Opinions and features

In this climate of controversy

By Thomas L Blair, editor and publisher of The Chronicle internet magazine http://www.chronicleworld.org

The current debate as to whether Britain is becoming an apartheid state is more than a divergence of opinion. The consequences of saying yes plays havoc with the truth and does not advance the interests of racial and religious minorities. And here is why I believe this to be the case.

Purveyors of the UK apartheid idea base their view on the "apartness" they perceive in contemporary life and reports. The Voice, a leading Black newspaper, has targeted the perils of "single-race", black or white housing estates. An independent report by Guyanese born Sir Herman Ouseley, former chairman of the Commission for Racial Equality, focuses attention on white and Muslim communities segregated in "single-faith" housing and schools in strife-torn Bradford.

Ashid Alli, director of the Oldham Bangladeshi Youth Association, says that white animosity and attacks by race-hate groups, such as the National Front, have made self-defence the only option for beleaguered Muslim communities in northern English cities.

This pattern of apartness when supported by sub-legal actions and below the surface racial feelings against minorities has been described as "virtual apartheid".But has no one considered what the word apartheid really means?

Apartheid must be seen in its historical context to better understand its meanings and implications. I have explored this matter with UK and international delegates to the ground-breaking World conference on Racism and Xenophobia held this year in Durban, South Africa.

Apartheid is a synonym for everything that is contemptible in the human vocabulary.

Think master and slave, black horse, white rider.
Think state-sponsored segregation by law and lies.
Think racially based exploitation of black labour.
Think of grinding black poverty buttressed by white supremacy.

Can any one really believe Britain is becoming a hated Apartheid State? The evidence is incontrovertible. It is not.

By law black people had to carry a "pass", but whites did not

Apartheid as we know it today began with the Afrikaner Nationalist government of South Africa. Winning a whites-only election in 1948, the new government introduced the policy of apartheid, or "racial separateness". Under this policy the majority black population was doomed to work for the "white boss man and his lady" in factory, field and kitchen.

They were prevented from interaction with whites in all other aspects of life. They needed pass books to travel between their homes, workplaces and white areas. Schools, churches, cinemas were all separate. There were "native-only" trams and park benches, and even Scouting groups were forced by law to segregate.

Apartheid's defining characteristic is therefore a state-sponsored policy that endorses and promotes racial hatred, separation and exploitation. It is de jure, written in law.

It is striking how apartheid had many parallels with life in the slave-holding southern states of America.

Think Jim Crow laws, Klu Klux Klan, and lynching mobs.
Think of brave Rosa Parks and Billie Holiday's mournful lament:
"Southern trees bear strange fruit, Blood on the leaves and blood at the root, Black bodies swinging in the southern breeze, Strange fruit hanging from the poplar trees."

Brave Rosa Parks defies race segregation of Alabama city buses

Of course these discredited regimes of hate are part of the detritus of history. But, it is appropriate to ask the question: what of de facto racialism by custom and practice in Britain, past and present.

There is a modern assumption that racial intolerance is foreign to the British character. But nothing could be farther from the truth.

Racialised issues are fundamental to the British experience despite what may be taught in schoolbooks. As the 16th century was drawing to a close Elisabeth I, surveying her kingdom, wrote a fretful letter to the Lord Mayors of London and to authorities in principal British cities: "There are of late divers blackmoores brought into this realm, of which kind of people there are already to manie." She then commanded "those kind of people should be sent forth from the land". Thus, with a stamp of her royal foot, the influx of dark-skinned people was abruptly halted.

The nineteenth century brought its perils, too. In 1862 Henry Mayhew, the social investigator, wrote on a visit to Liverpool: "It is only common fairness to say that Negroes seldom slack at work - their only trouble is to obtain it". Charles Dickens got the same picture when he toured the Liverpool slums for The Uncommercial Traveller in 1866. He noticed how the blacks suffered many "slights" from the local people.

By Victorian times, though black faces were a familiar sight on the streets of old seaports and slave trading centres, they were treated as "lesser breeds" and wretched souls to be saved.

Yet, today, in the face of all the evidence the British fail to see that de facto discrimination not only exists, it is often a defence of privileges by some groups in society against others. I can think of two institutions, education and the media, where customary exclusion has been identified and resisted by the efforts of young Blacks and Asians, and their supporters. I would like to share my own experiences with you.

The first example is the Oxford Access Scheme with which I worked in the 1990s. Black and Asian students at Oxford University colleges were concerned that the talents of the best young scholars in deprived areas would be lost to higher education and to the advancement of their communities.

We worked with inner city institutions, local educational authorities and careers advisory services. We visited schools and talked to teachers and students. I can still recall my intense discussions with young men and women at a school in Walthamstow, east London.

Equally at Oxford, we brought prospective applicants to seminars at Corpus Christi, Keble and St Catherine's colleges. Educational problems, issues and opportunities were frankly discussed. Oxford admissions tutors were encouraged to learn more about the backgrounds, values and interests of inner city scholars. Charities, corporate sponsors and the university authorities gave modest support. The result was a sharp increase in enquiries and success rates of minority candidates to Oxford colleges.

The campaign to open up the nation's newsrooms provides a second example. Started in 1997, The Chronicle was the first Internet magazine to systematically document the failure of the press to recruit minority journalists and to curb stereotyped images of Black Britain. Now, for the first time we are able to see some results.

In a surprise announcement this year the directors of the British Broadcasting Corporation admitted the BBC is 'hideously white'. This public confession coincided with a new initiative launched by the Creative Collective, a new media consultancy of Black and Asian journalists. The Collective aims to place hitherto ignored minority journalism students and professionals in the nation's newsrooms as part of a long-term media diversity strategy.

The lessons I draw from these examples is that when challenged corporate Britain, its educators and media moguls, will learn to recruit from a wider talent pool and better utilise the talented individuals they employ.

We are now able to see that the affliction of people of colour in Britain is not one of state-sponsored legalised apartheid. The barrier to minority enterprise and advancement is de facto discrimination, that is both customary and institutionalised by power elites in society.

It is also true, however, that the continued suppression in a democratic society of the natural instincts of visible minorities for self-development and advancement is a sociological time bomb.

Black people and the poorest and most vulnerable Muslims among the Asian populations cannot be expected to wait in the queue for social justice forever. The deepening fissures in society need to be addressed. Tough lessons in race and religious relations must be learned. Innovative responses are required.

Clearly, this is not the 16th century. No wave of a bejeweled noble hand can make the "born in Britain" children of Black and Asian immigrants disappear. Progressive youth, and their supporters of all races, religions and cultures, know that the inequalities in democracies are social constructs not genetic laws. And that they can be resisted and overcome.

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