From: WAKEUPLEFTIES@HOTMAIL.COM   
      
               The Sunday Times - Comment   
      
      
      
                           May 02, 2004   
      
                           Comment: Minette Marrin: Britain's new apartheid   
   makes strangers of us all   
      
      
      
                           Sometimes something happens which is a perfect   
   incarnation of an idea, an attitude made flesh. This happened in the   
   unlikely person of Clive Wolfendale, deputy chief constable of north Wales,   
   who decided to favour the inaugural meeting of the North Wales Black Police   
   Association with a rap performance.   
                           It is hard to imagine the scene, but a white   
   middle-aged senior officer in uniform regaled a group of policemen from   
   various ethnic groups with some cod hiphop about the difficulties of "bein'   
   in the dibble" when you're black: "You're better chillin, lie down and just   
   be passive / No place for us just yet in the Colwyn Bay Massive".   
      
      
      
                           The bottom line was that police of all backgrounds   
   must trust each other and work together, to which nobody could possibly   
   object. But the lyrics seem to me lamentable and the idea itself even more   
   so.   
      
                           It is not merely embarrassing that a senior   
   policeman chose to ape a disaffected young black rapper in front of a mixed   
   group of junior colleagues, whose only common feature was that they were not   
   white. The whole occasion was a perfect illustration of the confusion and   
   cultural loss of nerve in this country. It stands for all the patronage,   
   misguided ingratiation, guilt and double standards that bedevil the way   
   officialdom deals with race relations.   
      
                           The case of Abu Hamza, the Egyptian-born Muslim   
   cleric, is an even more glaring example of this cultural funk. Known to the   
   tabloids as Captain Hook, Hamza is without question a serious menace to this   
   country.   
      
                           He has been preaching racial and religious hatred   
   for many months in public (causing regular traffic jams in the process), and   
   the Home Office has for long been convinced that he is closely linked with   
   several international terrorist groups, including Al-Qaeda. He gives comfort   
   to our enemies.   
      
                           At last the home secretary has decided to strip him   
   of his British nationality in order to deport him. However, under British   
   law Hamza is entitled to appeal, no matter how undesirable he may be, and   
   his appeal hearing was due to start last Monday. Yet neither he nor his   
   solicitor turned up in court, nor did he submit any evidence to support his   
   appeal (although he was ordered to do so many months ago).   
      
                           What is the result of this astonishing contempt of   
   court, and of this country? A postponement of his case until January. Until   
   then he will be free to carry on as before.   
      
                           For there are the summer holidays to consider, and   
   then the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, and then it will be Christmas, and   
   then the Treasury might kick up about legal aid but hasn't decided yet, so   
   really it will not be convenient to get round to dealing with this fellow   
   for nearly nine months.   
      
                           In a moment of exquisite understatement the judge   
   commented that Hamza's delays were "regrettable", and the Home Office's QC   
   said with almost equal severity that "if he (Hamza) carries on like this,   
   maybe the time will come when we might be making an application to you to   
   dismiss the appeal".   
      
                           How about tomorrow? Why this astonishing lack of   
   nerve? It is incredible that officialdom lacks the resolve to dismiss the   
   case or to settle the legal aid problem in advance or to try the man under   
   existing laws against incitements to violence, or even to call a witness to   
   court during the month of Ramadan. This is a multicultural nonsense which is   
   new to me and a bad precedent.   
      
                           As a result, for his insolent, triumphant contempt   
   of the appeals court and of the manners and morals of this country, Hamza   
   has not been punished. He has been rewarded with nine further months to do   
   his worst here, unchecked, at vast public expense.   
      
                           A gaggle of Christian clerics got together last week   
   to denounce the British National party. They did not, however, for all the   
   scary allegations about his terrifying secret "war cry" tapes, denounce   
   Hamza. The BNP at its worst has never articulated, still less preached,   
   anything like as bad or as racially inflammatory material as has Hamza. It   
   does not advocate breaking the law, while Hamza incites atrocities.   
      
                           Yet it is the BNP, in divided and guilt-ridden   
   Britain, that excites more righteous indignation. One can only wonder what   
   is wrong with the sense of perspective: white bigots evil, but un-white   
   bigots un-evil. There seems to be one standard for white people but another   
   standard for others.   
      
                           One can only wonder, too, at the skewed perspective   
   of the functionaries in Manchester who have been planning to set up a school   
   in Bangladesh, at British taxpayers' expense, for British-born Bengali   
   children who miss many weeks of school because their parents take them for   
   long trips to the old country to learn about their heritage and culture.   
      
                           Out of respect for their lengthy cultural researches   
   during term time, therefore, we the taxpayers must pick up the bill for   
   special schooling in Sylhet.   
      
                           Not only Manchester council and the local head   
   teachers, but also John Dunford, general secretary of the Secondary Heads'   
   Association, thought this was a good idea. He advised other education   
   authorities to do likewise.   
      
                           Things are rather different here for white children   
   who bunk off school and for their parents. A white Englishwoman has recently   
   served not one but two prison sentences for failing to make her teenage   
   daughters go to school.   
      
                           I don't suppose anyone thought to ask whether the   
   girls were having culturally important experiences down the shopping centre   
   with their mother at the time, or offered them home tuition to fit in with   
   their leisure activities. (I should point out that a huge proportion of   
   truants in this country are caught when shopping with their parents, which   
   is to say with their parents' consent and in accordance with their "culture"   
   .) In the view of the educational establishment in Manchester, at least, it   
   seems that there is one law for indigenous whites and another for   
   non-whites.   
      
                           Various people who should have denounced this   
   nonsense have done so, including the Department for Education and Skills.   
   The head of the Commission for Racial Equality has condemned it. But the   
   fact remains that this sensibility exists and is widespread inside and   
   outside officialdom.   
      
                           Take, for instance, the case reported last week in   
      
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