Maybe, given time, we'll become wise enough to stop classifying the racist slur as the nuclear weapon of slights and realise it's only a peashooter
The insults have been flying in the small town of Prestatyn lately, with two convictions for racially aggravated crimes in the last week. First came some Welsh-bashing, committed by a Mr Taaffe, which confused me until I found out his name's pronounced to rhyme with "staff" not like the Brythonic slur. That wasn't the one he opted for anyway. Eschewing the heritage xenophobia of folk music, he branded some security guards at a holiday camp "a bunch of sheep-shaggers". He was fined £150.
Then, two days later, it was the English who copped it. Elen Humphreys was required to pay £50 for the pleasure of calling her father's mistress, Angela Payne, an "English cow". Seems a fairly mild dig but then, according to Ms Payne, it was the "final straw" – which implies she wouldn't have minded being called a camel.
These were both unpleasant incidents. While holidaying at the Presthaven Sands caravan park, Anthony Taaffe had been drinking – which sounds like a rational response – and had then discovered that his stuff had been removed from the caravan he was renting. When he reported this to the holiday park office, things got heated. I'm sure the staff would deny that their behaviour was annoying. What is not in doubt is that Mr Taaffe became annoyed. And one thing led to another – the other being a criminal accusation of bestiality, made, according to Taaffe, while he was being sat on by security staff.
The actions of Elen Humphreys are not as undignified, but they're a glance into deeper and darker waters. She was collecting some of her father's belongings from the house of his mistress, Angela Payne, when she rebuked her parent's lover with the phrase: "Leave well alone, you English cow." Elen's father has, according to her lawyer Andrew Hutchinson, recently been going "backwards and forwards" between his wife of 32 years and Payne. Perhaps he'd left something behind after his most recent oscillation. If so, his daughter was a bad choice of toothbrush/toupee/mobile phone/sex toy fetcher.
Even now, in this country, people can usually say what they like. When that's restricted, it's often for a good reason: to prevent the whipping up of hatred, the spreading of unsubstantiated rumour, the prejudicing of juries or just because Jeffrey Archer is incredibly litigious so it's not worth the candle. But I doubt whether, when defining those restrictions, the legislators' primary intention was to prohibit remarks such as Taaffe's and Humphreys's.
Neither of them behaved well. They lost their tempers and they didn't rise above it – then again, that's tricky when someone's sitting on you. But did the courts really need to be involved? If you're Welsh and the drunken tourist you're restraining calls you a sheep-shagger, can't you just think less of him? If the daughter of the guy you're having an affair with cites your nationality while expressing her fairly understandable dislike, couldn't you just take it on the chin, or say something rude in return, rather than making an official complaint? I reckon these remarks could have evaded judicial censure without Martin Luther King having died in vain.
Despite pleading guilty in court, Taaffe did say something in his own defence: "Calling someone a sheep-shagger is a term for people living in the countryside," he claimed. Not for Welsh people, he's saying. It's not about race or nationality, but location and way of life. So it's not racist.
As an excuse, this didn't make sense to me. I'd have thought people should be more offended when criticised for what might well be a choice they've consciously made – living in the countryside – than for things that are beyond their control – being Welsh. It may be less fair, and more tribal and barbaric, to malign someone for things they can't help; but in a case like this, it surely can't sting as much.
Taaffe wasn't part of some oppressive majority, ostracising the Welsh with unsubstantiated rumours of sheep-shagging. He was outnumbered, on the floor, pinioned by arses, drunkenly hurling abuse. His use of an apparently racial slur will only have confirmed the guards' low opinion of him. He could hardly have conceived of a less hurtful remark. His lazy xenophobia didn't "racially aggravate" his behaviour. It racially alleviated it by being so laughable. Whereas, if he'd said, "You could stand to lose a couple of pounds" or "Is this what you dreamed of doing when you were little?" or "Don't you sometimes just stare at the row upon row of caravans in the rain and consider ending it all?", that might have hit home.
The incident in Ms Payne's house also strikes me as among the spectre of racism's least perturbing ugly-head-rearings. Humphreys basically called her a cow – I reckon she only added "English" to balance the sentence. "Fat", "ugly" or "stupid" would have done just as well, but maybe Payne is a gorgeous sylph with a PhD in brain surgery. "Cow" is the rude bit, but oddly "English" is what makes it illegal.
I understand why racist insults get taken very seriously. Racism is like smoking on petrol station forecourts: if you allow it, sooner or later people die. But these cases are an interesting illustration that, when looked at logically, a racist jibe is feeble. It means nothing about the person at whom it's directed. Those security guards had not shagged sheep, they were just Welsh. Taaffe revealed nothing about them, but suggested to the world that he randomly dislikes or despises people about whom he knows nothing other than their nationality.
I suspect this snapshot might be an unfair reflection on him as it was probably the fact that the guards were sitting on him rather than their Welshness that irked him most. But, if it's true, it's a very serious weakness to betray. To hate people just because they're Welsh is moronic – it's not an opinion, it's a phobia, a superstition. It means you're a bit nuts, like someone who has a panic attack every time they see a stapler. You can't trust people like that, personally or professionally. They're unreliable, an increased insurance risk, because their brains have gone wrong.
Maybe, given time, we'll be a wise enough society to stop classifying the racist slur as the nuclear weapon of slights – the one that requires special control because of its malignant potency – and realise it's only a peashooter. We'll know that the most hurtful insult is when someone looks deep into your very soul, sees who you truly are and calls you a cock for it. It's hard to make that illegal.