Examination of Witnesses (Questions 420
- 435)
TUESDAY 14 SEPTEMBER 2004
THE MOST
REVEREND RT
HON LORD
EAMES, ARCHBISHOP
SEA«N
BRADY, REVEREND
WINSTON GRAHAM
AND REVEREND
DR KEN
NEWELL
Q420 Chairman: You say that—I
thought it was an alarming peace of research—some children
before the age of six have got sectarian views which clearly they
have got from their parents. If they are then educated in a community
school with the same prejudices, does that not just reinforce
it rather than perhaps make them realise at the age of eight,
nine and 10 that what they thought at the age of six was wrong
and immature?
Archbishop Brady: I would dispute
that the school has the same prejudices.
Q421 Chairman: I did not mean the
school. I am not attacking the school, I am attacking the children
who come from the same neighbourhood, who have the same religion
and therefore who live with parents who have the same prejudices.
Archbishop Brady: I think the
programme for education and mutual understanding has an important
contribution to make here and should be promoted strenuously and
schools encouraged not just to take part but to take part earnestly
and seriously and positively. I agree that the problem of people
not meeting until they go to university is a serious one and therefore
new opportunities need to be found. Do not load on to the school-going
population, please, the burden of solving this problem. Adults
created it. Children will not remove it on their own. They have
a part to play.
Q422 Chairman: When you said, very
constructively, that something needs to be done to bring children
together before university age, what is your church and your church
schools doing about that?
Archbishop Brady: We take part
in a programme called Youth Link which is a cross-church body
trying various initiatives throughout Northern Ireland to bring
people together in various programmes. We are solidly behind the
church's programme of education. We were amazed to find that the
Government department withdrew funding last April from a programme
of 26 pioneering years of work on this, providing materials which
are taken up in 500 of the 800 primary schools and now we find
this problem, which is supposed to be so grave, is not being funded.
Q423 Chairman: Have any of you other
gentlemen got a comment you wish to make on this subject of education?
Reverend Graham: I am supportive
and understanding of many of the points that the Archbishop has
said. I just want to emphasise that we as a church would be very
supportive of integrated education. It is a figure of 95% at the
moment, I would like to see many more integrated schools and a
rise in that number. The Moderator has indicated that new ones
are coming on board. There are three other brief facts. One is
that I have personal experience of one of the largest integrated
colleges when I was privileged to be its Honorary Chaplain for
four years, and I saw there the great value of those in teenage
years addressing these issues together as well as growing in education.
I think addressing the issues together at that stage of life is
important. Secondly, many of the church schools do have mixed
communities within their membership now, whether they are called
integrated schools or not, and we need to take note of that much
more so than in the past. Thirdly, it seems as if when integrated
schools are available and become available there is a considerable
take up in them.
Reverend Dr Newell: My own experience
is that segregated education has been a bad thing. From my own
experience of growing up in north Belfast and going to schools
in north Belfast, while it was a very good experience, personally,
I think, looking back, it was very limited and quite damaging.
Because of that I would personally be supportive of integrated
education. It is very important to recognise, as the Archbishop
has said, the importance of choice. You can either go for what
you see as a sort of utopian vision or where you can see what
is achievable. The most important thing is that integrated education
is an option for people to choose. All the other schools need
also to buy into the bridging with other schools and working on
common projects so that we are all playing on the same team, we
are moving for the same goals, where young people can grow up
with very healthy attitudes towards each other, but I think the
old utopian vision we should not buy into. We should improve what
is happening at a grass-roots level. For me the most important
thing about integrated education is the formation of friendship
at a very early age, that is so crucial. Also very important is
seeing each other's faith in positive terms. The more segregation
there is the more we look at each other's faith, which is a big
religious problem here with the infallibility of a one-eyed man,
and that is a very dangerous thing. The third thing is looking
at each other's history in more understanding terms where we do
not write off the unionist community and its struggle for history
and its struggle for identity, so it is not written off as something
that is rooted simply in prejudice but it is based also on the
need for security and freedom and rights to be yourself. So understanding
each other's faith and history in more positive understanding
terms is a very healthy thing. Although the family is there in
the background, it offers for young people growing up an opportunity
to make a choice. Are my family and community correct in the way
they see life or is my experience of sitting with somebody for
10 or 15 years in an integrated school the best way to live my
life? I think that is all you can do. Young people often make
choices that are taking them further than their family or community
backgrounds and giving them that choice so they can make it in
a wise way is very healthy, but go for what is achievable and
set aside any utopian vision that has an answer to everything.
Lord Eames: I think it would be
wrong for us to ignore what in fact is the present climate within
the grammar schools of Northern Ireland, where there is far more
cross-community co-operation and contact than at any time in my
lifetime. Secondly, as I think the President said, in many of
the grammar schools, certainly the one that I know best, there
are now a very considerable percentage of both sides being educated
together. So I would not like to see the grammar schools' so-called
lack of progress in this written off. I think it is a very positive
sign and I think it is to be commended.
Chairman: I do not think we will get
into the very political area of grammar schools and their worth
because that is not our business. In putting the question I must
say I was not looking for Utopia, but I was wondering why, over
all these years, there has been absolutely no progress. That does
seem to me to be a problem. May I just say to the members of the
public that although we are meeting in a hotel room in Belfast,
this is a House of Commons Select Committee meeting and therefore
the rules of the House of Commons apply: no recordings, no photographs.
If members of the press are here, you may take notes, but those
are the rules within the House of Commons and they apply here
also.
Q424 Mr Tynan: I wonder if I could
ask for your views. In Scotland there is a proposition at the
present time concerning shared campuses, where there may be two
separate schools but the campus is shared by all the pupils. Would
you share that as a way forward in the present circumstances in
Northern Ireland?
Lord Eames: I am not au fait
with the details of the Scottish experiment, but I would think
if it can be shown that that was a reasonable attempt to cross
the frontier in socialising, yes. You cannot enforce reconciliation,
you cannot compel reconciliation but on the question that you
are mentioning from Scotland, as I say, I am pleading ignorance
to it. It would worry me that you would be guilty in this situation
of ours of enforcing reconciliation. Reconciliation is a very
tender plant that has to be nurtured and grown and if you, by
legislation or by demographic force, demographic change or anything
like that, enforce reconciliation, it will never work. I have
seen busing in the southern states of America generations ago
and I have seen what that did. I have lived all my public life
in Northern Ireland. I have seen what this situation can do to
children particularly. I would plead for a "no" attitude
where you are trying to legislate in force reconciliation. Give
the outline, give the planks on which it can be built, but do
not enforce it because it will be very artificial.
Archbishop Brady: I am aware of
shared campuses also in England. I am not too sure whether they
would work here. One thing I know is that in the new curriculum
for education there are modules on other faiths and other religions
included and we would support that. We also have a document on
building the peace which is about how our schools should take
part in integrating education; there are new ideas there. I agree
that to change the behaviour you have to change the attitude that
underlies it and the values that are the values and the dignity
of every person.
Q425 Mr Tynan: In your submission
you note that "legislation of itself will not be sufficient
to change attitudes, perceptions and behaviours." You call
for the development of "a professionally managed, thorough
programme of information, education, persuasion and training".
What role can the churches play in changing attitudes and behaviour
which can result in `hate crime'?
Lord Eames: I think there are
two levels that I had in mind on that. First of all, there is
our public image as church leaders. The four church leaders in
Northern Ireland, at a time when it was relatively unknown in
other European states, have worked together over the years, have
witnessed together and have been seen together. It may be a small
contribution but it does show that we are co-operating on major
issues. Secondly, at the parish or congregational level, we have
already tried to explain to you what we are all trying to do either
together or separately to increase awareness of the problems.
Thirdly, I think we must recognise that, as I have just said to
you, we cannot enforce reconciliation but we can work on the attitudes
of people who have the power to change it, who have the influence
to exert to change it. If we are part of the problem, and I think
historically we have to admit that the churches have played their
own part in the problem of sectarianism over the generations,
then we have got to be, to use the trite phase, part of the solution.
I believe that what I am seeing now at this stage of my life is
a much greater and relevant and more faithful attempt by the churches
to build bridges, despite the fact that in some cases it may seem
irrelevant, despite the fact that there are areas that are completely
under the thumb of the paramilitaries, and despite the fact that
while Northern Ireland is looked upon as a church-going society—the
figures do not necessarily prove that—we still have in much
of Northern Ireland's life a respect for the main principles of
religion and that is part of our problem, but it can also be to
our advantage if we succeed in trying to show a united front as
churches on the really divisive issues, such as, as Archbishop
Brady has said, the dignity of each individual made in the image
of the one God. In practical terms I think our chief attack has
got to be under two levels: the public things we say and the leadership
we try to give, and, secondly, our clergy working at the local
level on the streets, in the homes of our people witnessing to
back up that leadership we are trying to give.
Q426 Mr Tynan: Do you have inter-denominational
services in Northern Ireland?
Reverend Graham: Yes, many.
Q427 Mr Tynan: Are they well attended?
Archbishop Brady: Yes, sometimes.
Q428 Mr McGrady: I want to move on
to the area of the victims of `hate crime'. One of the submissions
made to us says that "the victims of sectarian, racial and
other forms of `hate crime' receive inadequate support."
Would you accept that there is inadequate support given? Could
you possibly give us some ideas as to how that support can be
improved either by statutory provision or by community provision?
Reverend Graham: I think it is
very important for us to recognise that there is a responsibility
all along the line here. I am happy, on behalf of our church,
to pay tribute to what provision has already been provided and
encouraging of that, and welcome the willingness of the PSNI or
whatever to collect statistics for incidence of `hate crime' or
to recognise what some of the agencies are doing in the working
of it. There is always more to be done. We would be very supportive
of those that are already in place, and I think that we welcome
the statement of the Criminal Justice Minister, too, marking up
this and about taking these crimes so seriously and needing to
do something about that. In the end it will come down to what
more we can do and what more we can ask support for. As the Archbishop
has already said, one of the programmes that we thought was very
important in addressing this issue is not being funded now or
the last funding has been cut back on it. We are wondering in
our church if something like a multi-agency hate incidents reporting
mechanism could be developed in Northern Ireland like, as our
report says, the precedent in Yorkshire encouraging members of
the public to report incidents of `hate crime' by providing them
with a facility to report incidents at the locations where they
happen. Can we be seen to find some further ways of helping those
who have experienced the `hate crime' to work through their experience,
which is a very terrible experience? I know of one or two agencies,
very good ones, that are trying to do that and they are struggling
greatly with funding. Instead of emphasising all this `hate crime',
which is most important and a terrible thing, could we think in
terms of how we might develop a programme with Government and
other help and our own personal responsibility and our own church
responsibility along the lines of good relations? I know that
we say too many words, but we have seen here in our Province that
the terrible things that happen are incited by hate-filled language.
If we can keep emphasising another kind of language, and talk
in terms of moving from saying `hate crime' is an issue we want
to address and promote terminology to the talks about good relations
and associated working with that, I feel that is important.
Reverend Dr Newell: If you talk
with people who have been the victims of race `hate crimes' or
who have been driven out of their homes, they will often give
you an emotional history of what it has been like for them. Often
they are left alone to face abuse, usually from young people who
come around and smash windows, kick the doors in, pick up dogs'
dirt and leave it on your footpath or through your door. They
often talk about being left alone. They also will speak of the
fact that very, very few people came and knocked on their door
to welcome them. This is the background that many of them are
talking about. It is very important, therefore, for us as churches
to mobilize neighbours locally. I think it is very wise, before
a family is placed in a certain street or community, that the
neighbours on either side and across the street are actually informed,
they need to be told this family has had a difficult background
somewhere else, they are being brought in, just to get some kind
of feeling for them. I had a situation where recently a family
had that experience. This was two women from Zimbabwe. One of
them forgot their key and she had to wait on the doorstep until
the other returned from work. In the meantime a man came along
the street and began to abuse her verbally and threaten her physically.
The neighbours who knew this family came out and told him to get
lost. He was shocked, he was surprised as he thought people would
feel the way he did. Having that neighbourhood cover is very important.
It is very important for the neighbours to know they have white
friends, they have Protestant or Catholic friends, they have local
neighbours who actually come over and try and help them. I brought
that family I was talking about to our church and they spoke at
our church. Their house was half furnished by members of the church
within four days. They got curtains, fridges, a television and
carpet. There is a lot which can be done by mobilizing them. The
third thing is that they need people who work for them. They will
often ask if there is anywhere they can gather as a group of Zimbabweans
or a group of Nigerians and have a cultural evening, and churches
locally are well furnished with facilities to say, "Absolutely.
Come along and we will support and be very helpful towards you."
They need a welcome, they need friendship and they need a statement
locally that although they are from another background or colour,
these people in this street are their friends and they are going
to provide the protection, that is so essential and even if somebody
comes to kick the door down, they have a number of friends living
locally or slightly further away who can come and visit them and
come along in their car and protect them.
Reverend Graham: When terrible
happenings took place with the Philippine nurses on the Donegal
Road in south Belfast, which was unbelievable and hateful and
terrible, it was because in that case a church community and others
as well had worked at relationships for a good while, first of
all, with the nurses and then in those communities. These introductory
events and the sharing of friendship worked so that when the awful
thing happened, not only did people emerge to support the nurses
but the nurses knew a group to whom they could turn for safety.
That groundwork had been done for at least a year and so when
the awfulness arose it was in place and it was just everyday people
living around them with church support that responded to it.
Lord Eames: You cannot isolate
what we are talking about now, the victim situation, from the
fear that some of these crimes will go undetected and unpunished.
One of the most practical steps towards a new confidence that
these sorts of crimes and hate attitude and hate culture will
end is the level of detection and the level of judicial punishment,
and I hope that that can eventually become a very important issue
in this country.
Archbishop Brady: What is the
level of prosecution vis-a"-vis the number of reported incidents?
I think the concept of restorative justice should be considered.
I heard yesterday of somebody who had his farmyard sheds burnt
down, and when the perpetrator was confronted with the victim
it had an astounding result because it was just a prank, but when
the victim saw the devastation that it caused that man and his
family there was a new realisation of the gravity. I think that
concept is something that at constitutional level should be considered.
It is in its beginnings but it has potential.
Q429 Mr Pound: Gentlemen, can I particularly
thank you, and I am sure I speak for the whole Committee, for
the written submissions you made which were extremely helpful.
I very much hope that I will find forgiveness in the eyes of the
hierarchy if I say that I was particularly impressed with the
submission of the Methodist Church. Typically of Methodists, if
I may say so, you concentrate on the practical and you make a
number of very practical suggestions. One of them is, in reference
to Racial Justice Sunday, to talk about designating a Good Relations
Sunday. My church is inundated with Vocation Sunday, Family Fast
Day, Mission Sunday, SVP day, proving that where two or three
are gathered together in the Roman Catholic Church there will
be a collection. Could you give some indication as to whether
the idea of having a cross-church community Good Relations Sunday
or something of that nature has been discussed? It seems to me
in my innocence, as someone who lives a long way from here, that
that would be a wonderful demonstration of the solidarity of the
brotherhood and it would be an important symbolic gesture. I thank
you for bringing it to my attention.
Reverend Graham: Thank you for
what you have said about the report. I would like to acknowledge
that the writer of it, Dr Johnston McMaster, is sitting behind
me. I am very glad that he is here to hear what you have said.
The issue that you raise is an important one because, as you say,
Methodists sometimes are said to be those who do not have much
theology, they just get on with it. I do not know whether that
is right or not. Theology is always very important and I make
reference to it in this paper. Certainly on the theme of good
relations, if we have not always used the word, it is becoming
an increasing issue with us within our Methodist Church agenda.
At a meeting I was at last night relating to the work of our Council
for Social Responsibility these issues were teased out, for a
while painfully at times, from those who were in areas where good
relations is a laughing stock and a mockery of what they are struggling
with as a church and others. We are trying to move much more on
to that and are urgently giving extra thought to it and we are
finding other ways of following it up. We very much want to do
it across the community, yes. Our general secretary of the Council
for Social Responsibility has taken it as part of his remit for
that that we mark it up for our next important meeting and we
bring it to the church leaders' meeting quite soon. We do a lot
of things together already. The question that was asked was not
a surprise but it took us back to saying do you have inter-church
services, and it gives us a shock to show the publicity that is
about us around the world and people's judgments about it and
how the negative is so often emphasised and not the positive.
I feel that as we push and promote this good relations programme
more. We are trying to associate very much with a programme that
is called One Step Forward, which is a very simplified
one we will hear about here and we have contacts for so doing,
but we have recognised within the last few weeks it is something
we really must promote much more and make it the next priority
for our programme.
Q430 Mr Pound: Has there been a reaction
from the other churches or is this the first they have heard of
it?
Reverend Graham: I would need
to have asked one of my colleagues. I only came into this post
two weeks ago and after a period of illness, so I am just trying
to catch up with it at the moment.
Q431 Mr Pound: You are doing very
well, if I may say so.
Reverend Graham: There are others
here who could give you an answer to that.
Lord Eames: We have many, many
instances of inter-church occasions, shared occasions, shared
services. We have to acknowledge that for some on both sides of
the religious divide there are theological problems when that
takes place. I think the fact that we have these special occasions
must go on. What I think we need to emphasise is that while the
good neighbours, or whatever you want to call it, service would
be useful, I think far more important on special occasions is
the ordinary every day work on the ground. Special occasions will
come and go, if you will forgive me saying it, but I think at
the end of the day it is what happens at the parish level, at
the street level, that is going to make a change, and I would
make a plea for that to be balanced with these special occasions.
Q432 Mr Clarke: Gentlemen, you have
been very generous with us in terms of the churches' views as
to what should be done. I think sometimes at these sessions there
is a tendency for us to say what you are doing and for the witnesses
to feel as if they must take responsibility for all of the ills
of society. Governments have a responsibility. Could you give
us your views as to what Governments have not done and what Governments
should do to assist in eradicating `hate crime'? It is a shared
partnership, we all have a responsibility and a part to play,
but surely the Governments, be it the Assembly or us in Westminster,
should be doing things. What have we done wrong and should we
do better in the future?
Reverend Graham: How long have
we got!
Archbishop Brady: That reminds
me of a sign I saw at Belvoir Park Hospital recently which said,
"Will the gentlemen who are sitting round discussing the
difficulties of doing anything get out of the way of the women
who are actually doing something about the problem"! I think
we need to raise awareness of the problem and the deep roots of
this problem. We also need to realise the limitations of approaching
it from a legislative point of view. As has been said already,
you cannot socially-engineer a solution to this problem. We have
talked a lot about education, but you also need beyond that a
transformation. I think hatred essentially implies on the person
who hates a failure to mature properly, to appreciate other people
and their rights to be in a place. There are various suggestions
about campaigns. There have been campaigns in other areas of life
about smoking, drink driving. Campaigns like that could be supported
and resourced with logos and things. It was interesting to find
the profile of the average perpetrator of hate crimes: mostly
male, under 25, some unemployed, although not all and not very
well educated. That is the profile. You need to address that.
It suggests to me that there are underlying problems of poverty,
deprivation. All of that needs to be assessed whilst recognising
the complexity of the problem. There is one other suggestion about
a one-stop place where people cannot get legal advice but maybe
health advice, housing advice, not just information strictly confined
to your rights in the law but also your housing problems, getting
health care, all of that.
Lord Eames: I think the immediate
response I would have to it is that at this very minute so many
hopes are based on Leeds Castle, and I would think that could
be a major step forward. If it can be shown, after all we have
come through and the stop-go situation where people have been
made promises and promises have not been fulfilled and trust has
been broken—because there is a break down at times between
the political process and the man and woman in the street which
is basically a breach of trust—that the politicians who
have the power to make progress are prepared, courageously, to
do it, I think a great deal of that trust could be restored. I
think a lot of what we have talked about, if I may presume to
say so, has all centred around the nature of trust. Trust has
been the real victim of our troubles, and trust between the politician
and the constituency and trust between the political process and
the people I would suggest is the best answer I could give as
to what needs to be done.
Q433 Chairman: It is not only a Northern
Ireland problem, I regret to say.
Reverend Dr Newell: I would agree
very much with what has been said before. I think our politicians
need to move beyond bickering to building. I think there is a
huge expectation that we can get through the bickering of various
issues we face at the moment and have our politicians, instead
of fighting against each other, fighting for the community and
the total community. I think there is a desire for that, there
is an expectation and hope. With regard to race `hate crimes',
I can only speak out of experience, but this has become the epicentre
of such attacks. What I have observed is very close to what Archbishop
Brady was hinting at. Many of the race `hate crimes' are coming
out of communities that feel neglected. They are in a transition
and they feel they are not in control of the transition. I have
spent a good bit of time in Sandy Row and also in Suffolk Estate,
up at one of the flash point areas with Lenadoon and I have been
talking to community workers in both. I asked two women who were
doing a computer course what they felt about their community and
they said it is a dying community, nobody cares, nobody listens
and nobody helps. As a result of that you are going to get a kind
of reservoir build-up of a general feeling of anger and it is
out of that, when people start to move in who are different, that
you are going to get hit hard by people who have this general
malaise feeling that their community is going to disappear. Communities
that integrate people from other backgrounds well are communities
where they feel secure about the future, feel safe in their homes
and where they are aware that this community offers them an opportunity
for the future for their children and grandchildren. I am not
saying all the race hate attacks are coming out of loyalist communities,
but there is a feeling there of alienation and anger. What I notice
is that if those communities are not given hope, and politically
they need to be focused on because they are suffering, then what
happens is that they become breeding grounds for racial attitudes
and recruiting ground for people from the far right who will come
in and exploit them and there are people there of both. I think
part of the church's role is to try and bring attention again,
with all the community groups and politicians, to highlight areas
in the city that feel that the life support system is slowly being
switched off, and unless that is addressed I do not think you
are going to see a reduction in the race `hate crimes' that are
taking place.
Reverend Graham: I am very supportive
of what has been said. I think the way in which Government could
help and others too is through the restorative justice programme,
finding a way of promoting that more, making sure that we clearly
understand what it is and the implications of it, as was described
by Archbishop Brady in very practical terms. Certainly when one
reads about the way that programme has worked in New Zealand,
it is quite a story in that it is going to be for the good of
the whole of humanity. So a promoting of it and understanding
of it is something I would like to see emphasised in the next
year or two.
Q434 Chairman: On behalf of the Committee
I would like to echo the praise that has been heaped on you four
gentlemen for the work you do amongst your various churches. You
have your differences and no doubt will continue to have them.
I would just like to ask one question in conclusion. What you
are doing affects 90 or 95% of the population of Northern Ireland.
We have been hearing worrying evidence of the growth of race hate
as regards ethnic minorities, particularly the Chinese community.
You were able to tell us of the enormous help you were able to
give to other minorities, the Zimbabweans you cited. I imagine,
although I could be wrong, that part of the glue that bound those
neighbourhoods together was their Christian faith. Given that
this is a growing problem here and given that it needs to be gripped
before it gets out of hand, what do you four do by way of trying
to make links with the Hindu, with the Muslim, with the Jew, with
the Sikh and with the ethnic Chinese to try and educate both your
own flocks and to a certain extent them in integration so that
this does not become a problem as bad as it is in some cities
in Great Britain?
Lord Eames: So far as my church
is concerned, all I can say is that again this is an issue on
the ground level, and that parishes are encouraged to reach out
to new arrivals in their particular area to try and remove any
suspicion that their coming in in a way is going to deteriorate
community relations, but, above all else, as somebody said earlier,
to try and build up confidence that they can be accepted. I think
real progress is being made that way. One of the achievements
that I think the four church leaders can claim in recent years
has been the pressure we brought on the way in which those seeking
asylum in Northern Ireland were kept in a `prison' situation,
in contact with criminals who were there for other reasons and
we pressurised on this. These were ethnic minority people coming
in this way. Now there is a more satisfactory scheme. We are trying
again on the ground level to influence politicians and the locality
about making these people feel safer in their own homes.
Q435 Chairman: But you are aware
that this problem is growing?
Lord Eames: Very much so.
Archbishop Brady: It is a new
problem. We need to learn more about it and to address it urgently.
I saw a publication prepared by a group called Dungannon Empowerment
Agency. It is a three-page paper on the contribution that these
migrants can make to our economy and to our culture and all of
that to remove the threat that it is negative. It is the same
as Irish people going abroad or Scottish people going abroad or
anybody else. They were integrated and inserted and made a wonderful
contribution to the place where they were welcomed. We have to
try and encourage people to do likewise in our own situation.
Reverend Graham: Friendship is
the big push from our church, particularly on this in relation
to people across the whole community and from whatever background
or from whatever faith that is the big push of our programmes
and in daily working. The schools' programme is trying to do much
more, and understanding, too, a newly drawn up programme within
the last two years on the greater emphasis of people from other
faiths in the hope that in the teenage years that will be a means
of increasing that understanding of friendship and trust and our
board of education have been strongly supportive of that programme.
Reverend Dr Newell: I think it
is a whole new phenomenon. Our Province is changing, as is the
rest of the UK and becoming multi-religious and therefore it throws
up a new issue for us, how you understand the faith of other people.
Can I just speak with regard to the whole thrust of our approach,
which is what can we do for ethnic minorities? We try to offer
to the ethnic minorities centres of hospitality, support and welcome,
but we cannot do it for them on their own, there has to be a partnership.
Can I give you one example? The Chinese community is one which
I have been involved in, listening to their problems and difficulties
and working with them, but they also have a responsibility like
the rest of us have. I would like to make a few suggestions. Number
one is that the Chinese business community is starting to flourish
and do really well. The communities which it operates out of are
communities that are going through economic and social deprivation.
You do not need to be Chinese to wash dishes; you do not need
to be Chinese to come in late at night and hoover the carpet and
get the place ready for the next day's business. It is very important
for the Chinese community to realise that they have to build good
relationships and often that is providing economic help to people
locally who do not want their kids leaving the country and maybe
going somewhere else to live to find jobs or maybe even feeling
that their kids will never find work. In many of these areas the
two big issues are literacy and numeracy. You do not need a certificate
in English to wash dishes. We have got to work with the Chinese
community and with them, of course, parallel communities. It is
very important for these communities to join our political parties
and also to join the police and other groups. I think political
parties that open themselves up to becoming much more multi-ethnic
and multi-religious will be the parties that will take the issues
of the minority groups much more seriously and commend them to
a wider audience and also open up for them potential for change
and opportunity. I think we have got to not just see it as a kind
of patronising one-way thing. There is a joint responsibility
and working on it together I think will be a healthier approach
than just feeling it is all something we have to do.
Chairman: Gentlemen, thank you. Those
were very interesting answers to a relatively new problem which
has been highlighted in the evidence we have received. We are
very grateful to you indeed for giving up the time to come and
talk to us. We have listened very carefully to what you have said.
Thank you all for what has been in my view a very helpful session
indeed.
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