Racist Panto - cancelled for ever!
NCRM South West | 03.12.2003 17:27 | Anti-racism
Well done to all those who sent emails, posted on websites and spread the word in schools, colleges, workplaces and within their communities - you all know who you are and you should be more than happy with the outcome of your efforts. See below, for a BBC Online News report (Radio 4 news was first to broadcast the report)
Race row panto cancelled
A Devon pantomime at the centre of a racism row has been cancelled following threats of demonstrations by civil rights campaigners.
Snow White and the Seven Asylum Seekers was banned last month by the north Devon village of Merton, following concerns about accusations of racism. But the village of Langtree, five miles away, welcomed them, saying they believed there was nothing racist about the show.
Now writer and producer Bob Harrod has cancelled the show after the National Civil Rights Movement (NCRM) called on people to picket the panto. It said the show "inaccurately" portrayed asylum seekers as "dirty unwashed scroungers".
The show featured seven asylum seekers with the names Chemical Ali, Comical Ali, Back Ali, Dark Ali, Bowling Ali, Ali G and Ali-Kiss-Angel.
In the panto they all work illegally at a quarry near Merton and live in squalor in a cottage in the woods where they are portrayed as living off baked beans and never bathing.
Merton's village hall committee ordered Mr Harrod to change the title after taking advice from the Commission for Racial Equality and the Devon and Exeter Racial Equality Council.
But Mr Harrod refused and was going to take it to nearby Langtree, where rehearsals had started for the show next month. But after hearing from the police of the planned protest, he decided to pull the show.
He told BBC News Online: "The police wanted to meet us and someone in the village hall committee to try to defuse the situation. "But after the call I gave it a lot of thought, spoke to other members of the cast and decided it was getting too nasty. "It was a laugh at first, but there will be children coming and I don't want the risk of trouble. "I am afraid we have been beaten."
Mr Harrod maintains that the panto was not racist and was sympathetic to asylum seekers. He said: "These people who have got upset about the show only saw the title and assumed the rest. "That was one reason I was so determined to put it on." He added: "I am pretty despondent about the whole thing. "Perhaps I was a naive, but this is political correctness gone mad. "The whole country is going topsy turvy."
An NCRM spokesman said: "Hundreds of asylum seekers living in Devon face daily hostility including numerous brutal racist attacks. "Inaccurately portraying asylum seekers named Chemical Ali, Comical Ali, Back Ali, Dark Ali, Bowling Ali, Ali G, and Ali-Kiss-Angel, as dirty unwashed scroungers living in grotty conditions and claiming DSS money, is racist stereotyping, dangerous scapegoating or perpetuating hostility towards some of the most vulnerable in Britain today."
Source:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/devon/3287353.stm
A Devon pantomime at the centre of a racism row has been cancelled following threats of demonstrations by civil rights campaigners.
Snow White and the Seven Asylum Seekers was banned last month by the north Devon village of Merton, following concerns about accusations of racism. But the village of Langtree, five miles away, welcomed them, saying they believed there was nothing racist about the show.
Now writer and producer Bob Harrod has cancelled the show after the National Civil Rights Movement (NCRM) called on people to picket the panto. It said the show "inaccurately" portrayed asylum seekers as "dirty unwashed scroungers".
The show featured seven asylum seekers with the names Chemical Ali, Comical Ali, Back Ali, Dark Ali, Bowling Ali, Ali G and Ali-Kiss-Angel.
In the panto they all work illegally at a quarry near Merton and live in squalor in a cottage in the woods where they are portrayed as living off baked beans and never bathing.
Merton's village hall committee ordered Mr Harrod to change the title after taking advice from the Commission for Racial Equality and the Devon and Exeter Racial Equality Council.
But Mr Harrod refused and was going to take it to nearby Langtree, where rehearsals had started for the show next month. But after hearing from the police of the planned protest, he decided to pull the show.
He told BBC News Online: "The police wanted to meet us and someone in the village hall committee to try to defuse the situation. "But after the call I gave it a lot of thought, spoke to other members of the cast and decided it was getting too nasty. "It was a laugh at first, but there will be children coming and I don't want the risk of trouble. "I am afraid we have been beaten."
Mr Harrod maintains that the panto was not racist and was sympathetic to asylum seekers. He said: "These people who have got upset about the show only saw the title and assumed the rest. "That was one reason I was so determined to put it on." He added: "I am pretty despondent about the whole thing. "Perhaps I was a naive, but this is political correctness gone mad. "The whole country is going topsy turvy."
An NCRM spokesman said: "Hundreds of asylum seekers living in Devon face daily hostility including numerous brutal racist attacks. "Inaccurately portraying asylum seekers named Chemical Ali, Comical Ali, Back Ali, Dark Ali, Bowling Ali, Ali G, and Ali-Kiss-Angel, as dirty unwashed scroungers living in grotty conditions and claiming DSS money, is racist stereotyping, dangerous scapegoating or perpetuating hostility towards some of the most vulnerable in Britain today."
Source:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/devon/3287353.stm
NCRM South West
Comments
Hide the following 4 comments
What a triumph!
04.12.2003 16:39
You have through (let's be honest) intimidation forced a Devon village to cancel its Xmas panto.
Whoopi doopi fucking doo.
Is that how you change people's minds or will they all go to bed tonight thinking they're a persecuted minority in their own land?
phats
Sad that Orwell's 1984 is upon us.
04.12.2003 17:56
The busy bodies at the NCRM (who ever they are) felt differently. I suppose they earn their salaries from the tax payer who funds their sad little world.
I wish someone would fund me so that I can become a pain in the arse to all of the things I don’t like or disagree with. Isn’t that called a dictatorship when the minority inflict on the majority their views.
Just so you know how much of a freak I am in the new Great Britain these days, I;
Eat meat
Like girls
Husband and father to two boys for 20+ years
Pay tax
Take nothing out of the system
English, white and heterosexual
Never broken the law
Believe in God, Queen and country.
Support Arsenal FC
Ivor Norkett
e-mail:
inorkett@hotmail.com
if anything should be banned
04.12.2003 21:18
gerrad houligan
Oh dear, persecuted white heterosexual males.............
05.12.2003 16:47
According to him, the biggest loss is that a bunch of people will feel persecuted because they are not allowed to watch this innocent piece of harmless fun.
Tossing that infantile argument aside is the only thing one can do. It's implications are so serious that one cannot seriously contemplate treating it seriously. In case there are people whose simplistic thinking has transcended the previously un-plumbed depths of superficiality, I feel I must alert them to the fact that the world does not revolve around them.
Bringing Arsenal FC is another indicator of the attempt at trivialising anything of a serious nature- this is symptomatic of this kind of regressive propaganda.
As a final note, this person makes a flippant remark about how persecuted he is, just because he beleives in a non-entity called god, because he slavishly wears the leash imposed upon him by generations of inbred 'royalty' and because he happens to be a white heterosexual. Just because you don't have a mind of your own, doesn't mean you are persecuted.
Furat
e-mail:
kroolca@hotmail.com