The Race Equality Centre Leicester

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The Race Equality Centre in Leicester & Leicestershire
 Address: 3rd Floor, Epic House, Lower Hill Street, Leicester, LE13SH
Tel: 0116 2999800 
Fax: 0116 2999801
Online Contact Form

 

October/November 09
Article that appeared in the Leicester Mercury on Wednesday 28th October.

Iris Lightfoote, The Chief Executive Officer of The Race Equality Centre in Leicester, responds to BNP Leader Nick Griffin’s controversial appearance on Question Time.

 

Its just the way it is!!!

 

So BNP leader, Nick Griffin, took part in BBC TV’s Question Time.  But, in among the predictable bun fighting and rehearsed posturing of his political opponents, did we gain any new insights into the rationality of BNP positions and pronouncements.  In truth,not really.  What we mostly witnessed was the squirming of a man who, when challenged, was completely incapable of explaining any point of view and totally unable to provide any analysis beyond bold, simplistic, uninformed and (most dangerously) inaccurate assertions.  Even when he was asked to explain why he had changed his own mind about the reality of the Holocaust, he struggled to give a reliable and rational explanation; and the more he struggled the nearer the explanation came to an acknowledgement that he did not want to believe the witness statements of the Jewish survivors – preferring any other possible explanation, no matter how implausible.

 

That said, we did learn a few new things about Nick Griffin and the BNP.  We learnt that he has a degree in Law.  Well, that was news in the light of his failure to recognise the illegality of the BNP’s constitution and of the crass manner in which he tried to justify it’s illegality as a defence against the requirements of 30 year old race relations laws.  The existence of a law qualification in Mr Griffin’s armoury would also be news to those forced to listen to his banal rants against the European Union as he sought out someone else to blame for his unwillingness to explain his change of heart over Holocaust denial.  It is frightening that someone so well qualified in the law could be so ignorant of the law.  And if he could be so ignorant about something in which he is qualified, one can only wonder how ignorant he is of matters beyond his understanding.

 

We also learnt that the representatives of the BNP have a manual or guidebook to help them to make appropriately tolerable statements in public.  So when Nick Griffin asserts that he is not a Nazi, we do have to wonder if that is as a result of guidance in the manual or if Mr Griffin really does not understand how similar his views are to those of national socialists.  Wondering aside, the presence of this manual demonstrates the extent to which this political party will seek to suppress their true message to curry favour with the public.  But, as we were cautioned, beware the wolf in sheep’s clothing.  Because, as it became increasingly apparent on Question Time, the true message of this party is one of harnessing division, engendering fear, and constantly identifying a scapegoat to blame for all of the supposed ills and limitations that we claim to experience now, in comparison to, some other, mythical golden historical era.  

This scapegoating includes the attempts by Nick Griffin to blame Islam –  stereotyped as vile and vicious and presumed to be homogeneous.  Which provided us with, perhaps, the most telling insight into the approach of Nick Griffin.  He selects uncontextualised verses from a book, couples them with regional cultural practices carried out by some people that adhere to the Islamic faith and declares that those verses and practices, do not just represent, but are total embodiments of Islam in its universality.  That is the process of negative stereotyping; and that form of stereotyping can only be comfortable if it fits in with the pre-existing, preconceived judgements, ie prejudices.

 

Mr Griffin gave his tendency to rely on prejudice to determine his party’s social policies during Thursday’s programme.  In it he was asked to outline the BNP’s position on a prejudicial and stereotypical attack on gay people in a national newspaper.  In his response Mr Griffin revealed that his opinion on the subject is derived from his basest feeling, his discomfort, his primordial gut reaction.  In his own words, these prejudicial attitudes need no explaining because “It’s just the way it is”.  But here, Mr Griffin is at his most dangerous.  “It’s just the way it is” is the last defensive resort for those who have no desire to develop understanding or liberalism.  “Its just the way it is “ comes just before “I was only following orders” in the pantheon of excuses for oppressive, brutal and inhumane attitudes to fellow humans.  For tens of thousands of years of human history, the powerful have justified their oppression of their victims by declaring that “it’s just the way it is”.

With respect to prejudices, nothing is just the way it is. Prejudices are learnt, taught and transmitted.  This includes the BNP leader’s prejudiced views about Islam, homosexuality, Johnny foreigner and his bizarre definition of an indigenous Briton (although it was disturbing how rapidly, when losing his sense of self – or memory of the manual, Mr Griffin would use the terms British and English interchangeably!!).  And we need to be ready for the manner in which he expresses stereotyped views of the British – portraying them as cowed, under threat and homogeneous; in a similar manner to that used by a German Chancellor in the 1930s.

 

The problem with these kinds of stereotyped prejudices is that they rely on a perpetuating myth that denies the potential for positive from any source other than that which is favoured or championed, and gives a sheen of amnesia to the many occasions when that favoured cause has failed to live up to those ideal values.  Hence NG’s claim for ownership of “traditional” British values of democracy and Christianity is in denial of, not only the universality of those values, but the extent to which each of those values had to be imported into the UK.  There is nothing indigenous to the UK about Christianity – it is a faith brought here, eventually, from the middle east.  There is nothing inherent to the UK in democratic values – these are principles that had to be learnt from European political philosophers, from Athens to Germany and France (the Athenians themselves having learnt and incorporated the practices of Zimbabwean society), and fought for here with the support of migrant workers in the face of opposition from the British state.

But why is the BNP, and its supporters so keen to characterise the British/English as, on one hand, the source of all that is wonderful and holy in the world, while being, on the other, tremendously at risk from the mere hint of the presence of diversity.  Why do the pronouncements of the BNP and Nick Griffin incessantly imply that the British character does not have the fortitude to be sustained in the face of changes in culture or population (or in the colour of that population).  Could it be that, rather than celebrating the British character and culture, Nick Griffin is, in fact, ashamed of the British and, as with so many egotistical people, he over-compensates; in this case by seeking to be the greatest champion of Britishness.  But surely, if he was secure in his British identity, he would know that Britishness is secure enough to exist without a champion.

 

That’s just the way it is.