20.Memorandum submitted by the Jewish
Council for Racial Equality
1. The impact of terrorism on community
relations is negative and damaging. Levels of fearfulness and
anxiety are high; all those who are different from ourselves are
liable to be seen as potentially hostile. Life-threatening conflict
alters our most elementary perceptions: our views become hardened
and oversimplified and the "other" is personified in
terms of the most prominent perpetrators and identified accordingly.
A society that believes itself to be threatened from without,
especially when such threat is reinforced by daily experience—armed
policemen, warnings of suspect packages, periodic swoops by anti-terrorist
officers etc.—is not a rational society. Many of us are
no longer inclined to extend the hand of friendship to those whom
we do not know; if we are seen to identify with those who are
perceived as threatening then our own communal loyalties can be
put into question.
2. In Britain today, fear of terrorism should
be seen in the context of different political trends. These include
popular press campaigns against immigrants and asylum seekers,
a decline in political involvement, a sense of being distant from
the centres of power, and a lack of trust in the political process.
All of these cause communities to draw in upon themselves, rather
than taking national responsibilities. Unlike previous wars, the
war against terror is uncertain and defies definition; we do not
know who precisely "the enemy" is, or where and when
he or she is likely to strike. This intensifies anxiety, uncertainty
and aggression.
3. The bottom line is that in the European
and local government elections in June of this year more than
800,000 people voted for a party whose sole platform was hostility
to immigrants, particularly Muslims. This was a seven-fold increase
in the number of votes cast for that party; it did not only represent
a protest vote against the major parties as there were alternatives
for those who wished to register such a protest. People effectively
voted for a single-issue party that had no coherent economic or
social policies apart from the single issue that it focused upon,
but this did not deter nearly a million voters from supporting
it. We are profoundly alarmed by this development.
4. We are further alarmed by the prospective
impact of terrorist incidents in towns and cities where different
communities co-exist uneasily, living parallel lives with minimal
interaction. We have first hand experience of the work being done
by both churches and mosques in the Lancashire towns to counter
political exploitation of communal tensions rooted in poverty,
unemployment and cultural difference. In these towns, more than
100,000 votes went to the BNP in the June elections. Although
the party did not get a seat, the gravity of the situation was
made clear to us, and we noted the great importance of the work
of local Christian and Muslim leaders in maintaining the fabric
of the community. This vital contribution is rarely brought to
the attention of the general public. It is important to note that
what we saw was not a multi-cultural society, but rather two communities
living in circumstances that can reasonably be described as segregated.
Clearly the threat of terrorism greatly exacerbates already existing
tensions in areas where local cultures seem unable to accommodate
different forms of communal identity.
5. The Israeli-Palestinian situation has
led to considerable tensions between Muslims and Jews, although
these are by no means universal, and there have also been very
heartening inter-communal developments. In the current environment
it is vital for community workers to challenge negative stereotyping
among both Muslims and Jews; political conflict and terrorism
harden perceptions very rapidly, especially among those who have
personal experience of tragedy, and on-going personal communication
between both communities at all levels are of the greatest importance.
14 September 2004
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