You can blame who you like, but it's never black and white

WHEN a public problem - real or imagined - becomes very acute, the traditional way of dealing with it is to lay blame. It helps exonerate us, assuages our panic and provides a focus for our disdain and hate. But the most comforting effect of laying blame is that it explains the whole thing.

Foot-and-mouth disease was a great puzzle to us all until the theory of Chinese intervention was advanced. This explanation supposes that illegally imported meat from China has been used in Chinese restaurants, and that scraps of it have been included in collections of pigswill. So: the farm in Ponteland, Northumberland, where the disease is thought to have originated, was betrayed by the Chinese community in Newcastle.

Hold on, sorry, there's another call coming through from Blame HQ. It's from a Mr John Townend, Conservative MP for East Yorkshire, who is standing down at the next general election and now feels free to tell the truth as he sees it after umpteen years of anonymity. It seems Britain is under threat from foreigners. It's an incoherent argument, but Townend has noticed that there are swelling black populations in two large English cities and says this will affect the future of the Anglo-Saxon race.

This is a late message, you understand, given that the Anglo- Saxon race has not been dominant in Britain since it lost the battle to illegal Norman immigrants at Hastings. But we understand the spirit of what he is saying: he doesn't like black Britons, and life will never be the same again. He's right that life will never be the same - but it is just possible that New Britain may turn out all right, providing our definition of Briton is dynamic. The one thing that will remain the same is the instinct to blame and persecute Johnny foreigner in times of crisis.

Now, back to that pigswill. Here is a story you have heard before. Remember the case of the man who returned to the dry-cleaner to pick up his jacket? He found the police - or was it the RSPCA? - waiting for him. In his jacket had been found a little bone he had rejected from his mouth and pocketed in a tissue when eating in a Chinese restaurant. This bone turned out to be a human knuckle/Alsatian's rib/ cat particle. The dry-cleaner had called the police/RSPCA on finding the tissue - as dry-cleaners always do.

That particular urban myth is endemic in the Anglophone world. Nobody ever bothers about the details - when dry-cleaners got into forensic analysis, how the police/RSPCA knew when the man would arrive, or how the Chinese bested the rest of us in controlling and rounding up stray Alsatians. As the spokesman for the Chinese community in north-east England pointed out, it is easier to go to the supermarket than trade in illegally imported meat.

There is, of course, illegally imported meat, and its perpetrators ought to be punished. Such stuff comes in from all over the world, including the Far East and Africa. But the accusation levelled at the Chinese community is a general defamation consistent with urban myth- making and lacking any proof. If a particular Chinese person broke the law, let's keep it specific. Prosecute him without creating a generic witch-hunt against the rest of the community.

The same farm at Ponteland was also said to collect food scraps from Newcastle Airport, where Anglo-Saxons, Normans and Celts return from the rest of the world and leave bits of grub in the planes and restaurants. Surely no Anglo-Saxon can be responsible for foot and mouth?

TV news has shown all sorts of appalling pictures of dead creatures smuggled into Britain for purposes unknown. What on earth were these foreign people thinking? Dunno - but our own cuisine can provide dilemmas too. A number of us Scots attended a cultural conference in New York five years ago. All of us knew that traditional Scottish fare, including haggis, was to be served - except it wasn't. US customs would not let this particular consignment of the bulbous king of the pudden race into their country. (I like to think that one of the US inspectors was of Chinese origin.) You can imagine the American distaste and bewilderment at bags of sheep-gut. In the end, ersatz haggis was produced by our polite hosts. The recipe was neither sought nor given, but the taste implied Scottish cuisine was less Gordon Ramsay than John Knox.

John Townend is not bothered by subtleties. His code "Anglo- Saxon" is but a step away from his real meaning, "Caucasian". He does not want black people in this country. His virulent statement was repudiated by news presenter Jeremy Bowen, who said in fun: "I'm not Anglo-Saxon anyway, I'm a Celt." "So am I", said his co-presenter, "but let's not get into that."

Good decision. In the mucky genetic pigswill of the British race, such racial labels are used casually to distance us from other social groups rather than truly differentiate racial groups. To be a Celt is to claim a helpful difference from dominant English society or some expression of it. It is irrelevant as a statement of genetic fact.

I'm afraid that when Mr Townend talks about being Anglo-Saxon he means he favours being white. We should be careful about debating in his terms. Everyone in Scotland can be Scots but we can't all be Celts. Everyone in England can be English but not Anglo-Saxon - if indeed that means anything.

It isn't helpful to blame the Chinese or the immigrant community for our problems - especially not when one association of American travel agents says potential tourists have the impression that "Britain is closed, there is nothing to eat and it is dangerous to walk down the street." In fact, Mr Townend, it is worse: if you arrive in America, Johnny Foreigner will disinfect you at the airport, Anglo-Saxon or not.

Copyright 2001
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