'Many of the families came to Belfast believing that the years of prejudice and narrow-mindedness were over. However, it seems that in some parts of the city, racism is the new sectarianism.' [Mark Simpson, BBC News]

In the light of the 115 Romanians who have been forced to flee their homes in south Belfast following a spate of racist attacks over the last few days, if I hadn't already blogged about the Jubilee Centre's Asylum and Immigration last week, I would now want to do so. As I observed then, the most recent polling indicates that race and immigration is now the greatest concern of voters after the economy. So, although we might want to dismiss the attacks against Romanian families in Belfast as an isolated incident for which only a small group of racists are to blame, I fear that to do so would simply result in greater racial tension later.

As Douglas observed in the comments on last week's post, a new survey has revealed that the public still vastly overestimates how many people apply for asylum in the UK each year and only a small proportion realise that the majority of refugees worked as highly-skilled professionals in their country of origin. Also of relevance to what is going on in Iran at the moment, let me recommend a film that I saw a couple of years ago: Vadim Perelman's adaptation of the Andre Dubus III novel, House of Sand and Fog. It's a tragic tale of an Iranian Colonel doing low-paid jobs in America in an effort to keep his family in the manner to which they were accustomed before they had to flee their home country and an American divorcee ashamed of letting her family know the mistakes she's made in life. The character study provides a great insight into some of the differences between Iranian and Western culture, moral codes and value systems.

Gaining greater understanding and being able to consider things from the perspective of 'the other' are crucial if we are to break down the barriers of confusion, suspicion and misunderstanding that give rise to tension between different groups of people. The Church in the UK could perhaps learn from the example of the Church in South Africa, following racial disturbances there last summer, in how to take a lead on such issues - as indeed Belfast City Church, in whose hall the Romanians spent last night, have already started doing, putting into practice some of the principles identified in the final chapter of Asylum and Immigration, such as the imperative to love the alien and for the Church to function as the model of a cross-cultural community.

For a summary of the book, read Nick Spencer's article Asylum and Immigration: a Christian perspective.

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