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Bernard Dineen: Loudmouths who rush to attack Prince Harry
THE so-called "race rumpus" involving Prince Harry (and now his father) was superficial nonsense. But the organised uproar in response has been disturbing and dangerous.
It shows how the British people have allowed themselves to be bullied, lectured and insulted by pressure groups and politically-correct zealots. As the response of Yorkshire Post readers has shown, there is growing anger and resentment at what is happening.
Muslim businessmen I know respect the Royal Family and admire Prince Harry, but their voices are never heard. Instead we get a constant parade of loudmouths across our TV screens.
The Muslim community should beware of allowing itself to be represented by such people, who cause resentment every time they open their mouths. One called for Prince Harry to be "kicked out of the Army".
Let us look closer at another – Inayat Bunglawala, the public affairs officer of the Muslim Council of Britain, who is rarely off our screens. In 2001, he sent an e-mail to hundreds of British Muslims praising Osama bin Laden as a "freedom fighter". (He said subsequently that his words were "ill-chosen").
He wrote in a youth magazine that Hamas was a "source of comfort for Muslims all over the world". He accused the British news media of being "Zionist-controlled" and said that Zionists were "at the core of international banking and commerce". This is the man who now criticises Prince Harry! The response of Tony Blair was to make Bunglawala a convener of the task force against extremism!
There is no point in blaming the News of the World for the present row. A rag which was capable of hacking into Prince William's mobile phone to spy on the Royal Family is clearly capable of anything. Its stock in trade is sewage, so you expect it to stink. But one might well be shocked at the action of someone, presumably a fellow cadet, who ratted on a comrade by selling the video for money, a load of money, I would imagine. I hope it chokes him.
Is the term "Paki" insulting? Clearly it is, in the mouth of a snarling skinhead. But to suggest that it is always used in an insulting way is nonsense.
A Sikh friend tells me he has sometimes heard himself referred to as "that nice Paki chap with a beard". To call a Sikh a Paki is doubly absurd, but when I asked him if it made him angry, he replied: "No, of course not. It's just harmless ignorance, without any malice."
He added: "If there is malice, believe me, someone like me can detect it within 10 seconds."
The gay activist Peter Tatchell, who has faced his share of prejudice, defended Prince Harry against another mischievous suggestion, that the video showed him to be anti-gay.
He said: "I cannot see anything offensive about the context and manner in which Harry used the word." Context is the point. Harry was talking privately to a group of his comrades.
In the same way, a video of conversation inside a newspaper office might yield a few surprises. And surgeons have their own brand of black humour among themselves, which is their way of coping with pressure.
The same goes for other groups. David Cameron said we must all watch our speech, whether as a member of a political party or as a soldier. With respect, there is a difference. When you are expecting to have your head blown off at any moment, being politically correct is not high on your list of priorities.
Until you have scraped up the remains of your best friend and shovelled it into a bodybag, you haven't begun to understand what being a soldier is all about. Get off the back of Prince Harry, and his Army comrades, who are called upon to face death or mutilation whenever ordered to do so.
WHEN British troops were sent in to the notorious Helmand province of Afghanistan, there were soothing assurances from the then Defence Secretary, John Reid. He said he expected they would leave "without a shot being fired".
Our men were soon involved in fierce fighting on a scale of
intensity not seen since the Second World War. Now scarcely a week goes by without another flag-draped coffin being unloaded in Britain, with grieving relatives mourning their loved ones. More than four million bullets were fired in 2007 alone.
But look on the bright side. The opportunities for private security companies to earn large fees protecting civilian contractors has proved a gold mine. And guess who has just landed a job as "security consultant" with one of the biggest fees? None other than the former Defence Secretary, at 50,000 a year.
He is the latest former minister to cash in on their Government connections by taking private-sector jobs.
Patricia Hewitt, the former Health Secretary, is making lucrative use of her expertise. David Blunkett is another. Whatever the Government botch-up, there is always a silver lining – for the very politicians responsible for the botch-up.
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Weather for Yorkshire
Friday 25 May 2012
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