Comment

Andy Warhol, the tin can painter, said everyone deserves to be famous for 15 minutes. Dear reader, even in this age of cheap celebrity, I have exceeded myself. I was, last week, famous for several hours in Australia.

In some people’s estimation, being famous in Australia is like being a millionaire in Zimbabweian dollars, but one clings to whatever comes one’s way.

It happened like this: An Indian TV show called me in London and asked if I would express an opinion on racist attacks in Australia. Apart from the charms of one Kylie Minogue I know nothing about Australia, but was persuaded when I heard that 70 people had ganged up on three Sikh gentlemen who were going about their business in Melbourne, Victoria, and that the prime minister of that state had passed off the affair by calling the attackers ‘bigots’ rather than racist scum.

Doing a broadcast from abroad entails sitting in an empty studio facing a remote controlled camera with a large rectangular glass front. It’s akin to what Jonah must have felt in the belly of the whale with the certainty that the story would be retold in some bible.

My contribution to the programme was recalling the British experience of the 1960s and 70s when immigrants of East Pakistani origin in the East End of London were being racially assaulted. The racists called it Paki-bashing and it had escalated from random assault on the streets to arson attacks on their homes.

There had to be an ideological and self-activated reaction to the racism and it was forthcoming. I was in an agitational political group called Race Today at the time and we were asked to assist in organising the fight back.

Our first initiative was to call community meetings. These resulted in a rally of several thousand people protesting against ‘Paki-bashing’. From there it led to self-defence groups at the East End. The bashing stopped and the Labour Party began to take notice, rushing in to solve the ‘social problems’ of immigrants.

I ‘precis’ed all this for the TV audiences and went home to bed. My phone rang at five the next morning with a researcher weak on time zones asking me to comment on Rudd’s reaction.

Now, Rudd’s reaction sounds like something from a chemistry text book so it took a bit of waking up and some repetition from the researcher for me to realise that what she wanted was a reaction from me to the adverse reaction of Australia’s prime minister to my comments the previous day.

The phone didn’t stop ringing. I was invited on to several Indian TV programmes and was told that Kevin Rudd had characterised my remarks as a call for vigilante action and retaliation against racists. I agreed to answer this misunderstanding and in the same Westminster studio that evening made the distinction between organised self-defence and assault or burning down some racist’s house in revenge. I agreed with Kevin that Asian immigrants ought to be law-abiding and pointed out that most civilised countries recognised that self-defence was not an offence.

I was asked as to what advice I would give him. I recalled an old Second World War song which was rather specific about some very private anatomical characteristics of Hitler, Goering, Himmler (whose ‘things’ were sim’lar) and poor ‘Goballs’ who, the song went, had none at all.

Which prompted the suggestion that Rudd ought to contemplate changing the available sentencing for convicted racists, who should in imitation of their role model, and in order that they may be publicly and privately identified, have a square black moustache tattooed on their upper lip and one testicle surgically and humanely removed. I am sure Mr Rudd appreciated the firm and novel guidance. Maybe I can stand for election and be made a minister.