BEING AN INFORMER
“Police chiefs have called on the public to report breaches of lockdown restrictions, saying it was their civic duty”- The Times of 29 October. In the UK, Martin Hewitt, Chairman of the National Police Chiefs Council, asked people to report “egregious breaches putting everyone at risk’’ notably not minor breaches which were less risky to the public.
“Police in Hong Kong are to set up a hotline for members of the public to inform on anyone who does not abide by the widely condemned national security law” – The Times of 30 October. A government spokesman in Hong Kong said “Members of the public may possess information about activities which could jeopardise national (China’s) security”. “It will also create a deterrent effect as there will be eyes and ears everywhere.” Echoes of Nazi Germany and Communist USSR?
Without suggesting any comparison between police in the UK, perhaps the best in the world, and the authoritarian police state which is China, it is relevant to note that getting people to inform on each other is considered justified in both countries where leaders consider a breach of law has serious consequences. Creating a culture of ordinary normally law-abiding neighbours to police each other is fraught with risk. Where might it lead?
On the other hand, in the UK it has perhaps long been acceptable to encourage citizens to report information about at least serious crime, for example the TV programme Crimewatch, and in relation to terrorism. The question is where to draw the line. In relation to Covid-19(CV) it is highly risky to ask a neighbour to judge what is a very serious breach and what is not, especially when it is generally thought that some restrictions are unjustified and irrelevant and people are in fact applying common sense to their own circumstances. Perhaps, the real lesson is that it is a mistake to have created so many restrictions and a myriad of exemptions, often at a minutiae level . It would perhaps have been better to leave most things in the category of guidance, including who can meet who where and when, and only make illegal obviously extreme dangerous CV activity such as large parties. The police have been given an impossible and wasteful job, yet again.
In the case of China’s national security law, Western and other democratic world commentators and politicians are generally condemning of the Chinese approach: for example it stretches beyond the Chinese borders to apply to all people worldwide who Chinese leaders (its Communist Party) perceive to act in a way they regard as detrimental to Chinese objectives. Malign Chinese influences are the subject of a readable article in the Times in October with the headline “ Our Universities have sacrificed academic liberty for China cash”, by Edward Lucas.
Chinese students in the UK live in fear of speaking out honestly: apparently seeking asylum in the UK risks retribution on relatives in China. Also, Chinese students who favour democracy evidently will be seriously harassed and abused at least via their inbox. Even non-Chinese who criticise China will receive attacks. Academics hesitate to broach Chinese subjects with freedom of opinion perhaps adverse for fear of the hassle that will accompany that. And Universities receive Chinese funding for various projects which they prefer not to jeopardise.
Hopefully, the UK is slowly waking up to this infiltration of influence which is degrading Universities, as well as other aspects of UK life. Various measures in response get mooted but so far little has been done. Strong leadership from UK Government (UKGOV) is required to counter complacency in Universities and other institutions. It may be necessary to forego Chinese funding which is buying off freedom of speech and action, and so corrupting UK values.
HATE CRIMES – TIME TO LEARN THAT NAMES WILL NEVER HURT
In the same vein as reporting one’s neighbour for CV breaches is the growing obsession with hate crime, promoted especially by those for whom some minority cause is the major evil of our time. It is perhaps right that in extreme circumstances a limit on free speech is justified, such as when such freedom is abused, for example by those whose purpose is to destroy the fabric of the UK, to actively encourage physical violence, murder or other terror activity against UK people. But should not every such limit which is proposed be fully discussed with all the implications, intended and unintended, being considered, and only adopted as a last resort. Otherwise a slippery slope to the end of free Democracy beckons.
Hate crimes , which sound fairly nasty because of the word “hate”, can often merely involve the use of language which perhaps might offend another individual, maybe depending on their level of confidence or self-esteem and sensibilities. For example, terms which may be politically incorrect and indeed insulting to describe, say, gay people or even people of colour may offend their targets. UK police are being asked to prosecute users of such language as hate criminals at a level of offensiveness which perhaps is quite low, and which leads to quite disproportionate judicial processes and use of resources. Sherbhert is fond of quoting Barack Obama’s words “ I accept that people are going to call me awful things everyday, and I will always defend their right ot do so “. The old saying “sticks and stones may break my bones but names will never hurt me” may have much to commend it.
Now the Scottish National Party intends to outlaw speech which stirs up hatred even in private houses. Some insults traded in genuine anger in a private row as people lose their tempers may now invite the strong arm of the law. Is it really so dreadful to insult someone else that the offended need to be protected by the police? Do individuals want a nanny in a policing uniform to defend them ?
An article by Trevor Philips, a fighter of racism throughout his life and also a man of common sense and humanity, entitled “The march of wokeism is an all-pervasive new oppression”, is telling; it gives a perspective on how extreme minority causes, particularly racial, are giving rise to strong oppressive outcomes which do not serve well anti-racist philosophy. He bemoans the pathetically apologetic white people who have fallen into the trap of being guilty for being born white. “The march of the woke movement through our institutions is helped by a humiliating collapse of the British establishment’s authority in the face of its young accusers”– it seems too that many a young person has fallen for the social media fake news and indoctrination, spread by those wishing to create division and conflict, that makes all white people despicable white supremacists, whatever that may mean. In a country such as the UK, where the worst underachievers are young white males living in the most deprived neighbourhoods, earning less than their more of colour counterparts, as Trevor Philips observes too, the idea of white supremacy is unlikely to chime.
A pathetic but so dangerous aspect of certain extreme movements is how they seek to control language: a word which yesterday Martin Luther King used to describe black people is today “taboo” for some reason, “We as Negroes must bring together toughmindedness and tender-heartedness if we are to move creatively toward the goal of freedom and justice”. – Strength to Love by Martin Luther King. The Negro word is now forbidden and much of his philosophy has gone out of the window with it, as hate for whiteness is the main message. Trevor Philips refers to how the head of a private girls’ school was forced to apologise for using the word “negro” during an assembly explaining the origin of Black History Month, which lay in Negro History Week a century ago.
Sherbhert regularly refers to the need for people to be free to offend, and for the offended to be resilient, as Barack Obama supports. The ignorant speaker of insulting terms to offend, for example the gay man, or the person of colour, done to bully and big-up the speaker, is simply to be ignored, almost pitied. If freedoms are not to be given up, people need perhaps to learn not to take offence, with the resilience to shrug it to one side, and even pity the speaker. Constant education is required for all to learn not to abuse, but also how to handle abuse and reduce hate, as a simple fact of life and managing relationships between people. Criminalisation of offending language is unlikely to change underlying sentiment; and, in any event, the crime will go unprosecuted like so many others, as over-stretched police should prioritise dealing with life-threatening criminality rather than unstable human relationships.
WHO CARES IF RISHI SUNAK IS RACIALLY ABUSED? AND YET THE “GOOD” ARE OUTRAGED BY GREG CLARKE
In October a video was published by One Rule For Them, a left wing group. Its target was Rishi Sunak, mocking him as a rich fat cat, privileged, privately educated Indian man living a celebrity lifestyle. A rather personal attack, which one might have expected at the time to have outraged all anti-racist movements with a major backlash across the media, but there was next to nothing.
However, Nirpal Dhaliwal, like Rishi Sunak a son of Punjabi immigrants to the UK, wrote a telling commentary on this attack in the Times of 29 October: “It stinks of the resentment, laziness and racism among a section of the lumpen Anglotariat that despises any immigrant who wants to do more with his life than shine shoes”. He refers to Indians in the UK “holding fast to their culture of learning, family loyalty and high aspiration in the face of poverty and racism, and reaping the inevitable rewards”. Indians are notably financially more successful than their white counterparts in the UK.
Rishi Sunak was attacked for attending Winchester School, comparable to Eton so now he is one of “Them”: but perhaps his parents worked hard and saved money, sacrificing, to give him that start in life. Apparently, according to Nirpal Dhaliwal, Indian Tories are often insulted as “coconuts” – brown on the outside and white on the inside. His commentary shows up those who would attack successful people of colour for what the attackers are, racist hypocrites.
It is extraordinary that there was not media outrage, and outrage from all anti-racist groups, that such a video could be published for political propaganda with impunity. Rishi Sunak, seems to have shrugged it off, perhaps seeing it for what it is, and perhaps giving a good lesson in how to deal with offensive, even racist, abuse.
By contrast, Greg Clarke, Chairman of the Football Association, provoked universal outrage from MPs, anti-discrimination groups, television presenters and from all the “good” people who feel obliged to join a righteous bandwagon, perhaps for fear of being criticised for silence as approval and followed by cancellation. What provoked the outrage? He seems to have succeeded in offending almost all diversity causes. He referred to “coloured” players, instead of “of colour” or “black”; to differing career aspirations of South Asians compared to Afro-Carribeans, the former preferring IT to football; he quoted a female football coach as saying that “young girls… just don’t like having the ball kicked at them hard..”. He also offended the gay community. Dare one say it, but, if it were acceptable to find humour in idiotic behaviour, the fact that anybody in a position of leadership of a public body could in one speech offend so many categories in a Government committee interview is quite humorous.
Piara Power, executive director of Fare, European football’s anti-discrimination organisation, made a sound judgement , reported as saying “ I like Greg Clarke, I think he is quite genuine, but why does he talk such b……s?”
Of course, he had to resign because people took offence. But he is not really malevolent, a racist or a homophobe or a misogynist, or probably even sexist. He perhaps is just unable to talk in a modern vernacular with the right acceptable language, which may be laziness or complacency on his part. He is a product of his generation who has failed to move with the times. That is the context. Of course too, so many expressed outrage – perhaps exhibiting the reaction expected of them. In reality, Greg Clarke was simply unfit to head up the FA, as he has not managed to learn and adapt and communicate, as all of us need to do, as the world changes, whether for better or worse. If the general leadership and culture of the FA was any good, he would have been removed long ago. Perhaps they will cure all ills by making an unconscious bias course compulsory for everyone in the FA over the age of 50, the normal remedy to tick the box of reducing politically incorrect behaviour.
But the outrage was really over the top. Pity would have been more appropriate perhaps. It hardly compares to the insult to Rishi Sunak.
