21 March 19841
I must say at once what an honour it is for the Greater London Council and for me, as its Chairman, to be invited to participate in this solemn meeting of the United Nations Special Committee against Apartheid on this day, the International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination and the twenty-fourth anniversary of the Sharpeville massacre. I thought it right to appear before you properly dressed as the Chairman of the Council with my badge of office to make it quite clear that I speak as the representative head of the democratically elected city-wide government for seven and a half million Londoners. In London today my Council is marking this International Day with major press conferences and political gatherings, and we are honoured to have there as guests the Algerian Ambassador to the United Nations, Ambassador Sahnoun, Oliver Tambo, President of the African National Congress of South Africa (ANC), Bishop Trevor Huddleston and others who have led in this struggle to get rid of the stain of racism from our society which still, unfortunately, has to be waged with all the resources at our disposal.
The Greater London Council knows that racism and the evil discrimination which flows from it are matters which require changes of heart and head, changes of deep-seated, long-standing attitudes, based on ignorance and fear in great part, and that such changes in attitudes take time and effort. It is for that reason that my Council decided to take a lead, to state its position on these matters and to take steps to eliminate discrimination on grounds of race, colour or creed from its own activities, including its employment policy and practice, in the hope that other major cities will follow, in their own way and according to their own circumstances.
Thus, on 9 January 1984 the Greater London Council was host to a distinguished delegation of representatives from the United Nations, the front-line States, High Commissioners of Commonwealth Governments, the African National Congress and the Anti-Apartheid Movement. It was a unique occasion, over which I had the honour to preside and at which the Council formally made its Anti-Apartheid Declaration and designated London as an anti-apartheid zone. The Declaration was adopted by the Council to reflect the feelings of those many people in London - as indeed throughout the United Kingdom and elsewhere in Western Europe - who are outraged at the shameful and inhuman realities of apartheid in South Africa and to bring home to those who have not yet faced the issue a greater awareness of these realities. In seeking to take a lead through its Declaration the Council hopes to promote a wider understanding of the problems created and perpetuated by the system and philosophy of apartheid.
Apartheid in South Africa today is as cruel and despicable as was slavery before its formal abolition throughout most of the world over 150 years ago and as was the National Socialism that surfaced in Germany 50 years ago. It is, without doubt, the worst example of denial of human rights in any society in the world today.
In London we face many problems. Our manufacturing industry is in massive decline. We have about 400,000 Londoners unemployed, some 12 per cent of the working population. Housing conditions for many are abysmal and unacceptable; crime rates are altogether too high; more families are being drawn into the poverty trap whilst less and less is being spent on public services to meet the needs of the most disadvantaged sections of the society. It would be easy while trying to find solutions to these massive problems to ignore the plight of the African majority in apartheid-controlled South Africa. However, that would not only be wrong, it would be hypocritical. It would make no sense for the Greater London Council to seek to tackle the problems of social and racial inequalities in London while ignoring London's cultural, political, historical and current economic links with South Africa and the problems in South Africa that these links have played their part in creating.
The Greater London Council will not shirk its responsibilities in seeking to make London a fair and just multiracial society, a society in which there can be no collusion with racism and apartheid. But in seeking this goal we cannot deny Britain's imperial past and our involvement in the slave trade, the colonization and subjugation of large parts of the world and the racism that lingers on. Black people have almost invariably been the victims of this imperialism - from the imperialism, let me stress, not only of Britain, but also of Spain, France, Belgium, Holland, Portugal and, more latterly, the United States of America and - dare one add? - more recently still the Soviet Union.
For over 400 years black people have lived in Britain, since long before their importation into the United States of America. It is an unhappy fact that racism is institutionalized in Britain to the extent that in recent years legislation has been enacted, primarily, it seems, to keep black people out, to vary nationality status of many former British subjects and to withdraw the automatic right to British citizenship for certain categories of children born in Britain simply because their parents do not have citizenship status.
In spite of this Britain is, on the whole, a tolerant society in which many people are concerned about social and racial inequalities and injustices and, indeed, are prepared to take action, individually and collectively, to challenge the endemic racism they see around them. Increasingly this challenge is now being taken up by black people themselves as they strive to assert themselves in search of their basic human rights and of justice, equality and a proper recognition of their contribution to society.
By drawing attention to their historical achievements through struggles black people are also enhancing British society by bringing forth the hidden truth of their own history and raising everyone else's awareness of the many black people who, over the centuries, have been prominent at certain periods in British history yet whose names are seldom mentioned in contemporary books about British history, heroes such as Ignatius Sancho, poet and playwright; Ira Aldridge, actor; William Cuffay, freedom fighter; Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, composer; John Archer, mayor of the Borough of Battersea in London; and, of course, the heroine Mary Seacole, a veteran of the Crimean War and only now being given a deserved recognition of her outstanding contribution to nursing in Britain. To bring this. story up-to-date I am happy to add that of the three of my predecessors as Chairman of the Greater London Council who have been made Lords in the upper House of Parliament in London one of them is Lord David Pitt, a West Indian from Grenada. An outstanding doctor as well as a leading London political figure, he has recently been elected President of the British Medical Association.
These are only a few examples, but they serve as a timely reminder of the great contribution that blacks have made to London over the centuries and are making today. However, while black people battle on in their struggle for justice and equality, it is the indigenous white community in Britain which very largely controls Parliament, the judiciary, the media, the Stock Exchange, colleges, universities and schools. Common sense tells us, therefore, that it is these white people who will have to learn to share their power, privileges and resources if racism is to be overcome.
In London the Greater London Council has launched a major anti-racist programme with the following objectives: first, changing institutional and organizational structures which have racist and discriminatory effects; secondly, refuting all racist publications and media output which perpetuate biased and prejudiced minds and opinions; and, thirdly, securing anti-racist commitments from as many individual London inhabitants as possible and their involvement in the anti-racist programme. This would require, first, a commitment to being anti-racist through acquiring knowledge and understanding of what racism is and how personal and institutional racism operates nationally and internationally and, secondly, a commitment to become anti-racist by being deeply aware of all the forms of oppression and taking action personally and collectively to end all oppression: In pursuance of these objectives, the Council is seeking to put its own house in order. Our policies have been developed to make sure that black and all other minority ethnic people have access to jobs, training, resources, services and, particularly, the decision-making processes of the Council itself.
As part of our Anti-Racist Programme, the Greater London Council, representing one of the most ethnically diverse capital cities of the world, condemns apartheid formally and on behalf of our citizens.
We commend the solid efforts of the United Nations, and in particular the United Nations Centre against Apartheid. Their actions have in no small part led to the pressures which are forcing changes in South Africa. These changes, though, so far are mostly cosmetic and seem designed mainly to attract international acceptance for a cynical strategy shaking off the shackles of isolation and sanctions.
The GLC, as a major city with a large multi-ethnic population, is aware of its own problems arising from racism - and is seeking to deal with them, as it also seeks to give a lead to other large cities to deal with them similarly. Giving international expression to this, it has made an Anti-Apartheid Declaration, because the apartheid system is the most vehement expression of racism. In pursuit of these aims, the Council's Declaration says that it will:
In implementing the Anti-Apartheid Declaration, the Greater London Council joins progressive international forces engaged in pressing for real and effective change in South Africa. Our Declaration is clear that London will not compromise with apartheid in South Africa. The battle for race equality and justice for the people of London will never be over whilst apartheid persists in South Africa and until our faith in the dignity and unique worth of the human person, independent of colour, class or creed, is expressed in full and in practice throughout the world.
Father Huddleson was active in the movement against the removal of Africans from Sophiatown, Johannesburg, in 1954.