:: OP-ED

The rise of a racist

Kishwar Desai

Oct.24 : The democratic world is up against a unique conundrum on the quality of our politicians and a very public debate over the participation of a known racist on primetime BBC has brought the matter even more sharply into focus. Since democracy advocates freedom of speech and even of thought, the leaders who now represent us may or may not be the best people for the job. Nonetheless, once they are elected they belong to the democratic mainstream.

Therefore, in theory and in practice, cheats and liars can be routinely voted in because they are the ones who have shown the most enterprise and the low cunning required to win. They understand how best to manipulate sensibilities till they have captured the imagination of the electorate. Votes are cast based on "vote management", "campaign strategies", "media spin" and, of course, vote banks.

As the polls in Maharashtra have proved, even governments which have ostensibly failed to deliver have supporters, as do parties whose policies have been described as fascist. There is room for every shade of opinion and the members of Parliament are like us: they range from bigots to ultra-liberals. But they share one common agenda: a hunger for power.

In the UK a fierce debate has raged all week whether Nick Griffin, leader of the much-reviled British National Party (which could be described as the counterpart to the Maharashtra Navnirman Sena), should be allowed to appear in a BBC programme — the somewhat harmless and rather sweetly archaic Question Time. Some of us may remember a similar programme anchored by Vir Sanghvi aeons ago. The BBC format has a range of panellists and an invited audience who are free to ask any question. It is all done in a very civilised fashion, no eggs are thrown and the few verbal tomatoes which are chucked leave some red faces for a few hours — but that is all. People watch Question Time when they remember to, and if they are appearing in it. But this time "auntie" struck gold. By inviting a hugely controversial and divisive figure like Mr Griffin, the Beeb ensured that ratings went through the roof thanks to the pre-programme publicity. The debate around "race" continues to rage, and those with extreme views make for explosive television.

To the consternation of critics who feel Mr Griffin should not be allowed mainstream exposure, "auntie" BBC has said there is no way it can prevent a democratically-elected leader appearing in a national programme — the best it can do is present a number of apposite views so that the balance is maintained. It is somewhat the same situation in India, and indeed, in democracies all over the world.

Afghanistan is just going to elect a leader (for the second time) who has been accused of election fraud, Italy is suffering from an overdose of a belligerent, macho and possibly even corrupt Silvio Berlusconi, the US had been blighted for eight years from the policies of a righteous George W. Bush and so on… and, of course, in India we continue to elect to power men and women who have been accused of all kinds of corruption over and over again. Is it time to re-examine how we select our leaders, or shall we rest content that this is the price we pay for democracy and there is nothing to prevent the rise of another Hitler-type figure in the future?

In a reasoned article, BBC director general Mark Thompson said, "It is unreasonable and inconsistent to take the position that a party like the British National Party is acceptable enough for the public to vote for, but not acceptable enough to appear on democratic platforms like Question Time. If there is a case for censorship it should be debated and decided in Parliament".

For somewhat similar reasons parties like the MNS in India are allowed to grow because the Maharashtra government, especially now, believes them to be useful in some way. However, some fear that the cynical view of letting these parties flourish can only help in making them more and more acceptable. Yet, it is also true that once they have been voted into power, they have a democratic legitimacy.

Mr Griffin, who was elected to the European Parliament in June, has already made a few incendiary statements, such as accusing US President Barack Obama of being an "Afroncentric racist bigot", and comparing some of UK’s military generals to Nazi war criminals. These are comments that have already made his party rather nervous about the possibility of his own survival and he even inquired if he could simply land at the BBC via a helicopter to avoid the angry protests which awaited him.

An Oxbridge man, Nick Griffin had imbibed his politics and history quite early from another hate figure, Hitler. The founder of the Young National Front Students group at Cambridge, he had begun reading Mein Kampf at the age of 13, saying later that it contained "some really useful ideas". Staying the course, he has denied the Holocaust and has yet, shockingly for many, managed to bring his party gradually into the mainstream.

Described by his own wife as an "oddball", Mr Griffin is learning to distance himself from some of his own extremist views, and now claims that Hitler "was a very bad thing, without a shadow of doubt". But at the same time he cannot disguise his antipathy to mixed race alliances maintaining that skin colour is a marker of identity and that the idea of merging disparate ethnic groups into a "a sort of Americanised melting pot" can be "catastrophic" (as quoted in the Times).

To maintain the balance, perhaps, the BBC had lined up a diverse panel to oppose him, which comprised of some big hitters as well as some known opponents including the Black American playwright and critic Bonnie Greer and Lady Warsi, the Tory community cohesion spokesperson.

Nonetheless, it was a high-profile appearance of someone who was not even a respectable person to know a few years ago, and that is a worrying trend. After all, this is a man who has described the Chinese as "ruthless, wicked", Indians "dirty and smelly" and Muslims "evil". But since he is an elected representative, he does have a right to be on a public platform, as much as anyone else. And that was the larger, most troubling question hovering over the Question Time programme. Why do we elect people like him?

The writer can be contacted at kishwardesai@yahoo.com