It is now 27 years since Margaret Thatcher’s government banned Louis Farrakhan from entering Britain on grounds that he would spark “civil disorder.”
When I was News Editor of The Voice and later Editor of the New Nation newspaper I campaigned for this ban to be overturned on grounds that it was illiberal to restrict free speech and that he wasn’t a threat to public order as shown by the fact that Farrakhan travels the world completely peacefully.
This position saw me smeared as “anti-Semitic” in political blogs in the 2000’s, despite not publishing, writing or saying a word about Israel or its’ oppression of the Palestinian people.
The label “anti-Semitic” was particularly bizarre given that the Nation of Islam leader meets with Jewish leaders across the world as well as America. It seems the Jewish leaders who are by far the most implacably opposed to him are those in Britain, embodied by the Council of Deputies.
Surely if Farrakhan was regarded as being an anti-Semite then mainstream Democrats and Republicans would have refused to meet him or participate in the NoI’s Million Man and Million Family marches? If that were the common perception of him he would not have been able to mobilise hundreds of thousands of ordinary African-Americans onto the streets to demand that tackling racism be given a higher priority.
Farrakhan has been accused of blaming Jewish people on issues such as banking and political control which do indeed take him into dangerous territory in that it could be seen as perpetrating stereotypes that were around at the time of their most terrible persecution in 1930’s Germany.
On this issue I distance myself from him. I disagree with the NoI leader on other matters too. Indeed I have always said that while I have great respect for Farrakhan and in particular the Nation of Islam I do not agree with everything he says. As a Liberal I believe that I don’t have to be a particular fan of Farrakhan to consider the ban on him entering Britain is wrong and deeply flawed.
However on the issue of freedom of speech I passionately believe he does have a right to visit Britain because has many important and valuable messages to communicate with Britain’s black communities, from self-respect, unity and peace to self-reliance and organisation. None of which have anything whatsoever to do with Jewish people or the State of Israel.
The arguments to keep Farrakhan’s ban in place are largely manufactured, tired and over a quarter of a century old. Most importantly, from a legal perspective, if there was ever any threat of civil disorder in 1986 – in the aftermath of five years of inner city uprisings across Britain’s big cities – this has long ceased to be. And in any case, any disturbances at the time would have been as a result of anger at racism in Britain not his visit per se.
Farrakhan has never, to my knowledge, suggested anyone should throw a pebble let alone riot. Quite the opposite, his message is one of peace and knowledge aligned to a rejection of the oppression of racism and a call to take action in a constructive and non-violent way.
The fact that his ban remains in place 27 years later is entirely down to a wish on the part of Britain’s political establishment to suppress his message, to keep ‘control’ of black communities in the sense of discouraging popular self-organisation, and the intransigence of the UK’s Jewish establishment who see the ban as an article of faith.
Today, at a time when Britain remains in an economic slump Black Britain is mired in an economic Depression. And control over black youth – 56 percent of whom are unemployed – is exercised in the form of police stop and search. As the 2011 London riots demonstrated, civil disorder could erupt again sparked by another killing. And consequently Westminster remains as fearful of this scenario today as the former Home Secretary Douglas Hurd was in 1986.
Nothing to do with Louis Farrakhan and everything to do with the state of Black Britain and the racial injustice that it continues to suffer.
Is it any wonder then that some might prefer an army of ill-disciplined, violent, unconscious, crazy and angry youths running around shooting and stabbing each other than an army of suited, disciplined, conscious and smart young black men doing for self. This is one Salvation Army that is some eyes not welcomed in Britain.
And herein lies the rub; Farrakhan has been banned for so long that overturning it now will surely lead to a great level of attention. He would be received by large crowds anxious to see the figure who has been denied to them in the flesh for a generation.
It is a matter of debate as to whether NoI will be able to capitalise on such a moment to build the popular movement they seek but it is the very prospect of turning disenfranchised black youth from slack, saggy-panted, self-hating hoodlums into law-abiding, suited and bow-tied citizens of the African Diaspora that scares some the most.
By Lester Holloway @brolezholloway
