Notting Hill RACE RIOTS THREATEN BRITISH LEADERSHIP

Press, Volume XCVII, Issue 28697, 22 September 1958, Page 10

Notting Hill RACE RIOTS THREATEN BRITISH LEADERSHIP

tßy t

the

Rev. TREVOR HUDDLESTON,

C.R.J

London, September 11,—It should be a very humiliating and chastening thought to every citizen of Britain that Notting Hill has now become the same kind of symbol as Little Rock. It stands for race riots. In every city of the Commonwealth it can mean one thing only: the simple, stark, ugly fact that white Britons are no different from white South Africans or white Americans of the Deep South. It means not merely that Britain is capable of colour prejudice, but that her citizens allow it to erupt into ugly violence. And, having said all that, let me say one thing more to rub salt right into the wound. Colour-prejudiced Britons have far less excuse than their brethren in Africa and the United States: in fact, they have no excuse at all. And that for three very good reasons. First, the total non-white immigrant population of Britain is 0.4 per cent, of the whole, and immigration is in any case falling. So it is hypocrisy to plead fear of submergence, fear of losing identity, or even fear of an unbalanced economy as an excuse for this panic-reaction. Greatest Emigrants

Second, Britain has for centuries, and on every continent, launched white settlements upon existing non-white civilisations. Nor have .these settlers even stopped to ask themselves: “by whose permission, and by what right am I here?” But Britain has enriched herself, raised her standard of living, and taken vast room for expansion in consequence of this colonising policy of the past. And today Britain justifies it by pointing to her achievements in every field, political, social and economic, where her white emigrants have settled. I am not, at the moment, questioning this. I am simply pointing to the plain truth that we British have been the greatest emigrants on earth, and the results of this are seen today from Africa to the West Indies, and from Alaska to Australia. Third, and to our credit, Britain has evolved in the course of the last 50 years the concept of Commonwealth, and has shown in India and in Ghana that she means to. make the attempt—which perhaps no other great empire has ever made—to abrogate sovereignty that we may enjoy fellowship and freedom. But this concept is young and its future desperately uncertain in a world so starkly divided between East and West. We dare not take its growth for granted. We have no right, yet, to pat ourselves on the back for its achievement.

Events in Africa, In Asia, even in the West Indies, may yet prove our hopes misplaced and our optimistic prophecies only pipedreams. It is against this background that the thuggery of Notting Hill must be assessed. I am not, in this article, attempting to discuss the local issues: still less to apportion blame. The teddy boy may be a menace or. merely a scapegoat. The Mosleyites may have initiated or merely cashed in on the trouble.

Poverty, slum-conditions, prostitution. abuse of the Welfare State, irresponsible behaviour by white and black alike^—all these are factors which need most care-

ful and detailed study. But I am concerned here with the two points which seem to me to be the cardinal issues confronting Britain today. First, the essence of colour’prejudice, what it is and what it does. Second, the effect on world opinion of a policy of restrictive immigration. And I will deal with the second question first. We Britishers are almost pathologically self-opinionated people. For that very reason we think we are the most unbiased people on earth. But in fact when we ask ourselves the question: “What will the Commonwealth think of this?” our instinctive thought is “what will the white settlers or colonists (in Kenya, Rhodesia, Canada, Australia, etc.) think of this?” It is simply not realised in Britain that the British Com* monwealth of. Nations is over 80 per cent, non-white. And white Britons just haven’t the imagination to understand that the reaction of their brethren-in-colour is the least important thing in this world affair. Shattering of Ideal What does it mean to. the Commonwealth—as it really is? It means the shattering of an ideal: nothing less. It means, for instance, that when Britain talks of “partnership” in Central Africa or Kenya, she is already committed to the principle “on our terms only.” For if we cannot get along with a 0.4 per cent, minority of West Indians and Africans in our own land, what hope is there of accepting the facts of life where “we” are outnumbered by a hundred or a thousand' to one? If we immediately cry “restrict immigration” (and mean coloured immigration) what hope is there for the African in Johannesburg who is a migrant in his own country anyhow? If we raise the barriers against those who through poverty in their own land, or through initiative and thirst for education, or through a belief in the British pattern of democracy wish to come to our land —and if we do this simply on the grounds of colour —are we not in fact abandoning all hope of retaining the loyalty of Africa to the West? Exaggerated? Maybe. A young African from Ghana and another from South Africa talked to me a day or two ago. This is what they said: “But Africa still wants the West and not the East: still looks to Britain and not Russia . . . But, after this, there’s a question-mark . . . Does, Britain really want Africa? ...” Voice of Notting Hill That is the point. Is Britain prepared to act on those fine words which she has for so long preached to others, and which should find their focus and meaning in the word “Commonwealth?” Of is she going to let the strident panic-filled voices of Notting Hill reduce the nation to moral impotence in face of the world? Colour-prejudice—what is it, really? I would define it some--how like this: an irrational attitude, born of fear, nourished on ignorance, expressed in violence of thought or word or action. Its language is the same the world over. So are its excuses and rationalisations. So are its bitter enduring fruits. Always its leads* to men forgetting that every person is made in the image of God, whatever his race or colour or creed. Always it leads to' impoverishment of life: to a refusal of God’s best gifts—for they must be shared. Ultimately, if we allow it a place in our own hearts, it leads to that final blasphemy of regarding persons as if they were things, and of subjecting indiyidual freedom and responsibility before God to a man-made myth. Can Lead to Buchenwald Nazism was racialism in essence. And the Jew was its victim. A Notting Hill can lead to a Buchenwald, if we let it! And what must we do? We must recognise, each one of us, that it is a challenge to our own conscience: not to the conscience of others. We must act in our own neighbourhood, positively, constructively and immediately to show that we care: that any colour discrimination, however slight, be immediately quenched. We must make it clear that we are concerned with something more than a local issue, and that the whole matter of immigration must be seen against the background of world affairs. Above all —and here I speak as a Christian to my fellow-Christ-ians—we must show, perhaps for the first time, the reality of our, faith in God by making our Christian family, the Church to which we belong, the kind of family that it ought to be: not only at the altar, but in the streets of our cities. If Notting Hill can do this for us, it may not be too late. But it is late enough!—(Central Press. All rights reserved.)