Harry's good intentions

The media storm surrounding Prince Harry’s ill-judged remarks in the video released by the News of the World on Sunday continues to rumble on.

This morning listeners to the Today Programme were treated to an extraordinary debate on the issue between the chair of the home affairs select committee Keith Vaz and the former Welsh Tory minister Rod Richards.

I am sure Richard’s astonishing contribution will have had many BBC listeners choking on their cornflakes.

Having said how, in his day, he was quite happy to have the mickey taken out of him by fellow MPs for his Welshness – including insinuations about having had sexual relations with sheep - Richards went on to insist that, as far as he was concerned, “Paki” wasn’t an offensive term, but an abbreviation for "Pakistani".

Never mind an increasingly exasperated Keith Vaz telling him how offensive the term actually was. Never mind that the father of the solidier whose Harry’s comments were directed at has since come out to describe it as “a disgraceful insult” and “hate word”. The former Tory minister wouldn't be persuaded. If the speaker of the word doesn’t regard it as offensive or doesn’t intend it in an offensive manner, Richards seemed to suggest, then it probably isn’t. In other words, lighten up.

Revelations about his sexual proclivaties aside, Richards' comments go to the heart of the problem with Prince Harry’s own muted defence of his actions – that his comments were meant affectionately and not in a racist manner – a position that has garnered sympathy in some quarters of the blogosphere.
Whether the intention behind Harry’s use of the world “paki” was malicious or not, or whether Richards' thinks it is an abbreviation and not an insult, is in many ways beside the point. It is simply not their place to judge how offensive the term is to Asian people.

Even the most cursory knowledge of Britain’s recent social history would have warned Harry how insulting his use of the term was likely to be to his colleague Ahmed and his family. As Iain Dale points out in his blog on the controversy yesterday the term “paki” came to prominence in the late 1970s and 1980s when it was used by the National Front and BNP as a term of abuse in their virulent campaigns against Britain’s Asian communities at the time (although I take issue with Dales’ assertion that before then its use was perfectly acceptable in sitcoms such as Mind Your Language and Love Thy Neighbour).

Although race relations in Britain have moved on somewhat since that time the word still retains its power to shock and is still regarded by my Asian friends (and partner) as a particularly offensive. For Harry to think it was a suitable term to use in a nickname for his Asian friend was ignorant to say the least.

In the debate on the Today Programme Keith Vaz made an important point about the effect the tolerance of such language has on efforts to recruit and retain ethnic minorities in organisations such as the armed forces. Whatever the intention behind the use of such language, its acceptance can lead to a culture where minorities feel marginalised and unable to complain about instances of abuse for fear of not being “one of the lads”. No wonder therefore army chiefs are worried about the effect Prince Harry’s comments are likely to have on the army’s already pretty dismal record for ethnic minority recruitment.

So it doesn’t really matter whether Harry intended his comments to be racist or not; the damage they have done is real regardless of the motive behind them. Words, just like guns, can wound. It's a painful lesson for the Prince, but one that by now he really ought to have learnt.

Comments

[Barry Williams]

The problem that you on the left have is that by the way you have extended the definition of rascism you are making it respectable for people to be rascist.

The election of BNP councillors is a reaction to your insane political correctness. You lot are the best friends the BNP nasties have.l

[Iain Dale]

Mark, When I said it was acceptable, I didn't mean acceptable by today's standards. What I meant was that by allowing the word to be used in a comedic manner it must have been a more acceptable term in society than it is today.

[Mark Day]

Fair point Iain, although just because it was considered more "acceptable" I don't think the term was any less offensive to the Asian people watching those dreadful sitcoms in the 1970s that it would be today.