in March 2023 on the UN International Day for the Elimination of racism Pope Francis denounced racism , likening it to a ” virus that quickly mutates and instead of disappearing goes into hiding and lurks in waiting”.
Disturbingly, recent so called ” protests”, particularly in northern towns, left without real ” levelling up”, and in Northern Ireland, broke out into violence against refugees, asylum centres and hotels, mosques and immigrants generally. Moreover, racism came out in public, onto the streets. The abusive “P…” word was scrawled on the Rotherham asylum seekers hostel and a Hindu Temple in Leeds received similar graffiti. Direct vile personal insults re-emerged in passing in public places.
The great Leeds historian Professor H.A.L Fisher wrote in ” A History of Europe”(1934) :” Progress is not a law of nature. The ground gained by one generation may be lost by the next. The thoughts of men may flow into channels which lead to disaster and barbarism“. I didn’t change the out of date gender as the great majority of perpetrators in the recent events were notably men. And those disturbing violent events were detonated by lies and misinformation banking on the deliberate political and media construction of a ” hostile environment ” for refugees and asylum seekers which has careered back into a confused hostility to all those perceived to be migrants and particularly those of colour :black and Asian. Licence has effectively been given to public and personal racial abuse reinforced by “X” and far right campaign promoters and even a prime minister’s slurs against Muslim women and African children. Newspaper columnists can now describe asylum seekers as ” vermin”.
Politician Enoch Powell stirred up fears of ” rivers of blood” in the 1970’s which saw the emergence of the violent National Front. In 1981 there were the Brixton riots and street trouble in Leeds. In 2001 there were disturbances in the Lancashire Mill towns and again in 2011 in London. The American billionaire head of Twitter(X) Elon Musk joined in predicting ” civil war” in Britain to fuel the flames. In Leeds, the Citizens Organising movement quickly responded in acts of supportive solidarity by turning up with inter-faith representatives at weekend prayers at local mosques.
Forty years ago this Summer,in 1984, the Catholic Association for Racial justice was founded ( by Yogi Sutton) as a black-led independent organisation where ethnic minorities in our Church could find support and a voice and where people of all backgrounds could work together for racial justice. The mission was to struggle for a more just and cohesive society in which all God’s children can be truly sisters and brothers in Christ.
Not long ago, in a government-commissioned report, Tony Sewell announced that Britain was no longer ” systematically racist”, a view that evoked an eruption of criticism. Following this summer’s events, perhaps at best, it is a case of “not yet”. Deep racist attitudes and processes remain. Nor can racism be dismissed as a case of a ” few bad apple”. As CARJ has courageously, carefully and patiently spelt out over the years “racism and racial injustice exist both in society and in the Church.”
Therefore, CARJ’s fortieth celebrations consisting of two events, one held in London on 25 th May and a second coming up at St Patrick’s Foundry St in Oldham for the northern Archdiocese of Liverpool on 21stSeptember, are not a signing off but rather a prescient relaunch of a “Racial Justice Agenda for Change” that is urgently needed.
This day led by Fr Phil Sumner, who has long campaigned for community cohesion , will introduce a new structural agenda addressing “Belonging”,” Information” and ” Accompaniment” with experienced speakers and practical workshops. Importantly it will sketch out the development of a practical “strategy”; consulting with those directly affected; outlining a timetable of realistic measures to be carried through which need to be developed. In the past, as Yogi Sutton points out, the Church has tended “to lag behind secular mainstream secular society on diversity issues”. Encouragingly, Westminster Diocese is already working on “Rooting out racism” and the Archdiocese of Southwark led by Archbishop John Wilson is developing it own “Racial Justice Strategy”. Other Dioceses can learn from their lead and the Catholic Bishops Conference should now be emphasising the urgency.
In our society that has welcomed 28,000 Syrians and 180, 000 Ukrainians fleeing war and destruction, and in which between 2011 and 2021 the number of mixed race households actually increased by 25%, we are not “sleep-walking into segregation” as the head of the Commissioner for Racial Equality suggested in 2005.
More encouragingly, the recent prophetic witness of Imam Alan Kelwick (a Muslim convert) and worshippers at the Abdullah Quillam mosque in Liverpool, engaging with those threatening the mosque by offering food and an open welcome not only won through to the hearts of the attackers, their action hopefully went viral. See https://www.theguardian.com/news/audio/2024/aug/07/the-imam-who-reached-out-to-rioters-podcast