Description

Ever since the London Bombings in July, the British media have been whipping up racist hysteria amongst the wider community. With tales of the ‘enemy within’, media organisations as wide as the BBC, LBC and Daily Mail have been producing programmes, images and articles highlighting Asian and African Muslims as the number one British enemy. But the reality is that unless a Muslim is wearing symbolic attire, there is no way to determine their religious faith from outward appearance. As a consequence to this all African Britons, immigrants and people from other minority communities have been placed under suspicion.

Tabloid and broadsheets are joining in the affray, ‘Somalia: A haven for terrorists’ they claim, ‘The lawless region of east Africa plagued with terrorists’ they state. Broadcasters, publishers and editors alike, all demonise Islam for the ‘evil’ ideology, whilst the Somali, Pakistani and Jamaican communities are blamed for their ‘complacency’ in tackling ‘extremism’. Yet when it comes to who is responsible for cultivating the disaffection, who isolated, disrespected, miseducated, marginalised, stereotyped and ultimately enabled the men who felt they had nothing to live for and everything to die for, it is only an honest minority in the media who have the integrity to cry out in muted tones ‘the lie of so called multicultural tolerant Britain’.

Yet the lie continues. In this climate of racial mistrust, many have publicly reaffirmed commitments to tolerance. None is acknowledging that instead of more pseudo-rhetoric, it is education fostering understanding, respect and the eradication of ignorance about migrant cultures that is needed. Media reports speak of how Britain is being redefined. It is no longer multicultural as the ex party leader of Veritas and the compromised chair of Britain’s government led race equality body state, but multi-racial.

We will no longer tolerate other cultures but insist everybody assimilates into our society by adopting our superior culture, our uniqueness quintessence that is best described as Britishness. Ever seeking to gain political capital the malevolent Tory party in sympathy with the Commission for Racial Equality has followed the lead of the BNP and called for the scrapping of multiculturalism, it demands respect for ‘the British way of life’ and states that we must speak openly of what we expect of those who settle here. Yet who is this ‘we’ they mention? The existing British nationals belonging to past generations who were born here? No. They mean the ‘other’, Africans in Britain and any other non Europeans, for Canadians, Australians, New Zealanders, and Europeans with either American or African nationality are always welcome. They obviously know what is expected, unlike the ‘other’.

But what of that other trait of Britishness that is at the core of the psyche of the wider community? What of that collective dirty secret that ensures xenophobic incidents across the country have increased as the media’s thinly masked race hate vitriol triggers the inheritantly racist pulse of the nation. Who documents the media climate which now expresses silent solidarity with Britons exposing deep rooted racist attitudes? Who helps the minority communities that have suddenly been left unprotected by their so called liberal ‘friends’ and betrayed by their spineless so called ‘leaders’?

No answers. Well we have more questions.

Where are the sustained efforts to create media programming that gives a permanent voice to the disaffected and disenfranchised young people who are the current target of the nation’s tirade against African people and non Europeans in Britain? Why do the media regulators remain indifferent as the ascending national rant against immigrants is ignited merely months after an extremely racist election campaign?

And what of the British government who has also joined the affray. Where is democracy when it is needed to stop them empowering the police to engage with public pleasing policies steeped in racism and displaying an open contempt for Britain’s African and other minority communities?

No suicide bomber has ever been detected by stop and search, yet the national media continues unrestrained in its role of encouraging public support for the violation of civil liberties based on racial profiling. Media institutions have fallen over themselves to legitimise the Governments blatant efforts to appease Britons of European descent. Unchallenged by authentic African and other minority voices they have collectively endorsed the Government’s new proposals to use blunt legislation to curb all forms of dissenting speech and behaviour. More ominously they have simultaneously approved the belligerent state sanctioning of a ‘shoot-to-kill’ policy which is aimed specifically at suspects who are typically African or Asian. The Irish are now out of range, they are no longer viewed as ‘black’ terrorists.

The countering response and defence from state approved African politicians, talk show facilitators and media personalities is deafening in its silence. Faced with the racially motivated murder of an innocent teenager by the British public, the racially fuelled execution of an innocent Brazilian by the British state, a ‘white might is right might’ attitude on the British streets and a marked increase in racist abuse aimed at African Britons, the very same media organisations give us more music, less politics, more issues, less analysis, more egos a plethora of comics and no public or political voice. But as they continue to exclude and refuse a diverse and uncompromised range of African people access to air our political concerns via their media networks, a fake mask of normality hides the boiling dissent that is rapidly growing within the African and British Asian communities.

As our concerns are marginalised, our opinions subverted, a powder keg of rage threatens to explode and start a new war simultaneously on another front.

The summer of 2005 will be interesting.