Time to wake from our racist slumber after latest attack

6.50.00pm BST (GMT +0100) Wed 30th Aug 2006

Chair of Alliance Youth Wing, Ian James Parsley

The Chair of the Alliance Party's youth wing, Cllr Ian James Parsley, has said the latest racist attack in Northern Ireland must lead to people fundamentally reconsidering the sectarian political system.

Cllr Parsley stated: "I am shamed and appalled at the latest racist attack, this time on an Indian family in North Belfast. The attackers claimed that the family 'was taking all our money', a line all too commonly heard across Northern Ireland with not a grain of truth to it.

"It is time for our political leaders to wake from their sectarian slumber. Those engaged in promoting a sectarian political system are also promoting a sectarian social system, in which fear of difference reigns and in which, therefore, racism flourishes.

"Politicians who belong to sectarian parties need to think long and hard about the divisions they are promoting. What place can an innocent Indian family, a hard-working Polish labourer or a diligent Lithuanian student find in a community wracked by tribal divisions, led by politicians divided along tribal lines.

"There is another way. There is another society out there, where people make choices based on personal values and personal interests, rather than on sectarian and tribal labels. A society where Protestant, Catholic and Dissenter merge easily with hard-working immigrants to create a genuinely fair and free community.

"Other parties may talk about such things in theory. But for as long as they are engaged in single-identity politics, they are promoting division in practice. They need to think about their responsibility for breeding the fear and ignorance that leads to sectarian attacks in Ballymena or racist attacks in Belfast. And they need to think again about the kind of political leadership they are giving us."

ENDS