I got an email from an Indian friend who currently lives in Aberdeen detailing a run-in with the local Polizei. I’m sure he won’t mind me reproducing the relevant section.
“Talking of policemen, I was questioned by one the other day for half an hour. I should have taken his name down. I was looking for parking and this copper car followed me around the block until I pulled over. Then, this guy says, ‘You were driving carefully. I have to check if you’re an illegal immigrant.’. When I asked him what the connection was, he said he wasn’t sure if I was driving slowly looking for parking or because I was scared. Now only an idiot with an IQ of 30 would think an illegal immigrant would slow down when he sees a copper. If I were an illegal who panicked, I would speed wouldn’t I? Then, he tried to prove my Indian license was invalid - he was positively shattered when he found that that was valid as well.
“He then called immigration; he was so disappointed to find I was legal. And then he said something like, ‘if I catch you with your visa expired, or after your license has expired’. Bah. Then, I went into the corner store next door for a fag, and the owner (a scottish pakistani) says, ‘Ah, you committed the biggest crime, yeah? Driving while brown.’ Apparently, that guy had been pulling Asians over in the area all day, including the shop owner. This guy was born here, and the copper did the same thing trying to prove he was illegal. He called immigration and they said they had no records of the guy; and the copper goes, ‘Uh-huh. you’re illegal here!’. Took him a while to realise that immigration doesn’t keep records on British Pakistanis.
“Rant ends. I used to think the British police are better than their Indian counterparts - now I realise they’re all the same, irrespective of nationality - largely populated by the arrogant, quasi-educated, and self-righteous.”
On a very related note, In a few days time I’ll be posting pictures from yesterday’s anti-Bush demo in Whitehall, which ended with police using batons and truncheons on protesters and making random arrests. In the meantime, Flickr user ‘bolshie’ has some excellent ones.
Edit: The incident reminds me of this sketch from legendary comedy programme Not The Nine O’Clock News:
The SPG mentioned at the end of the sketch is the Special Patrol Group, who notoriously beat to death an anti-racism campaigner in 1979, and were found to be in posesion of baseball bats, crowbars and sledgehammers. They were disbanded in 1986 and replaced by the Territorial Support Group, who were deployed against protesters on the anti-Bush demo last Sunday.
What a bastard! He shouldn’t let that scumbag get away with that shit, he needs to ask around a little, find out the guy’s name and report him.
What a cock. Has he been reported? The police are very sensitive to complaints over police racism these days …
I have urged my friend to report the incident. It does illustrate the importance of noting the number of every policeman who stops you. The most damning thing is that the officer thought that a brown person born in Britain must be an illegal immigrant- clearly a racist assumption, and completely nonsensical.
As a more general point, it’s clear that since the start of the decade police have been getting more racist, more politicised, and quicker to resort to violence. Several people, including George Galloway, have said that policing at the anti-Bush demo was the worst they’d seen since the Miner’s Strike of 1984. As during the eighties, the authoritarian political climate is encouraging police to adopt the ideology of the government, with Muslims, immigrants and anti-war protesters being the new ‘enemy within’.
Jon, give this to Socialist Worker. If your friend wants to be interviewed the journos will almost certainly want to publish such a story.