It’s a well known fact that Jim Fitpatrick MP (Poplar & Canning Town) is a dog lover. Didn’t he used to have a dog called Scruff who won the House of Commons dog show one year? In March this year, supported by the RSPCA, he put a Ten Minute Rule Bill to the House of Commons on the problems of illegal European immigrants (of the dog variety) – possibly not the most pressing issue facing his constituents in the southern half of Tower Hamlets, but what’s not to like?
Unfortunately, Jim’s eyes can sometimes “dim” over when it comes to a doggy story. He’s been in the papers over the weekend because a Concerned Constituent pointed out to him that a standard notice in Bartlett Park warning dog owners to clean up after their animals had been defaced. A home made leaflet had been pasted over the notice, stating: “Do not walk your dog here! “Muslims do not like dogs. “This is an islamic area now.”
Who could have put up such a sign? Was it: a) a Muslim person who had genuinely decided to assume responsibility for issuing civic notices; or b) a non-Muslim person who, encouraged by all the Muslim-bashing going on of late, had decided to express their feelings about the recent election result with a bit of old-fashioned East End irony?
We put these question to a totally unscientifically selected audience of the two people who happened to be in the room at the time. “It’s (b),” said Diane Simons from Poplar, “anyone can see it’s a set up.” “Of course it’s (b),” said Travis, who lives in E14. “Of course it’s a p***-take.”
Both voters were shocked to hear that longstanding East End MP Jim Fitzpatrick had been taken in by the poster and believed it was genuinely from a Muslim resident with an inflated sense of self-importance or, alternatively, from a nasty far right extremist trying to divide the community.
What, our locals wondered, had he done about it? We swiftly designed a follow up question.
What, we asked, do you do if you see a poster which you believe has been put up to inflame racial tensions? Do you: a) quietly go and have a word with the safer neighbourhood police and the Council and organise a bit of surveillance on the basis that there may be repeat offences; or b) go to the press and tell them that either the Muslims are getting above themselves again or that the extreme right are coming?
Our voters were on the ball. “If you’re trying to calm things down, you work on it behind the scenes,” they told us. “But we know Dim Jim’s gone public because it’s all over Facebook. Some people have said it’s a set up, but they’ve been howled down when they’ve said that.”
It’s not just all over Facebook. There have been articles in the local and national press. The story quickly went global, being covered in the New York Daily News and the Times of India. And this is how Tower Hamlets gets a reputation, internationally, for being a divided community.
In 1993, the BNP’s Derek Beackon was elected to the Council to represent Millwall ward (which was then the whole of the Isle of Dogs). The day after he was elected in a by-election, one local pensioner rang social services and demanded that he be given a new (white) home help to replace the (black) one he currently had. You wind people up with racist propaganda, and it sticks. Labour has always made much of how it took Derek Beackon’s seat off him six months later, in the scheduled elections (20 years ago last month): but after his six months in office, Beackon’s vote went up 50%.
Fitzpatrick is quoted in the press as saying that the note may have been put up by “religious zealots to be racist” or “by a far-right group to stir up trouble”. For a start, a “religious zealot” would not have written “This is an islamic area” – they would have spelled Islamic with a capital I (as would many non-zealot Muslims). It is unfortunate that Fitzpatrick, who represents so many Muslim constituents, was not sensitive to that clue and/or that none of his Muslim friends tipped him off about it.
By naming the two possible culprits that he has, Fitzpatrick ignores the possibility that the sign was put up by a common or garden, run of the mill punter, one of many who share the sentiment and one of the few who has access to a printer to vent his/her feelings.
It is worse than unfortunate, and worse than insensitive, to keep talking about “religious zealots” in an area where there are high levels of Islamophobia. All that does is to stoke the flames and provide more platforms for those who want to jump in and keep pushing the buttons. You never see off the racists by appeasing the public with statements that are a bit less racist (as the Lib Dems learned on the Isle of Dogs in 1993 and 1994).
As we concluded our unscientific survey, a third person walked into the room and asked what we were talking about. We explained that Jim Fitzpatrick MP had been in the press saying that extremists on both sides should “pack it in”. “Goodness,” came the response, “is there a General Election about to be fought – and is he looking for a mention in Dispatches?”