As we come to terms with the fact that terrorism has many faces, regardless of race, creed or religion, the shocking terrorist attack in Nice exposes our fragile communities. With democracy under attack the failed Turkey military coup, people power had ultimately won the day. The only way to tackle growing instability is through hope not hate, as extremists try to exploit our differences to create radicalisation amongst us. The only question is, is the media exploiting our differences to create a divided society based on our race, creed or religion?
The murder of Jo Cox MP on 16 June highlights the growing danger of the White Far Right, in the midst of our Brexit debate that continues to divide Britain. This terrorist attack on our Member of Parliament will only destroy our democracy, stopping Freedom of Speech and debates, if politics is conducted through terrorism.
The New Prime Minister, Theresa May has stated “Brexit means Brexit” while the healing process of our nation is underway after 17.4 million people voted for Brexit. At no point can we state the Brexit voters were at all racists, because the votes were based on many valued reasons. However the increasing rise of racism since Brexit needs to be stamped out. This phenomenal rise of racist incidents is a reflection of overt racism, against the backdrop of covert racism we had become so accustomed to.
If we are to move forward as a nation, before we become a disunited Union, with Scotland, closely followed by Northern Ireland and Wales already in campaigning mode for independence, then the UK needs to come together without alienating its largest minority group, three million British Muslims. They have already faced more discrimination than any other ethnic or religious group within the UK, so to end up blaming all Muslims for any terror attack, just re-enforces alienation.
The three French and a Belgium terror attacks have many Muslim victims and as a community they have suffered more from terrorism globally – the media never gives the same focus on Muslim victims as with European.
There are hate preachers who always claim that British Muslims don’t do enough to promote any integration. Ironically, the UK founder of EMMA set up this initiative towards real Social Cohesion, in 1997 for this precise reasons. The fact that any good done by any Muslim is just religiously ignored, while the white media only highlights any wrongs. Shows this narrative against UK Muslims is to be questioned, why’s the media doing this? Muslims globally are as diverse as any Christian or Jewish community, so how can any UK Muslim represent this one French national, who happens to call himself Muslim. The same can be said of any African-American, who never shot, at a police officer.
If France is to live up to the vision of its founding fathers, then its Liberty, Equality and Fraternity should be for all, not just a privileged few. This has fuelled division and attracted terrorist recruits. The lesson to stop French Terrorism is through British Multiculturalism, as defined through EMMA. The only people who will ultimately gain from terrorism are hate politicians, who only promote hatred to fight hatred. This is resulting in the growing rise of the Far Right in Europe.
Ironically, Baghdad equally suffered from a major terrorist attack, with 290 deaths and 180 injured. This doesn’t ignore the fact 84 deaths and 100 injured in Nice (France) own terrorist attack. This hate only helps the preachers of hate to divide us further regardless of their race, creed or religion – There is a need for a stronger National identity.
The biggest irony here is that our Ethnic Minority community, as diverse as any community on this planet, is somehow conveniently referred to as just a Black, Asian or termed Minority Ethnic (BAME). like products on a supermarket shelf. Where is the equality for other UK Minority groups like LGBT? This discrimination complicates an already complicated racial, sexual or disability divide. Exploited by the media, who are very now conscious of the Brexit voters, who stated that they feared losing their British identity with this large influx of Europeans not integrating. The culprits who promote lack of British culture is the media, by creating a diverse market audience based on race, not based upon any common British values – EMMA was a show that combined our British values through Cohesion.
This growing fear had been ignored by the our Metropolitan Elite from a largely White working class community. A recent London conference/workshop on extremism and radicalisation for UK prevent officers identified a growing white problem, which mirrored isolation felt by the British Muslim community for years.
The lack of proper employment for this group can’t be glossed over by a segregated ITV Award show highlighting the successes of a few. It is no different than the previous white privileged Award shows going back to the 1970’s. Any ITV segregated award show will just be dominated around the Black or Asian privileged minority group – not a true reflection of Britain culture
For the African-Caribbeans who are different in culture and character throughout the Caribbean islands to somehow be seen to represent Africans is unfair. Africa is a large continent and the differences between North, West, East and South Africa is greater than those of Europe. So to claim their commonality is based on the colour “Black”, is quite unfair. We cannot simply define the “Whites” through the commonality of their colour; when someone tried, we saw the Napoleonic Wars, First World War and Second World War and the bloody Cold War. This race war was even highlighted during the American Civil War, were it was glossed over, by the Far Right politician, through the usual cry of nationalism.
The fact that British Muslims fought for Britain and France and died in their thousands for their freedom, is conveniently ignored today. This irony extends to the term Asian; when considering the Asian continent includes West Asia, South Asia, South East Asia to Far East. Somehow, this term Asian here means South Asian heritage, by default discriminating against other UK Asian minorities. The British people, from England, Scotland, Wales or even Northern Ireland don’t want to be referred as European; nor the Protestants in Northern Ireland want to be referred as Irish. This was clearly stated by 17.5 million votes for Brexit – so why are the visual minorities not just British but BAME?
The surprising decision by ITV to undertake this BAME Awards, based upon more segregation policy is not only offensive to the British Ethnic Minorities who have been campaigning for proper Inclusion, but it is racist to White people, who represent the majority of our British communities. Ironically, to have Blacks then protest against white award ceremonies for not including enough Black people or minorities is nothing compared to excluding Whites because they’re White – this is reverse racism, and exactly what ISIS wants. The fact is that many Ethnic Minority recipients of this ITV awards, without any distinctive history, owe their own success to many White colleagues, displaying our true Multicultural community. This isn’t only an affront to British Social Cohesion, but a reminder of the us and them mentality that still exist, leading to growing 1970s tribalism and even 2010’s terrorism.
EMMA has always campaigned against all forms of racism, since our 1997 birth, and forced off-air, because racists who were successful in their own campaign. By claiming that White people shouldn’t be given this EMMA Awards for being White. The fact that EMMA stands for The Ethnic Multicultural Media Academy Awards means that it celebrates all Multicultural contributions, regardless of race, creed or colour. The share fact we’re all Ethnic (Human), based upon our British racial origin, is only limited to us being from either a Minority or Majority ethnic group – depending on where we’re based
Being a British Ethnic Minority doesn’t make us less or more Human, but we have values shared by many Humanitarians globally who promote real Social Cohesion. This is exactly what EMMA did by promoting Inclusion. We have proudly celebrated White winners who had contributed to our Inclusive UK Multicultural society, as have many Ethnic Minorities who have now settled here.
The question is, within a society based on collective British values, how can we define our common British culture otherwise? We continually undermine it through segregation, in TV shows that discriminates against a UK person’s race, creed and colour. This is exactly the fuel that has ignited the rise of the European Far Right by promoting this continual UK alienation – ironically created by other white people. This will ultimately lead to White only Award, for White people lead by the EDL, (English Defence League), a UK racist group alongside Germany’s Alternative für Deutschland (AfD)
What British Ethnic Minorities have always needed is true equality in employment, housing, good schooling, the National Health Service and above all, having Multicultural role models like Lord Attenborough to define British values. This is what we at EMMA have always promoted, with major icons endorsing EMMA’s ideology, like Nelson Mandela, Muhammad Ali, Maya Angelou, Ray Charles and families of Mahatma Gandhi, Dr Martin Luther King and Bruce Lee to name a few.
This is something Britain should be proud of as we defined globally Multiculturalism as shown through the London 2012 Multicultural Olympic Games – Are we now going to define segregation through ITV. If the youth radicalisation from all Ethnic groups is to be stopped, we need integration.
If we’re going to tackle the UK extremism and radicalisation that lead to the death of Jo Cox recently by a British terrorist then we have to recognise he is not any different than other terrorists. Anders Behring Breivik killed 77 people and injured 35 in Norway; Omar Mateen killed 50 and injured 53 in Orlando (US); Michael Brown killed 5 and injured 7 Police Officers in Dallas (US); and now Gavin Eugene Long killed 3 Police Officers in Baton Rouge in Louisiana (US), as revenge for the killing of Alton Sterling. There will be more attacks, like the 15 injured in Germany by a ISIS lone Axe attacker, who was on 17 years old from Afghanistan, which will become commonplace in the future. This only adds to the deepening pain for families who live with the results of terrorist attack on a global level, regardless of our race or religion – the media has to take a full and active part to promote integration.
The recent Chilcot Report had identified that the illegal War, led by Tony Blair, lead to 179 British war dead, 150,000 immediate dead from the Iraq conflict with the Middle East in flames. The world is faced with an existential crisis of growing terrorism. Any continued differences, imposed by our UK media industry, under the banner of political correctness will only further alienate our minorities towards discrimination, leading to more terrorism. The time to act is now not after any more terrorism
