May Day
Murder
Rape
Torture
Ranking crimes in order of severity, these are my top three.
Where would I put racism? Not particularly high, as I don’t see it as much of a crime. It’s nasty and stupid. We shouldn’t punish people simply for being stupid, and that’s basically all racism is. Schiller wrote “Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens” — Against stupidity even the Gods themselves struggle in vain. If stupidity leads to a crime being committed, the criminal must be punished. If it results in unfair treatment, compensation must be made. Chwarae teg, as we say in Wales. Fair play.
Discrimination used to be a sought-after attribute. Selection was seen as a good thing. Tom Lehrer commented 50 years ago that the US Military was abolishing discrimination on the grounds of race, creed, sex — and ability. Then, people laughed. Today it’s standard practice.
And today is London’s Mayoral election, a chance for us to remove one of the snidest, sneakiest, duplicitous, power-crazed politicians we in Britain have had inflicted on us in the past 50 years.
One candidate for Mayor announces that she opposes all forms of discrimination and racism. An admirable sentiment, but a dribblingly lunatic statement. All forms of discrimination? So she’d refuse to discriminate between good and bad? Right or wrong? Left or right? She’d drink corked wine and eat bad eggs? I don’t think so. Ah — here’s a clarification: she opposes all forms of discrimination except against The Rich. Hold on — isn’t that discrimination? Discriminating against the discriminating?
It’s not very intelligent to dislike a group of people simply because they act, look, think or talk differently, or have more or less money than you.
It’s quite another thing to fear them, because the fear of the unknown is innate in human nature. A child has no fear of a dog until it gets bitten, or its mother teaches it fear. A child has no racism until it learns it from its peers or parents. A A Gill, Jeremy Clarkson and Anne Robinson must all have been bitten by big black Welshmen in their prams. How else do we account for their baffling hatred of all things Welsh?
Arsenal supporters hate Tottenham supporters, to the extent that many fans would support anyone, even Arsenal’s deadliest rival Manchester United, against the Spurs. And when Cardiff reached this year’s FA Cup Final there was none more furious than the neighbouring city of Swansea (apart from Gill, Clarkson and Robinson of course).
We’re not really allowed to think for ourselves nowadays.
The law has become rigid and brittle. A copper used to give misbehaving kids a clip round the ear; try that now and the resulting court case would be all over the tabloids.
But there needs to be some form of low level punishment. Clarkson and Gill could both do with a good slapping, but nothing more, because who can take them seriously? They set themselves up as buffoons and as such they require to be knocked down from time to time. Robinson was, absurdly, interviewed by the police on a charge of racism for her comments about Wales and the Welsh. If a large WPC called Blodwen had taken her aside and boxed her ears we would hear nothing more about it. Neither would Robinson, for a while.
Fear — usually irrational — and stupidity lies at the core of racism. But fear and stupidity can be a potent combination, as the White House has shown over the past eight years.
