Jeremy Corbyn has been right to set up the inquiry led by Shami Chakrabarti. But if the inquiry is going to chart how we more effectively tackle anti-Semitism, Islamophobia and other racism, it is likely that it is going to have to try to define these things.
By Richard Burden
Originally published by HuffPost, May 9, 2017
In recent weeks legitimate concerns about anti-Semitism and its relationship to the conflict in the Middle East have been used as weapons to gain party advantage ahead of the local elections, and, on both sides of the argument, to boost egos or settle old scores within my own Party. They are too important for that. So please forgive me if I try to stick to the issues instead.
Anti-Semitism, like all racism, is pernicious. Whether born of ignorance or of prejudice, it has no place in any political party or in society.
I have always believed this, but seeing two places for myself made it more real for me. One was visiting the Yad Vashem Holocaust Memorial Museum in Israel. Seeing Auschwitz-Birkenau with a group of sixth-form students from the West Midlands had even more impact on me. You see the railhead where over a million were brought into the death camp, to then be crammed together in sheds, waiting to be murdered on an industrial scale. Six million died in what the Nazis called ‘the final solution to the Jewish question’. It’s an experience that never leaves you. A lesson about where racism can lead.
I am not Jewish, I do not claim to have lived my life under the spectre of anti-Semitism. However, I have personally been the target of anti-Semitic abuse, harassment and threats in recent years. The person doing it was arrested and convicted. Somewhere along the line he had convinced himself that I was Jewish and that my advocacy for Palestinian human rights showed that I was some kind of sinister double-agent. His image was fantasy but the impact of the threats was real – not only on me but on my family and staff too.
So when Jews or any other religious or ethnic group feel they are experiencing racist attitudes in any political party, I know we must take it seriously. That is why Jeremy Corbyn has been right to set up the inquiry led by Shami Chakrabarti. But if the inquiry is going to chart how we more effectively tackle anti-Semitism, Islamophobia and other racism, it is likely that it is going to have to try to define these things. That is not going to be easy.
