In an earlier post The Independent on Sunday reported in September of this year that there was a real existential threat from Somalis in the UK who had travelled back and forth from their war torn motherland. They could represent a fifth column that could compromise the fragile and delicate nature of mainstream society.
However, they seem to have forgotten that earlier in the year, on the 21st May, their Law Editor Robert Verkaik revealed an exclusive about Somalis being profiled by the Home Office and their rights being undermined by representatives of the government department. Read here for the full story of how youth workers from the London Borough of Camden, whose cause is now being championed by Frank Dobson MP, were being blackmailed by Home Office officials who are desperate to gain a quick win in the war on terror.
This duplicity of The Independent raises an interesting question about the status of the corporate media in helping to cement government policy in the public sphere. On the same topic, regarding members of the same community in the UK, they managed to take up diametrically opposed positions on the status of Somalis. In this respect, the vagaries of one community in a multicultural society is being placed in the public sphere for a debate without the voice of that community being heard.
Pluralism as a result suffers in this regard. Dialogue is replaced by monologue. The social exclusion suffered by members of the Somali community is reinforced by the appropriation of their public profile by corporate bodies and groups. For wider matters of social cohesion and with a view to developing community conversations; these developments are a hammer blow to the goals of achieving a civil society for all.
No comments:
Post a Comment