Are we a racist community?

Of course the answer has to be yes, to some extent, because there isn’t a country anywhere in the world which is totally free from racism.

Even the proverbially liberal Scandinavians are seeing a rise in xenophobia, islamophobia and racism in response to the migrant crisis of a few years ago and the world-wide surge of so called ‘popularism’.

Elsewhere in Europe we also see support for the far right and anti-immigrant policies growing. One can only hope this worrying slide towards stigmatising the outsider – so present throughout the worst episodes in world history – doesn’t get even worse if the situation in Idlib sparks a fresh tide of asylum seekers.

Against that international backdrop, it would probably be naive to expect Guernsey to be completely immune from this pernicious trend. Nor has Guernsey ever been completely free from the curse of racism. Successive waves of Italian, Portuguese, Latvian [and English?] migrants to our shores have always found a mixed welcome.

Most islanders, I hope, have traditionally embraced newcomers and recognised all the positives they bring to our island community. Not only do they add to our culture and our cuisine but without migration we would be immeasurably poorer economically. Plus, let’s face it, a wider gene pool is no bad thing for a small community.

Sadly, a minority have never seen it that way and instead has preferred to indulge the innate mistrust of those who are ‘different’ which evolution has instilled in humanity.

Most of the Guernsey racism I have known over the last half-century has been at the lower end of the scale.

There has been no apartheid, KKK or ethnic cleansing here. No segregation or white supremacy movements.

Nevertheless, the persistent, low-level racism displayed by some in our community has demeaned us all over the years. One vital group of guest workers, who should have been made to feel very welcome indeed, were even referred to collectively by an insulting epithet reminiscent of cockney rhyming slang. I have no intention of repeating that distasteful expression here but most islanders ‘of a certain age’ will remember it.

This recent history of mild to moderate racism is not only regrettable and a stain on our community, but it is also rather puzzling. After all, Guernsey has form when it comes to migration. Not only are we a community made up of wave after wave of immigrants but we have also emigrated in significant numbers to just about every part of the globe. So surely we should have got over our distrust of strangers by now?

Maybe it’s just because we are a small, isolated community with limited access to multi-culturalism. The equivalent of the isolated local pub where everybody goes deadly quiet when a stranger walks in in search of a drink.

Of course the groups I referred to earlier may have been a bit different culturally to native Guernsey people but racially they were not so different. They were white and they were European. So what about our treatment of black or brown incomers?

At times in my younger days I cringed at the local attitude to those of a different colour who came to live in the island. I even remember a deputy who was serving with me on the Housing Authority telling me he supported the Housing Control Law ‘because it helped to keep blacks out of the island’. Hopefully those attitudes died out with his generation.

Why bring all this up now?

Two reasons. Firstly because we can never be complacent when it comes to racism. Secondly because of that report from Citizens Advice highlighting the significant number of complaints they’ve had concerning alleged racism towards guest workers.

While I don’t doubt that there is a racist element to some of these episodes I also suspect there is something else going on.

Guest workers, whatever their nationality, are supremely vulnerable to poor treatment from bad employers. I am convinced that is only a small minority of employers, but that doesn’t help those affected.

For example a university friend of my step-daughter came to work in a Guernsey hotel many years ago. She was a hard worker but was mistreated by her employer, being expected to work many more hours than her contract demanded for no extra pay and was humiliated in front of others for her pains. She was a white English woman but if she hadn’t known anybody in the island then, as a guest worker, she would have found the situation very difficult to resolve.

As it was we told her to quit and stay with us while she found a better job. She ended up working in hospitality in Sark for several years and loved it.

Thinking back, my other half was actually barred from the hotel concerned for life for her intervention in this episode, but that didn’t matter much as it burned down a while later – nothing to do with me.

To close, there has never been a better time for Guernsey to resolve to provide our guest workers with a warm welcome and treat them with respect.

After all, we need them more than they need us.

With the madness of Brexit looming, many Europeans in particular are feeling – rightly or wrongly – less welcome in the British Isles. With the pound at such a low pitch against the euro, the wages local employers can afford to offer are less and less attractive to workers from the Continent.

It’s a perfect storm, but there isn’t much we can do about it. The only thing we can do is cut out any ignorant xenophobia, embrace the positives of immigration, and become ultra-welcoming hosts.

Personally, I love the impact of multiculturalism and the joy of Guernsey’s current low fertility rate is that we can invite new, different, people to our shores without increasing our already high population.

We need their skills, but why the heck should they come if they are not made to feel genuinely welcome?