Race watchdog sparks controversy with claim of "passive apartheid" in rural Britain
[11 October 2004]
Trevor Phillips, Chairman of the Commission for Racial Equality, has sparked
controversy amongst rural communities by claiming that minority ethnic
communities are subject to "passive apartheid" caused by "mutual
incomprehension" in the countryside.
While it has long been true that only a tiny percentage of people living in the
countryside come from minority communities, and that people of ethnic minority
origin have largely remained in their traditional urban environments, recent annual
surveys by national tourism bodies have rung alarm bells by showing that less
than 1% of day trippers to the countryside come from ethnic minority
communities.
Campaigners argue that this is a clear indication that ethnic minorities do not
feel welcome in the countryside.
Mr. Phillips told the BBC: "This is not by anybody’s will; there is no law and I
doubt if anybody in the countryside wants to keep people out. But I think we are
seeing a gradual drift towards a difficult situation in which people from ethnic
minorities feel uncomfortable."
The claims come at a time when rural watchdog, the Countryside Agency, is
focusing more on work to improve countryside access to minority groups who have
traditionally felt the countryside to be a hostile environment.
Prompted by the Government's 2000 Rural White Paper, the Countryside Agency has
begun a process of reaching out to marginalised communities and to gather data
to review the work they are doing.
Jacqui Stearn from the Agency said, "There’s been an assumption in our sector
that people from ethnic minority backgrounds aren't interested in accessing the
countryside, and the work we're doing, our national research, just blows that
assumption apart."
A similar conclusion seems to have been reached during the ongoing Mosaic
Project, jointly run by the Black Environment Network and the Council for
National Parks. Designed to increase the number of visitors to national parks
from minority ethnic backgrounds, and begun in 2002, to date the project has
been hugely successful.
Black Environment Network
Council for National Parks
Countryside Agency