| Ben Haines |
May 1st, 1999 10:09 PM |
<BR>I have put the following message onto Fodor's Forum <BR> <BR>The Metropolitan Police suspect a few tiny far right racist groups -- when I say tiny, one of them has perhaps thirty members. Police officers have infiltrated several of these groups, but nobody knows whether all of them. Records from closed circuit video cameras on lampposts and interviews with bystanders have led the police to put out photos off-film of a man with a baseball cap, wanted at least for interview. <BR> <BR>The sequence, roughly weekly, was Brixton (for black Britons), Brick Lane in Whitechapel (for Asians) and Old Compton Street in Soho (for homosexuals: the bomb was in a oub they use a lot). Moslems, especially in Bradford, and Jews, in several cities, are being very observant indeed, and I doubt that anybody in Britain now would pick up a bag with a bomb in it and put it in the boot of his car, as a man did a fortnight ago in Brixton . The police and community groups are walking the streets in extra numbers, both to look out for suspect packages and to remind people to report at once any found object. I shan't be leaving my newly-bought vegetables in my bike basket for a few weeks ! <BR> <BR>Messages picked up within one of the small groups say that the idea of such bombs is to make non-whites furious, and provoke them to violent demonstrations that will lead to race war. The messages say that there are now not enough racists in England to start off a race war by themselves, but that they can hope to manoeuvre one in this way. As a Londoner I am a little cheered to hear that even these people believe they have lost -- as they have. Come and walk on our hill. <BR> <BR>Meanwhile, I weep. Babies with nails in their heads, men with legs blown off. How can anybody do this ? <BR> <BR>And you -- Americans, Australians, Germans, Singaporeans ... I think you should still come. For one thing, the statistics of the chance of you're being near a bomb are tiny. For another, as in the Blitz, as in the Irish troubles, what are we going to say to these men of hatred ? That that's ok, they've won, and we shan't walk the streets ? Never. This is our city, not theirs. <BR> <BR>Meanwhile, will those of you who pray please ask that the racists turn from wickedness ? And will liberals and democrats among you please carry on in the pursuit of peace among people ? <BR> <BR>I was never a hippy -- too old. But now is a time to wish you all love and peace. <BR> <BR>Ben Haines <BR>
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