Celebrating Sanctuary

For those transatlantic readers who don't follow the ins and outs British politics let me mention, before I get to what this post is really about, the recent European elections. One of the quirks of our political system is that as well as voting for local politicians (councillors) and national politicians (MPs) we get to vote for our country's representatives in Europe (MEPs). A combination of very low voter turnout (because of disenchantment after the recent expenses scandals) and the counting system used has led to two members of the far right party the BNP , for the first time ever, getting seats in the European Parliament. For anyone who doesn't know about the BNP, they are an extremist party who, among other things, don't allow non-whites to join and wish to "repatriate" immigrants to their countries of origin. They like to dress themselves up in the clothes of proper political parties and try to present an image as a "common sense" party but the fundamental point about their politics is its racism.

And some people vote for them.

The result was discussed all over the media giving publicity to this party and event that they don't deserve but also giving the impression that Britain is becoming more extreme and more racist, which I don't believe.

With all this in the recent political background, I went yesterday something which was the very antithesis of this racism, the Celebrating Sanctuary Festival. On a beautiful sunny day people of all races and cultures gathered in the centre of Birmingham, sat on the steps of the library and listened to music from Albania, Cameroon, Zimbabwe, Congo, Iran and a host of others. I wandered around the stalls, listened to the music, basked in the relaxed and happy atmosphere, popped into the pub a couple of times, and generally had a thoroughly good day.

Here are a couple of pictures of the event.