racism that recognised it was more complex than simply Whites against people of colour.

I was so annoyed by the deeply mistaken conduct of the counterdemonstration that I sent this email off to Stand UP To Racism:

‘Dear Sir,

I regret that I am writing to you to express my extreme dissatisfaction with the apparent conduct of your Birmingham branch and their counterdemonstration at the public showing of Tommy Robinson’s wretched documentary about the Telford Muslim grooming gang. I have absolutely no regard whatsoever for Robinson: he is indeed an islamophobe and a violent criminal with a history of far right involvement. But the conduct of the counterdemonstration appeared so mistaken in its focus and arguments to seem apparently indifferent to the suffering of the grooming gang’s White victims, that in the hands of right-wing YouTube channels like the Lotus Eaters they actually looked worse than Robinson.

The major failing was that the counterdemonstrators did not tackle Robinson on the same issue. While Robinson talked about Muslim grooming gangs and their depredations on White girls, your counterdemonstrators shouted slogans against anti-immigrant racism and general condemnations of Fascism. But ‘refugees in, Tories out’, however well-meant – and would that the Tories were out! -, wasn’t the issue. It gave the impression instead, which I’m sure was not your intention, that you are not concerned about racism when its victims are White, and that you have nothing to day against that issue. Or, worse, that you and your organisation somehow feel that the sexual exploitation and abuse of White girls isn’t racism and indeed it is actually racist to protest against it. This is the attitude of some anti-racist activists, unfortunately. Last year there was a report in the Guardian that three BAME representatives at an anti-racist meeting had complained about the inclusion of anti-White racial incidents in government statistics. As this was the reason the police forces and local authorities around Britain did not tackle the gangs the counterdemonstrators therefore seem to present themselves as holding the same attitudes that allowed the gangs to escape justice for so long.

It could also be considered that the counterdemonstrators also did themselves no favours by including the Communist party. For many people the Communist Party will forever be tainted with the horrors of the Soviet state and particularly Stalin’s gulags. Stalin’s regime was also responsible for the mass deportation of whole nations to Siberia and the Holodomor, the artificial famine in the Ukraine, as documented in Robert Conquest’s book The Nation Killers. I do not feel that such people have anything to say about racism without being hypocritical.

The counterdemonstrators also made themselves look extremely bad by marching off when the film moved on to the girls telling their side of the story. This looks like a gesture of contempt and again another demonstration that you are not interested in anti-White racism or its victims.

I realise that this is not the impression you wanted to give and that you are sympathetic to the plight of the abused girls. But this is certainly the impression many people will get.

I feel very strongly that, rather than covering up anti-White racism, it needs to be included in mainstream anti-racist activism and scholarship. Robinson has been able to exploit the issue of Muslim grooming gangs because they are ignored by mainstream, genuine anti-racist organisations. This has to change. I do remember how other anti-racist organisations did accept that Whites could also be victims of racism back in the 1990s, when the CRE published its report on Black and Asian anti-White racism. But this attitude seems to have changed. There is a fear to acknowledge that such racism exists in case it is exploited by racists and Nazis like Robinson and the BNP. But I believe it is disastrous not to include anti-White racism. If ‘silence is violence’, then the silence of the mainstream anti-racist organisations is a form of complicity with the criminals. I therefore feel that the best way to deal with this issue and others like it is to hold multi-faith, multiracial demonstrations against it, as you would against White racism, abuse and violence against Blacks and Asians. There should be no reason why Blacks and Asians wouldn’t join such a demonstration provided it is done in good faith by an organisation such as your with a proven record of genuine anti-racist action. Whites have been marching under the banner ‘Black and White, unite and fight’ against racism for decades. Now it seems to me that it should be the time for Blacks and Asians to do the same. The counterdemonstrators could therefore have marched under a banner showing White, Black and Asian victims of racist abuse saying, ‘Support All the Victims of Racism, Not the Fascists’ or something like it.

Here is a link to the Lotus Eaters video: The Bad Man’s Telford Documentary – YouTube

I hope you will give my criticisms and suggestions proper consideration. I would be very grateful indeed for a reply from you on this matter, as I am intending to put this up on my blog.

Yours faithfully,’

I’ll be very interested to see what reply I get back, if any.

History Debunked on the Comparative Lack of Interest in British Asian History

This is a related video to the one I put up from Simon Webb’s History Debunked this afternoon, which discussed how the Beeb had race-swapped the characters in their adaptation of Around the World in 80 Days. Phileas Fogg’s servant, Passepartout, is now Black, but the leading lady, who is Indian in the book, is now White. ‘Cause you can’t have two non-White leads apparently. Or Blacks must be given preference over Asians when it comes to casting non-White roles. In this video Webb discusses the case of Hsien Fan Sun, a Chinese gent who worked as a librarian at the court of James II. If Sun had been Black, then knowledge of him would have been promoted as it has been about Mary Seacole and John Blank, the Black trumpeter at the Tudor court. But he isn’t, because he’s Chinese. It’s another example of how, to Webb, diversity means primarily Black people. Which left me wondering why this should be so.

Racism to and Enslavement of Asian Indentured Workers

Asians have suffered their share of western racism and enslavement. During the infamous ‘coolie trade’, Asian workers from India and China were recruited as indentured labourers to work on plantations in the Caribbean, Fiji and elsewhere to replace the Black slaves, who had been emancipated. They worked in horrendous conditions, which in many cases were worse than those endured by the Black slaves. The system was widely denounced by Indian nationalists and humanitarians, including the Anglican Church and leading politicos, as ‘A New System of Slavery’. Which is the title of an excellent book on it by Hugh Tinker, published by one of the Indian presses. There were riots against the coolie trade in India and China, and the British authorities were also keen to stamp out the enslavement of Asians. The Indian police raided warehouses where Indians were being forcibly confined after they had been kidnapped, or tricked into signing indenture papers. It was such a scandal that the government issued a series of regulations demanding that Asian labourers should have access to an interpreter and understand the terms and conditions of the contract, that there should be a minimum level of acceptable living conditions aboard ships, children should be with women rather than left with the men, and a minimum number of women should emigrate with the male workers. There should also be opportunities for correspondence home and the remittance of money. I think the Britiish government first discussed the recruitment of the Chinese in particular in 1816 or so. They wanted replacements for the Black slaves, and the Chinese were decided upon because they were hardworking and less likely to complain or rebel. The prejudice against Chinese workers continued into the 20th century, when the early Labour party at one meeting denounced the government’s ‘Chinese slavery’ and put up a picture of a Chinese man. There were anti-Chinese riots in 1909, although this was caused by British firms sacking their White employees and replacing them with Chinese during an industrial dispute.

The Asian Presence in British and European History

There isn’t a total lack of interest in the Asian presence in British history. The book Under the Imperial Carpet, whose editors were Asian, also discussed Asian British history. Before the present set of ethnic minority MPs were elected in the ’70s and ’80s, Britain had BAME MPs. Webb put up a video about an Indian rajah, who became a Conservative MP in the 19th century. Other Asians became Liberal and even Communist MPs later in the early 20th. I’m not entirely surprised by the presence of Sun at James II’s court. This was the age when Europe was expanding, not just across the Atlantic, but also into Asia. The Jesuits were establishing missions in China, and scientific and technical knowledge flowed back and forth. I think the Chinese were impressed by European clockmaking, while Europeans were impressed by the Chinese skill at making automatons. By the following century upper class Europeans were consuming tea, Chinese porcelain, decorating their homes with wallpaper and furniture with Chinese art and motifs. Chinese literature was also being translated into European languages. The great religious sceptic, David Hume, read at least one Chinese novel. What impressed him was not how different it was, but how it was comprehensible, given the difference between Chinese and European culture.

Asian Stars on British Television

There are and have been Asian actors and presenters on British TV. I’ve mentioned Anita Rani, Meera Syal, Sanjeev Bhaskar and Adil Ray in my previous post. But before them there was David Yip way back in the ’70s, who starred as The Chinese Detective. Dino Shafeek and Andy Ho appeared as the Indian and Burmese staff in the comedy It Ain’t Half Hot, Mum. The classical Indian sitarist Ravi Shankar gained widespread popularity among the Hippy crowd through his friendship with Beatle George Harrison. He’s said since that this wasn’t altogether beneficial, as you should approach classical Indian music with the same attitude you approach western classical music, rather than listen to it like pop. And were any number of western groups taking over oriental instruments, like sitars, and rhythms. This in turn led to the rise of World Music, a genre that encompasses music and its performers from across continents, and which includes both traditional and more modern forms.

And there is an interest in recovering an Asian, as well as Black British past. The Black rights and history organisation with whom I briefly corresponded when I was working at the Empire and Commonwealth Museum was the Black and Asian Studies Association. Researchers on Islam in Britain, when I was studying the religion at College in the 1980s, were particularly interested in the discovery of tombs with inscription in Arabic dating from the 17th century in Yorkshire. A more recent programme on the Barbary Pirates on Radio 4 in the early part of this century suggested instead that they may have been the graves of indigenous White Brits, who had been captured by the north African pirates and forcibly converted to Islam before either escaping or being ransomed. And a year or so ago there was a programme on Radio 3 about the Muslim servant of one of the ministers responsible for carrying through the Reformation over here. There have also been history books written about ‘The Muslim Discovery of Europe’. With the rise of capitalism, the stock exchange and the nascent consumer culture in the 18th century came popular ballads celebrating how people of all races and creeds, Jew, Christian and Turk, were all united in the peaceful work of making money. I don’t think there’s any shortage of material. My great-grandfather was a docker, and I can remember my grandmother telling me about the lascar and Chinese sailors that came into Bristol docks. But in general Webb is right: as a rule diversity means Blacks rather than Asians. Why is this?

Blacks More Determined than Asians to Be A Part of Mainstream British Culture?

I think some of it may be that Blacks have a greater determination to be a conspicuous part of western culture than Asians. Blacks have certainly formed a large part of the British and American entertainment industries since White youth started tuning into Jazz in the 1920s. There were Black screen actors, although quite often the roles they were given were demeaning before Sidney Poitier revolutionised the portrayal of Blacks on screen, paving the way for contemporary Black leading men. But then, so did Bruce Lee and stars of Chinese martial arts cinema like Jackie Chan and Jet Li. And some of us still remember the TV adaptations of the Chinese classics The Water Margin and Monkey, the latter based on Wu Cheng-en’s epic novel.

I wonder if some of it may be that some Asian cultures are more inward looking, and likely to look more toward their homelands and its culture for their roots and identity than Britain. Please note: I am certainly not suggesting that they are somehow less British than the rest of us. But I can remember coming across an academic, ethnographic study British Asians entitled The Myth of Return. This probably took its title from the initial conviction among many Asian immigrants that they were coming here only to make enough money so that they could afford to retire back to their home countries in comfort. This aspiration certainly wasn’t confined to them. Many Black West Indians also shared it, as did the Irish correspondent to the Groan whose letter began, ‘Sir, I am an Irishman, who came to Britain to make enough money to go back to Ireland again.’ In the ’70s there was a difference in integration between Muslim and Christian Pakistanis. Both groups were equally Pakistani in their culture at home, but the Christians were far more integrated into wider British culture. For example, their children mixed at school with the White children. By contrast ethnographers found that the Muslims took their children straight to school and straight back, and really didn’t allow them to share the same afterschool activities as their White classmates. This might explain why there were Islamist segregationists, who wanted there to be self-governing Muslim enclaves in Britain and Belgium, with Arabic as the official language, governed by shariah law. I hasten to add that things are rather different now. There was a Big Iftar around the country, a giant feast marking the end of Ramadan, celebrated by the Muslim community, who also invited their non-Muslim neighbours to partake. And polls have shown that only five percent of British Muslims want shariah law. But I think the Asian community may be more likely to get their entertainment from their ancestral countries through the Internet, satellite TV and video and DVD.

Asians More Culturally Confident?

I also wonder if part of the answer is that Asians, and specifically Indians and Chinese, may be more culturally confident than western Blacks. India and China were highly advanced, literate civilisations with histories going back millennia. A glance through books on the history of inventions and mathematics shows any number of works and innovations by Arab, Persian, Indian and Chinese scholars. The first instance of plastic surgery, for example, comes from 8-9th century India, when one of the leading surgeons repaired the nose of a Indian princes. Muslim mathematicians and scientists studied astronomy, alchemy, medicine. And the Chinese had printing – though not with movable type, that was definitely Gutenberg’s invention – gunpowder, rockets, paper money and toilet paper, to name but a few. Sometimes this cultural confidence has formed the basis for humour. One of the characters on Goodness, Gracious Me – or was it the Kumars at No. 42? was a father, who was excessively proud of his home country’s achievements. He shouted out ‘India!’ every time various inventions were mentioned. I also remember one episode of Lovejoy in which the dodgy antique dealer was in negotiations with a Hong Kong businessman. This man was also conscious of how his country had led the world in science and invention for centuries, to the point where he believed the Chinese had more or less invented everything. At one point this is too much for his interpreter, who says to him, ‘Oh no, Mr -, I don’t think we invented motorcycles’.

Black African Cultures Less Well-Known and Admired

This is in contrast to Africa, whose great civilisations and monuments are less appreciated. Ancient Egypt has been claimed as Black civilisation by the Afro-Centrists, but this is controversial and they could well be wrong. Nubia and Meroe in what is now the Sudan died out centuries ago. Christian Nubia was conquered by the Muslims. It’s predecessors in the Sudan unfortunately spoke languages that are now extinct. The Nubians took over the culture and alphabet of the Ancient Egyptians. Frustratingly, we can read their inscriptions but have no idea what they mean until the appearance of a Rosetta Stone that will give us the key to translating them. Abyssinia was a literate, Christian empire while the Kiswahili were also an advanced Islamic civilisation. As was Mali and other states in northwest Africa. But I think these have been seen as the exceptions rather than the rule. Although many of the civilisations of north and Saharan Africa were capable of building large structures, like house and mosques from mud brick, I suspect the popular image of Africa remains that of mud huts. And until the introduction of Islam and Christianity on the continent, many of these peoples were illiterate. The result has been that the attitude of many western scholars towards African civilisation was wholly negative. The book Colour and Colour Prejudice, by the last British governor of Ghana, has page after page of quotes from various western scholars, almost all of whom declare that African culture is worthless and that the continent’s people have discovered nothing. Obvious this has been and is being challenged by Black activists and scholars.

Blacks and Affirmative Action

Much of the promotion of Blacks as a specific group has come from concern at the poor conditions of the Black community in America and Britain. Other groups have also suffered racism. I can remember one of my uncles telling me with disgust about the horrible ‘jokes’ the other White workers played on an Indian comrade. As a rule, I think Blacks are at the bottom of the racial hierarchy when it comes to academic performance and employment. Above them, but still disadvantaged, are Muslims. Indians are about the same level as Whites, or just below, while Chinese actually outperform us. Black history as a specific subject in schools is being promoted as the solution to the problems of the Black community. If Black people were aware of their achievements and presence in American and British history, then they would develop the self-respect and confidence to perform better at school, and challenge the racism that still sees them as outsiders and foreigners. Unfortunately, this has led to Black activists claiming the credit for Blacks for scientific achievements that came from others. I think the entertainment industry is part of this drive for Black empowerment too. I have a feeling that some of roles created for Black performers are intended to provide positive images of Blacks as just as urbane and middle class as everyone else. Or proper, respectable working class. I’ve no doubt its done to challenge the negative racist stereotypes Whites may hold, while at the same time hold up positive role models to the Black community. To show that Black people also live in families with fathers, where the parents are respectable, upstanding citizens who work to support their children and give them the best life they can. I’m not aware that family breakdown is the same issue in Asian communities as it is amongst Blacks and the White poor, so some of the issues that have led to a specific emphasis on Blacks in diversity may simply not be as pressing. It thus seems to me that, in general, Asians may be so much more confident in their culture that they don’t see the same urgency in establishing and insisting on their historic presence in Europe.

Blacks More Vociferous and Forceful in Attacking Racism

I also think it may also come from Blacks complaining the most forcefully about racism. One of the key events in the introduction of positive discrimination in Britain were the 1980s/81 race riots, where Black communities in Bristol, Brixton in London and Toxteth erupted in rioting. It led to various official reports, which recommended affirmative action programmes to give greater opportunities to Blacks, as was being done at the same time in America. There have been protests in the Asian community, and interethnic violence between Asians and Whites, along with Asian anti-racist activism. But I don’t recall the Asians rioting in the same way Black Brits did. And the protests held by Britain’s Muslims seem to be about specifically Islamic issues, like the publication of the Satanic Verses, the Charlie Hebdo cartoons and general Islamophobia, rather than issues like employment or education although those have also been present. As a result, I think it’s probably true that Asians are less represented than Blacks in moves for ethnic diversity, although it should be stressed that they aren’t completely absent.

But these are just my ideas based on my own impressions. I may be wrong, and there may be other factors involved. I’d be interested to know what others think about it.

As an example of a TV series with an Asian leading man, here’s the titles to the Chinese Detective, starring David Yip, which I found on Robert Telfer’s channel on YouTube. Since then we’ve had Luther, starring the awesome Idris Elba as a Black detective. I like Elba – I think he’s a great actor, who could easily play Bond. I haven’t watched Luther, however, as the crimes he investigates all seem too grim and ‘orrible, like the serial killers tracked by Linda La Plante’s heroines. But perhaps it might be time once again for an Asian detective.