Placard bashing will never work

Why is Israel often treated more harshly than dictatorships around the world?

IT IS AN IRONY of our times that while dramatists increasingly colour human life in sophisticated shades of grey, others are busy rendering public debate, particularly those that centre on issues of discrimination, in stark strokes of black and white.

There is much that appeals in taking a strong line when ridding the country of various phobias, that in many cases are now illegal. However, increasingly, many people are becoming concerned by a perceived blight of inequality left in the wake of such reform, reform that is often called political correctness.

It is one thing to be shouted down at a dinner party by a Merlot-fuelled zealot. But it is something else when organisations and charities that purport to act upon our behalf decide to stigmatise swathes of the population in order to bring any kind of dissent or discussion to a swift end.

Even so, when the state-funded British Association for Adoption and Fostering branded those with concerns about gay adoption as “retarded homophobes”, there was a collective catching of breath and a realisation that some kind of Rubicon had been crossed.

First published in a BAAF guide for homosexual couples and later repeated in the charity’s newspaper, Be My Parent, chief executive David Holmes was quick to blame ‘human error’ (without quantifying what that meant) for the comments and issued an apology – of sorts. “We deeply regret the use of the word ‘retarded’ and apologise for any offence that it has caused,” he said. “The use of this word is unacceptable in any circumstances.” So, no apology for church leaders, for example, who presumably remain homophobic.

Possibly the BAAF had realised that it had ceded any kind of moral authority in this debate and decided to be as mealy-mouthed as possible, standing by the original insult that would have offended many at adoption’s coal face, those who devote their lives to raising children without families for a fraction of the remuneration now available to charity chiefs.

Having turned over the high ground, the BAAF’s media detractors duly occupied it and got to work. The Daily Telegraph’s Ed West put forth a compelling view in favour of those in care: “Future historians of 21st-century Britain will find it hard to understand that while record numbers of children were condemned to a loveless, brutal childhood in care, the state was busy driving away potential adopters who didn’t conform to its official stance on homosexuality.” Other papers were less generous, certainly the Daily Mail, which labelled the BAAF “adoption Nazis”.

But there is far more to this episode than the loss in prestige and authority that the BAAF will have suffered in the public’s eyes. It gives rise once more to accusations of social engineering, which the state has no right to prosecute. It also proves that reverse bigotry is entrenched among public service providers. Just as the country once tired of 1970s union leaders extracting absurd workplace demands while productivity plummeted, there is now a prevalent belief that too much money is spent on the conforming to the equality agenda rather than delivering core services.

To say so is to run the gauntlet of being accused of racism, misogyny, homophobia, Islamophobia, or any other kind of bigotry. Just as the Eskimos reportedly have many different words for snow, we now find our language ever enlarged by new prejudice terminology.

Were those that preach this mindset so adept at practising themselves. Israel and Africa are cases in point. Whereas western liberals are often happy to remove the blame for the consequences of Sub-Saharan dictatorship from those with the keys to Africa’s prisons and back to colonial masters of half a century ago, it appears is proffered no excuse, that ‘Never again’ – the Raison d’être of the infant state’s administrations – is something that the country should just get over, even with camp survivors still alive.

In fact, the pro-Palestinian movement is now galvanised by something we would have called anti-semitism in an earlier time. Palestine’s greatest champion in Wales is the Caerphilly councillor Ray Davies, who has considered himself justified in comparing Israel’s actions to those of the Nazis. In 2003, he told BBC Radio Wales: “Hitler’s Nazi regime occupied Europe for four years only. Palestine and the West Bank have been occupied for 40 years.” It seems that just a timeframe, rather than numbers of the dead, or comparisons of industrialised execution, supports this flimsy assertion.

Apparently oblivious to a symmetry with neo-fascist argument, Mr Davies has also accused Israel of treating the murder of six million Jews “like an industry”, adding, “When they (visiting dignitaries) go out there they will be treated like lords and taken to the Holocaust museum to try to engineer as much sympathy as they can.”

The British electorate remains relatively unmoved by extreme entreaties. Most react adversely when they are hit over the head with placards, particularly when wielded by public servants. Many prefer reasoned debate concerning decisions and an explanation as to why they are made, while remaining suspicious of the purposes behind raised voices and sloganeered argument.

Any public servants that have engaged in such lecturing should do well to remember that while have done alright out of 10 years of New Labour, there is no guarantee that they will prosper quite so well under the next administration.